Wannaskan Almanac

On this date: 1917 - Submarine Warfare Germany restarts unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic, suspended in September 1915, allowing the long submerged crewmen to resurface for fresh air and supplies. 1942 - Car Production Stops No longer were civilian vehicles made as of this date by companies such as Chevrolet or DeSoto. However, Datsun, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen production soared. 1961: A chimpanzee named Ham sent into space by the United States was recovered alive and well and living in the small northwestern hamlet of Wannaska, Minnesota. Caught in a live trap set for skunks near the home of Ula Josephson, a Palmville Township trapper of some local renown, Ham was at first thought to be one of the neighbor boys skipping school that cold winter day wearing an unusually interesting parka made of aluminum foil and duct tape. 1961 Americans Jailed for Bringing Arms Six Americans were sentenced to prison for 30 years in Cuba after being charged with bringing arms to gori...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, January 30, 2019, brought to you by the Lake Bronson Improvement Committee Super Bowl Taco Bar, February 3, 2019; serving starts at noon; proceeds to benefit community events. January 30 is the 30th day of the year, with 335 days remaining until the end of the year, 61 days remaining until April Fools Day, and 1,119 days until Twosday, February 22, 2022. Nordhem Lunch : Hot Pork Sandwich Earth/Moon Almanac for January 30, 2019 Sunrise: 7:56am; Sunset: 5:17pm; 2 minutes, 56 seconds more daylight today Moonrise: 3:51am; Moonset: 1:06pm, waning crescent Temperature Almanac for January 30, 2019             Average      Record     Today High        14               40           -20 Low  ...

It is a good day to stay home.  Tuesdays are blues days.  It is sort of like a Monday reappearing, reminding you that the weekend is so far away still.  By now, people who are Steve and Joe's age have forgotten the weekend and can't remember when the next one will come.  I pity them. Today we will look at weird and unusual holidays celebrated on January 29.  This might be considered to be cruel and unusual punishment for our readers, but it is a chance I am willing to take. Today is: Curmudgeons Day--this is an annual celebration of crusty yet wise old fogeys who always seem to find a way to apply the needle of truth to the balloons of hypocrisy, social norms, and political correctness.  It is held on the birthday of one of the greatest curmudgeons of all time, W. C. Fields. Freethinkers Day:  AKA Thomas Paine Day.  This day celebrates the life and work of Thomas Paine.  His ideas influenced the French and American revolutions.  To...

In this post, we have the final segment of the first song. The One is already developing and experiencing more. Some of those experiences are frightening, some exhilarating. All of them are true and actual. In the first two segments of this first song, The One barely came in contact with others; in this last segment, others start to appear, and not always in pleasant ways.  As the Songs of this epic poem unfold, the story becomes closer and closer to an mature way of thinking and seeing, but here, we are dealing with a fresh, new being just beginning to experience and think. Most of the images are metaphors – our old friend – but some images are statements of fact, as The One experiences reality on personal terms. After you’ve finished this segment of Song 1, you may want to read the Song from the beginning to cement the flow of the life we are getting to know. Your comments and questions are most welcome, as always. Please “dive in.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...

Stop the witch hunt? Yes, as soon as we get a bucket of water dumped on the witch. To ease the pain of downsizing, pretend the dump is a storage unit you've lost the key to. Haircuts are expensive, barber's tip and fee I rue. But then I hear 'ca-ching': less need for my shampoo. If you intimidate your enemies, there will be inevitable spillover to your friends. Truth is now that famous broken clock. We fight over which two hours per day are correct. And even if they're the same two hours.                                                                                  @jmcdonnell123

Hello and welcome to an absolutely freezing Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Yep, folks, we're officially in the thick of winter. Today is January 26th. A big Happy Birthday to my niece who turned 18 yesterday! Sometimes, I can relate to that bitter aphorism, "Youth is wasted on the young." But not when I think about this girl. She's sweet, smart and super adventurous. I am very excited to see what she does first, next, and so forth, with her new adulthood. And another Happy Birthday to the hubby who turned 44 on Tuesday this past week. I made a dinner fit for Thanksgiving - we usually eat pizza for Thanksgiving, so we find another spot in the calendar for this grandiose meal - and a chocolate cake that was exceptional, if I may say so. I like to bake and the goods usually turn out well, but this one - this one had a certain je ne sais quois even the kids could taste. Now that hubby ages another year, I can't help but reflect on my own mortality. I...

   Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.       On this day in 1890 American newspaperwoman Nellie Bly arrived back in Hoboken, NJ after  circumnavigating the world in 72 days, a new world record. The trip was sponsored by the New York World , the newspaper Bly worked for, and had been inspired by Jules Verne's best-selling book Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) .     Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Cochran on May 5, 1864 in western Pennsylvania. To make herself sound more sophisticated, she added an 'e' to the end of her last name. Her father was a prosperous mill owner, but when he died, Nellie's education ended and her mother moved the family to nearby Pittsburg. Young Elizabeth read a newspaper article that said women were mostly good for bearing children and keeping house.    This got Nellie's dander up, and she wrote a retort to the paper. The editor liked it and asked for more. Women at that time were expected...

     I've been in Indiantown, Florida for the past two weeks, while y'all have been bundled up in your woolies. (Today January 19th, the wife said it was -40 at home--we had 69 degrees above). I've stood upon the deck of Jerry & Marion Solom's sailboat, Indian Summer , under two weeks of nothing but blue skies and sunshine with temps into the 80s, the perspiration threading itself through my beard in rivulets, moistening my neck and chest after an hour or so chipping paint and rust from the deck.          I volunteered to help the Soloms with some of the maintenance work needed on their 40-foot steel sailboat Jerry built, 1986-1993. Owning a sailboat, particularly the ocean-going kind, is a life-long commitment to its upkeep, something I've learned, is just as real an addiction for many of the boat owners in this marina, as anyone addicted to drugs or alcohol. Jerry is no exception. Marion, not so much.     There have been t...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, January 23, 2019, brought to you by the Wannaska Touristy Board. From grand vistas to big adventures, explore the many reasons Wannaska is the perfect setting for your next great winter getaway. January 23 is the 23rd day of the year, with 342 days remaining until the end of the year, 68 days remaining until April Fools Day, and 1,126 days until Twosday, February 22, 2022. Nordhem Lunch : Hot Turkey Plate Earth/Moon Almanac for January 23, 2019 Sunrise: 8:05am; Sunset: 5:06pm; 2 minutes, 37 seconds more daylight today Moonrise: 8:35pm; Moonset: 9:50am, waxing gibbous Temperature Almanac for January 23, 2019            Average      Record     Today High       13               40            1...

I am hungry.  I thought I would just get that out of the way before you start reading so you can see why I went this way with this post.  Today the Wannaskan Almanac looks at two different food holidays. First of all, January 22 is the day that the world salivates (hopefully not to the point where it will cause excess tides) over National Blonde Brownie Day.  Blonde brownies are pretty much just butterscotch flavored brownies, instead of the usual chocolate ones. My pet peeve is when people ruin blondies...or brownies.  They do this by adding walnuts.  Those bitter little nuts drive me crazy.  If you like them...good for you!  You can have mine! The following is a recipe for Blondies.  It was not by accident that there are no walnuts in them. That will take care of dessert for today.  You might want to eat something not as sugary, so thankfully it is also National Southern Food Day.  This is a day to drink sweet tea and eat ...

This week, we’re back to a new poem by yours truly. Interestingly, whereas the opening segments of The One posts on the first two Mondays this month are about birth, today’s poem is about the juxtaposition of life and death – the two great matters. Actually, the “juxtaposition" is between youth and old age, but close enough. Last summer I attended my 50th high school class reunion in central Wisconsin in a town called Marshfield. I was seventeen when I graduated from high school, so that got me thinking about the last fifty years, as well as the zero-to-thirty years I may have left. (One just doesn’t know the “when” spoken of in the poem.) I suppose the one exception is an attempted suicide, but even with that intention, not all endeavors have the desired result. I’ve attempted to speak the truth (as I understand it) with a light touch. That should please some Almanac readers who have asked me to “lighten up.” Eulogy for Seventeen       ...