All best wishes at Christmas, and for a good New Year.  Following is a family story which, in one way or another, likely applies to all of us.

Dec. 14, my brother, John, sent an e-mail with a most intriguing document: the death certificate for our grandfather Henry Bernard, died May 23, 1957 in Fargo ND (below). I’ve done much family history, but had never seen this document, which John had received from a local friend who’s an amateur ancestry researcher.

pdf: Bernard Henry May 23, 1957 death cert

Grandpa died when I was 17, near the end of my junior year in high school.  I certainly knew him, as I knew the other grandparents, all of whom died later.  But we never really knew any of the grandparents very well as we always lived a distance away, and family trips with five young kids were infrequent – perhaps once or twice  a year.

Grandpa and Grandma stopped by to visit us in August of 1956. I have a photo of this visit.  Grandma was not feeling well at the time.  Not long after they got home she suffered a stroke and I think most of her remaining years were in Grafton ND’s version of a nursing home – a room in the local hospital.

I know a lot about my grandparents ancestry on both sides, but Grandpa Bernard’s death certificate described part of his life I never knew.

Best I know, Grandpa wasn’t with Grandma his last year. They were both disabled.  At some point, Grandpa lost a second leg to diabetes (he lost the first about 1946), and died at the VA Hospital in Fargo, 120 miles from home.

The death certificate revealed that he spent 276 days – roughly 8 months, the entire school year – in the VA Hospital, about 60 miles from where we lived at the time.  Dad, their only child in the local area, probably made numerous solitary trips up to visit his Dad.   We – I was the oldest sibling –  stayed home.  Both Mom and Dad were full-time school teachers, so had more than enough on their plates.  Todays means of communicating were many years in the future.

Grandpa died, and we all went to the funeral in Grafton.  He was a well known man in the town, and judging by the signers of the memorial book, he was well respected.  It was a big funeral.

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“The Life Certificate”, the rest of his and our stories, is what we all create about ourselves, day by day.  Bits and pieces are memorable to someone.

How much of, what characteristics of me is Grandpa?    We are all a collection of DNA and personal qualities going back eons, the last contributors to mine were the four people who were my grandparents and their ancestors.

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I have few direct memories of Grandpa Bernard.   Here is the memory that first came to mind as I looked at Grandpa’s death certificate.

In their later years, Grandma and Grandpa lived in a tiny house, which had a tiny landing with a bench where grandpa would often sit, watching the world go by (1946 photo below).  By his bench he had a can full of small stones, and a homemade sling shot.

1946, Grafton ND. Dick is 5-year old in front.

Once,  we kids were with him, and he noticed a dog coming down the sidewalk which passed near the house.  He was a farm kid and in younger years always had a dog.  This day he said “Watch that dog”.  The dog approached. and when he was nearing Grandpa, he made a hard right turn, went across the street, and thence left, then left again, thence right continuing on his way.  Not a word – or bark – was exchanged. The dog and Grandpa obviously had an understanding.

It’s a memory that still brings a smile about 75 years later.

This was what I’d call a “Life Certificate” memory.  I carry some of the DNA of Grandpa, as do my siblings, and in a sense he’s always with us.  But what we remember, basically, are the moments like the one I describe above, which give our ancestors important parts of our life experience.  These are the things we remember.

What’s a memory that you have of someone passed?

Merry Christmas.

POSTNOTE: Perhaps you have an interest in family history.  If interested in the family from which Henry Bernard (Honore, in his native French) came, you can check out the history I did in 2010: here, click library click books, scroll down to Bernard-Collette.  Here are the pages about the family: 48-61, 67-71, 134-171, 213-216, 384-392.

COMMENTS:

from SAK:  Wonderful story of your grandfather & the dog that didn’t bark, a certain “understanding” you say!

Lots of memories of my grandparents come to mind, none as cute as that one though. I remember my grandmother always in black after grandfather died & most often with a small Bible in her hand.

Wishing you & yours a Merry Christmas & a Happy, healthy 2026,

from Gary: Am I correct that you are the one with the impish smile? [response: yes, just taking break from the hard work of being an oldest child, when competitors come along and challenge one’s turf!  #5 isn’t in the picture – he was two yeas in the future.]

from Carole: Thank you for your very special holiday message.

from Claude: Thank you, Dick. And I wish you a magical holiday season too!

from Frank: Some may quibble, but this is the shortest day of the year.  I join my fellow peasants in heaping wood on the celebratory bonfires, in eating, drinking and celebrating the fact that the sun will not disappear, while singing songs of joy and hope, and in my case plunking along on my guitar. Since we’re having an unusually warm winter, I’ll be joining friends for 18 holes of glorious golf after Mass. Hope springs eternal that this may be the day I shoot my age, even with a few mulligans, breakfast balls and the rare foot wedge. May fortune smile upon your endeavors today and all the days of the New Year.

from Brian: Thanks so much for your sweet post  I really APPRECIATE it!!   I’m here all alone in Brooklyn just with my wonderful cat, Amie.  Oh gee, Amie!

from Jeff: I hope you werent shooting rocks at neighborhood dogs as part of that DNA inheritance?  hahaha

Dick, to Jeff and all: The memory was first off the shelf when I thought about Grandpa, who was always a working man, farm kid first grade education in Quebec, lumberjack in New Hampshire, asbestos mines in Quebec, a long career as chief engineer at the flour mill in Grafton ND.   Dad talked about Grandpas dogs, apparently all named “Fosto”, the name, some slang he apparently picked up in Philippines in Spanish-American War 1898-99.  Doubtless they were trained in the old country way, as was this neighborhood dog who probably had watered some favorite object in front of Grandpa’s house once or twice too often.  You’ll note I said “small stones”.  He also had a BB gun by the back door should some varmint start messing around in their little garden.   I never saw him demonstrate either the sling shot or the BB gun.  Doubtless he knew how to use them!

from Mary Ellen: Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année to you and Cathy and the whole family.

8:15 a.m. CST December 8, 2026: I’m time-stamping this post for a specific reason: I watched the entire Marjorie Taylor Greene interview on 60 Minutes last night, and I want to give my impressions before I see or hear any analysis from anyone else.  You can probably access the interview on-line for a short time.  I’d recommend it.

I’ve watched 60 Minutes for its entire history.  I rarely miss it on Sunday evening.  Sixty Minutes recently has come under new management – same talent, same kinds of shows, but under new management, which has as yet unknown implications.

MTG’s interview, leading the show last night, was a big deal for everyone.  Odds that this was a spontaneous conversation is zero.  What questions were explored, what portions of film were included or not in the 15 or so minutes, are unknown.  But in today’s politics, everything is stage managed.

The first think I noticed last night was that MTG was wearing a white sweater.  That’s all that was seen initially.  Not long after, the sweater was revealed with an American flag front and center, no other text.  Dress always has its own message, I thought.,

During the interview she was asked about her relationship breakdown with DJT.  No, she was no longer MAGA, rather she emphasized more than once “America First”.

“America First” has a history in the United States, a rather ignominious history.  It was our very close call with fascism and alliance with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, into the U.S. congress in the 1940s.  It was very strong in Minnesota.  It took root here, perhaps largely because of the large numbers of German-Americans in the U.S. (full disclosure: my mother was 100% German-American, third generation in America.  I recall no discussion whatsoever about this within the family.)

Let’s start the conversation here.  Absolutely those who pull the political strings have a role in mind for Marjorie Taylor Greene.  It is how politics work.  We will find in upcoming months who the real MTG is, in the political sense.

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Ironically, yesterday, hours before 60 Minutes, my friend Jim and I were having a short discussion about Charles Lindbergh and his active flirtation with Nazi Germany primarily in the 1930s.  Carlo had also commented that eminent Germans like Wernher von Braun had been recruited as scientists during the war.

The conversations are relevant to this discussion.  I had noted to both friends that former Governor Elmer Andersen, a great friend of mine and lifelong Republican, had an entire chapter of his book “A Man’s Reach” devoted to his friend, Charles Lindbergh.  The page in the book about America First and Lindbergh is 290-91 [Elmer Andersen on Charles Lindbergh 2000]; the entire chapter pp 286-301.

To this, Jim responded:

I have always said that we, the Americans eligible to vote, freely chose the mess that we are immersed in now.  This does not go over well with those who voted, essentially, for a reasonably stable nation and world.  The problem is that more people voted for the regime presently in control, and by far the largest number of eligible citizens didn’t even bother to vote, or voted for someone with zero chance of making a difference.

Bill Kristol of the Bulwark shared a sobering analysis by historian Fred Kagan, and his article here: Kristol/Kagan on Chaos Is Coming.   Also, is this a snapshot of the future plans of the U.S. leadership?  Both worth your time.

But this post is mostly about a real-world example shared with me Friday evening by a local friend.  Succinctly, ICE has descended on the Twin Cities community to root out alleged and undesirable illegals.  For myself, probably for most of us, the street theater might seem distant and abstract, even if we live here.  It’s not happening in our neighborhood, so why bother?

Ann’s e-mail, following, helps to bring the issue closer to home.  I have slightly edited the original only to protect specific identities.  Otherwise, the e-mail is here in its entirety, and worth your time.

“We have friends from [S. America].  One of them was once in my… class, and he became almost a family member.  In fact, his parents were just here from… and we got together with them.  Then his cousin followed him here, and we have kind of “adopted” him also.  He has helped [my husband] a lot around the yard, etc.  They both graduated from college and obtained work permits and jobs.  [Sebastian] married and moved out of state.

[Francisco’s] green card is in the works, and he just received a notice that it would be here soon.  He looks Mexican, and I have told him more than once that he could be targeted.  He just kinda laughed.  Tonight he called, really distraught.  He said today Immigration pulled a good friend of his over on the road.  The guy is in the same situation – a valid work permit and a green card on the way.  [Francisco] said that the thugs in their vehicles passed him on the road, saw that he looked Hispanic, then pulled him over and pointed guns at him.  The friend was driving his own car but was delivering packages for Amazon at the time.  They threw him into some facility in Elk River, where he was able to call.  He doesn’t even know what happened to his car.  He said someone just drove it off (probably including folks’ Christmas packages…)

The friend has to appear in court on Monday.  [Francisco] and his friends were trying to find an attorney to accompany him.  (He later said that they found someone.  These immigration attorneys are making out like bandits right now…)

Francisco also said that ICE showed up at his worksite today and hauled someone off.  And that they knew of someone else who actually has a green card but was arrested.  We hear what’s going on, but to hear the distress in his voice and to relate to the terror of his friend is something else.  And to realize his shock that this can actually happen in… America.  I’m so ashamed and angry.”

Within those four paragraphs lie the problem, as well as the possibility, for all of us.

Ann’s report was second-hand.  I make it third hand – I’ve known Ann a long time, and I trust her reporting.  Then comes you, and on and on.

That atrocities are happening is visible every day on the news, but for lots of reasons, we can pretend it doesn’t directly involve us, so why bother?

The same relates to the summary executions in the Gulf of Mexico off of Venezuela, by the United States of America.  There is vivid evidence of what happened, but no evidence at all of who was killed and what they might have been carrying, and to what destination.

Each of us, I think, have to take stock as to where we stand in the survival or death of this great country of ours.  There is an old saying that comes to mindL “an injury to one is an injury to all”.  We do not have the excuse of saying we could not see, nor could we hear….

Do more than what you think you can.  The solution lies with all of us.

The comments of Sherrie and Sonya in the December 4 post are worth reading.  The illustration Sherrie couldn’t transmit is here;  Both comments are below the illustration.

Make Christmas or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa or whatever your tradition a time for reflection on your place in the solution.

Sherrie: Greetings of the Season, Dick. I especially appreciate your reminder that keeping our democracy and caring for everyone in our human community is up to all of us. I’ve been asking acquaintances who uses “woke” as a pejorative, “Was Jesus Woke?”
I tried to attach my sister’s first contribution to the project, but I’m not technically woke enough. Here’s a verbal description of the image–it features a smiling Jesus surrounded by an ethnically diverse group of children. She’s working on a more inclusive version featuring Elijah, Confucius, Buddha, an Islam representation, Alice Paul (and/or Jane Addams), Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Jesus.
P.S. I think your grasp of social justice and your memory of political and economic history more than compensate for a one-time lapse in remembering three randomly generated words.

Sonja:  I can attest to that report in the Star Tribune [Star Tribune Medical Dec. 1, 2025]. When I had an endoscopy in November, two of the nurses were Filipino, the anesthesiologist was black, the surgeon was Middle Eastern, and there were others with accents from I don’t know where. Of the dozen or so people involved in my care that day, only two were white and “looked like me.” Where would we be without immigrants and minorities in Healthcare and many other segments of our workforce?!

And I have to say, during the whole experience, I was treated with kindness and respect and was never apprehensive about the quality of care.

Today is Wednesday and for the last few days and continuing the issue is the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug traffickers in small boats off Venezuela.  In particular the second shot on September 2 – the “kill ’em all” alleged or at minimum implied order to finish off two survivors of the first strike on a boat.  The battle is on to figure out who is responsible, or if anyone is responsible.  There is no physical evidence since the boats were destroyed at sea, as were their occupants.  Great visuals of course,

For some reason, there seems to be collective amnesia about some fairly recent history which may speak to the current situation.  For instance, back in November, 2017, in the first year of his first term, Donald Trump was flying around the world, and stopped by the Phillippines to visit then President Rodorigo Duterte.  This was the PBS report: Trump visit to Philippines Nov. 2017 .  

I noted at the time that the President seemed to admire Duterte’s solution to the Philippine drug problem: just kill ’em.  No niceties about trials or anything.   Like most news, this revelation disappeared from view as old news.  But it has never escaped my mind.  More in postnote, below.

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As it happens, about a week ago I was at a small community conversation involving two Woodbury police officers as presenters about the impact of a new bus line from St. Paul to Woodbury.  The issue was impact of the bus route on local crime.  The program was very interesting and the two officers were very well informed.

For context, Woodbury is a major St. Paul suburb of 83,000 where I’ve lived for 25 years.  After years of effort, in March, 2025, a new Gold Line bus service was initiated which comes from St. Paul to Woodbury with several intermediate stops.  There was active opposition.  The line was dubbed “crime line” by some, alleging it would bring criminals to our community.  Of course, the line was new, and thus expensive, and just starting to attract ridership.  Apparently some wag suggested that it was the BMW line – you may as well give the few riders BMW’s….

The officers brought out the data and gave all of us a copy.  It is two pages, here: Incident Report.  It speaks for itself.

Of course, being a city of 83,000, stuff happens which requires a police force and sometimes makes news regardless of the community.  The second page describes the calls in Woodbury, which would happen in any town of any size everywhere.  Of course, one incident can have many component parts.  For instance somebody arrested for Trespassing, may also be found to have a Warrant filed on him or her.  Etc.

What was most interesting was that from March 24 to November 19, 2025, there were 210 incidents relating to the new Gold Line.  This amounted to about one incident a day, only a tiny fraction of the total calls for service and incidents in the same time period.

Of course, this will not stop the memes about this alleged pipeline of crime to our town.  But it always helps to have a few facts to add to the conversation, local, state or national.

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POSTNOTE on the War on Drugs.  This mornings Minnesota Star Tribune. had long front-page story headlined “Honduras’ ex-leader is freed by Trump.  Hernandez was found guilty in transfer of 400 tons of cocaine to U.S.”

This while the U.S. is bombing boats in the Gulf of Mexico – no evidence, no survivors, no names, just allegations.  And good visuals for the news.

Quite frequently I scroll through History, Discovery, National Geographic and Weather Channels.

Frequently, especially on Natgeo and Discovery, the program is about the drug war as played out at the border or airports in U.S, and other places.  It is interesting viewing, and always frames suspicions as alleged, and suspects as possible subjects of prosecution.  This is true at any airport be it U.S. or South America or Europe…. Nowhere are kill-on-accusation orders suggested.  The Rule of Law apparently prevails at inspection points.  No doubt marketers of drugs are innovative, and their opponents are perceptive and overworked, given the immense number of border crossings daily.

I suppose – at least this is my personal fear – that some hapless American who drives into Mexico becomes a mule without knowing it.  If they’re caught in the act, I’ve not seen them on film, at least not when I’m watching.

Of course illicit drugs are huge driver in the American economy.  Somebody has to supply the goods to the addicts, and odds are its an impossibility to ever control it – think “prohibition”.  Hernandez seems to have been caught up in it, and cut a break because he was a big deal in his country, just trying to make a buck.  Part of the Oligarch fraternity.  Or so it seems.

Then there’s the legal yet illicit trade back to Mexico.  Another special talked about the export of American weapons and ammunition, apparently legally through licensed outlets in the U.S. over the border.  Everybody knows the ultimate destination and use of these firearms, but they’re good business.

And Americans continue killing themselves and others as the outcome of the trade.