Wannaskan Almanac

David Hruby, a teenage acquaintance of mine from Warroad, Minnesota, made the following statement. “I don’t think Thanksgiving will be around in 50 years because people are rushing Christmas. Right after Halloween people automatically go Christmas mode and Thanksgiving is becoming a smaller and smaller holiday. And add black Friday to the mix, stores are starting to open black Friday deals on Thanksgiving which means people are starting to spend their Thanksgiving shopping instead of being with family.” David’s comments beg a few questions: What will change if the meaning of the holiday gradually disappears? Has the meaning already vanished? Will we start taking our blessings for granted? Has that already happened? In this time of pandemic, has gratitude increased for things like just being alive, freedom of movement, the option to simply be with friends? Or have fear, anger, and selfishness become the norm?  What exactly to be thankful for? We’re in luck and we have some help to a...

If an artist's work is loved, the artist will also be loved. Most flagrantly in movies and music. Least so in poetry. I open my investments statement with anxiety.  What if my nest egg was laid by a cuckoo bird? I love God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. But Jesus, always telling me to turn the other cheek or give all my money to the poor, can seem a little much. In some cultures, the fart is considered an indication of robust good health. In our uptight society it's an embarrassment, or an excuse for juvenile humor. The master of semi-tasking does half the job right now and leaves the rest for some unspecified date. We enter the Internet our normal sweet selves. Once online though, we're tempted to don our lynching robes. Chairman Joe

Hello and welcome to the last Saturday of the month here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is November 28th. Families across our wintery region did their best to get into some holiday spirit this week. Thanksgiving 2020 was a decidedly somber one. Some folks grieved a Thanksgiving void of the usual traditions, while other folks fretted over the insistence on keeping them. If you're a regular Wannaskan Almanac reader, you know that our family's tradition tends to lean towards bucking traditions. A Facebook memory of our Thanksgiving dinner five years ago showed apple sauce, apple pie, apple crisp, and chili. This year's feast was a 4-course meal that commenced with Cuban black bean soup, followed by a greens salad, then a delicious pork curry with rice that reminded us of my Czech mother-in-law's good cooking, and, for dessert, a pumpkin pie made with a graham cracker crust because hubby does the shopping and despite having a detailed grocery list, sometimes I just gotta r...

If I, like the cat,  have nine live, then I've already used up five of them, as will be documented below. And these actual events do not include all the might-have-beens: had I left the house a minute earlier, or taken a left instead of a right when I was lost at midnight in a strange city.  Five times that I can remember, the grim reaper stood at the entrance where I will go out one day. But another angel, the angel of non-death, the nice reaper, stays the the grim one's scythe. "His mother's at it again, sending up her prayers of protection. So go away. It's not your time." And the grim one retreats, biding his time, of which he has a lot. I believe in the efficacy of prayer, especially that of a mother for her children. My mother especially liked Jesus' mother. They shared a name. We might say Mary's prayers did not help her own son, but we don't know that for sure. Reasonable people say there's no proof that prayer works and they are right,...

 Corn-Fed Opera: A Minnesota Rural Community Makes An Opera Out of a Local Indian Legend and Successfully Presents it. By Alain Hughes, Etude Magazine, June 1942. The cast of "Waunda and Wannaska: An Opera in Five Acts, written and produced by the people of the Greenbush Community. June 1st., 1941 In the days before the modern magazine, the talking machine, the radio (to say nothing of television), the isolation of farm life was so complete that there was what might as well been called a “rural mind” in this cultural black out, ‘hay seeds’ and ‘country bumpkins’ thrived, but with the advent of modern inventions and educational facilities these inventions can no longer be applied. The young people in the farm home today, relatively speaking, have far more and finer opportunities than did those in great cities a quarter of a century ago.     With all this, however, there has not been a commensurate local initiative in presenting collective musical effort, such as described ...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, November 25, 2020, the 48th Wednesday of the year, the tenth Wednesday of fall, and the 330th day of the year, with 36 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for November 25, 2020 These freeze-thaw cycles lead to interesting phenomena; be careful on that ice! Nordhem Lunch: Closed. Alternative Culinary Specialties (click on map for larger version) Earth/Moon Almanac for November 25, 2020 Sunrise: 7:49am; Sunset: 4:34pm; 2 minutes, 9 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 2:58pm; Moonset: 2:38am, waxing gibbous Temperature Almanac for November 25, 2020                 Average            Record              Today High             27             ...

 Let me be completely up front...I have never read or watched any of the fifty shades books or movies.  Pretty much all I know about the series is what little has been parodied on animated television shows.  So please excuse me if I don't quite seem to know what I am talking about.   Today I went to the cardiologist for my semi-annual checkup.  They would make it only once a year but the doctor really needs the money for a new boat that he is looking at.  Anyway I guess it was time for me to do a stress test.  This is where things got weird. First of all, they put me in a little room and told me to take my shirt off.  I think they were quite impressed with my physique (I just finished doing pushups a couple of decades ago) and were moved to titillations when I flexed my muscles, which were hiding mere inches below my flab.  Then, and hopefully someone who has read the above mentioned book can confirm this is shady behavior, she started t...

Dog Walking How many times have you seen one or more dogs prancing through a stubbled cornfield or trotting along the side of the road, or even standing in the road? It’s common to see dogs at the ends of their homestead driveways, barking as if they would explode with the whole-body energy they command. We expect that of dogs with their guardian instinct for their packs. Why is the dog walking? Maybe the male dog is looking for love. The female might be putting herself out there as a love target. Yet, the dog(s) passing through open terrain or lying out in the rain contemplatively considering – well, can we know what they are pondering? Probably not, but we can wonder, speculate, even have compassion. Why has he left home, if only temporarily? Is he escaping cruelty or lack of care? Maybe she’s just bored and needs some entertainment. Why do dogs walk away from home at all? Every dog is drawn to wildness. Is that what drives their walking? Dog Walking   Deep North November gusts...