Today’s Wisdom: “If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time.” Will Smith By Bill D. Ward With winter soon upon us, we all might be looking forward to the next five months with dread. However, other than a general dislike for winter, it really isn’t such a traumatic season anymore. Times have changed, and at least with winter, we have been the beneficiaries. The snowplow that covers our street is usually past long before I rise in the morni

By Stanley Musielewicz of Little Falls Medallion hunts have been around for a lot of years now. They seem to be the thing to do, for fairs and festivals. They add an extra layer of excitement to the event, and may even add to the overall participation. The hunts seem to be relatively easy to set up and execute. One honest and trustworthy event official is entrusted with hiding the medallion. They are the only person who knows the location of the treasured item. Then they writ

By Jan Stadtherr There are some things about moving into a new home that take a little getting used to. Not just where all the light switches are but even remembering the path to the appliances within my new kitchen, which is completely opposite from the previous one. Can I attribute my extra steps to the color of my hair or is it the aging process? I think I hear both. And then there are the trains! We were not aware that there were such things in our new neighborhood in Ale

By Rachel Barduson of Alexandria It’s a small paper folder holding a combustible sulfur material on the end of slim cardboard pieces – with a course, a striking surface on the outside that is used to start... a FIRE. Matchbooks, back in the day, were of necessity, so to speak. They were used without much thought until they weren’t as available as they once were. I, for one, took them for granted. Their purpose was for convenience and to be discarded once empty. I did not thin

Written by Randall (Randy) Strand of Little Canada, who recently passed away. Submitted by his sister, Renetta (Strand) Engleson of Rapidan I grew up on a farm in Southern Minnesota and was in my late teens when the United States was preparing to land the first men on the moon. One of my chores on the farm was to make sure the water tanks were full, so the cattle had something to drink. The tanks were large and took quite a while to fill. My practice was to turn on the water

By Nancy Leasman of Long Prairie I obviously erred when I planted tomatoes outside the fenced garden. First win for the hungry wildlife. I also offered them fresh cucumbers in the same vicinity. No takers. (Cucumbers are prickly on tender mouths.) Let’s back up. I planted tomatoes in the fenced garden. For whatever reason, lack of rain, too much shade, they grew spindly and offered the equivalent produce of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The plants outside the fence, in the

I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life. Some big ones, lots of small ones, and a few corny ones. A good example of a corny one happened on Labor Day weekend. After a few wild weeks with both work and family things in late August/early September, I was enjoying a nice quiet day at home on Labor Day. I had finished up a few jobs at the office in the morning and stopped at a sweet corn stand on the way home to grab some corn on the cob for supper. It was a good batch, and my fa

By Cindy Pazdernik of Alexandria Do you believe in “luck” on God’s interventions in your life? I believe, in faith, that life storms clear a path for God to show the way! A few years ago my two daughters asked me if I had a “bucket list,” something I would like to do or a place I would like to visit. After some thought, I said, “I would like to visit and see Wales.” A scene from our fun adventure to Abergynolwyn. Contributed photo My grandparents came from Wales in the early

'We care and we want to help in any way we can' By Scott Thoma Don Kuehl and his son, Donovan Kuehl, at Health Insurance Services, Inc., in Willmar. Don Kuehl started Don Kuehl Agency in 1952. Donovan purchased the company from his father in 2000. Contributed photo One of the more stressful times for a senior in recent years is trying to figure out the complicated Medicare Advantage plans and the seemingly continual yearly changes. Donovan Kuehl and his staff at Health Insura

By Carrie Classon It’s caterpillar season. I remembered this yesterday as I sat out on the deck with my parents and two of their oldest friends at their cabin “up north.” We noticed as a tiny, furry ball began descending from the trees far overhead. Lower and lower it dropped until it was just over our heads. “What is that?” my mother asked. We didn’t know. At this point, the furry ball seemed to know it had an audience and began to swing, just a little at first, but soon in

By Cheryl Barry of Underwood If you are a snake lover or you have a queasy stomach, read at your own risk. When I had my house built a number of years ago, I thought having a small deck adjacent to my bedroom complete with a sliding glass door and pergola overhead would be cool. Once, when I was on my deck reading, I noticed a small snake had climbed the vines and was observing me from above. Another time there were raccoons on the small deck outside my patio door screen dur

By Jim Palmer An old interview between Toby Keith and Clint Eastwood resurfaced recently. In it, Keith asked Eastwood how he stayed active at the ripe age of 88 (at the time). Eastwood responded, “I try to get up and be productive and don’t let the old man in.” The phrase connected with Keith, and he went home that night and wrote a song called “Don’t Let the Old Man In.” That song was released in 2018. I hadn’t thought about that phrase since then, but it came back into my h

By Carrie Classon I am made entirely of habits. This is not an original observation. Annie Dillard wrote: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I either love that quote or hate it, depending on how I spent my day. I am thinking about this because I was trying to break a habit of mine: sitting up late at my computer, mindlessly scrolling and snacking. I do this because I am tired—not hungry—and I feel too lazy to read a book or do anything useful, but

By Stanley Musielewicz of Little Falls It was after supper, and, although I was more than ready to relax after my work day, my wife Geri told me that she would take care of dishes and things, if I was willing to take our nine-year-old, third grade daughter Amy to her first softball practice. That sounded like a “dad” thing to do, so we threw the ball gloves into the car and headed across town to the practice field. Mom had done her part, by paying attention and getting our

By Marilyn Salzl Brinkman of St. Joseph Everyone should have a little pink wagon. Mine came about when I moved from a four-bedroom house to a third-floor, two-bedroom apartment in Cold Spring. I had to leave behind or relocate many of my things. For two weeks, I was fine unpacking and adjusting to my smaller home. However, one day I realized I needed groceries. Off to the grocery store I went. I had a list, so I grabbed a shopping cart and began picking up items I needed—some

Today’s Wisdom: Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure. –Irving Wallace By Bill D. Ward Many years ago, back in college, a friend of mine and I struck up a conversation with two new girls in the campus coffee shop. They were freshmen from Minneapolis, stuck way out in Marshall, and complaining that there was nothing exciting to do there. Being very quick thinkers, we told them, for a good time, we would take the

By Linda Cunningham of Monticello The blazing sun beat down as Tim Johnson stopped his tractor. Grabbing the lunch his wife Sharon made for him, he stepped down from the non-air-conditioned tractor cabin and sat under an old oak tree for shade. Tim wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared across the cornfield. The farm had struggled through a dry season, and money was tighter than he liked to admit. Sometimes he worried that his children were missing out on the adventures

By Tim King “They are back,” my wife announces with dismay. I know immediately that the “they” she is referring to is a countless number of feral honey bees. A bee keeper once told me that a commercial hive likely held around 40,000 bees. These bees, which we have grown to refer to as Our Bees, do not number in the tens of thousands, fortunately. That many bees would not fit in the crevices under the wooden siding of our house. They do, however, number in the many hundreds a

By Rachel Barduson of Alexandria As I take a sip of water out of my refillable water bottle I pause to think about the good old days. You know, when we went to school without a water bottle. How’d we ever manage to get through a day? I will venture to guess that every one of us drank water out of the water fountain at school. I would approach that fountain with great anticipation, hoping for the high arch of water spewing out of the spicket – cold and refreshing. The vision w

By Jeanette Hoppes of Fergus Falls Grandma left Norway at the age of 17. Her two brothers wanted her to come and live with them while they proved their lot and built a house on it. She was to cook and keep the place clean. During the trip from Norway, Grandma had a basket with dried fish and some crackers. She had to guard it because others did not bring food. She was riding in the basement of an animal truck. It was dark, didn’t smell good, people died, had babies, and got s