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On the Porch

For this column, I often share social news or the gossip columns from the old newspapers. The social news is always fascinating to read and a lot can be learned of local people and events from the communities in Lyon County. For this article, I’m going to share the classifieds from one of the newspapers. The classifieds are interesting to read as well. Here are a few from the News-Messenger of Lyon County on Nov. 10, 1922: CHARLES C. VICKERMAN, Taxidermist. Birds and heads mounted. Light hides and furs tanned. Leave work at Blanchette’s Store, Marshall, Minn. CAR APPLES on ...

Headed into halftime

Into the southern breezes my lab and I set out, the final hours of the first half of upland hunting before us just ahead of the noon start of North Dakota’s 16-and-a-half-day firearms deer season. Though tag numbers are down, and gun hunters likely wouldn’t be out in the full, orange-clad ...

Be happy

As we enter this time of the year, let us be happy. Therefore, let's get by a lot of today's negativity, and be happy. Here's a sample of why we should be filled with joy. Hey! We got up this morning, and are still breathing — that should be a happy element in our lives. We can move and experience the elements of life we wish to sample. We need to be happy and thankful for all of the service of our military veterans. As we know, many of our fellow Americans paid the ultimate price for us. Many bear the mental and physical scars of their service. We must never forget that our ...

Boxed out

The ancient pine box had probably sat in the upstairs closet of my parents’ farmhouse since the Late Mesozoic Era. At least that’s how it appears. The box’s wood has oxidized into a deep nut-brown and bears more than a century’s worth of scars. It reminds me of a grizzled old cowboy ...

What do you expect?

What do you expect from each day? That's a difficult question to answer quickly so why don't we pour a glass of our favorite wine, sit down, sip the wine's goodness, and think about expectations. How many of us have read Charles Dickens' novel “Great Expectations”? Long story short, the book is about an orphan boy who navigates life's numerous challenges. Hopefully, our roads do not involve the many tragedies the boy encounters, but that doesn't mean we don't all have a lot of expectations that require getting through or around them. Our local community has numerous wonderful ...

Modern day veterans deserve sincere thanks and appreciation

We have a special holiday coming up next week, one that might be easy to overlook between the election aftermath and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I’m talking about Veterans Day. It’s a tradition that goes back to the World War I armistice. For more than a century, we’ve set aside a special day to recognize soldiers who sacrificed for our freedom. Each year I participate in a Veterans Day observance. I sing in the Boulder Estates choir, which performs several songs as part of a Veterans Day program. We currently have 17 veterans at Boulder Estates, fewer than in the ...