Wannaskan Almanac

                        THIRD MOVEMENT                    REMEMBERING   SONG SIXTEEN HUNTERS   III For a few more days I ascended the water’s path             sleeping near the winding stream when sleep would come             but bursting now with giddy knowing that soon              I would break through the upper walls and see the sun     Then one moment I turned a corner             and the burning light came flashing in             and I ran to meet the streaming sunlight           ...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 27 Man Limits Landfill Usage. Joe McDonnell, 79 and residing in Palmville Twp, Minnesota, recently kept several dozen wax covered cardboard boxes from going to the local landfill. "The food warehouse that supplies the food shelf I volunteer at was oversupplied with certain items," McDonnell tells the press. "The warehouse dropped several pallets of food for us to distribute to the general public. I was stationed at the corn-on-the cob pallet. The corn came three dozen ears to a box. We filled mesh bags with six ears each, leaving a dozen ears in the box. As the cars drove along either side of the line of pallets, we gave out a mesh bag if a car was picking up just for themselves, two bags for two households, or a box with 12 ears plus one bag if they were picking up for three households.    The hope was to get rid of the waxy boxes because they can't be recycled. We only learned how many households each car was picking up for as ...

Hello and welcome to the very first day of August on this Saturday. Today is August 1st, folks, so make the most of it because school's right around the corner. The current Oldest in our house loves stories. Books, movies, YouTube shorts, graphic novels, anime, even writing her own short comic strips - she inhales them all with a seriousness and earnest fervor that sometimes leaves me a little breathless. She dives into her imagination with both feet and lands on solid ground that sets her on all kinds of journeys. One of them includes following the life and career of actor Lex Barker. According to her in-depth internet research, Lex Barker was an American actor. He was 6 feet, 4 inches tall. He had five wives and three children and was 54 when he died. He was in over 50 movies from 1945 to 1973, most notably the popular German film series Vinnetou . A rabbit hole worth going down is revisiting the Remembering Vinnetou post I wrote for the Almanac on March 30th, 2019. This trip do...

   When I drive by the county fairgrounds the week after the Fair, I'm amazed at how such a small area was so full of life. The noisy, colorful rides on the Midway, the carnival games and food stands have all packed up and are now churning away at another county fair down the line. The permanent buildings at the fair, the animal barns, the 4-H building, the local food stands are cleaned and shuttered for winter. Did it really happen? Where are the crowds of people, old folks reestablishing ties, the families giving their kids a fun time, the teenagers strutting their stuff?     The Fair is a shaking up and mixing together of normal life. For me, the Fair is a place of obligation. When our kids were small we stood by while they rode kiddie rides, checked out the animals, and ate unhealthy foods. We chatted with acquaintances we only saw at the Fair (what's his name again?). I worked a couple of shifts at the church stand, as waiter, then cook and eventually the s...