I never got to meet Joe Cool before he died in 2018. I wish I had, because besides having a cool last name, he was … just a cool guy. Well, that’s my impression after hearing his son, Brad, talk about him. I also found a 2004 MPR news story on Joe Cool and his clothing store while ...
I often wonder about the rest of the 21st century, what the world will become as it continues to change. I experienced a good indication last weekend when I met a 1-month-old infant on Friday and another one on Saturday. I don’t get to meet newborns very often, so meeting two in two days was a special occasion. The Friday opportunity happened at Boulder Estates when I returned home from having the interior of my car cleaned. One of the activity assistants brought her firstborn baby boy for a visit. She and her husband named him Reese. On Saturday I went to my uncle’s house in ...
We have been learning about Larry Van Moer, the second of five children born to Marie (Marcotte) and Herbert Van Moer. Larry and his siblings grew up on their family farm north of Amiret. Larry has fond memories of growing up around Amiret and described the community during his early ...
Sept. 11, 2026, marked the 25th anniversary of four terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, against the United States. The attacks began at 8:46 a.m. EST on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists crashed a hijacked commercial plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in ...
I was about 6 years old when I discovered that I have an extraordinary talent for making things disappear. I owned a Barlow jackknife that had both a long blade and a short blade. This meant that I was prepared for anything from fending off a ferocious tiger to cleaning my fingernails. That pocketknife was my constant companion. One day I decided to try my hand at whittling, having found a funky stick that looked as though it could be carved into a likeness of the Statue of Liberty. I reached into my jeans pocket and found… nothing! Well, not exactly nothing. There were a few old ...
While soaking up the last rays of the summer sun on the cabin deck and watching the boat of four anglers explore the breakline just out from the dock, that familiar loud “slurp, slurp, slurp,” of my old lab drinking water broke the afternoon silence. Of course it wasn’t from the ...
