News you can use
News you can use
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 29
At Easter Sunday dinner Pearl and I decided to have a yard sale. My closets were cluttered and the basement was stuffed. Pearl had equal excess. We had things we had not seen in years. We figured the middle of July would be a great time to hold the sale. We chose Wednesday, July 21. We decided to hold it at my house, situated as it is on a main street, with a wide concrete driveway. Pearl tacked up flyers around town. We checked the weather oracle. Sunny with a few clouds. Temperatures in the high 70s. Precipitation zero....
I received an invitation to read my poetry in Seattle. It was a giant boost to my ego. I drove a thousand miles to be a featured reader in front of a group of friends and fellow poets in a Seattle-area coffeehouse. I miss my poet friends. Having an audience is vital to my creative process. When I read my poetry aloud, I hear things on a visceral level that I otherwise miss. In three weeks I jammed and crammed a lot of visiting. More precious than gold are my friends, my relatives and my grandchildren. It is good for me to... Full story
When I was growing up I learned that it was important that I always get it "Right", do things the "Right Way". The "Right Way" was never spelled out for me. So I had to watch like a hawk and hope to figure "It" out. But, if I did not catch on in time, I caught a different "It." This "It" meant a willow switch to the back of my legs or humiliation or harsh words. "Antoinette insisted we put together a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle," my daughter announced with laughter. "Five hundred pieces! But Annie is only 4. She won't have the...
When I was growing up I learned that it was important that I always get it "Right", do things the "Right Way". The "Right Way" was never spelled out for me. So I had to watch like a hawk and hope to figure "It" out. But, if I did not catch on in time, I caught a different "It." This "It" meant a willow switch to the back of my legs or humiliation or harsh words. "Antoinette insisted we put together a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle," my daughter announced with laughter. "Five hundred pieces! But Annie is only 4. She won't have the... Full story
Last night our Harlem Housing Study Committee reported their findings to the Planning Board. They had spent months assessing past reports and studies. Then they counted the current dwelling units, identified the rentals, the owner occupied units and the mobile homes. They compiled this and more information and identified trends from the past 15 years. They also amassed information about housing help programs. In short, their study was comprehensive. As is true for most communities, housing needs in Harlem cannot be shoved...
I've been thinking about how all along the Hi-Line small towns are shrinking and how we need to give serious thought to economic development. Actually, I was giving serious thought to my next vacation when this problem and its perfect solution popped into my brain. What started this thought process was my fingernails. After this long and bitterly cold winter, my fingernails are fragile, almost brittle. Contemplating my nails led me to memories of my last vacation in Mazatlan, along the west coast of Mexico, with my friend...
Last fall in Chinook I saw a marvelous play about the great storyteller, Edgar Allen Poe, presented by the talented young actors of the Montana Repertory Theatre. One thing I took home from this play, and that has stuck with me, is the idea of "Poe Moments." Poe Moments are those wonderfully evil thoughts we all typically have when confronted with an annoying person or situation. Unless one is a psychotic serial killer, and let's assume we are not, we do not act on the thoughts; we sweep them beneath the rug of consciousness.... Full story
Ah, the thrill of the chase. The anticipation of pursuit. Stalking the quarry, sneaking through the brush, the grasses, the thistles, the wild rose, warily parting the fronds and peering with expectation. My delight at spotting my prey. Something of the pioneer courses through my blood when I venture forth to bring home the bacon, so to speak. It is hard to describe my satisfaction upon my return with larder for the pantry. I feel like a mighty hunter who evaded the wooly mammoth, outwitted the saber-toothed tiger and...
Eudaemonia: the state of happily following our daemons. A friend sent me this word, knowing it would intrigue me. I like words. I like this word. I like the way it sounds. I like the way it feels on my tongue. For several months I have had this word thumb-tacked above my computer. I studied it from time to time. I mused about my own state of eudaemonia. I wondered just what specific daemons I was following. With our spate of beautiful weather, such a long time in arriving, I finally identified one of my daemons. No matter... Full story
We drove south out of Dodson, up onto the plateau and out toward the mountains. We passed the turn off at the long dirt road to the place where I used to live, a life-time ago. I recognized the same barbed-wire gate. Sun dappled the hills. A slight breeze teased the grasses. A perfect day. Signs marked "Auction" pointed us in the right direction. Oak pallets, each heaped with an assortment of goods, snaked across the field. Beyond the pallets, lined out like an old-soldiers honor guard at a funeral, slumped dozens of derelict... Full story
Last week I rode the Iron Horse from Havre to Spokane to care for Antoinette, my 4-year old granddaughter, while her mom attended a conference. We had a great time exploring the walking trails and the playgrounds at Riverfront Park. She especially loved the giant Radio Flyer wagon slide and the fountains. I indulged her every whim. It was hard to say goodbye. But at 1:30 Saturday morning I boarded the Empire Builder, tucked myself into my roomy coach seat and closed my eyes to sleep what was left of the night. At first call...
Along with hundreds of other folks from the Hi-Line, from cities and towns throughout Eastern Montana and with a few tourists from our sister state, Western Montana, I celebrated a shared heritage at the 61st Annual Montana Seed Show in Harlem last weekend. I like that it is called the "Montana" Seed Show, not the "Harlem" Seed Show. It demonstrates an inclusiveness that reaches beyond regionalism. And in a historically appropriate way, it took place at the high school, the traditional hub of every small-town community. The... Full story
I wish I could have returned to Indiana for Aunt JoAnne's funeral. But more than that, I wish I could have been there to spend time with her and with all of you before she died. She was very special to me. My earliest memories of Aunt Jo are of the time when she lived in a handsome brick apartment building on Park Avenue in Indianapolis, before she married Uncle Lee. I thought it the most elegant place. One rode up in an elevator. Her apartment spread over an entire floor with bay windows in front and a back porch with...
My friends, David and Vidya from Washington state, are visiting me. You might remember them from a column I wrote last year in which they were almost stranded in Saskatchewan, frantically searching for their passports at the Monchy border crossing. Well, they are back again. One morning David was paging through the Havre and Hi-Line Visitor's Guide. He said, "Where's Gildford? It says here they are having a Centennial celebration on Saturday. I bet that'll be fun." So we decided we would go. Saturday, after a leisurely...
"I fell in love with him because he smelled like horses and leather," I told Karen. "He swung me up on his rope horse and taught me to ride. Well, the horse taught me to ride. My husband taught me to notice things along the trail. I had a tendency to ride with my head down, looking for rattlesnakes. He taught me instead to pay attention to my horse's ears, which would twitch and point if he saw a snake along the way. When I didn't have to worry about snakes, I learned to look out over the land. We rode for fun every evening,...
I am writing this with profuse apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose "Locksley Hall," from which this phrase is butchered, goes on and on, and is not one bit cheerful. I promise not to go on and on that much. Until today I had not read this poem since high school, but, inspired by Tennyson, I give you the following florid prose. Now that our drifted snow has melted, my tulips bravely lift their fluted arms toward the sun, nubbins of rhubarb emerge like a phoenix rising from the ashy heap of last year's leaves, the golden... Full story
Back when I lived in the Windy City, I subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, called by its publisher, Colonel McCormick, the "World's Greatest Newspaper." In those days it listed further to the right than any newspaper in existence. This was the paper which ran the famous banner headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman." The Sunday edition was approximately four inches thick and so heavy I had to separate it and drag it into the house one section at a time. If I plunked the whole thing on the coffee table all at once, the legs splayed...
Donna and Linda from Lincoln invited Karen, who is from Floweree, and me to pick huckleberries. I had important business in Malta Saturday morning, so I took the long route, but that is another story. I met Karen at her house at the end of the gravel road down in Floweree. Karen's husband Don loaded our gear into her SUV. Neither Karen nor I had ever picked huckleberries, so we had no idea what to expect. Rookies that we were, we thought picking huckleberries would be like shucking corn. We each brought along a cooler and...
I love trains. And that is a good thing because my home is plunk across the street from the tracks. I never did figure out why my Dad built his house here, where the trains practically run through the living room. He never did say. Maybe Dad liked trains too. I remember summer times when, out in the fields, we would hear the whistle and stop our work to watch the Empire Builder roll by. To this day, when I hear that lonesome whistle blow, I bless Hank Williams and fight off a hankering to hit the rails. Back in high school my...
Life is Big. I met Sharon at a workshop at Mt. Shasta, Calif., in 1992. We all sat in a circle and introduced ourselves. The workshop leader asked us to buddy up, explaining that we were to work in teams of two. Sharon and I looked across the circle, nodded and grinned. Instant buddies. That week we forged a friendship. Our lives were vastly different. I lived in a house in the woods in rural Poulsbo, Wash. Sharon had an apartment in the heart of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Sharon, a single woman, had traveled all...
This morning, while I was bent over in my garden pulling weeds, the phone rang. I finished dead-heading the petunias and went indoors to listen to the message on voice mail. It was a woman with ideas. She didn't leave her name. She must have noticed that periodically, in this column, I express concern for the financial future of the dwindling town of Harlem. She had answers. I liked her suggestions. She thinks like me. Thank you, whoever you are. I have taken your ideas and run with them. In fact, I talked with my business pa... Full story
Shhhhh. Yes, you out there. It's me, Ruth. I've been waiting for a chance to talk with you. Sondra's off in some la-la land daydream, and if we are tip-toe quiet, she might stay there long enough to let me speak. I became part of her life in the hospital in Bangalore, India, where I replaced her bungled up right knee. I am state of the art, you know. Without me she wouldn't have a leg to stand on. How quickly she forgets the day we met. We had been partnered up, so to speak, four days before she finally thought to ask me my... Full story
Raspberry jam on toast — a treat to the tongue; raspberry jelly — a ruby jewel; raspberry syrup drizzled on pancakes — perfection; raspberry pie — divine. At the rear of my lot sits a cabin. Originally it sat where my house is now, home to one of Harlem's original families. At present it houses garden tools and junk. Since my only tools consist of trowel, shovel, rake, pitchfork, and two hand-held whickerwhackers, the cabin mostly holds junk. Its chief purpose is to provide a backdrop for my raspberry patch, for the ground...
Today in Harlem, I attended a rite of passage, eighth grade graduation. I am a sucker for ceremony. As the young people promenaded two by two through the decorated arch and up the aisle, tears rolled down my face. I felt as if I had stepped into a time machine. Long buried memories of my own eighthgrade graduation flooded my mind. I leaned over to Karolee, "When we were in school, was graduation held in the cafeteria or the pit? I can't remember." The pit was a sunken gymnasium in the old section of the grade school, a place... Full story
My Grandma, who raised my baby sister and me, had made matching dresses for us from sheer white organza flocked with sprinkles of yellow flowers flanked by green leaves. Grandma, an accomplished seamstress, made all our clothing. She also stitched beautiful white underslips, the tops smocked in a cable stitch with white embroidery thread, the skirts gathered, the perfect background to float the flowered dresses. It was early spring, the air redolent with lilacs. My sister was nearly 2 years old, and I had either just turned...
