When I was elected to represent Northeast Minnesota, I knew we lived in a large house district but I never imagined how truly large it was. It is larger than each of these states: Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey. Most of the land in our area is Federal or State forests, which is a good thing, but there is a lot of land and only about 42,000 people.
Like many of you, I am always looking for resources to make life easier. I like Disability Hub and the Senior Linkage Line. I also draw on a wide range of websites for information and ideas. Our school days may be behind us, and we may not have been shoved into a locker in years. But we’re never too old to stop learning. And we’re certainly never too old to stop learning what the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has to offer us.
The Easter season and Spring seem to renew all of us, and inspired columns flow. This week we are abundantly rewarded with the words of two local pastors.
A Great Day for Up Man can get too comfortable on terra firma. It’s cozy here, familiar, solid underfoot.
Distractions. This weekend I was in line at a drive thru.
Spring bird migration is in full swing and I’d like to share some helpful pointers to keep our returning feathery-friends safe during their journey. When feeding birds, be sure to clean your feeders and bird baths. The bird influenza that devastated many populations last season is still prevalent, and a simple soap and water wash can help reduce transmission. If you’d like to take your cleaning technique a step further you can spray or soak your feeders in a ten percent bleach solution and let it fully dry. Also be sure to rake up the scattered seed from underneath the feeders to help limit congregations of birds feeding where feces collects.
My Stanley Cup Bracketology! Have you enjoyed a full regular season of fastpaced NHL hockey action? Well get ready, because the Stanley Cup tournament is here and it will hit the hyper-warp speed activation button shortly! Some casual fans of the game harbor doubt about that being a real 'thing', but come every spring it plays out right before our eyes. Yup, an already fast game will be played even faster.
Outdoor Ed in Higher Ed I’ve been writing this column for over a year now, and if you have been reading it, you have been subject to a small sprinkling of the many and widely varied outdoor adventures I’ve engaged in over the decades. So, how did a kid from north Minneapolis and a family with modest means end up acquiring the skills to do these things? You don't just wake up one morning and embark on a sixweek canoe trip to the Arctic Ocean or engage in some random mountaineering trip on glaciers and remote peaks without having built upon experience, and gaining the skill set required to come back alive.
I am writing this in response to the front page story on April 7th 'Co-Op Light and Power seeks member input on representation.' The article interviewed Director Pat Schmieder on the opinion that the Coop needs to redraw the district
Every day I find lost ideas for columns and stories that have been jotted on various scraps of paper. I know I'm not alone in my affliction with disorganization. Scribbled on the edges of newspapers, on post-it notes and envelopes, they record my movements and thoughts with careless precision. As long as I find them. One recently came to the surface as I attempted to clean the truck. It was on an envelope that originally contained a piece of mail but was soon utilized to record the ingredients of a recipe. Wild rice, chicken, mayo, lemon, tarragon, grapes, dash of milk, yogurt, green onions and almonds. The makings of wild rice/ chicken salad. Scribbled over the list of ingredients were a host of further notes to myself, notes that were meant to stir the populace and menace the status quo. At least I thought they had the potential to do so. One caught my attention more than others. 'We have not confronted the realities of our shared social contract. There are 330 million of us sharing this landscape, this economy, this present and future life.'