Opinion

A week in Kansas and Missouri

I am an old Democrat who’s been traveling around doing shows in Republican towns in the Midwest and it’s making me a better person. I stand up on a theater stage and I hum a note and the audience hums it back and I sing “My country ’tis of thee” and by the “thee” they’re singing so beautifully and are thrilled to do it — they thought I was going to do stand-up but here we are singing “America” and they know the words. It’s a Protestant crowd and when Martin Luther launched the Reformation, he substituted congregational singing for Latin liturgy and clerical costumery and now here are a thousand of them singing four-part harmony, no organ, and they love it. We go into the spacious skies and amber waves and da doo ron ron da doo ron ron and the bright golden haze on the meadow and working on the railroad, songs they haven’t sung since grade school, and I know that they believe a lot of trashy stuff that isn’t remotely true and guess what — I DON’T CARE.

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Generosity

Another example of this community’s generosity can be seen on our front page story about the Walls family and baby Buckley. How fortunate we are to live in such a place where people truly care about one another, and about the plight of people we don’t even know.

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Joe’s ruminations V

Joe’s ruminations V In the winter Joe’s Canadian neighbors would travel the river on the ice and their horses had sleigh bells on them, he related that you could year them coming for miles He remembered there were quite a few horses and cutters across the river, and they had robes and foot warmers. Saturday nights was when you could hear the bells as they were on their way to town or a dance at a school house, he added that on his side of the River for years no one had horses.

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Thinking of summer

I don’t know what the entire year will be like, but the first two months have zipped along lickety-split. I am ready to start reading some titles about spring, summer and new life. So here are a few titles I am looking forward to reading. Mary McNear is the author of a series of books set on Butternut Lake, beginning with “Up at Butternut Lake,” set on an imaginary lake in the northern Midwest. Lake life is so summer and makes me dream of warm days with lots of daylight.

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Local Loss

Feb. 10 edition of Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that a proposed $440 million oriented strand board (OSB) plant in nextdoor Cohasset was canceled following a recent Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling--a major loss for our greater Northland community North and nearly North of Highway #2, as also reported in Feb. 12 Grand Rapids Herald- Review. Reportedly, this court ruled adversely on two points: 1.) an Environmental Impact Statement should have been required, 2.) wetland impacts were not adequately taken into account. Also reported, both the Minnesota Legislature and the city of Cohasset earlier decided that an Environmental Impact Statement was not necessary, and that the Leech Lake Ojibwe community had not been meaningfully consulted at project start. It’s somewhat of a mystery as to why state legislature and a city should be decision- makers for an Environmental Impact Statement requirement when environmental permits must be managed and enforced by MPCA, DNR, and Corps of Engineers consistent with federal law.

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Diane Adams: A Your Library

The east entrance of the library is now open! The stairs have been replaced and while we will have to wait until spring for railings and finish work the stairs are usable as long as they don’t become icy. We can’t use de-icer this winter as part of the finish work includes sealing the concrete to protect the work.

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Notes from the constellation Orion

If you have good exposure to the south this time of year it is easy to see Orion rise and take his ordained path westward across the sky on a clear night. Orion speaks boldly to the soul, always imparting wonderment and a bit of understanding without us really knowing if you know what I mean.

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Old people and new realms

I’m an American, I like to believe that nobody but nobody is beyond the reach of friendship and understanding, not even North Koreans or former felons or the creators of complex security systems that have driven me to the brink of madness, trying to remember the password for my computer and then having to replace the password and confirm my identity by typing in a six-numeral code sent to me on my cellphone whose password I now can’t remember either.

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Mr. Joe Mannausau

Joe and his brother Russel bought an upright Stickney gasoline engine, a feed grinder and a saw rig. The engine had two flywheels one on each side; it was started by turning them. The gentleman they bought it from showed then how it started and other details about how it ran. Note: the boys nor their dad knew nothing about engines. So, one day they got everything lined up to grind feed and they couldn’t get it to start. They discussed the why and after working on it half of the day they decided to go and get the man they bought it from.

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Super bowling

This week brings a Super Bowl football game once again for the 57th time. Old adventurer here and longterm bride, sweetheart and best friend reflect on some history connected to this sport’s highlight that is likely to be around forever.

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