Goodbye March!

      Though the vernal equinox has come and gone spring weather lags. March has provided some thaw but snow is the forecast  tonight. When will it be time to return to The Little House? At least not until after Easter now just over a week away.

     Two big games in the women's NCAA tournament tonight, The second featuring Iowa and the University of South Carolina may be the real championship. USC os undefeated and Iowa is hot. It will be good watching. I know how is use TV for that.  Dinner with friends will cut into watching the first game but not the second.

Takk for alt,

Al

          Christopher Columbus statue in the Dominica Republic.

Contrast

      What could be further apart than New York City's Harlem and Brooking County, S.D., in the late 50's and early 60s?...and today, too. It's certainly not the world in which I grew up. That period of Harlem is the setting of Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle, copyrighted 2021. "Ray Carney, (the main character) was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." Carney has a legitimate furniture store in Harlem but is willing to fence items others have stolen. His involvement with the crooked, both thieves and police, provide the tension that a good novel needs, and, it is a good novel. 

   Deftly woven into the story is the discrimination and racism that Black Americans had to navigate before, and even continues after, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Is this an accurate portrayal of life in Harlem? It's likely, however, I am certainly in no place to judge. The feeling of authenticity to this reader is all that can be mustered. It is certainly readable and a fascinating story. 

   Recommended reading, yes, with four stars out of five.

Takk for alt,

Al

History lesson.

 

"On this day in 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia patented the first pencil to have an attached eraser. The eraser-tipped pencil is still something of an American phenomenon; most European pencils are still eraserless. The humble pencil has a long and storied history, going back to the Roman stylus, which was sometimes made of lead, and why we still call the business end of the pencil the "lead," even though it's been made of nontoxic graphite since 1564.

Pencils were first mass-produced in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662, and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century really allowed the manufacture to flourish. Before he became known for Walden and "Civil Disobedience," Henry David Thoreau and his father were famous for manufacturing the hardest, blackest pencils in the United States. Edison was fond of short pencils that fit neatly into a vest pocket, readily accessible for the jotting down of ideas. John Steinbeck loved the pencil and started every day with 24 freshly sharpened ones; it's said that he went through 300 pencils in writing East of Eden (1952), and used 60 a day on The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Cannery Row (1945).

Our common pencils are hexagonal to keep them from rolling off the table, and they're yellow because the best graphite came from China, and yellow is traditionally associated with Chinese royalty. A single pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, or write around 45,000 words. And if you make a mistake, thanks to Hymen Lipman, you've probably got an eraser handy."  Today's Writer's Almanac 

Garage Doors

        During that very cold snap a few weeks ago a friend was planning to join me for lunch at the OFH. Mid-morning my guest called to cancel, the apartment's garage door was frozen shut. 😜 Today we received notice that the OFH garage door was broken. It would be out of service from 3:00 pm today until 5:00 pm tomorrow. Old folks wanting to use their car tomorrow should park outside tonight.

    That's what passes for trouble at the OFH. Yup, it's very easy living, and not up to me to fix the door.

Takk for alt,

Al

The salt block is in the shelter of some trees near a food plot. The deer will likely have consumed much over winter.

Next

    So, what to do after finishing a good book? Well, why not start another one? Actually more than a third of the way through it. 😃 The report on it can wait until I finish. It was loaned to me at Friday dinner. This Friday I'll return it having finished it by then.

    That's the report on my day, other than meeting my granddaughters after school. It's a tough life but someone needs to do it!

Takk for alt,

Al

                       Looking forward to time on the prairie. 

How does she do it?

     She is Ann Patchett and "it" is month by month finding exceptional books for her Signed First Edition Club, Parnassus Books. The March selection is another fiver of five stars. I Have Some Questions For You,  Rebecca Makkai, starts strong and even gets better the farther one reads.

    Patchett: "I Have Some Questions for You is murder mystery and a take-down of the culture of  social media....The result is a novel  that's gripping, enraging, and curiously funny."  Bodie, now a a successfully pod-caster is invited back to the residential high school from which she graduated 25 years previously. She's invited to teach a two week course on pod-casting. When a student chooses to do her podcast on a murder of  a female student while Bodie was there as a student. That unravels a whole story. Bodie scrolls "...through all the murdered women and girls we read and hear about whose stories run together after awhile."   Book factoid: "38% of murdered females are killed by an intimate." 

   This is a 'justice book' in the form of an entertaining novel.

Takk for alt,

Al

                     The chair in which I sit to read in the OFH.

I'm with Pig!

 

Birthday Party!

       With Frode's 100th birthday this week his congregation, St. James Lutheran, Crystal, MN, had a celebration for him after church. True to his habit Frode drove from his home in Minnetonka to Crystal, ca. 12 miles. Wanting to honor Frode I attended church there this morning.

      The years Frode, Dick and I played golf weekly, and also weakly, were prior to smartphones. Therefore, 28 years of golf left us with zero pictures. 😞 About the time we quit golf, Dick who was about 90 got a smartphone. Today I was intent on a picture with Frode. Frode was the best golfer and Dick and I witnessed his hole-in-one

Takk for alt,

Al

               We look about the same age! 😀

Anyone else?

 

Basketball

   Tiz the season for basketball. The Minnesota State Boys High School tournament is finishing today. Joanne's alma mater, Minnehaha Academy, just lost to Albany in Class 2A. Earlier the western Minnesota schools of Russell-Tyler-Ruthton won the Class 1A. Then there's both men's and women's NCAA tournaments not to mention NIT.

    Basketball is my favorite sport, though it's a very far cry from what I played in high school. Watching games I always mute the sound. Announcers seem to me more annoying than helpful. There's too much judging and second guessing and far too little announcing, Among the great gifts of modern technology are the mute buttons for TV and the delete button on computers. The engineers who perfected those buttons should reap large rewards. 

   Other than sports, my effort to learn to watch TV has not gone anywhere. Too many good books to occupy my and I'm in another fascinating one now. I do have the UConn-OH ST game (women's)  on as I type this.

Takk for alt,

Al

Library

 

The Crossings Condominiums, where I used to live, had a library. A friend spent days organizing the books on the shelves, alphabetically by author. Not long after this effort was completed someone rearranged all the books by size. 😦

Revealed

     Patches of dead grass are now beginning to appear where before there was nothing but snow. How glad that makes me reveals how ready I am to be done with winter. What do I have to complain about?

   Resident as I am in the OFH, since Dec. 17, 2022, winter really should not bother me. The apartment is very comfortable. The garage is heated. Snow removal is not my concern. Food is available in the dining room. The thermostat controls heat to my specifications. Friends lurk in the building. Mail is delivered daily. The sliding glass doors of the apartment offer a vista over the Mississippi River Valley to the bluffs of Mendota Heights. Internet connection and cable tv come with the rent. So much for which to be grateful!

  Yet, yet I'm ready for warm and even hot weather. The melting snow makes me glad revealing just how ready I am for winter to finally end. 

Takk for alt,

Al

Life at OFH

 

Happy Birthday, Frode!

    Frode jespersen was born at Westhope, ND., March 23 1923. You do the math. 😀 During WW II he was bomber pilot in Asia. After the war he ferried officials around Asia who were hunting for war criminals. Post WW II, he a long career with the FAA. He likely could fit in his WW II uniform.

    Frode's blessed with good memory, both long and short term. When we were conversing today, via his smart phone, that if others learn that he drove someplace he said "They act like my driving is some sort of olympic event." He's also blessed with good eyesight and good health.

   Along with Dick Olson, Frode and I were golf partners for 28 years. Frode recorded our scores on a program on his computer. When we met to tee off he gave each of us our handicaps. That was a crucial move becasue the stakes were lunch at McDonalds.😀 Though he was the oldest in the group he was consistently the best golfer.

   Looking for a birthday card for him there were decade cards through 90 but I couldn't find a 100. He reported that he'd gotten a few of "100" decade cards of two designs. 

Takk for alt,

Al

  

Hope!

    Every morning at 6am Kaia and I climb the Montreal Ave. hill to the Highland Park Disc Golf park. There Kaia can run off lease and release her pent up energy. Perhaps she's grateful for the opportunity becasue she retrieves and bottles and cans she finds, bringing them to me. So, we do our bit for cleaning the park.

  On this morning's climb it struck me that the huge windrow of snow piled between the street and sidewalk has shrunk significantly.  There is yet no grass visible in the park. But, the diminishment of the windrow by the street is evidence that some significant thawing has occurred. That snow is very dirty which absorbed more heat from the sun and thaws for quickly than the cleaner snow in the park.

  There signs of thawing spark hope that this snow will not last forever! 😀

Takk for alt,

Al

Upon my discharge from the Marines, 1962, I purchased this 1954 Austin-Healy in Los Angeles. Ed had been assigned to a base in San Francisco. From San Francisco we drove together to the World's Fair in Seattle and then to my cousin, Leslie Negstad, in Port Angeles. From there Ed returned to San Francisco. Accompanied by Leslie's 16 year old son, Paul, I drove to SD. It was the first time I'd been home in two years. The picture is taken in the California Redwoods. 

Survivor!

    Friday afternoon I began feeling a bit queasy and not long afterward it was clear that I was entertaining the norovirus, which we always called the stomach flu. Living on chicken noodle soup and white bread, beginning Saturday, I slowly improved. Awakening today it was clear that I had survived. It's been years since I was sick and my father likely would have called this "one of the little joys of life."😀

  At the risk of being overly repetitive, while I didn't feel very good, mostly I was grateful. The OFH is very comfortable place to endure the discomfort. There were no worries about work, shelter, food, long term effects, just the need for a bit of patience knowing that this too shall pass. Yes, I'm very thankful fo the gift of good health and all the amenities I enjoy.

Takk for alt,

Al

         This picture of a shopping cart in a Target parking lot locally appeared in today's paper.

Today in History

 

The Alabama Freedom March began on this date in 1965. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and 3,200 demonstrators set off on a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest the disenfranchisement of black voters. They had tried to set off on this march twice before; the first time, state troopers and deputies attacked them with clubs, whips, and tear gas. The second time, they were turned back by a human barricade of state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. On March 10, the Justice Department filed suit in Montgomery to block the troopers from punishing the protestors. President Lyndon Johnson, in a special address, said: “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

The judge ruled in favor of the marchers, but Alabama governor George Wallace complained that deploying the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers would be too expensive. He appealed to Johnson for help. Johnson signed an executive order to federalize the Alabama National Guard, and deployed them to protect Dr. King and the other civil rights protestors on their march.

The marchers traveled about 12 miles a day, and slept in the fields at night. By the time they reached Montgomery on March 25, their numbers had swelled to 25,000. King gave an address from the steps of the state capitol. He said: “The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.”

President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — which prohibits racial discrimination in voting — in August, less than five months after the Selma march.  Today's Writer's Almanac 

Spring

   It's about an hour to vernal equinox, when the poles have equal sunlight. It's easy to mark the movement of the sun at sunrise from the OFH apartment that faces south east. How understandable that ancients thought the sun was moving. The brilliance of early astronomers who figured the actual movements of planets and moons impresses me.  

   The old saw from childhood "Spring has sprung, the grass has ris, I wonder wear the flowers is?" doesn't quite apply given our multi-foot snow pack. Yes, I'm keen to return to The Little House. The time will come! Patience Al😔

Takk for alt,

Al

         Ferry boat and small watercraft: Hong Kong harbor, 1962.

Ya then

 

March

 

St. Patrick's Day didn't bring any unusual luck, but, as I've often said I am very fortunate. A bit of thawing today brings hope of eventual dandelions. 

Takk for alt,

Al

Thaw

    Local temperatures today of a low of 8 and a high of 25 does little to melt our major snowpack. The winter of 68-69, was our first in northern North Dakota. Our town, Mohall, was near the place where North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba meet.  That winter was a snowy one similar to this.

   On April 9, 1969 Joanne entered the small, local, 22 bed hospital to give birth to Lars. When she entered the hospital there  had been no thaw. On the 9th the temperature rose to 74 degrees, didn't cool off much at night and stayed in the 70s daytime for days. When Joanne and Lars left the hospital five days later the snow was gone and so were the county bridges. Minot, an hour south of Mohall, had major flooding from the Mouse river.\

    As thawing is delayed in Minnesota the risk of major flooding from a rapid thaw increases.Living on the 4th floor of the OFH, which is several hundred feet above the bank of the Mississippi River I'm safe. It's been so dry in South Dakota that the sump pump in the basement hasn't run for at lead two years. Will it start after a long layoff?

Takk for alt,

Al

                      Who says there aren't trees in South Dakota?

Ya then

 

A bit of history.

    It's a slow news day for this denizen of the OFH so thought this repost from the Writer's Almanac, today might be of interest.

"It was on this day in 1941 that the National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. The National Gallery was the project of Andrew Mellon, a wealthy industrialist and Secretary of the Treasury. In 1880, 25-year-old Mellon traveled to Europe with his friend Henry Clay Frick, a fellow Pittsburgh businessman who would go on to become another of the nation's richest industrialists. This was the first trip abroad for them both, and they came back enthusiastic art collectors.

Mellon bought pieces slowly over the decades. In the late 1920s, he served as ambassador to Great Britain, and he was inspired by the National Gallery in London to create something similar in the United States. In 1930, he had the rare opportunity to purchase art from the Hermitage, the greatest art museum in Russia. Stalin had ordered museum employees to raise money for the government by selling off valuable pieces. The sale was a secret, but the news was spread to select foreign collectors. Mellon purchased 21 paintings, including work by Raphael, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Titian, and Jan van Eyck.

In 1936, Mellon wrote to President Roosevelt offering to donate his collection, as well as $15 million to build a museum that would house it. Mellon had a vision for a national museum of the highest quality, and he insisted that it should not be named after him, figuring that other art collectors would be more likely to donate to a place called the National Gallery of Art than the Mellon Gallery. His strategy worked, and he managed to talk many other prominent collectors into donating their art.

Mellon chose the architect John Russell Pope to design the new building. Pope designed it in the Neoclassical style, with wings extending from a central rotunda, and incorporating gardens and fountains. It was built with pink marble from Tennessee and polished limestone from Alabama and Indiana. The details of each gallery matched the culture and era — dark wood paneling for the 17th-century Dutch work, elaborate moldings and plaster walls for the Italian Renaissance, etc.

Construction began in June of 1937. Neither Andrew Mellon nor John Russell Pope lived to see it completed — they died within 24 hours of each other in late August. The building was finished at the end of 1940, and the next few months were spent installing art. Mellon had given 126 paintings and 26 sculptures, and hundreds of other works had already come in from other donors. At the time of its opening, many galleries were empty, because Mellon wanted a space that could grow substantially as more art was given. His vision went even beyond the building — he asked Congress to set aside an adjacent piece of land so that another building could be constructed some day. Sure enough, by 1966 the original building was full, and construction began on a second building — this one geometric and modern to house the modern art collection.

When the National Gallery opened on this day in 1941, President Roosevelt gave the dedication speech. He said: "To accept this work today is to assert the purpose of the people of America — that the freedom of the human spirit and human mind which has produced the world's great art ... shall not be utterly destroyed."

Admission is always free to the public. More than 4.5 million people visit the National Gallery each year to view its 120,000 pieces of art."

 Takk for alt,

Al

        This picture of The Little House taken today shows that I best stay at the OFH for awhile.

Demon Copperfield, again.

     Yesterday's post was about Demon Copperfield, the boy who spent years in foster care and book of the same name. After posting the blog I copied it to Facebook. Several reported that they had read it, Mark H told that his family of origin had many foster children. Joanne and I had several and, unlike Demon's foster parents, with Joanne in the kitchen our 'fosters' never went hungry. One of those in our care, who came from a very dysfunctional family, was always very keen to return to them. No doubt life with us was boring and, given the situation from which she came, felt very abnormal. When we left North Dakota she was given the option to go with us but she chose not.

Takk for alt,

Al

                                 Machu Picchu 

    

Significant book!

        Perhaps she intuited that it would be long wait for the book on reserve at the library. She was correct as I was number 1077 on the waiting list. So, MJV sent it to me, a gift, and the implication "You must read this!" It's on the NY Times bestseller list. It took awhile, at 546 small print pages. It was the November 2022, selection of Ann Patchett's First Edition Book Club and my membership didn't begin until January.

    Here's some of what Ann Patchett said about it. "It's hard to imagine there will be another book this year that will be more important, more discussed, and more widely read than Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. To say that it is riveting doesn't begin to cover it. The idea first came to Kingsolver when she was when she was spending the night in Charles Dicken's house in London....she decided to retell the story of David Copperfield and set in modern day Appalachia."

    Patchett had that right. Copperhead is one of those books that will rattle around in my head for a long time to come. It's a clear demonstration of the power of fiction to make a case where essays would lack reader engagement. The truth that is told here, i.e., about the exploitation of the vulnerable by powerful, commercial pharmaceutical and other interests, is remembered because Kingsolver is a very gifted story teller. It's true, that we remember stories,  MJV said "No one writes about damaged people like she (Kingsolver) does. She really takes you there." I'd add Marilyn Robinson to that list, Lila for example/

    Demon Copperfield suffers from PTSD (my words) because of childhood trauma. The story is told in his voice and narcotics enter the picture at an early age. His life is strewn with the wreckage of drug use on every side. Patchett again "What matters is you read it and encourage other people to read it. (Thanks MJV 😀)  This book proves that fiction can still change who we are as a society. It is a stunning achievement."

Five stars out of five, of course!

Takk for alt,,

Al

                         Field burning at sunset.

Ya, then...

 

Book

    The book I finished moments ago is so significant I need to cogitate on it overnight. Tomorrow I'll blog about it.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS I went to find a birthday card for a friend turning a hundred...decade cards stop at ninety. 😞

It's been decades since my last graduation and I still have variations of this dream. Or, the alternative is, 'the bell has rung to begin a worship service and I can't find....... Death us do part. 😀

Eerie

 

It's the birthday of Janet Flanner, born in Indianapolis, Indiana (1892). She moved to New York City in her 20s to become a writer, and became friends with Jane Grant. Grant's husband, Harold Ross, was an editor, and he was thinking of starting his own magazine. In 1922, Flanner took a trip to Paris, and decided to settle there, one of several American expatriates that included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She wrote letters home to Grant and her other friends. Harold Ross, who was just launching his new magazine, asked if she would write for The New Yorker. So she began her Letters from Paris column, which ran for 50 years, from 1925 to 1975. Through her column, Flanner introduced her American readership to such rising Parisian artists as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Edith Piaf. Her style fit the magazine's aesthetic well; her prose was sophisticated, witty, and urbane.

She's best known for the Letters from Paris column, but she also provided commentary during World War II. She wrote about European politics and culture, published a piece about Hitler's rise to power in 1936, and covered the Nuremburg trials in 1945.

She once said that of all the work she did for the magazine, she was most proud of her 1936 piece on Hitler.

In her profile, titled "Führer," she wrote:

"Being self-taught, his mental processes are mysterious; he is missionary-minded; his thinking is emotional, his conclusions material. He has been studious with strange results: he says he regards liberalism as a form of tyranny, hatred and attack as part of man's civic virtues, and equality of men as immoral and against nature. Since he is a concentrated, introspective dogmatist, he is uninformed by exterior criticism. On the other hand, he is a natural and masterly advertiser, a phenomenal propagandist within his limits, the greatest mob orator in German annals, and one of the most inventive organizers in European history. He believes in intolerance as a pragmatic principle. He accepts violence as a detail of state, he says mercy is not his affair with men, yet he is kind to dumb animals. ... His moods change often, his opinions never. Since the age of twenty, they have been mainly anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-suffrage, and Pan-German. He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good — his mind is made up." Today's Writer's Almanac

Her description of Hitler shows his similarity to a recent POTUS.

Takk for alt,

Al

                             Standing in a field of big bluestem.

Confession

       The recent post re; being a grammar snob. brought a confession from two others who consider themselves to be grammar snobs. We agreed to refrain from being grammar Nazis.

    My parents gave the gift of proper grammar. Did Dad finish elementary school or did he leave early to help of the farm? I don't know. But where did he learn near perfect grammar? Likely not from his parents who learned English after immigrating from Norway to America as adults. There is only one instance I remember of hearing Dad make a grammatical mistake. After I corrected him, which occasioned no reprimand from him, he never made that mistake again.

   Mother was educated through some college years and taught school. She too, used proper grammar. Where did she learn it? Likely in school for, like Dad's parent's, her parents language was Norwegian until learning English as adults.

   Growing up in a home where proper grammar was a given tunes the ear to recognize right from wrong. Another grammar snob who reads this blog, but has yet to confess, was a college English major. He, unlike me, can explain the intricacies of the proper usage of grammar. Two different methods with the same result. No "I seen him do it."😀

Takk for alt,

Al

            Now, having almost 80" of snow this winter, it's beginning to feel like this. 😀

Adult supervision.

    One of the hard parts of being a widower is living without regular, adult supervision. The importance of adult supervision came home to me in a conversation with a friend. She has recently left her condo and moved into an OFH, not mine. In this conversation she reported that she's making two trips a week to bring things to Goodwill. These are things that were moved from the condo to the OFH.

    After moving to the OFH, I took one grocery sack of stuff to Goodwill, that's all. Am I so much more brilliant than she? Nope! What is the difference then?  Clearly, the difference is adult supervision. Her sons are geographically distant: California and Georgia! My children and family are in Minneapolis and their supervision was superb.

   Take books for an example. There were many books in my condo even though I'd taken 25 grocery sacks of books to the library when we moved from the house to the condo. Not only that I'd dispersed my theological library from my study at church when I retired. In spite of that there were still many books. In the condo packing process for moving to the OFH, as the adult supervisors left one day they said "Dad, before we come tomorrow decide which books you want to keep." When they came the next day a car load of surplus books were boxed to bring to sell to Half Price Books. (Will I ever see any of them in the store? 😀) That's what good adult supervision looks like.

It reminds me of once staying with one of my brothers. Preparing to go to church his wife looked at what my brother was wearing and said "We don't wear that tie with that shirt." 😄

Takk for alt,

Al

PS No one else has fessed up to being a grammar snob. 😊

              Every Sunday in church I get to hear 'Joanne's piano.'

Am I doing something wrong?

 

Grammar snobs of the world unite!

       Quote from the current book which has a student commenting on his English teacher, "...and do not for the love of the Lord say you're laying down if you mean your lying down. The man blew gaskets on that one." Once I caught a fellow grammar snob, who was even an English major in college, in that mistake. 😀Only once, though... Or, ask my daughter and if you're in her presence to see a major eye roll. And, to think, I was a history major. As was my son who was asked "What are you going to do with a history major?" To which he replied "Think."

    Any other admitted grammar snobs out there or am I the only sinner?😈

Takk for alt,

Al

The school in which I taught English, however lay vs. lie wasn't on the agenda. 😀

 

Taken for granter!

     There is so much in this modern life that we take for granted. How much time do you spend worrying about the safety and reliability of your financial bank? Yes, I've often been concerned about my bank balance, no matter how many check blanks are in the register. Worries about the money being there when it is needed is a thing of the past. A few years ago I could walk in to the bank in Sinai and ask for money, say $5000.00 and it would be provided with a simple signature. Those days are gone due new banking regulations intended to protect everyone's interest.

    When I read the historical piece below it was stark reminder of how much I take for granted. It also reminded me of the value of regulation. Roosevelt was certainly a leader!

    "On this date in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, kicking off 100 days of New Deal legislation.

Roosevelt had only been in office for five days. The country was in the grip of the Great Depression, and the banking system was on the verge of collapse as people rushed to withdraw their savings. Banks were closed in all 48 states. As soon as he took office, FDR called Congress into a special session that would last for three months. He declared a four-day “bank holiday” that shut down all banks and even the Federal Reserve while Congress worked on legislation. The Emergency Banking Act was introduced in the House first, and representatives were in such a hurry to pass it that they didn’t wait for their own individual copies, but rather listened as the single copy was read aloud, and voted on it immediately. In Roosevelt’s first radio Fireside Chat on March 12, 1933, he said: “The new law allows the 12 Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets and thus the banks that reopen will be able to meet every legitimate call. The new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to every part of the country.” The government hoped that these assurances would be enough to lure people — and their money — back to the beleaguered banks.

When the banks began opening up again the next morning, people lined up to bring their money back, and by the end of March, about two-thirds of the money that had been taken out of the nation’s banks had been redeposited. Wall Street took note and the stock market began to rebound. The Emergency Banking Act was designed to be only a temporary measure; later that year, Congress passed the 1933 Banking Act, which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, which still guarantees deposits against bank failure. " Today's Writer's  Almanac

Takk for alt,

Al

Ship's refueling at sea: Our aircraft carrier on the left, the tanker in the middle, and a destroyer on the right, fueling simultaneously.

Ya then

 

Family connections fray.

    Seafarer's International House is a 150 year old, Lutheran Ministry on the coasts. Years ago, in Manhattan for a wedding, Joanne and I stayed at Seafarer's. Today when I opened Seafarer's annual report I was surprised to see a memorial gift in memory of Joanne's cousin, Marilyn Burke Maurstad. Surprised because I didn't know of her death. This cousin, a bit removed, died in May 2021.

   This sent me to the internet where I found her obituary in the records of Sioux Falls, SD., where she'd been living the last few years. There also was recorded the obituary of Marilyn's brother-in-law, Ed Mansfield. Ed's wife, Eunice, is sister to Marilyn. With the frailty of old age communication with that branch of the family has ceased. 

    These are the kind of things that I'd long to discuss with Joanne. The last time I saw Ed, Eunice and Marilyn was at Joanne's burial in Sinai, now almost five years ago.  

Takk for alt,

Al

                          Joanne's grave.

Ya then...

 

Right to vote!

       Minnesota, along with some other states, have restored voting rights to felons who have served their time.  When I was in school, high school college I don't remember which, I was taught that the purpose of punishing criminals was reformation. The idea was that the perpetrator of crime would be reformed. Obviously revenge and deterrence have gained the upper hand. Continued disenfranchisement of felons is clearly punitive.

    The origins of  felon disenfranchisement as a form of racism came as news to me. See this Jennifer Rubin quote.

" It’s no mystery how these laws got on the books. No sooner had Black people received the right to vote after the Civil War did states began enacting felony disenfranchisement. And with the movement toward mass incarceration, which fell disproportionately on Black Americans (including for nonviolent drug crimes), the population of permanently disenfranchised minority Americans ballooned." Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post

     Good on Minnesota!

Takk for alt,

Al

Book report.

      Somewhere around 1900 my uncle, Oscar, went to Alberta, Canada to homestead. Perhaps with the mantra "rain follows the plow" on successive years he planted wheat which withered for lack of rain. Eventually he gave up and returned back to Brookings County, SD., from which he'd left for Canada. In much the same way farmers in the 1880s tried to grow wheat in southern Australia with the same results as uncle Oscar. 

    This is the backdrop for the story of seven nights of a lost boy, told in 333 pages. The Sun Walks Down, (sunset) Fiona McFarlane, is the Parnassus Book Club Selection for February. There is much that makes its way into this book, including how Afghan cameleers treat constipation in camels and Krakatoa,  Ann Patchett said about it "...Down is the kind of book I'm always longing to find: brilliant, fresh and compulsively readable."

    McFarlane owes much to Knut Hamsun, 1859-1952, the Norwegian author who pioneered introspective novels focusing much on his character's internal life; see for example Mysteries or Hunger. Likely McFarlane knows this becasue she teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. In Down inner life, musings and feelings of the characters comprise much of the story, A final chapter, set in 1901, tells of the outcomes of many of the characters. The clergyman is portrayed as a pathetic character. What's that about? 

    I rate it five stars out of five.

Takk for alt,

Al

                                   Ya, then,,,

Book

       In a lull of reading heavier, or more significant books, I read Virgil Wander, Leif Enger. Enger is a Minnesota author who grew up in Osakis and worked for Minnesota Public Radio. Wander is set in Grand Marais, MN., on the shore of Lake Superior. I'm keen to ask friends who live there what they recognized in the book because I've never been there.

    Like his book, Peace Like A River, Wander is people with intriguing characters, all of whom are a bit off tilt. That gives them a winsome attractiveness while they live out the story. Both books are entertaining reads that have been very popular. I'm not sorry that I read them but do I recommend them? Maybe, but there are more compelling books for one's limited reading time. The one I'm into now would be an example of excellent use of reading time...more about that when I finish it. 😊

Takk for alt,

Al

Ed and I were together from boot camp until my discharge. We worked in the same Marine rifle company office, bunked together and remain the best of friends. Two farm boys, one from IA and the other from SD, farm interest initially brought us together.

A Poem

        It's been awhile since any poetry appeared on this blog. With the recent reference to missing the prairie this poem seems appropriate.

Prairie Spring

Willa Cather - 1873-1947

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Evening and the flat land,
Rich and sombre and always silent;
The miles of fresh-plowed soil,
Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;
The growing wheat, the growing weeds,
The toiling horses, the tired men;
The long empty roads,
Sullen fires of sunset, fading,
The eternal, unresponsive sky.
Against all this, Youth,
Flaming like the wild roses,
Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,
Flashing like a star out of the twilight;
Youth with its insupportable sweetness,
Its fierce necessity,
Its sharp desire,
Singing and singing,
Out of the lips of silence,
Out of the earthy dusk.

Takk for alt,

Al

                Far from the prairie, an Okinawan home.

Doubly blessed!

        When I first began medical care at the VA I had the same primary care physician for several visits. Now, in the last four visits, I've had four different care providers. Today's physician, while new to the Mpls VA, has been with the VA 15 years. She said she's not going away but someone/something in the VA system assigns her to patients. She was very through and I hope I see her next time. Results were positive and I anticipate being upright for some time to come.

      The doubly blessed part comes becasue I also have a primary care physician in the Park Nicolet System. I've seen her three times since the precious care provider retired. She's quite new in system and alarmed me when she said she'd closed her practice. She quickly explained that she meant she wasn't accepting any new patients. It's easy to have confidence in her.

    So, while myriads of persons struggle to receive medical care I'm blessed with two primary care doctors and great access to specialists. Grateful, grateful. grateful...

Takk for alt,

Al

                           A tomb on Okinawa. 

Prairie

       Living in the OFH since December 17, has been very pleasant and easy. There are many things to like about life here. Above all is proximity to family. Friends, both in the building and the larger community, greatly enhance this location. The ability to attend my church every Sunday is special. The neighborhood in which the OFH is located has much to offer. These have been good weeks.

     Recently I changed the screen saver on my computer. (See picture below.) When that picture first opened on the screen I had a very visceral reaction! It was WOW! I didn't realize how much I missed the prairie. Just seeing the picture opened my....my what? my lungs? My...I'm at a loss to explain it. 

    Months at sea, while in the Marines, in the tight confines of our living quarters was made manageable by going to the deck to see the horizon. The OFH offers a horizon out the sliding glass doors over the Mississippi River Valley which keeps me from feeling claustrophobic but, it's not the prairie.

   A neighbor recently sent a picture of The Little House with a huge snowbank in front. Not time to return yet.

Takk for alt,

Al

                            The screen saver.

The Little House before the last 12" of snow.

Good news!

 

    March 10, 2022 was my 38th and final radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Today I saw the urologist for an annual follow-up appointment. PSA registered 0.1, which is as low as can be measured. Now the plan is semi-annual PSA tests with no further visits with the urologist as long as the PSA remains low.

     When I had my final visit with the doctor who supervised the radiation last year I asked "If the cancer returns can I have more radiation.?"  "No" he said, "you've a lot of radiation, but the cancer will not return." 

    The radiation gave me no side effects. There were hot flashes from the hormone shot which women of a certain age find humorous. 😀 They have passed and I'm left healthy and grateful. Yes, grateful for fine medical care and thankful for insurance that covered the cost.

Takk for alt,

Al