Columns

The weather and basketball have dominated conversations at the office, at coffee and just about everywhere else. This column is about a little bit of both.  The past week to 10 days has been one for the record book as far as the weather is concerned.  On Saturday, March 14 we had single-digit temperatures, high winds and a snowstorm. Seven days later we had 85-degree temperatures, calm winds…

It’s difficult to describe what it feels like to taste a familiar family recipe. Every person has one, something that their mother or grandmother made that instantly transports them back to their childhood home, even 60 years later. It’s a mixture of comfort, and memory, and nostalgia.  This year will be the first time I’ll be spending a major holiday by myself, and as a result I’m going to be…

What an exciting winter sports season it has been this year — for both Luverne and Hills-Beaver Creek athletes. Two teams, LHS girls’ hockey and H-BC boys’ basketball qualified for state competition. The Luverne girls’ hockey team upset Marshall 3-2 in the section championship, after falling to the Tigers three times this season, to qualify for the state tournament. The girls had to overcome…

It’s been a while, but I am back at the keyboard hunting and pecking out my first column in over a month and a half.  Over the last six weeks I have had two emergency room visits, one at Sanford Luverne and two days later at Sanford Sioux Falls.  I have been through two surgeries, two different hospital stays, seven weeks of daily IV infusions at the local hospital, countless blood draws and…

According to Wikipedia, “knocking on wood” is a superstitious tradition to avoid “tempting fate after making a favorable prediction or boast, or a declaration concerning one’s own death or another unfavorable situation.”  I’m here to tell you, dear readers, knocking on wood did nothing to help my fate after I recently declared, “Gosh, I haven’t been sick in years. In fact, I can’t remember the…

I sure wish I could explain why one of my dog’s teeth are super white with no tartar or build-up and the other one’s teeth are kind of yellow and need veterinarian dental attention. The very last thing a dog owner wants to spend a lot of time or money on is dog dental work. It truly is one of those areas that most dog owners pretty much ignore. You can ignore it but, in the end, you will likely…

It does not happen very often in my neck of the woods, but when you are making a trip of any distance you can see from time to time a batch of elk or deer behind some pretty tall fences. Deer farms are more common than elk farms but their futures in Minnesota have been dramatically changed over the past few years. With the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease these operations have been put under a…

My friend said it so casually you might have missed the poetry of it. We were chatting on the phone when she mentioned her husband had ended his attempt at growing out his hair. After going more than a year without a haircut, he came home with a crisp new look.  She said, “He looked great!” Then she added, “But he’s handsome no matter what he looks like.” I laughed and thought “That’s not how…

The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on March 19, 1942. It was May, 1874, in Winneshiek, Iowa, and several young men were busy tightening all loose parts on their covered wagons, greasing them where needed, repairing ox yokes and mending broken straps. Thrilled with the thought of going to a new, rich country on the morrow, they no doubt raised their voices in happy song as they…

I grew up in the woods, surrounded by the birches, spruce and pines of northern Minnesota. For me, being surrounded by trees is a comfort. It feels like home.  Some of my fondest memories are of playing under the pines at my family’s ramshackle cabin, and of long walks in the woods with my mother where she would teach my siblings and I the names of the trees and flowers we passed. Everywhere I’…

I have loved watching the winter Olympics. I really don’t have a “favorite sport” because all of them are fun to watch. Hockey, cross country skiing, speed skating, bobsledding and all the other competitions are incredible to watch. What I find myself saying in every event is that they make it look so easy. The snow boarder who just did three backflips and landed it like it was no problem makes…

It appears that the big walleye question is about to get answered. There has been talk for years about reducing the daily limit for walleyes across most of the state from six daily down to four daily.  The reason I used “most of the state” is because there already exist lakes with special regulations that vary according to the body of water.  On lakes that do not have special regs’ these…

The following appeared in The Rock County Herald on March 12, 1942. One of the first early Rock county settlers to come here directly from Norway was Halvor C. Jordahl, Luverne, this week’s Diamond Club member. Mr. Jordahl and Ole Sjolseth were the first two men to come directly here from the land of the “midnight sun”; Norwegians who came to the county before they had settled elsewhere for…

It’s March! That means spring is within sight! We’ve almost made it, guys!! You can tell we’re getting spring fever at the library because we’ve got all sorts of special stuff planned for you this March. I hope you have your calendar out, because this is going to be good. On Wednesday, March 11, at 6:30 p.m., local author Jessica Vandrovec is coming to speak about her memoir “Held.” “Held” is a…

As I understand it, Valentine’s Day is a romantic occasion for lovers worldwide to prove their affection for one another.  Why then, are the store shelves stocked with cards and candy marketed to kids? What do they know about romance?  Aisles are crowded with adults shopping for Valentine’s Day cards and candy for their kids to exchange with other kids.  What a shame. All those grownups should…

At my tender age of 65 I have seen exactly two wolves in the wild. Both were in northern Minnesota and both were by pure accident.  They were both seen running across the road in front of my travel vehicle.  The timberwolf in Minnesota has had more of its share of litigation over the past 45 years. They were added to the endangered species list in 1978. In 2011 they were removed from the list…