Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to the last Saturday (and day) of July. Today is July 31st. Summer is two-thirds over in Wannaska country. As I read, this past week, about mask mandates being put back in place for schools across the U.S., I couldn't help but think, "Already?" Not about the pandemic resurgence part, but the school part - as in, "We're already thinking about going back to school?" What happened to summer? I know I lived through each day of it, but it feels like I haven't done enough in the realm of play and adventure to make it feel like a full bonafide summer. Before I get too far into my lament, I have to be fair and say it's not like we've done nothing . Half the family visited relatives in the Czech Republic in early June. The WAKWIR* took the driver's ed class and got his permit. The older kids got jobs. For the younger kids, there was a two-week stint of swimming lessons and a smattering of T-ball for the youngest. And almost daily pl...

     It was on this day 762 that the city of Baghdad was founded. It's nickname is The City of Peace . Like all old things, it's had its ups and downs. During the Abbasid Era (750-1258), the "Golden Age of Islam," Baghdad was the largest city in the world.    People had been living on the site of Baghdad on the Tigris River for thousands of years when the Abbasids decided to build their capital there. The caliph chose this spot because of an old prophecy by a Christian monk that a fabulous city would be built here by a ruler named Miklas. That was the calpiph's nickname as a child. The caliph named his capital City of Peace, but one of the original villages on the spot was called Baghdad or Gift of God, and the common people kept calling their home Baghdad and that's the name that persisted.    Baghdad is located in a dry area but the Tigris provided plenty of water for everyone. The river also provided a route for trade in all directions. It took 100...

                                                                Nature and Nurture     I was interested in two stories that I found in the Reynolds history book about my paternal grandfather Charles Reynolds, who died before I was born, and my uncle Fred, one of his oldest sons. Grandpa was described as an alcoholic terror who could flip-flop at will; whereas Fred, did not drink, and whom I knew as a kindly elderly man.      Shirley, an older cousin of mine, had invested hundreds of hours compiling ancestral information before the invention of personal computers. She made tape recordings of multi-generational interviews, then transcribed them using a ty...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, July 28, 2021, the 30th Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of summer, and the 209th day of the year, with 156 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for July 28, 2021 Thistles! Scotland’s national flower, now blooming in Wannaska. Nordhem Lunch : Closed. Earth/Moon Almanac for July 28, 2021 Sunrise: 5:52am; Sunset: 9:08pm; 2 minutes, 39 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 11:40pm; Moonset: 11:01am, waning gibbous, 78% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for July 28, 2021                 Average            Record              Today High             79                     95      ...

I only broke the tip off my pencil once.  It seemed pointless to do it again. Putting herbs on your belt can be a waist of thyme. Whenever I am sad...you're there.  Whenever I have problems...you're there.  Whenever I go off the deep end...you're there.  Let's face it...you are bad luck. Wanna get slapped quick?  Someone at the store called my wife a pig.  I told my wife, "Don't let that bother you, babe."   It is hard to make a quote about chemistry...the best ones argon. It is hard to read the symbols at the top of an obelisk...they are higher oglyphs.   When life gives you melons, you're dyslexic.   England doesn't have a kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool. Let me tell you about my grandfather. He was a good man, a brave man. He had the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo. Had to punish my chihuahua...that little uncle biter bit my aunt. Teach a man to fish, and you can sell him a ton of accessories. Give...

The Hall – A Lifelong Nightmare Some recurring dreams are pleasant; most are not. In fact, the most reported type of recurring dream is the nightmare. These are disturbing to say the least, sometimes to the point where professional assistance is a helpful option. The dream in this post is very personal. I am so intimate with it that sometimes I “see” it during waking hours. That means the images come to mind inwardly; I do not experience hallucinations, but rather they intrude on other thoughts. I’m not alone. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that over 50% of adults report having occasional nightmares; some occur far more frequently; these occur more often with children than adults. Why do some of us experience these nightmares, and others do not? Some of the identified causes include stress, anxiety, PTSD, anger, depression, and guilt. Over seventy per cent of those with PTSD report having such dreams. A large number of recurring dreams replay a trauma in specific image...

  A guy at church had on a sweatshirt that said “Jesus first, others second, me third.” I asked him to get me a cup of coffee, chop, chop! The curse of the teetotaler: if he wakes up feeling rotten, he has nothing to blame but himself.  Some people are impossible to please. Not even tea is their cup of tea.  Consent is the line between sexy and creepy.  Birthday presents for kids happen automatically. We adults need to make our wishes known long before the candles are lit. The fortunes of war are so random, a soldier’s best hope is to come up against troops less competent than himself.  Chairman Joe 

Hello and welcome to a sunny Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is July 24th and it is so good to see some blue sky after weeks of haze. Big news at our house this past week is the soon-to-be First Grader learned how to ride a bike. Yes, while mom (me) was gone last weekend, the Oldest (the biggest of the sisters) took charge and brought the kid up to speed. Pour his own milk. Check . Set the table by himself. Check . Brush his teeth by himself. Check . Ride a bike. Check . The older kids often tell us how we've gone soft on their younger siblings and after the successful result of last weekend, I can kind of see their point. I mean, the youngest is about to turn six. It really is high time he learns to tie his shoes, right? Maybe if I go away for another weekend, the Oldest can check that off the list, too. All week the kid has been practicing his balancing and riding skills while biking the neighborhood loop. "Momentum, mom," he says, "you forgot to tell...

   There are many books that might never have been written if their authors had not been in prison or in exile: The Travels of Marco Polo, Don Quixote, The Book of Revelation, the Letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians , and many others. Another book I think of as being in this category is the   Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. Grant wrote his memoirs while a prisoner of poverty and cancer.    Grant was a man who failed at everything except war. He had done well in the Mexican War and when the Civil War came along, he was picked out of the little store where was working as a clerk and put in charge of a regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He rose to the top and was a major reason the North won the war.    He was rewarded with two terms as president. His reputation suffered when his administration was embroiled in financial scandals, but recent books about the positive things he accomplished as president have rehabilitated his legacy.  ...

  THE RAVEN history stories we printed and published in Palmville for 24 years proved very popular segments of our issues, particularly if they were about Roseau County. Readers often remembered certain individuals from their past or knew place names. The late Merle Jesme asked me to do some research on the Civil War veteran Edwin Evans, who died in 1920 and is buried in the Palmville Cemetery. The reader remembered Edwin in family photos as an old man, who wore knee high boots and a wide-brimmed hat and who, he was told, became indignant when others disrespected the flag on the Fourth of July. It was Edwin’s obituary that furthered my education about, not only the Civil War, but the Indian Wars of the 1860s. His story took me from Fort Donelson, Tennessee, into Minnesota and onto western North Dakota and the Battle of the Killdeer Mountains, detailed in a diary written by an infantryman in Brackett’s Battalion, that Evans was in as part of the General Alfred Sully Expedition of 18...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, July 21, 2021, the 29th Wednesday of the year, the fifth Wednesday of summer, and the 202nd day of the year, with 163 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for July 21, 2021 The Lupins are in Bloom! Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore , Galloping through the sward, Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, And his horse Concorde. He steals from the rich and Gives to the poor. Mr Moore, Mr Moore, Mr Moore.  Nordhem Lunch : Closed. Earth/Moon Almanac for July 21, 2021 Sunrise: 5:43am; Sunset: 9:17pm; 2 minutes, 19 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 7:41pm; Moonset: 92:42am, waxing gibbous, 87% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for July 21, 2021                 Average            Record              Today High          ...

Gift cards are an enigma.  When I go to the grocery store I see racks of gift cards and I wonder to myself, "How can a business make money selling $25 gift cards for $25?"  It seems logical that it would cost money to make, ship, sell, and maintain gift cards.   The way that gift cards make money is when loyal customers buy gift cards to their favorite places which bring in new customers.  The store makes money for selling gift cards, the business makes money by getting more customers.  Gift cards often remain in your wallet or on the dash of your car.  Every time you look at it the business is getting free advertising.  The gift card manufacturers make money by producing the cards.  It seems win-win! A while ago I did a favor for a friend.  Hmm...that is funny.  I shouldn't be able to hear laughter as you read that!  Anyway, I really did do a favor for a friend.  They were quite grateful and to show their gratitude they g...

Melancholy is the Happiness of Being Sad “Traveling into the human heart . . . is a good recipe for melancholy,” Ann Tashi Slater tells us in her article, “ Japan and the Happiness of Melancholy ”. Impermanence. Transiency. Change. We all know these are conditions of life. We live with them constantly. We sincerely, sometimes madly, hope that the desirable in our lives will stay, and just as fervently, that we can avoid the unfortunate. We can’t. They won’t. But we mostly resist the reality of the way the world works. Many desperately hang on to other beliefs. The rewards after death. Reincarnations into other beings and always, always, the escapes into addictions, work, and overload of chosen and involuntary activities. All this wears on us and typically causes varying levels of sadness, usually hidden behind anger, despair, and hopelessness. The culture of Japan has a way of coping with this unhappy way of living. Honor and lament melancholy; find the bittersweet in sadness. Cherish ...

  Car salesmen are notorious for speaking only to the husband. It’s not that they disrespect the wife’s intelligence, rather they fear her due diligence. Obesity always waits upon the table of the voluptuous.  The hotel hearing-impaired room is placed logically between the elevator and the ice machine, though the vibrations remain to annoy.    While it’s true that no man is an island, many insist on paddling their canoe to that non-existent place.   When we dream, someone else has control of the remote.  God made us, God loves us, but looking at our team’s abysmal record, God needs to send us a new manager.  Chairman Joe