Wannaskan Almanac

There are things that strike you and leaving you asking the question...how could I have not known that.  Take this for example:  We're Not Gonna Take it by Twisted Sister borrows the music progression from a Christmas carol.  Which one?  Well, listen to this. Sneaky.  I would have never guessed, but now I can't unhear it.  Here are some other things that people should know but often don't: 1.  Ventilation Often Backfires: We are taught that venting anger helps us "let it out." However, psychological studies show that aggressively venting (like punching a pillow or screaming or randomly ramming parked cars) actually prolongs and intensifies anger rather than diffusing it. Quieter reflection or distraction works much better.  That is why you should always silently look into a mirror. 2.  Hearing is the Last Sense to Go: When a person is dying or under heavy anesthesia, the auditory system remains functional longer than sight, touch, o...

  The woman had slept in. Now, sitting up and stretching, she yawns,  looks around the room, and thinks, Home invasion! She won’t be calling the police, but this looks bad. Only after her ritual read in bed does she look up again to survey the scene. The necklace she’d worn to church peeks out from the pile of laundry on the bureau. Her sunglasses loll on the floor asking to be stepped on. Last week’s unpacked suitcase doubles now as a doorstop. Before she’d gone out of town, she’d set aside a pile of random socks for matching. She sees them now, crowding together on top of the bookcase. On her way downstairs to make some breakfast she thinks she hears them griping because the others are still gone missing Mayhem reigned on the first floor too, and as our woman walks into the kitchen, she chuckles as she continues the inventory she’d begun in her messy room. After staying up too late watching some series, rimmed cups and rinsed dishes sit in the sink unwashed. Dried teabags, a...

  The Palmville Globe Volume 2 Number 22 Man Makes Things Go Joe McDonnell, 79 and a resident of Palmville Twp, Minnesota, and his wife Teresa, also residing in Palmville, recently purchased their first hybrid vehicle. "The vehicle requires some getting used to," McDonnell tells reporters. "We decided to take a cross country trip to familiarize ourselves with the controls and work out any bugs. One day after I was just getting used to having to wait for the green"Ready" light on the dash to come on before putting the vehicle in drive, we pulled into a scenic overlook in a remote area. After enjoying the view, I tried backing up and the vehicle would not move. In fact the "check engine" light was on. I was about to call our after-care specialist at the dealership. My wife said there was no cell service and suggested I turn everything off, wait 30 seconds,    and start over. I'm not sure what I had done wrong, but starting over solved the problem....

Hello and welcome to a summer camp Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is June 27th. Camps are a summer hallmark and staple. We have 4-H camps, church camps, sports camp, and the camp of all camps - LAKETRAILS - slotted in our summer schedule. Camps conjure images of singing around bonfires, capture the flag, bracelet braiding, KP duty, group activities in the lodge on a rainy afternoon, cannonballs and canoes, and chatting with your camp BFFs well past lights out. Good times that fuel adult nostalgia. Except when it doesn't quite go that way. Sometimes, instead of temporary unconditional love, bonding, and memories, kids get outcasted and labeled as awkward, quirky, or a misfit. This was my fear as I dropped my kid off last Sunday. "Everyone looks older than me," she observed, as we stood in line to check in. I assured her it was a camp just for 9th and 10th graders. After check-in with several cheerful volunteers, we were escorted to her dorm room - and that...

     For the Roman, all roads lead to Rome. For me, all roads lead to Boston, my natal home, and now the home of our three sons. The Roman could travel by foot or horse or by boat on the sea road. I have more choices. My civilization has built tools to carry me swiftly over smooth roads or through the air. I can still walk if I want. Another tool quickly calculates it would take 24 days to walk from our home in Wannaska to our son Ned's home in Marshfield, Massachusetts. We'll probably never take the walking route, nor the bike option even though a bike would cut our travel time to six days.    The tool making these calculators seems to harness the very spirits in the air. It provides pictures and maps of where we're going, tells where we can find food and lodging, and lets us communicate instantly with our hosts along the way. The internet has only become useful for travel in the last twenty years. We somehow made our way around the country without it, but I wo...

   Presumably I'll live to see my birthday on Saturday, June 27th. But I’ve never been this old before, well, that I know of anyway for I’m ignorant of such things. Yes, yes, yes, you read it here; I don’t know it all, and it’s never bothered me.        Well there’s so much importance made about ‘knowing it all’. On the other hand, i.e., oppositely, people who act like they ‘know it all’ are very often despised. So what’s a person to do? I don’t like to be ignorant of things in most cases; but equally don’t care to know it all because it involves so much of your life; I’m just not ambitious that way. Never have been. I like what I like and that’s it. Interests come to me from experiences with other people, through books, and through stories on the radio.       I have an ear and eye for details and subconsciously remember excerpts of conversation in which either I or others are participating. It seems a natural ability. M...

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for June 24, 2026, the twenty-fifth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of summer, the fourth Wednesday of June, and the one-hundred seventy-fifth day of the year, with one-hundred ninety days remaining. Wannaska Phenology Update for June 24, 2026 Columbine Aquilegia canadensis — misudidjiibik, in Anishinaabe — now blooming throughout Wannaska, s a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae (buttercups). Beloved by hummingbirds, columbines sport colorful flowers with five sepals and five petals, where the petals generally feature nectar spurs which differ in length between species. The first-century AD Greek writer Dioscorides referred to columbine plants as Isopyrum, a name that is now applied to another genus, Isopyrum. In the 12th century, the abbess and polymath Hildegard of Bingen referred to the plants as agleya – from which the genus's name in German, Akelei , derives. The first use of aqu...

It is that time again.  That special day when facts are thrown to the wind and my brain sinks to the depths of my bowels.  Here you are with another edition of fractured history. 1305 French-Flemish peace treaty signed at Athis-sur-Orge.  The French entourage showed up with a box of condoms after mis-translating as "at this sure orgy".  Their faces were indeed sacred blue. 1713 The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada.  Nova Scotians were outraged at the possiblity of having to live without French Toast.   Nova Scotia...known for a lack of French Toast but a lot of Sidney Crosby 1724 Russia and Turkey sign Treaty of Constantinople.  If it had happened in October, the ringers of the signing would have been constant in opal.   A constant in opal ring 1757 Battle of Plassey: British East India Company led by Robert Clive defeats the army of the Nawab of Bengal, wining co...

  THIRD MOVEMENT REMEMBERING   SONG FIFTEEN BONES               A singular journey          A journey of One             Three thousand years of sailing away             far from the shores – sailing the waves             writing the story on the sea’s blank face                 I re-member a place of light and heat             where every step was lucent and free             much like this fluid space under stars             much like this g...