Wednesday

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for January 10, 2018, brought to you by Jitterbug Jackie's Jam of Joy, "Life is too short; spread it on thick."

Currently, January 10, 2018, almanac readings for Palmville Township from the National Weather Service: 

Humidity 80%

Wind Speed S 6 mph

Barometer 29.38 in

Dewpoint 25°F (-4°C)

Visibility 10.00 mi

Wind Chill 24°F (-4°C)

Last update 10 Jan 4:35 am CST 

A Winter Storm Watch for possible blizzard conditions is in effect for Wednesday afternoon through mid morning Thursday across portions of northwest Minnesota and the central and southern Red River Valley. Snow accumulations of 1 to 4 inches are expected with locally higher amounts possible, and some freezing rain or sleet could also mix in at the start of precipitation. Strong north winds could make travel very difficult to impossible, including during the morning commute Thursday. Arctic air will bring dangerous wind chills Wednesday night through next Monday.

The average high/low temperatures for this date are 12°F/-6°F, and where the record high/low temperatures are 42°F/-46°F.

Births related to writers on this day include Charles Ingalls, father of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1836; Mary Ingalls, sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1865; Aleksei Tolstoy, a Russian poet/writer, remotely related to Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev, 1883; and Robinson Jeffers, American poet/playwright, 1887.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about rural life in a way that calls to mind the lives of a few present day Palmvillagers. Growing up as the daughter of peripatetic settlers, oxymoron intended, she was obliged to begin a new life in a series of outposts from Wisconsin to Missouri to Kansas to Minnesota. Imagine the determination and resolve necessary to move through another ordinary day as a mother or daughter under such circumstances. Imagine your family's three meals a day, where the ingredients were purchased in their most basic bulk forms, or where other living ingredients needed feeding and shelter of their own. Imagine when the 30-mile round trip to Roseau took the better part of an entire day, such that the day's other chores were pushed into the following day. Imagine that each and every day you have to scratch out a few precious hours for your writing, which no one seems to value. Now imagine that it's an average January 10th as you climb out of bed to begin your day.

January life in northwest Minnesota can be challenging, but those challenges are the price to pay for the beauty that emerges each new day here on a land of at least four seasons. Persons like Laura, Teresa, Jackie, Marion, Sarah, Catherine, Gretchen, Shelia, Monica, and so many others live with the determination it takes to abide the January cold (and their year-round husbands) with grace and with dignity. Others have written about such determination:

A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough. 

Christian Nestell Bovee, in Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, Vol. I (1862)

Great things will occur when you get up, dust yourself off, and go after life with determination and courage. 

Les Brown, in It’s Not Over Until You Win (1997)

Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage. 

Albert Camus, “An Absurd Reasoning,” in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. 

Karl Von Clausewitz, in On War (1832–34)

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so. 

Charles de Gaulle, in The Edge of the Sword (1960)

I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to “succeed”—and, more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the high intentions of the future. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Crack-Up,” in Esquire magazine (Feb, 1936); reprinted in The Crack-Up (1945; Edmund Wilson, ed.)

I believe that the struggle against death, the unconditional and self-willed determination to live, is the motive power behind the lives and activities of all outstanding men. 

Hermann Hesse, the narrator and protagonist Harry Haller quoting Goethe, in Steppenwolf (1927)

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey-wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop. 

Robert Hughes, quoted in The Spectator (New York; Jan. 27, 1916)

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come. 

Orison Swett Marden, quoted in James Whitcomb Riley, in How They Succeeded: Life Stories of successful Men Told by Themselves (1901)

Determination is the wake-up call to the human will. 

Anthony Robbins, in Awaken the Giant Within (1991)

Determination is power. If the prospect be dark, kindle up the fire of resolution that nothing but death can extinguish. 

Charles Simmons, in A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker (1852)

Fascinating how a search of sayings about "determination" in the English language so results in so many men talking about power, struggle, and domination.

The search did result in quotes from two women:

It is not tears but determination that makes pain bearable. 

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, quoted in Cleveland Amory, “When Faith is Triumphant: A Portrait of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy,” Parade magazine (July 3, 1983)

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

  Can circumvent, or hinder, or control

  The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from her poem, "The Will," Success, Volume 1.1, Number 12, (Dec. 1897)

Determine to be better than yesterday, to oil up your rusty monkey-wrench to learn that new word today, and to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow.