Editorial

I was working on a project in a small town in the south central part of the state this week and one of the women I was working with showed me some of the local hot spots and made mention of how many of those buildings and businesses were for sale, because the business owners were planning to retire. Along with these storefronts a slew of beautiful, reasonably sized homes were also on the market.

Then John Prine’s song “Spanish Pipedream” got stuck in my head and has been echoing…

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The older I get the more I think about what we leave behind and I’m not just talking about material objects. What kind of wisdom are we leaving behind and what kind of stories, traditions and pearls of wisdom can we collect from our elders before it’s too late?

I learned the art of scherenschnitte through a grant from the NDCA called “The folk art and traditional art apprenticeship program.” The intent of the grant is to keep the tradition of these arts alive. I learned…

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There’s something to be said about the art of listening. Effective communication is like playing a game of catch, you need to bounce the conversation ball back and forth to keep it going. I never was one much for sports-ball but I’m in the communications field and that’s about as close as I get. Plus conversation doesn’t really require a lot of coordination so we’re golden. In a day and age where we can publish our opinion by the minute and pick and choose the causes and…

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According to Greek mythology Hades is to blame for the Earth’s mournful state of winter. The story involves Persephone the goddess of nature and Hades the god of the underworld in a classic caper of obsession, abduction, and Stockholm syndrome. Hades had become obsessed with Persephone and captured her as she was picking flowers by the river and hanging out with some river nymphs of questionable repute. According to the tale, she fell through a fissure in the earth and Hades himself…

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On March 31, 2018 a young transgender person took their life in Bismarck. Chance Houle was 12 years old, a seventh grader, a child in Bismarck, North Dakota.

According to the obituary, “Throughout the last 6 months of her life, she experienced continual transition and intense bullying at school.”

Everything about this is heartbreaking. Cherish “Chance” Houle’s obituary and story are going viral. Another sad thought, Chance came out as transgender this year and every media outlet…

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A couple of weeks ago an article in The Washington Post called ‘Grandma’s food’: How changing tastes are killing German restaurants outlined just that. It acknowledged the loss of established German restaurants throughout the nation that have been around for generations.

Why the a decline in German restaurants? One reason -- we’re losing our German restaurantiers and along with them we’ve lost their establishments. Another is that the new generation’s palates are changing as…

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The weeks prior to our trek to Austin were spent poring over pages of RSVPs, combing through emails trying to find out how to connect and make the most of our venture, and if the time allowed, digging through the list of bands that would be playing each event. Full disclosure: It’s overwhelming but oh so worth it. With so much going on, it’s easy to overlook or double book important events.

As part of my preparation for the trip, I watched a documentary called, “Dirt Road to…

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As we eke out our final hours in Austin, the quiet is almost stifling. It’s the combination of a collective citywide sigh of relief after the storm that was SXSW and the anxiety and uncertainty of the anonymous package bombings that have been rocking Austin for the past three weeks, killing two and injuring four.

One package exploded early this morning (Tuesday morning) in a Fedex facility located in Schertz, Texas, near San Antonio and was believed to be Austin-bound.

As festival…

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There’s nothing really quite as unifying as a good snow day. The calm before the storm gives us something to small talk about. It’s one thing everyone can relate to and add on to. Whether you casually comment on how much snow there is out there to “too bad ‘ol Norbert Schultz isn’t around to read the pig spleen..”

Both of which I’ve reiterated; but in my defense Schultz was an older gentleman who lived near Pingree, who would butcher a hog and predict the outcome of the…

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Sometimes referred to as “the castle on the hill,” the former Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Facility, also known as the Kirkbride building, has inspired, shocked, awed, inspired and provided economic stability to the community of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, for well over a century. It served as a treatment facility, housed the mentally ill and developmentally disabled, eventually closed its doors in 2005 and has been empty ever since.

It once supported farmland, lush orchards and…

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