The Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival is under way, with more than 350 movies being shown over 16 days at several venues. If I could do it over, I’d work in the movie industry as a writer or technical professional. I still recall a movie I saw as a North Dakota farm kid, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” starring William …
I renewed my membership in the Hemingway Society the other day and jotted down the location and dates of its next international meeting — in Paris in 2018. I may not get there, but I WILL continue to buy new books about Ernest Hemingway and his art. You’d never guess he’s been dead for more than half a century. Unlike …
I took the above picture in 2006 of Sentinel Butte, N.D. Its population today is 61 compared to 229 in the early 1950s, when our family lived there for several months. The town is a few miles west of Medora, which in those days was not yet much of a tourist attraction. Neither was Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which had …
When I was in college, an English professor once devoted an entire lecture to discussing a single poem, “The Wild Swans at Coole,” created in 1916 by the Irish writer William Butler Yeats. I still own the text book, coverless now and much worn. I thought of and reread the verses Monday before walking to a nearby pond to take …
It’s April and once again, I’m thinking of a line of poetry from T.S. Eliot’s book “The Wasteland,” one of the most complex works of literature I ever came across. It goes like this: “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” Google that sentence and …
I took the above picture last spring of the Algonquin Hotel on 44th Street in New York City. These days, its rooms start at $371 a night. Dorette and I had a drink there but stayed at another hotel she found that offered a better deal. I have many positive memories of the Algonquin, especially of it back in the …
Back in my North Dakota days, I served a term on the Grand Forks Historical Preservation Commission. Thus, when Dorette and I moved to Eden Prairie, Minn., I was impressed by the historic Smith Douglas More House. This picture (above) was taken Monday. The original building was constructed in 1877 to provide passenger services to a then-nearby railroad line. The …
I recently took a solo two-way road trip from Bloomington, Minn., to Grand Forks, N.D. It’s 323 miles each way via Interstate 94 and I-29. I celebrated my daughter Kristi’s birthday one day and headed back the next. To say this drive can be monotonous is a gross understatement. So as usual, I brought along a handful of music CDs …
Martin Luther, at least according to the legend, once said we should sin occasionally to prove our victory over the devil. Historians say Luther probably didn’t, but if so, he was likely joking about the one sin of the deadly seven that tempted him: gluttony. It’s been said a craving for good food is the only passion that gets stronger …
I’ve read a several books by the English author Julian Barnes, including “Through the Window: SEVENTEEN ESSAYS AND A SHORT STORY.” The short story is about a Brit professor frustrated with his immature students as he discusses Ernest Hemingway’s “Homage to Switzerland.” My favorite passage: “He talked of Hemingway’s humor, which was much overlooked. And, of how, alongside what might …
I have something in common with the author Joan Didion, who is about to publish the unedited notebooks she used over the years. Why did she jot things down? Apparently to remind herself of the good and the bad in her life that she might otherwise have forgotten. “I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the …
In the bicycle racing movie “Breaking Away,” the hero’s mother owns a passport she knows she will never use, although the fact that she COULD use it is important to her. I didn’t use my first passport, either. In the early 1980s, I was public relations director at the University of North Dakota. One day, my boss, President Thomas Clifford, …
In 1974, I took the above picture of Pablo Picasso’s most famous painting, then displayed in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “Guernica” was created in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War to protest Nazi Germany’s terror bombing of that undefended and militarily unimportant village. Picasso loaned the huge 11-by-25-foot work to the museum at the beginning of World War II. …
I photographed this dilapidated farmhouse (above) just south of Wellsburg, N.D., in August 1969. A shadow of what it once was, I had lived there as a child. Shortly after I took this picture, the new owner burned it to the ground. A neighbor who witnessed the fire told me “it died hard.” When I was in the eighth grade, …
As I advance into my Golden Years, I sometimes think of the 1969 Academy Award-winning movie “Midnight Cowboy.” Few scenes in cinema are more powerful than the one in which Ratso Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman, after limping through most of the film, tells Joe Buck, played by Jon Voigt, that he no longer can walk. Joe promises to take …
Facebook friends may recall my New Year’s Resolution to read the novels of the writer James Joyce. This past Sept. 24, I celebrated my birthday in his native Ireland. I’m about halfway through “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” regarded by aficionados as the necessary prelude to tackling ‘”Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake.” My longtime friend high school classmate, …
I’m feeling nostalgic as I write this, a mood brought on by snow falling outside my window. Reminds me of North Dakota. Friends may previously have seen this image, on Facebook or even in person. In 2010, the University of Washington, which owns the original, scanned and printed a copy for display in a historical exhibit I curated, “When the …
I knew nothing about Ernest Hemingway in the fall of 1961. He had recently committed suicide in Idaho at age 60. My freshman English class at the University of North Dakota was assigned to read his short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.” Impressed with Hemingway’s writing, I dashed off a story in his “style” and submitted it to “Tyro,” the campus …
Winter in Minnesota is not my favorite season. But there IS one benefit to lousy weather. It provides time to a catch up on the reading you’ve deferred in order to enjoy being outdoors in the spring, summer and fall. My winter goal is to dip into the literature created by the Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, 1882-1941. He …
You’d never guess it now, but at one time I had bright red hair. Until I started school, my parents called me “Punkie” (i.e., pumpkin head). Thank god the nickname didn’t stick. The red color was passed down by my maternal grandfather, and I was the only one of my siblings or cousins on that side of the family to …
On this New Year’s Eve, I’m thinking of all the people who paid me for doing a job. Here (above) I’m pictured with my favorite boss, Thomas J. Clifford. I was his director of public relations and executive assistant for 19 of the 21 years he was president of the University of North Dakota. It’s impossible to overstate the influence …
One of the businesses in our local mall in Bloomington, Minn., is a Wellness Center offering a holiday special for new clients: $59 for a 60-minute introductory massage, a perfect Christmas gift for “the woman in your life.” So, I checked with the woman in my life. She thanked me but passed on the opportunity. Since then, I’ve noticed advertisements …
Recently, I Googled “Why do we dream?” What I learned was that scientists don’t really know. There are a jillion theories. For example, one source argues it’s merely the brain responding to biochemical and electrical impulses that occur during sleep. Another believes dreaming “is a form of consciousness that somehow unites past, present and future in processing information from the first two …
Garrison Keillor often said there are two kinds of Lutherans — those who take their religion very seriously and those who mostly don’t. I’ve been accused of being in the second group, although my Norwegian grandfather, Hans Vorland, helped build the Bethany Lutheran Church near Wellsburg, N.D. Some Facebook friends know I recently had my grave marker placed in the …
Today is Veterans Day. Dorette Kerian and I would like to be among the first to salute our active duty and retired Army, Air Force, Navy, and Maine Corps men and women. I didn’t serve in the military. In 1966, I volunteered for the draft but was rejected because of bad eyesight. They told me I would be contacted to …
Hearing former Minnesota Vikings player Alan Page narrate Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” on Thursday at Orchestra Hall in the Twin Cities made me think of my student days at the University of North Dakota in the early 1960s It was there that I first heard of perhaps the greatest Vikings football player ever, Carl Eller, who played college football at …
When Dorette and I were in the midst of our three-month retirement “sabbatical” in southern France in 2010, we traveled by train from Marseilles to the town of Aix-en-Provence to visit a friend and former University of North Dakota colleague, Paul Schwartz. Paul was living and teaching there at the time; one of his students, I think, took the above …
I was in Chicago on Sept. 3, the date of my late father Kermit Vorland’s birthday and didn’t think of the anniversary until today (Tuesday). He died in 1991 at the age of 80, a few days before my mother, Minnie. This above picture of him with my maternal grandmother, Ellen Vogel, was taken in the early 1950s in Enderlin, …
One hears grumbling these days at the University of North Dakota about the decision to raze older, historically important buildings to save money because of the state’s budget crisis. As those opposed to doing so have pointed out, “old” isn’t always a negative. Still, I was surprised this summer to see apartment No. 212 on Northwestern Drive was still in …
My latest used book find is a volume by Chloe Rhodes discussing the origin of foreign words used in English. She provides a definition and humorous example. I’ll try not to overdo this, but I’ll occasionally share one with my Facebook friends. “Skol,” meaning “cheers” (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish). Like all groups of marauding invaders, the Vikings liked a little tipple at the …
I ran across this photo the other day of James F. Penwarden, my friend and former colleague at the University of North Dakota. He died Jan. 21, 2012. Jim is pictured above in the old days, when neither of us had yet heard of a desktop computer. Editing typewritten copy was done the old-fashioned way, with a pencil or pen. I’ve …
I’ve just returned with my daughter, Kristi, from a sentimental journey to Ketchum, Idaho. A goal — not the primary one since breathing mountain air and photographing the magnificent scenery were paramount for both of us — was for me to pay my respects at the writer Ernest Hemingway’s grave. Like many readers my age, I’ve been fascinated by Hemingway’s …
Now that the Republican and Democratic national conventions have ended, expect to see even more politics on Facebook. For example, your otherwise reasonable friends may begin to post comments about your favored candidate that get on your nerves. One solution is to “de-friend” the offender, which should be a last resort because you may lose that friend in real life …
This picture above, taken of me years ago with my boss and mentor, the late Thomas J. Clifford, then president of the University of North Dakota, surfaced recently from deep within my personal archives. I share with my favorite writer Ernest Hemingway the quality of being a “pack rat.” Hemingway apparently saved everything — manuscripts, of course, including early drafts …
It was in a freshman English class at the University of North Dakota in 1961 that I first encountered the writing of Ernest Hemingway, just a few weeks after he committed suicide at Ketchum, Idaho. The short story was “A Clean Well-lighted Place,” published in 1933. James Joyce regarded it as one of the best ever written. I was inspired …
When I was in Grand Forks this past Wednesday, I visited two favorite golf courses, the University of North Dakota’s Ray Richards and what remains of the classic 1920s vintage Lincoln Park course. The latter was damaged in the Red River Flood of 1997, then mutilated by the permanent dikes that were built on it. Only nine of its former …
I’ve been legally blind in my left eye for as long as I can remember. There is a tad of vision on that side and, unlike with my right eye, it is perfectly sharp. That bit of vision on the left has served me well, for example, by detecting the motion of passing cars before they come into the right …
Early in my career as the University of North Dakota’s director of public relations, I mentioned to the late School of Medicine Professor Helge Ederstrom that I was looking for more insight into what it was that motivated human attitudes and behavior. I was especially interested in those individual PR people — then rather naively described as “opinion leaders” — …
A third and final passage from the late Arch Monroe’s book “The Lighter Side of the Law.” It’s his tribute to his friend, Wayne Lubenow. “Out of the ‘Roughrider Country,’ which brought our nation Maxwell Anderson, Louis L’Amour and Lawrence Welk, comes Lubenow. He’s the Will Rogers, Damon Runyon and Art Buchwald of the prairies. His column appears in a …
Some of my friends may recall a slightly eccentric individual, the late Arch Monroe, who worked for me briefly at the University of North Dakota. A few years earlier, Arch had published a book with replies to his request for humorous stories from judges, lawyers and politicians. Many responded, among them Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, Sen. Sam Ervin and Congressman …