Wannaskan Almanac

For generations now, American politics has carried a strange tension: we proudly call ourselves a republic built on citizen leadership, yet we repeatedly elevate the same families to the highest levels of power. When names like Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, and others cycle through our ballots decade after decade, it’s hard not to notice how closely this resembles the hereditary patterns we once fought a revolution to escape. While these families have undeniably produced capable public servants, the pattern itself raises a deeper question about whether our political culture has drifted toward a soft, unofficial form of monarchy. Political dynasties don’t emerge overnight. They grow through name recognition, donor networks, media familiarity, and the inertia of nostalgia. When voters see a familiar last name, it can feel safe—like choosing a brand they’ve bought before. But that comfort comes with a cost. It subtly discourages fresh voices, new ideas, and leaders who haven’t spent their entir...

     We were still at the lake in Massachusetts for the first days of autumn this year. I love slow mornings but this time, I let my coffee go cold. I was about to take my blood pressure medicine and was settling myself on the couch with my books and journal when I got distracted by a blur of white out the windows. What’s going on down there?   I pulled myself up off the couch, but when I walked out onto the porch, I couldn't quite see what I was looking at through the pines. As I continued to angle for a better view, I became Moses awed by the burning bush, and hurried myself down to the dock. I was still in my pajamas and barefoot.  There, on the cold wooden planks. Fog drifts. Wispy threads. Soft, white poufs hovered above the lake. Suspended in slow motion.   It was slightly after dawn, and overnight it seemed, nature had turned our lake into a steaming pot of water. I stood there, wanting to wake the whole lake to come and see these earth-borne clouds ...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 40 Man Recovers Accessibility Devices Joe McDonnell, 79 and residing in Palmville Township Minnesota, recently found his misplaced hearing aids right where he left them. "My wife and I were on our way to cut firewood," he tells the press. "I leave one of my hearing aids in so I can hear my wife. Once we get to the wood pile, I take my hearing aid out and put it in a little cubby in the dashboard of the truck before putting in my ear plugs and hearing protector earmuffs. For some reason I wore both hearing aids this day and put them both in the cubby. Once we had the truck filled, I put my aids back in. We decided to run the wood splitter the same day so it was the same routine with my aids and hearing protectors. When we were done splitting the wood, the aids were no longer in the cubby. I was nonplussed to say the least and forgot my methods for handling panic. After three minutes I remembered I had put my aids in a cubby in the car...

Hello and welcome to a spooky Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is October 31st. Happy Halloween. What a two-fer of a Saturday. We get Halloween and an extra hour before the daylight saving time switch. That's pretty great. When Halloween happens on a weekday, we race home to stick some dinner in our kids before racing out to hit the neighborhood trick-or-treating circuit before it gets too dark and/or too cold and/or too snowy. (The forecast looks good for tonight!)  On weeknights, some folks start their ghoulish galavanting as early as 4pm. I recall many a Halloween weeknight when the streets got eerily quiet and empty sometime between 7 and 8pm. I'm usually buoyed by the cheerful spirit of families and kids of all ages racing from house to house to beat the clock and ready to go well into the night. But when the porch lights are turned off, that's the end of it, so then we race home - ready or not - to get through the nighttime routine so kids can get to bed ...

     We just signed up with a new health care plan. Our company said they were losing too much money on our plan so they will be cancelling it at the end of the year. We had to decide if we should go cheap with limited options in a new plan or pay more and have more options that we may never need. Two men from the past faced similar dilemmas. The only comfort in knowing the outcomes of their decisions comes from knowing we're all in the same boat.    Dilemma 1: On this day in 1806, Prussian general Friedrich von Romberg was holding the city of Stettin in present day Poland with 5,300 Prussian soldiers. Two weeks earlier Napoleon had soundly defeated the Prussian army at the nearby battle of Jena. Napoleon was on a tear, taking over most of Europe. The French were chasing the Prussians back towards Berlin.  At Settin the French demanded von Romberg surrender the city. The day before, another Prussian city had surrendered to the French. A demoralized von Romb...

An excerpt from Sven & Ula Do Dingle . THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's  Original Art, History & Humor Journal  February 2003        Dingle, whose narrow streets, sidewalks and colorful, close-in buildings follow the contour of the undulating landscape, was indeed a quiet town. A car or two went by the four as they walked down the sidewalk along the canal the river ran. Few street lights were on the whole way and those that were weren’t harsh but instead lent a soft glow about the street that made even the shadows and the alleys seemingly non-threatening. It seemed that Dingle was merely a quiet sea port town along the Irish coast, where everyone was at home, in bed, by 7:00 pm. But not everybody, for in what was just another colorful building along a street across from a church with no lights over the door, and but a few shining through the small windows; nothing indicated what lay inside. A shadow was about the doorwell of the narrow red d...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for October 28, 2026, the forty-third Wednesday of the year, the sixth Wednesday of fall, the fourth Wednesday of October, and the three-hundred second day of the year, with sixty-four days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for October 28, 2026 Ring-Billed Gull Larus delawarensis — baashka'wa — in Anishinaabe now follow farmers doing fall tillage to pick up worms and other small animals in the soil. Their breeding habitat is near lakes, rivers, or the coast across most of Canada, and the northern United States. They nest colonially on the ground, often on islands, but also increasingly on flat factory or school roofs, especially in Warroad. The ring-billed gull is a familiar sight in Warroad parking lots and school fields, where it can regularly be found congregating in large numbers. This bird tends to be faithful to its nesting site, if not its mate, from year to year. They are omnivorous, their diet may include insects, ...

The End It comes for us all. The end of childhood. The end of adolescence. The end of each stage of life. The End. It waits like a bump in the road Inevitable You might hit it fast Or slow But you will hit it.   There is no avoiding it. The End We can see where we were Where we are  Never very clearly Where we will be Sometimes not at all The future is cloudy And then we reach The End Good people Bad people All people Even Wannaskan Almanac writers Reach that point The December 31, 2026 A date with density Or destiny The End

  THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING   SONG EIGHTEEN A VOICE BETWEEN   II Waking to dark Waking to sound             of boom thudding across from starboard to port I scramble on deck under noon-high moon,  check the wind’s shift, re-rig and secure, then settle back panting behind the sail. I am alone, yet somehow not. Are those blue arches cresting starboard of me?             or only moon-waves curling their tails?             or shadows cast from my own bright sails? It’s nothing, I think, yet re-membering green             I look to port searching for something unseen Nothing to port, starboard or ahead             one-hundred-eighty degrees of moon upon sea   But asudden ...