I was ordained July 28, 1990, which means that this year I am marking the 30th anniversary of my ordination. A couple of weeks ago, on the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women, I shared my call story, so as I commemorate this important anniversary, I thought I would share a story of how God reassured me that I …
I have a new friend who I’ll call “Chris,” who knows something about petroleum engineering. This new friend is some kind of engineer. I haven’t met this friend in person, but I’ve talked to Chris a few times on the computer and the phone recently. Chris sent me an e-mail this week after reading a couple of the columns I’ve …
Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons and his wife, Paulette, took a midnight cruise southeast of Mentor, Minn., on Saturday night and caught these striking images of the thunderstorm that rolled through the area. (Check out more photos from Russ Hons here.)
Taking a break from picking on refinery companies, I decided to lighten up today and talk about fun things like license plates. Way back in 1992, the North Dakota Legislature and Gov. George Sinner agreed that it was time the state got a new design for our license plates. The license plate we had been using for five years featured …
“My son, Zach has worked eight years to become an acclaimed athlete at his middle school and now can’t reap any of the privileges. He says it doesn’t matter, but it stinks for all the eighth-graders — it’s not fair.” “My daughter, Kelsey just lost her senior year in volleyball after years of dedication to the sport she loves. It’s …
The American Museum of Natural History’s recent decision to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its Central Park entrance gives us all the opportunity to revisit and rethink a wide range of things we have taken for granted in American history and American memory. Although the Roosevelt debate has largely focused on the statue group’s depiction of him as …
My phone keeps ringing, with calls from people who want to talk about Meridian Energy Group, the company that wants to build an oil refinery beside Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I’ve talked to engineers, accountants, investors and salesmen, and all are pretty skeptical about this company’s intent. There’s a common theme: A lot of people stand to lose a lot …
Doomsdayscrolling. The second I heard the word I knew what it was. The process of looking at your phone and scrolling through Twitter, or Facebook, or a newsfeed, moving from depressing story from depressing story — the rate of infections increasing, the economic impact of the pandemic, the threat of climate change, the possible consequences of the dire things that …
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner went out in search of Comet Neowise and the Milky Way on Saturday night with his wife, Sheila. From Dave: “It was a fun Saturday night driving around looking for the comet and finding a scene to compliment it. Also, the Milky Way was just brilliant that evening and photographed it also. Sheila Bruner and I haven’t …
Life has been hectic. We are harvesting vegetables and scrambling to adjust to life in a pandemic. When I get time, I will write some thank-you notes to the people who have helped us through these past months of lockdown and loss. When we get stamps or get to our nearby post office, we will mail those. “Notes” will feel …
A group of seven former and current (but likely to soon be former) employees of Meridian Energy Group, the California company that wants to build an oil refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Bad Lands, has filed a lawsuit against Meridian seeking to recover more than $600,000 in unpaid wages, salaries and bonuses. The lawsuit …
My garden is really starting to produce these days, so my cooking has definitely been on the upswing. And as any cook knows, a good garden is about the biggest blessing you could have. We’ve been eating green and yellow beans for almost two weeks (steamed and in a three-bean salad), some Roma tomatoes have found their way to our …
It was an example of how to treat people. It didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t just chitchat as I dried the dishes weeks before we were to fly to Washington, D.C., to visit relatives during the last summer of the Kennedy administration. I was down to the silverware — the low ROI portion of dish drying — as …
My first conversation with Fred Claire took place in April 2019. Not long afterward, hours probably, I was struck by the irony … another great guy named Fred. I had met the other Fred, Fred Rogers, in the fall of 1995 when I interviewed the children’s television icon for a newspaper story. I was the beneficiary of his human greatness …
Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons captured these image of Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3), a retrograde comet with a near-parabolic orbit that was discovered March 27 by astronomers using the NEOWISE space telescope. Most of July, the comet will be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. It is one of the brightest visible to observers in the Northern Hemisphere …
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City decided recently to take down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has been displayed in front of the museum on Central Park West since 1940. It’s actually a statue group of three men. Roosevelt is high on horseback dressed like a cowboy or Rough Rider. Flanking him, on foot, are …
A week or so ago, I wrote here about the Billings County Commission’s actions seeking federal funds to build their “Bridge to Nowhere” across the Little Missouri State Scenic River north of Medora, N.D., encouraging my readers to send letters in opposition to their scheme. My wife, Lillian, and I did so the very next day. Shortly, I was pleased …
If you agree that we should not throw up a bridge in the North Dakota Badlands within a few miles of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch Site, please write to Secretary Elaine Chou asap, and please share my letter to your network of friends. Talk about Last Best Places! The question we have to ask is — is absolutely everything for …
It was a feeble attempt at a rhetorical bank shot. Former majority leader and speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives Wes Belter — a big deal — went on a Trumpist rager under a false premise to reiterate Donald Trump’s sermon on the mount for those who didn’t get the racist message. Belter’s entire op-ed was exceedingly consistent in dishonesty …
At noon Friday, July 10, 2020, on a somber hillside south of Mandan, N.D., a lone bugler will blow Taps, and a squad of American Veterans will fire a 21-gun salute to 1st Sgt. Hubert Garland Crook, U.S. Army (retired) as his cremated ashes are laid under a white marble headstone, joining thousands of his fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and …
The past couple of years, our grape vine has been an excellent producer. It’s been loaded with grapes, which we usually juice, except when our jelly supply gets a little low. Fresh juice and jelly are just two of the perks of having a grapevine. Another is stuffed grape leaves. Just recently, I made stuffed grape leaves, which over the …
“(Commission chairman) Jim Arthaud and the Billings County commissioners have the fight of their lives ahead of them if they plan on using eminent domain to put a bridge across our land.” That was Sandy Short, wife of the late Con Short and daughter-in-law of former U.S. Congressman Don Short, in an interview with The Bismarck Tribune three years ago. …
A month to the day after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, my husband and I went to pay our respects, view parts of Lake Street, the 38th and Chicago area, the graffiti art, the memorial in front of Cub Foods that has been seen around the world. Arnie picked up a trifold giving the background of …
It wasn’t widely known that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence until a quarter century later when he stood for the presidency of the United States. At the time when the 33-year-old Virginian sat down to write America’s birth certificate at his portable writing desk in a boarding house on Seventh and Market streets in Philadelphia in the third …
On this USA Independence Day weekend, let’s wish the District of Columbia further political independence from its mama on Capitol Hill. Here’s a tip of the hat to D.C. leaders’ persistence in securing recent passage of a partisan House of Representatives bill granting the District status as a state with full voting representation in Congress. The reality is, however, D.C. …
Horsetooth Falls, located near Fort Collins, Colo., was recently the destination for photographer Jeff Olson. Horsetooth Falls is a 2.2-mile heavily trafficked out and back trail that features a waterfall amid national park-class landscape. The trail to the falls starts off with a slight uphill from the Horsetooth Mountain Park parking lot. From there, the trail climbs until a fork is met …
A family of loons caught the eye of Grand Forks photograph Michael Bogert during a recent sojourn into Minnesota lake country.
In 1988, as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Fred Claire was the architect of the team’s last World Series championship. Nearly three decades later, in the winter of 2017, cancer that had begun as speck on Fred’s lip had returned with a vengeance. The prognosis had been poor from the time his melanoma had spread to his jaw …
Meridian Energy Group, the fly-by-night California startup company that proposes to put an oil refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota, came one step closer to being able to start construction this week when the North Dakota Supreme Court upheld the Permit to Construct the refinery, issued by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, formerly the …
Thales Latimer Secrest. “Tom” Secrest was my friend for 30 years, yet somehow I never knew his given name. Good thing, too, because I would’ve called him Latimer. He’d have hated it, but he would have grinned because he appreciated cruel humor — even at his expense. Such was the nature of our friendship, and the best friendships, I think, …
I always wanted to be a pastor. For as long as I can remember, I knew what God had called me to be. When I was 3, I crafted stoles out of toilet paper and presided over Communion of Wonder Bread and grape juice. By 4, I had advanced to burying dead birds and other animals I found with a …
Disgruntled president to cut work hours and focus only on inanimate objects Donald Trump wrote early this morning on his Twitter account. “I’ve had it with you #people. Except Patriots @RiotsDoneRight. Bitch bitch bitch. It’s is all I hear. And where’s your mask? I don’t need this. I’m very Disgruntled @ohsopreciousdelicatepeople Have seen the nasty remarks they put on my …
And so we’re a week into Summer, emerging from what I think is the darkest Spring of my life (my personal style book says capitalize the seasons, but I am almost reluctant to do so this year — this Spring doesn’t really deserve any recognition). The only Springs darker that I can recall are 1968, the year I got drafted, …
A few days ago while sitting on a bench waiting for a friend, I couldn’t help but notice a beautiful, barefoot little girl skipping through the water feature in front of the Hughes Pavilion at Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, Minn. Her cute summer outfit, light turquoise bib overall shorts and a pale pink T-shirt was topped off with a …
July 7 is the official publication date of my new book, “Extra Innings.” I love the story of Fred’s Claire’s inspiring fight against cancer at City of Hope National Medical Center in California, one of the world’s finest medical institutions. But as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Fred was also the architect of the team’s last World Series championship …
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner’s recent road trip took him to Mystical Horizons, a unique and fascinating place in north-central North Dakota on the Scenic Byway of state Highway 43 near the town of Carbury. This “21st century Stonehenge” is an unusual yet fully functional solar calendar made of stone structures. It was built in 2005 from the vision of …
One year ago, at the time of Summer Solstice, I took some photos of our gardens. Here are two views of the irises in bloom. Last year, I divided hostas and other perennials to increase my plants without buying more, a frugal gardener. I give away plants and friends give me plants. We grub raspberries and give the plants …
I hate the phrase “Everything happens for a reason.” I despise it because it draws to mind a picture of God who is somehow responsible for the result of human sin, the brokenness of our imperfect world and everything that results from those things. It pictures a God who is a master puppeteer, controlling our actions as part of some …
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner took to the roads of rural North Dakota and the Turtle Mountains and came across Swedish Zion Lutheran Church in northern Bottineau County. The historic rural church, built in 1903, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in April 2013. The stone (granite) church, which had its origins starting in 1896, when a group …
If you rationalize the abject promotion of virus spread by jamming 20,000 adoring fans into a giant tuna can to “rally” by noting that some liberal bastards aren’t denouncing the transmission of the coronavirus by demonstrators as vigorously as the ego-driven “rallies,” you might be a Retrumplican. But there is no similarity, and it’s still not self-evident to the Retrumplicans …
On a warm evening in late May, my wife and I were in the midst of removing the remnants of our permanently damaged basketball hoop. After 25 years of wonderful service, that old bucket was crushed by a fallen tree last summer. Now, we were finally getting around to eliminating what was left of the pole. Because I never fancied …
Here’s a look at the past couple of weeks, as spring has given way to summer in the Twin Cities and surrounding area, through the lens of Bloomington, Minn., photographer Dave Vorland.
Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert was in the perfect spot to capture this sequence of a mallard hen settling in for a landing.
It was just another “quiet” drive home from Thief River Falls on Sunday for photographer Russ Hons and his wife, Paulette. While stopping watch a couple of sandhill cranes in a field, two adult black bears came out of the woods. As soon as the cranes saw them, they got quite animated. The cranes squawked and ran toward the bears …