Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to an energetic Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanca. Today is February 29th, aka the LAST day of February and a LEAP DAY! One of my favorite memoirs is titled, Leap Days: Chronicles of a Midlife Move , by former MPR Midmorning host, Katherine Lanpher. She writes, "On Leap Day 2004 I took an actual leap, leaving behind the Midwestern city where I came of age, married, divorced, worked, lived, loved, and prospered for more than two decades, to move to New York. I cried so hard at the airport curb that the strangers milling around me must have thought I was on my way to a funeral. If they had offered me condolences, I would have accepted them." I thought I might take the occasion to see what Lanpher is up to these days since the publishing of her memoir back in 2006. I found her on Twitter and sent a fan tweet , to which she liked and retweeted. If you're writing a memoir, Katherine will be co-teaching a class at the Madeline Island School for the

"Captain Stockton! Captain Stockton! The Secretary is killed! Thank God the President is safe." These bloody politicians wanting to go on their cruises up and down the Potomac to see the new ship "they" paid for. Old John Quincy Adams, just a congressman now, wouldn't come near the ship. The old curmudgeon says the politicians want more ships "to fire their souls with patriotic ardor for a naval war." I suppose some like him will try to blame me for the explosion of Peacemaker, the cannon I designed and rushed aboard my ship The Princeton . It's true Peacemaker was not of as advanced a design as its twin, "Oregon."  Oregon had been designed by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson and built in England. Thanks to its revolutionary design, it could fire a 225 lb. projectile five miles. Ericsson also designed Princeton , which was the first propeller driven ship with its engines below deck to protect them from enemy fire. Eri

                                                  "Hot Coffee & Cold Beer. "                                                Writing came into my life in the early 1970s. By the close of that decade, I had long been writing letters to family and friends back in Iowa. I had learned that some of them had kept my epic letters as keepsakes in shoeboxes and dresser drawers; and still others had shared those stories to the amusement of others. Writing, by then, had just started impacting 'future me' in ways I would never think possible -- this, I think about now in my retirement years.      During one of my first unemployed winters, I holed-up on my farm and began living a hermit's existence on a 24-hour basis. I saw writing as a way to cope with the isolation from TV and technology (meaning before the days of desktop computers and cellphones) and the inactivity related to it. I started what became a series of journals I titled, "Hot Coffee & Cold

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, February 26, 2020, the 9th Wednesday of the year,  the 57 day of the year, with 309 days remaining, and only 35 days until April 1st. Nordhem Lunch: Hot Ham Sandwich w/Potatoes & Gravy Earth/Moon Almanac for February 26, 2020 Sunrise: 7:13am; Sunset: 6:01pm; 3 minutes, 32 seconds more daylight today Moonrise: 8:48am; Moonset: 9:11pm, waxing crescent Temperature Almanac for February 26, 2020                 Average           Record          Today High             26                   47                  17 Low                4                 -40                  10 February 26 Celebrations from National Day Calendar National Pistachio Day National Tell a Fairy Tale Day Ash Wednesday For Pete's Sake Day February 26 Word Riddle Another way of saying: Merely an arboreal nucivore endeavoring to acquire a nux gallica.* February 26 Pun The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its i

26 letters, animals and adjectives Just because Anguished antelope Burly bison Compassionate chihuahua Dependable dodo Enlightened emu Flamboyant frilled lizard Graceful gopher Hairy hummingbird Imaginative insect Juicy jellyfish Kosher king crab Lighthearted leopard Majestic manatee Negative newt Ornery oyster Popular pig Quiet quail Roasted raccoon Sentimental sloth Trim tortoise Uncomfortable unicorn Vivacious vulture Wistful wombat Xeroxable x-ray tetra (so I stretched a bit there!) Yummie yorkie Zigzag zebra That is it for today.  Please send your thoughts to Planet Hollywood at California dreamin'.com

The main character is dreaming again. Water is a relentless theme in this narrative, and so it is in this segment of Song 10. Here is the fourth segment of Song 10: Argose lies down beside me and I dream . . . Diving deep and soundless, the sea’s weight  presses on me like a massive stone Hand over hand I grasp the anchor line              down to the gray sea’s floor, the steel-linked rode                         a forged weight sunk entirely in dim cold At hull-crushing depth, I find the anchor             a three-fingered hand clutching, dragging mud My ship’s keel, suspended pale, floats above Her rigging stands still under crypt-quiet air at anchor, tethered under folded sail My descent continues beneath sea floor             I claw sea-sand as I dive down and down             waves of the seabed – each crest solid ground No compass point to begin the true tack             sea-press on my chest             sea-weight on my back

Brace yourself. When you get to Heaven, there'll be a huge pile of junk mail for you to go through. Habit sees that much of the world's work gets done. And much that would be better left undone. Downsizing for me means better compaction and compression rather than saying sayonara and adios to my treasured collections. Even the most luxurious hotels get a few one star online reviews: "The chocolate placed on my pillow was overly sweet. I specifically requested bitter." Sports fans wake up! Robotic cars will soon be followed by robotic football players. When avocados arrive in our store they're rock hard and cost a dollar. The price doubles when they're ripe, then drops back as they rot. Chairman Joe

Hello and welcome to a super, sunny - yes even though it's winter - Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is February 22nd and if you write out the date numerically that is 2/22 or  2/22/2020, which you should totally write out because it is loads of fun. A week ago, I ventured into the heart of Wannaska country to the little town of Wannaska itself. I don't get to Wannaska proper much, in fact, the last time I spent a significant amount of time there was already 2 years ago, when the WAKWIR and I went dumpster diving for some Tarzan books . (Oh, the things we do for the Wannaskan Almanac readers.) But I have driven through and every time I do, I eye that Cafe 89 and think, "Now that must be a nice place to stop." On Valentine's Day, I had a literary gathering of sorts with Jack Pine Savage and Chairman Joe, and, since I was on the road, coincidentally after a stop at the Roseau County Transfer Station, thought I would get some work done on the compute