News you can use
News you can use
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One of my favorite fall sounds comes from the school playground a block from my house. If I am lucky enough to be home during recess, I hear the laughter of dozens of children — unfiltered joy filling the autumn breeze. This inspiring sound is being heard in neighborhoods across Montana as another school year begins. We hope each child is returning rejuvenated and eager to learn, with new school clothes and a backpack containing freshly sharpened pencils and a healthy lunch. Sadly, it is far from the truth for many Montana c...
Over the past few years, there’s been a push in this country to use our health care dollars more wisely. One way to do that is to shift the focus of our health care spending from treating disease to preventing it. We could save millions of dollars — and millions of lives, too. But that isn’t the direction our leaders are taking. Since 2010, Congress has significantly cut the budgets of public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration. It has not...
Storm alert: All points bulletin. High anxiety winds precipitate storm of indeterminate velocity and duration. Woman in full state of panic attack. Coordinates unknown. Situation critical. Last seen headed toward the deep end. Take cover. For no identifiable reason. At least, none I can put my finger on. Early morning. The phone rang. One of my readers called to wish me well; she showered me with words of encouragement, praised my courage, asked me questions. I bluffed my way...
Recently the U.S. House of Representatives passed Farm Bill legislation that removed the nutrition component that provides food for children, seniors, the disabled and others in need. If your intention were to eliminate or drastically reduce food going to those in need due to economic distress, this is the legislation you would pass. If your intention were to eliminate or drastically reduce the safety net for family farmers in America, this is the legislation you would pass. Nutrition has traditionally been part of the Farm...
If the eyes are the window to your soul, then the front door must be the big gaping hole to all your frustrations, and when you undertake the task of replacing it, it also becomes the symbol of all your incompetence. Or maybe when I say “you” it’s really only just me. It was a simple project: pull out the old door and frame, fix any water damaged lumber, slide in the new prehung door and then go to town for an ice cream cone. In and out, two days — tops. With hot, but stable w...
My house sold. My business is officially closed. My belongings are going on the auction block. About the time of first snow, I’ll head south of the border, down Mexico way. I am currently filling the gap between leaving my house and the first frozen flakes of impending winter with sorting and packing. If I didn’t have scads of business materials and tools and equipment, and if I didn’t have 4,500 books and if every wall in my house were not a gallery, the job would be simpl...
There I was laying on a bed in the fifth floor of Northern Montana Hospital, very much against my will. My doctor’s physician assistant told me gently — but in no uncertain terms — that I was to be hospitalized and that my input was not required. So, there I was, fearing the worst. What kind of treatment would I get at Northern Montana Hospital? Well, with apologies to Hi-Line detractors who say that nothing good comes out of our area, there is no better place to be in if you are under the weather than Northern Montana Hospi...
For socially conscious people unsure of what cause to champion this weekend, HuffingtonPost.com reports that Sunday, Aug. 25, is Go Topless Day. The Go Topless event — which HuffPo reports has spread to more than 40 cities in the U.S. and sympathetic countries — encourages women to go topless in public, while men supporting the movement cover their chests by wearing brassieres, bikinis or pasties. Organized in 2007 by the Raelians, a UFO-based religious group started in Nev...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate passed a commonsense immigration reform measure in a strongly bipartisan fashion. This was an important step in the right direction — especially for producers, farm workers and rural communities. The historic legislation passed by the Senate provides a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million people who are in our country today without authorization. They will have to go to the back of the line, pay fines and settle taxes they owe our nation. It would modernize the system that we u...
If you are really squeamish about icky boo-boos, you should just skip to the heartwarming ending in the last paragraph right now. If you’re only kind of squeamish, you should know that the finger isn’t actually dead, part of it simply feels that way ... and anybody disturbed by that little description ought to jump to the heartwarming ending as well. Just saying. The rest of you can know, now, that I smashed the end of my index finger. It’s the type of injury that natur...
It started out as a typical morning at coffee with the “boys.” I’ve been having coffee with the guys at City Shop around four years now. We show up any time after 6:00. The boss is there first and the coffee pot is full. “We” means the city employees (minus the clerks), a county commissioner, another councilperson and me. I’m there by invitation — honored to be accepted as “one of the boys.” Work starts at 8:00. I usually leave when the boss begins assigning the day’s tasks,...
I am a reasonably tolerant and lazy gardener. When an unsolicited seed shows up in my backyard, sprouts, shoots, flowers and flourishes, I’m open to letting it stick around. Unless the newcomer is a noxious weed. My work-free gardening philosophy has evolved over time. My Washington home sat perched on the crest of a hill, surrounded by two acres of dips and doodles, ups and downs, populated by trees, berries and shrubs galore. Natural landscaping was a breeze. I could spit a...
It is a dire and dirty job but somebody has to do it. Every night for the last week thunder rumbled while lightning forks split the sky and sundered the earth. Every night during the sky show, while rain pelted the town, I paced the floor, single-handedly keeping town and my part of the world safe from fires and mayhem. The responsibility weighs heavily on my sleepy shoulders. I decided to come out of the closet and confess to my prescient gift. I’m a weather witch. Really. S...
When I was younger, I spent countless hours hunched over a reloading vise, cranking out rifle and shotgun reloads for my days afield with gun in hand. Few experiences stirred my blood more than a trip to Herter’s in Waseca, Minn., where I’d spend my time admiring the unaffordable rifle actions and stocks that were poking out of barrels in a rear section of the store. My view of guns was closely associated with the romantic images found on the cover of Field and Stream magazine, and nobody in my small-town, Norman Roc...
Our class was small (graduating only twenty-three) but we were tight. Whatever we set our collective mind to do, we did it up right. Year after year we had the best float in the Home-Coming Parade, the best skit at the Carnival, the most innovative dance theme. Best of all, we were pals. Then we graduated and scattered to the winds. Back in ’05 while we were lined up for a class photo at the All-School Reunion, an every five-year event, Karen and Jesse suggested, “Why don...
Last week I found myself standing outside with hands on hips, shoulders and elbows spread wide, feet splayed shoulder-width apart, admiring the view down the coulee, and I asked myself a profound question: How long has it been since I last stood around in this Wonder Woman pose? It’s an important life question, but I’ll back up about 20 years or so to the beginning of the story. I had “dinged” my back slinging around some hefty hay bales. And by hefty I mean to say that th...
I walked into the empty gym at Harlem High. Not the same gym from which I graduated. Not the same school, but one rebuilt after a fire 25 years ago. The “Little Gym” and band room are the only remaining portions of the old structure. Bleachers flanked both sides of the gym floor. A balloon-lined pathway separated rows of chairs. At center back, a huge circular entrance arch, festooned for celebration. To the right, the band was practicing in the bleachers. Chairs on risers for...
If you are in need of a little inspiration, stop at next year’s Relay for Life at Havre High School. Cancer has torn apart many lives — lives of young people and old people. And both young and old were on hand Friday night to tell their stories of survival and offer encouragement to those who have recently discovered they have cancer. Their stories are inspirational. Dylan Hendrickson, 13, shrugged off the attention he was getting at Friday’s Relay for Life, but his parents, Scott and Jennifer, were proud of what he’d...
While I hate to pass along blonde jokes that disparage me and my fair-haired people, there’s an old blonde joke that goes: A blonde and a brunette were walking along outside one day, and the brunette said, “Aww, look at that poor dead bird.” And the blonde looked up, searching the sky frantically, and said, “Where?!” If you don’t get it: This is funny because the dead bird wouldn’t be in the sky where the blonde is looking. The live ones are up there. Of course, if I have to e...
I found a shirt online that I must have. It’s a simple black tee with the phrase “I Only Rap Caucasianally” printed on it in bold white letters. Yep, that’s me (no, not the bold, white part). I actually fancy myself quite the lyrical gangster. I can spit a rhyme like nobody’s business. OK, well … maybe not, but what I mean is, I like to sing along to old-school rap artists like Salt-n-Peppa and Snoop Dogg while I drive around in my car (which is not, as of yet, a tricked-out...
Henry David Thoreau would not have sought out my pond for inspiration for his “Walden” book and a philosophical life-experience where he could retreat from the world for two years, two months and two days. On the other hand, for a person with less lofty standards the frog pond foots the bill. Murky, mud-bottomed and sometimes algae-covered, it isn’t much of a pond, even in wet years, and in dry years it’s just a dusty depression. The frog pond is a remnant, no doubt, of a by...
A couple weeks ago I wrote about beating the system with Cheap-Flights-R-Us. Today I hang my head in defeat. I had bought a round-trip ticket on-line. Great Falls to Phoenix. My ultimate destination was Puerto Penasco in Mexico. Sky Harbor in Phoenix sprawls over miles of concourse. Imagine my surprise when my plane landed in this itty-bitty place, tossed me out onto the tarmac and I walked into Gateway Airport, smaller than Great Falls International, in Mesa, Arizona. I...
As year 12 is shaping up for the Havre Fourth of July Festival, the day promises to be full of sunshine, good music, good clean fun and good neighbors. I would like to personally invite the community down to Pepin Park on the Fourth of July to help celebrate our nation’s birthday. I have had a lot of fun organizing this event with my brother, Woody. I have made a lot of friends along the way, and a lot of memories along the way. I have probably stretched some of that friendship a little by putting them to work, but in the e...
“Oh, the places you’ll go!” Every child has a favorite book or storybook character. When they are little, they will listen to you read the same book to them over and over. As they get older, they may select an entire series of books to read with devotion. Reading opens the door to our imagination, exposing us to far-off places, interesting people and new ideas. That’s why the Office of Public Instruction and the governor’s office are working together to encourage Montana students in kindergarten through twelfth grade to...
The name George Custer is etched in the annals of U.S. and Montana history for the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Less well-known is that Custer may have been the man who won the Civil War. The incident, known mostly to Civil War buffs, occurred at the critical climax of that war’s decisive battle, at Gettysburg, on July 3 — 150 years ago Wednesday. Under the gifted leadership of General Robert E. Lee, the South had won a series of battles against attacking Union armies. The Confederates decided to become the att...
