Wannaskan Almanac

Suckers in the Stands: A Love Letter to Sports Fans Who Should Know Better Let’s face it—we sports fans are a special breed. We willingly fork over $200 for a polyester jersey made in a factory that probably doesn’t know what a touchdown is. We pay $18 for a hot dog that tastes like regret and optimism. And we cheer for teams owned by billionaires and staffed by millionaires, all while pretending our loyalty somehow affects the outcome. Spoiler: it doesn’t. But we do it anyway. Why? Because we’re romantics. Delusional, wallet-emptying romantics. Team Gear: The Uniform of the Financially Gullible There’s something magical about slipping on your team’s jersey. It transforms you from a mild-mannered accountant into a sideline coach with strong opinions about zone coverage or the perfect power play. But let’s be honest—most of us own more team gear than actual athletic ability. And don’t get me started on “limited edition” merch. That’s just marketing code for “we added glitter and doubled...

  Halloween is big on Capitol Hill: monumental-scale skeletons, witches, and all sorts of other scary stuff lurk everywhere. One whole street gets blocked off, allowing kids to enter a haunted scare maze. Eerie sounds, smells, live monsters, ghosts, and spiders jump out, eliciting screams of Halloween terror. For days before the holiday, Jim and I listened to descriptions of how costumed people come out in droves to fill the District's streets with seasonal revelry. I had surgery scheduled in Boston on the Monday following Halloween to remove the hardware from my ankle, which broke a few years ago. After consternation, and a bit sheepishly, we decided to slip out the back, Jack, and leave town on Halloween night.  I wanted to be calm and ready for surgery. For us, spooks and o'lanterns could wait for another year.  Once in a while, I trick myself into thinking I've got things under control, that I know what paths to walk, and which to avoid. There are times, though, whe...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 1 Number 42 Man Extends Sewer Vent Tee Joe McDonnell ,  78 and    residing in Palmville TWP, Minnesota, recently had his sewer pipe tee extended. "Every toilet in a house has a vent to prevent sewer gas from entering the house," McDonnell tells the press. "During the winter ice can form in the vent allowing gas to enter the house. The tee consists of a 3' long copper pipe that goes in the vent with a 4” pipe on top (forming a tee) which prevents the 3' pipe from dropping into the vent. My tee and vent pipe froze up last winter so I brought it to the local hardware to have an extension put on the 3' pipe which would in theory reach warmer air to prevent freeze up. I told the clerk I was going on a six week trip. 'No problem,' she said. When I returned to the store the other day, the clerk, a different clerk this time, gave me a blank look. We went into the back room and I found my pipe. The clerk immediately soldered on an ...

Hello and welcome to a hunting Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 15th. Yesterday at the grocery store, I commented to the cashier that traffic seemed unusually low for a Friday after work. We thought maybe hunting season had something to do with it. "The men are all hunting, so the women aren't cooking!" I said. (Yes, I know women hunt and men cook. But that aside, it was funny in the moment.) And now on to the kid blog. Looking at the title, you might have guessed what this blog is about. And you're right, it's about another sleepover. What's different about this sleepover is that it's not really planned. Like, if you can come, you come; if you can't, you can't. It's not for a birthday or anything special like that. My last two sleepovers - both in the same weekend - were back-to-back birthday sleepovers. My sleepover tonight will be me and one or two other friends, plus the person who's hosting it. So, it won't...

    When I was in high school I shot an unsuspecting bird off a post with a friend's .22 rifle. The bird lay on its back kicking the air before it died. I didn't call myself murderer, but I didn't kill any more living things until I moved to Roseau County. A different friend gave me a .22 and said, "You'll need this for varmints."    I shot several squirrels and woodchucks until the kicking legs before death got to me and I switched to live trapping instead. I know moving an animal from its environment is usually a death sentence, but it's a better option for the animal than being shot. I rationalized this by dropping the squirrels at the same spot in the wildlife refuge five miles from home. I hoped previous captives would show the new critter the ropes on arrival.    Deer hunting season started here last Saturday. I’ve never killed a deer myself. Correction, I’ve never shot a deer. I’ve killed two deer with my car. It was their fault. They ran right in f...

   "So, what do you do 'deer hunting'? I really don't know a thing about it," Catherine asked.  "Almost everyone, God and all his friends here in the forest, hunt deer so I'm inclined to ask as I have the opportunity now. Will you tell me? You've talked about your deer stands all these years... Do you use bait -- or just wait around hoping they will walk by?" Craig's Stand   November 12, 2025      When Catherine stated her question that way, I had to admit it seemed silly waiting against the odds for a wild animal to just walk by morning, noon, or night. But frankly, it is what we do from these windowed boxes on stilts like is Craig's stand -- or, as is often the case of bow-hunting, (using a bow and arrow) perched on a small platform in tall trees; or, by using either method, hunting in what is called 'a ground blind,' found at most hunting outlet stores in which the highest your butt is off the ground is the height of your cha...