Wannaskan Almanac

     I come not to praise Guinness, but to take you behind the scenes. Today is a big day in the history of Guinness, for it was on this day in 1759 that Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on a disused brewery in Dublin. The 9,000 years thing is an example of Irish over-the-topism.    At age 27 Arthur Guinness inherited £100 from his godfather and went out and bought a brewery west of Dublin. That brewery was a success, so a few years later in 1759 he bought the shuttered brewery at St. James Gate in Dublin and signed the famous lease. He made ales at first, but started on the new-fangled dark beers for which Guinness is famous in 1778. These were porters. The term "stout" was not used till the 1840s, long after Guinness senior was gone.    So what is stout anyway? It's complicated, and I'm not going into the fine points here. It's enough to say that what's called stout today tastes nothing like those stouts of yesteryear. Tastes have changed ov...

This is a great image of Jackie and I getting married outdoors on December 31st, 2008.     The photo captured our joy, our smiling faces, our rosy cheeks, and our breath in suspension on that unique afternoon thirteen years ago, when our many friends dressed in various layers of down parkas, wool bibs, Carhartt canvas coats and jackets, stocking caps, choppers (mittens), and warm insulated boots to attend our somewhat crazy outdoor wedding.     All but two of the guests dressed appropriately, having chosen to ignore the bold plea on the wedding invitation that said, “OUTDOOR WEDDING PLEASE DRESS ACCORDINGLY,” and so arrived wearing clothes only suitable for a traditional indoors church/hall wedding and an evening of exuberant dancing to a polka band. They were understandably optimistic as the day had started out at around eighteen below and had warmed up appreciably to minus five with a twenty-one below windchill. We found warm clothes for them to wear all...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, December 29, 2021, the 52nd and Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of winter, the 5th day of Christmas [ ooooo ], the 4th day of Kwanzaa, and the 363rd day of the year, with 2 days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for December 29, 2021 Mistletoe common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. Mistletoe is relevant to several cultures. Pagan cultures regarded the white berries as symbols of male fertility, with the seeds resembling semen. The Celts, particularly, saw mistletoe as the semen of Taranis, while the Ancient Greeks referred to mistletoe as "oak sperm". Also in Roman mythology, mistletoe was used by the hero Aeneas to reach the underworld. In the Christian era, mistletoe in the Western world became associated with Christmas as a ...

Happy Old Year!  Obligatory noise maker swings around and a horn echoes through the house.  Yup, I am celebrating this old year with some great big resolutions.  New Year's resolutions are a thing of the future.  I am dwelling on the past! I am the ghost of years past As I look back at this old year I have come to the conclusion that I did a lot of things right.  I also did a lot of things wrong.  I left things undone that I should have finished.  I finished a lot of desserts that I should have skipped.  We all have those little things called regrets.  Regrets are okay as long as you learn from them.  Sometimes people look back and dwell on their biggest regret.  Me, I look at them, learn what I can, and then go on...hopefully a little wiser.   Your greatest regret might be messing with this great egret I kind of miss photo albums.  I really liked the days where you would carefully and sparingly take pictures.  T...

Beowulf Boasts Heroes. Heroes Everywhere. If the setting, characters, and use of language are starting to echo other historical times and contexts, you are right. Think Vikings, Samurai, and Knights. The ethical code of these ancient, often violent, societies valued strong warrior-kings who could protect their people from outside threats (primarily, other warrior-kings and their armies). Under this code, warriors were expected to demonstrate unwavering courage, loyalty to their leader and strength and skill in combat. Go ahead. Look up these various warrior societies and compare. The Samurai make a particularly interesting parallel to the Anglo-Saxon culture with the Samurai code grounded in honor and duty, absolute loyalty to the daimyo, and a commitment to justice, whatever form that might take. Go ahead. Look it up and draw the parallels.  For warriors who conformed to these expectations, the rewards included treasure, the chance to become a king and, above all, fame. Beowulf is...

     There's this really annoying feature on my phone that pops up unbidden to tell me how many hours I've been on my phone in the past week. It's always some ridiculous figure like five or six or even eight hours per day. I don't let Teresa see this because she'd say, "I knew it!"    But could it be correct? It's like being told your blood pressure is too high, when you feel just fine. I don't play games on my phone, nor do I watch movies. I do make an occasional phone call, though I send texts more often. I only send emails to people I know will read them. I have contacts who have thousands of unread emails on their phones. These people get texts.    I admit I am never far from my phone. The phone is my watch and alarm clock. It's my calendar and daily planner. It reminds me to take my blood pressure pill every morning. If my phone ever goes missing, I search the house, the car and the surrounding fields till I find it. I'm not quite like...

     Not to bring my readers down during the Holidays, but on this day in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota for their involvement in the Dakota War that summer. Minnesota has not had the death penalty since 1911, but it holds the ignominious distinction of being the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history.     

Hello and welcome to a Christmas Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is December 25th. We're on our way out the door for holiday adventures, so just a quick stop here at the Almanac before we head out. The First Grader started my Christmas Eve morning with this question: "Do you know why I feel so joyful? Because today is Christmas Eve and tomorrow is Christmas." This was followed by:  "Does Santa live on the Earth?" "What would you rather have: 10-inch eyelashes you can't cut or 20-inch toenails you can't cut?" "What would you rather have: A world full of kindness or a world full of meanness?" What a great way to start a holiday, though - with joy - because holidays don't always go that way. Some families are joyous through and through - so much so they radiate and glow, their own lights of love from within shining out like that single star in the sky hanging over Bethlehem. Other families are pretty joyful but the stre...

     Can you tell what a person will do later in life based on their actions when young? There's one person you really could do that for: Jefferson Davis. If he had been kicked out of West Point after his involvement in the notorious eggnog riot on Christmas Eve, 1826, all kinds of trouble could have been prevented.    In December, 1828, Jaefferson Davis was a third year cadet at West Point Military Academy. Life was not easy for the cadets. No one went home for the Christmas holidays. The regulars soldiers stationed at West Point were issued a daily whiskey ration; not so the cadets.    Across the Hudson River was a tavern, and a couple of days before Christmas, three of the more enterprising cadets rowed across the river and brought back several gallons of whiskey to add to the non-alcoholic eggnog provided by their officers and professors. The soldier who was guarding the landing on the river was bribed to keep silent.    In previous years...

In 1994, Chairman Joe and I, 'Wannaska Writer,' started a newspaper/magazine on a whim, titled , The Raven: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History, & Humor Journal.       We published it for 24 years. This is a poem I wrote in 1995, a year later or thereabouts of December 23, 1994, the date we first talked about this wild idea of Joe's.   A Pre-Christmas Epic A year has passed since December 23rd Snow underfoot, made a noise, could be heard As I walked to your porch in the dark that night Fredrica, your guard dog laid waiting on the right She leaped from the shadows, white fangs agape Christmas or not, no strangers she’d take No uniformed guys from the softener store No Fed-Ex deliveries, She couldn’t take it anymore From ‘tweenst my eyes a blur did I see A loud growl, a loud GRRR, scared the shit outa me I was too scared to run, too old to fight If I could’ve, I would’ve long through the night. We’d a-wrestled and rolled, ‘cross the snow, d...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday, December 22, 2021, the 51st Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of winter, and the 356th day of the year, with nine days remaining. Wannaska Nature Update for December 22, 2021 With an eye on yesterday's solstice: White-Eyes by Mary Oliver In winter all the singing is in          the tops of the trees           where the wind-bird with its white eyes shoves and pushes          among the branches.           Like any of us he wants to go to sleep, but he’s restless—          he has an idea,           and slowly it unfolds from under his beating wings as long as he stays awake.          But his big, round music, after all,   ...

Ah, tis a delicious deed as I have published this soon to be classic blog at 12:21 on 12/21 in the year of 2021.  The dictators in charge of Blogspot would not let me backdate this blog to the year 1221.  Let's just hope that Santa gives them a pile of coal for their stockings! This year, as Christmas approaches, I have taken up eating mixed nuts.  I used to go on an endless cycle of buying chocolate to share at Christmas and then eating said chocolate before guests arrived.  It was something that I have been known to do at every holiday...July 4th, Valentine's Day, Halloween, and even Groundhog Day.  Now, thanks to years of therapy and the embarrassment of children trying to sit on my lap at the mall and tell me what they want for Christmas, I have switched over to nuts. The first kind of nuts I got was deluxe mixed nuts.   Nuts, in case you can't read the bag These nuts are pretty good, but they don't have the best nuts (according to a Wannaskan Alma...

Beowulf & Seamus Heaney Translation Heroic epics like Beowulf, almost always have a broad and lengthy cast of characters, for how can a hero exist if there is no one to save, destroy, form alliances with or against; perhaps who would there be to cheer or boo the hero.  Since we are about to introduce many more characters let’s pause to have a look at a few who have already stepped upon the stage of this ancient story. Beowulf The protagonist of the epic, Beowulf is a Geatish hero who fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf’s boasts and encounters reveal him to be the strongest, ablest warrior around. In his youth, he personifies all of the best values of the heroic culture. In his old age, he proves a wise and effective ruler. King Hrothgar The king of the Danes. Hrothgar enjoys military success and prosperity until Grendel terrorizes his realm. A wise and aged ruler, Hrothgar represents a different kind of leadership from that exhibi...