We cooked soul food for “cumpnee” Tuesday night. Meat and three — walleye, black-eye peas, green beans, creamed corn and Mama Crook’s cornbread. Salad from our garden. Whenever I cook this menu, I think, of course, of my Mississippi kin from whom I learned much of what I know about cooking. I heated the griddle, slicked up the skillet with bacon grease and …
Most children miss their deceased fathers, especially around Father’s Day. Like them, I miss my dad, Judge Ronald N. Davies. I was sorting through some papers and came across an article by his court reporter and secretary, the late Zona A. McArthur. To my knowledge, this personal account has never been published before. If you like history, you may enjoy …
Cilantro is one of those herbs that doesn’t enjoy the popularity of others such as basil and dill, but for those who like Mexican and Asian cuisine, it ranks right up there on the likability scale. I’ve been hooked on cilantro ever since sampling some salsa several years ago that was made with the lacy green-leaves from the pungently flavored plant in …
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, recently returned from a weeklong vacation, which started with a stay in Medora, N.D., and a visit to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Here are a few shots of what Dave has tilted “North Dakota Badlands Scenic Images.”
I crossed off another item on my North Dakota bucket list last weekend. With Lillian, her two sisters and her daughter, I hiked to the top of Black Butte, and at the top, promptly declared, to the amusement of the ladies, that I was the oldest person ever to climb to North Dakota’s second-highest point. Well, there was no one …
Back to Red Oak House garden notes for the summer of 2017 in Bismarck. This tree peony given to me by my friend, Bob Martinson, three years ago has become one of my favorites, not only for its yellow beauty but also because it is a symbol of the generosity of a fellow gardener. My sister and I agreed that …
Raptor expert Tim Driscoll and his crew were busy at work Monday, banding new peregrine chicks born on the University of North Dakota water tower, and Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons was there. The chicks, named Chan, Julie and Carl, were carefully placed in a small dog kennel and lowered to the ground for the banding. The parents, Marv and Terminator, were not happy, …
Rising 3,437 feet on the open prairie of Slope County is the magnificent fortress of a mesa known as Black Butte, and this weekend a party made up of my sisters, Sarah and Beckie, my husband, Jim, my daughter, Chelsea, and I hiked to the top. My sisters and I have deep roots in Slope County as many of our …
Grand Forks photography recently took a stroll along the English Coulee in Grand Forks a day after a storm rolled through and captured these spectacular shots.
Saturday was quite the day. If you follow my blogs, you read my take on the re-opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with a couple of dozen photos. From the Walker event, I went to Westminster Presbyterian Church and continued my artful day with songs in an inaugural event that I hope will multiply throughout this great land of ours. Song: …
What the Cluck! Have we been Cluckolded? No one can convince me that a 10-foot bright blue rooster is more interesting, artistic or pleasing to look at than Claes Oldenburg’s and Coosje van Bruggen’s “Spoonbridge and Cherry.” I’ve loved that sculpture since I first saw it over 20 years ago. And with today’s high 90s temperatures, the water mist that …
I was reminded by an e-mail from a friend that May 31 marked the eighth anniversary of Dr. George Tiller’s assassination. I realized then that it was time for me to finally write about the reality that life is rarely starkly black and white but a palate of grays. I still remember the wail I heard from the cell phone …
Bloomington, Minn., photographer Dave Vorland, along with Dorette Kerian and her granddaughter, Avery Dusterhoft, recently returned to the U.S. after a visit to Paris, “the City of Lights” (“la Ville des Lumières”). Dave has been to Paris several times, so he knows his way around quite well, as is evidenced by these beautiful shots. This is the first of two …
Q: Why — at your advanced age — did you decide to grow a mustache? A: I was asked to. It’s for my role in “Death by Chocolate,” the Fourth annual Firemen’s Ball on July 27 at the Mason Lodge in Grand Forks. It’s a fundraiser for the Fire Hall Theatre. I’ll be playing a detective, and everyone knows all detectives have mustaches. Q: I …
Given where things are headed, I’m preparing the way a humanities scholar prepares. I’m reading accounts of the life and presidency of Richard M. Nixon. I’ll place a short bibliography of books worth reading at the bottom of this essay. The constitutional crisis we are now descending into is either much less grave than Watergate or much, much more serious. …
Surprising as it may seem, I traveled to eastern North Dakota again this week, to take my octogenarian mother to visit her grandsons, Matthew and Michael McLaughlin. She hasn’t been on a road trip for quite some time and was quite excited at the prospect. But first, the drive east. My mother loves to go to thrift stores and when …
Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons and his wife, Paulette, attended the Happy Harry’s Ribfest in Fargo on Thursday night at the Fargodome. There were over a dozen different places to eat, all serving their own flavor of barbecue. Ribfest is a people watchers’ dream as Russ found out. Here are some of the shots he took of the crowd and the …
Here are some of Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert’s latest outdoor shots, taken over the past week or so.
I shot this photo in Monday of a professional dog walker in the Bois du Boulogne, the large park on the edge of Paris, which figures in Marcel Proust’s novel, “A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu.” Over my lifetime, I’ve read this work more than once in English translation (all 3,031 pages in seven volumes), and some of it in …
Went to the Apple Creek wetlands east of Bismarck on Sunday morning to bird with my daughter, Chelsea Sorenson. She is a budding photographer and quite a good birder in her own right. May was such a windy month here that we didn’t do much birding; hence, we missed many of the migrating birds that hurry north to the Arctic. But …
Leonard Slatkin is one of the world’s most famous conductors, but for the last several weeks, he’s taken on a much different role in the music world, as jury chairman for the Cliburn International Piano Competition. Part of his duties have been to announce which of the 30 pianists would advance from each round and which young musicians would not. Late …
Once upon a time, I had a fishing boat with a little 9.9 hp Johnson outboard motor. You could drive all day and all night and wouldn’t use a cup of gas. The kids learned to water ski behind it and loved to go wave-jumping in it. The only thing we didn’t do was fish … until one of my …
Some (don’t) like it hot. When the North Country hits the 90s, something peculiar happens to the delirious glee with which many of us anticipated summer: Our ardor cools overnight. It’s part of our Minnesota and North Dakota heritage — at least if your forebears, like mine, consumed way too much cod, favored fur-lined hats and were bred to survive …
It’s time to talk about the “woke ladder.” The term “woke” goes way back, originally coined in the black community and now used widely to describe an awakened state of being, an awareness of systems at work behind closed doors that the less “enlightened” may not notice or acknowledge. In today’s call-out culture, verbal sparring between political and ideological opposites is …
Grand Forks Red River High School broke a 21-year drought by winning the 2017 North Dakota State Class A Boys Golf Meet held Monday and Tuesday in Grand Forks. Red River was led by Adam Van Raden, Mat Halvorson, Keaton Wolf and Keaton Gilbertson. Grand Forks Central finished fourth in the meet and was led by Carson Seng, Ethan Knudson, …
The North Dakota Department of Health has called “Bullshit!” on Meridian Energy’s application to construct its Davis Oil Refinery three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. In fact, in a strongly worded letter to Meridian, Terry O’Clair, Director of the Division of Air Quality, says he has actually stopped the review of the application until Meridian sends the Department information …
Somewhere on the coast of the English Channel, 73 years ago today, was my father, Garland Crook, a 19-year-old from the piney hills of Mississippi. He joined the U.S. Army at 17, not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His mother had to sign a document to allow him to join up at so young an age. Eventually, he …
For some, it will probably open a scab wound that has just barely started to heal. A few of us got a first look Sunday night at the still unfinished “The Fighting Sioux: Unauthorized” movie. (I’ve seen several variations of the title.) All I can say is that it exceeded my expectations. And my expectations were pretty high. The story of UND’s fight with the NCAA over …
The next help wanted ad we run will go something like this: “JOURNALIST NEEDED: Must have strong language skills, a willingness to ask hard questions and be able to take a punch.” After Greg Gianforte, U.S. Rep.-elect from Montana, body-slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs last week, it became clear the trail blazed by Jesse “The Body” Ventura in 1998 had …
Odds and ends it is. While we had frost on our cooler Tuesday morning in the Bad Lands, by Friday, the thermometer in our Bismarck home recorded 100 degrees! That, gentle reader, is too extreme. But the walleye are biting on the Missouri River, and the gardens look splendid (well, some of the new annuals are pretty wilted from the …
I’ve never been much for writing book reviews. Mainly because I don’t know how to write book reviews. Call this one an appreciation. (If you feel you have to call it anything at all.) I noticed a lot of interest in “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate” on Facebook and elsewhere. So, here we go. The new memoir follows Sen. Al Franken’s …
One of the more popular things to do on a Friday night during the summer in Grand Forks is to head to the River Cities Speedway for the races. And that’s where you could have found photographer Russ Hons this week. (Check out more photos from Russ Hons here.)
On, Thursday I made a morning stop to my favorite place in Bismarck, the North Dakota Heritage Center. (Well, the Missouri River is my favorite natural place, but you get the idea). I needed to purchase a couple of books at the gift shop and do a little research. But first, a snack at the James River Cafe. A group …
OMG! “What a difference a day makes ♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪,♪♫♫♪,” as the Dinah Washington song goes. Went to Mayo Clinic on Wednesday and had cataract surgery on my left eye. It was a surprisingly easy procedure. The prep time actually took longer than the surgery. I’m now officially a “Patient Lens Implant Identification Card” carrier. The brand name is AcrySof out of Fort …
One of the best things about Minnesota is the stuff that we don’t need to worry about — volcanoes and earthquakes, say, or cold-blooded predators anxious to eat us — alligators, pythons, sharks. We can usually count on our snug midcontinent home to keep us relatively safe from the Hysteria of the Day. We can afford to take a good …
Monday, Jim and I loaded up the Highlander with our camping gear and pointed it in the right direction — west! We were headed to our national park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, for a night at Cottonwood Campground. Readers of my husband’s blog know that we are big-time campers. Tenters. He writes about one of our most memorable trips taken this …
I took it upon myself to drive the main roads in Dilworth, Minn., Moorhead and Fargo on Memorial Day weekend. I was pleased to see that each city had placed flags in honor of our fallen soldiers. It was also very heartening to see the many veterans and civic organizations providing programs to honor the warriors. It prompted me to …
As a scholar not a partisan, I have been trying to think if any president in American history has behaved in a less presidential way than Donald Trump. Andrew Jackson was a frontier ruffian in some respects, a loud populist, and during his inauguration March 4, 1829, his rural supporters trashed the White House. Theodore Roosevelt called his enemies colorful …
There isn’t a better time of the year than spring for bird watchers in the Northland. Not only are the migrants returning home after wintering down South, they are also raising new families. Grand Forks photographer Michael Bogert shares these recent shots taken in the Red River Valley.
My daughter and I made a date this week to visit my elderly Aunt Junette Henke at Edgewood Vista Assisted Living in Bismarck. I am blessed with many very strong and independent women in my life, and my Aunt Junette stands in front of that line. She is my godmother, my mother’s older sister, and like me, the middle child. …
Just four short months after trading in Kenyan Socialism for Russian Communism with a dollop of South American Style Authoritarianism thrown in for good measure — more bananas, please — it’s time to assess just how super- duper great America has become again. And you slackers thought you were going to make it to Memorial Day without a test? Dream …
It’s high school graduation season, and a lot of families are scrambling to prepare for parties for their soon-to-be graduates. Food is always at the center of these celebrations, and there are two routes that you can take: catered from a restaurant, supermarket or culinary service or do-it-yourself. We recently hosted our grandson Rakeem’s party, which was held early because of weekend …
The Country Scribe, Eric Bergeson, knows a bit about caring for flowers, trees and shrubs in the Northland, being the third-generation owner of Bergeson Nursery in Fertile, Minn., a business started by his grandfather in 1937. Here, Eric offers some tips about caring for plants that you may have at your family cemetery plot, which is particularly pertinent on this Memorial Day weekend.
A new biography of David Letterman has reminded me just how much I miss those nightly Top 10 lists of his. So much so that I thought it might be fun to put together one. Not the ha-ha, funny kind. But for no particular reason, a list of the coolest people I could think of. My cool criteria is simple. It’s based mainly on achievement. …