I was cruising toward the end of a really good week. Dakota was dancing, the sun was shining, there were catkins on the aspens, and I had a pretty good start, I thought, on Tomato Season, with a bunch of little two-inch tall seedlings under the grow lights downstairs. Actually, I had been puzzling a … Continue reading A Tomato Disaster. And Revenge.

Just a quick update and reminder: In just a few hours, today, Thursday, March 27, at 4:30 p.m., North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong will hold a formal bill-signing in the Great Hall of the North Dakota Capitol Building naming our friend Chuck Suchy as the North Dakota Troubadour. He'll also sign another bill naming Chuck's … Continue reading Dancing Dakota Today

This Thursday, March 27, at 4:30 p.m., Gov. Kelly Armstrong will sign HB 1397 into law, officially designating Chuck Suchy’s song, “Dancing Dakota” as the North Dakota State Waltz. He’s going to sign it in the Great Hall of the North Dakota Capitol. Chuck will be there. He’ll sing the new North Dakota State Waltz. … Continue reading ‘Dancing Dakota’

In all my years of providing public information in my various existences, I’ve learned that there’s one news source that can always be trusted: the Associated Press (AP). I could tell stories going back to my early newspaper days in the 1960s about how much the American media has relies on the AP over all … Continue reading It’s Not Just The Bismarck FWS Office In Danger Of Closing

UPDATE: At 2:13 today the North Dakota Senate killed HB 1255 by a vote of 6-41. But the battle's not over. Now we have to get money into the appropriations bill. Read on for the full story. I’m writing this story early Monday morning. I’m writing two lead paragraphs, one of which I will use … Continue reading Will We Defund Prairie Public?

            It’s beginning to look like the rumors on the street are true: The Trump-Musk-Burgum administration is setting the wheels in motion to close the North Dakota office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Bismarck.             I’m told that about half a dozen “probationary” employees—those who … Continue reading Is The Fish and Wildlife Service Office Threatened With Closure?

I’m going to write about Daylight Savings Time today. Let me say at the outset that I don’t like Daylight Savings Time. I am a morning person. I like it when the sun is up before me, so I can spend most of my time in the daylight. I am also old, and go to … Continue reading A Modest Proposal (With Apologies To Jonathan Swift)

For most of the last ten days there was at least 100 degrees difference in the temperature where I was eating, sleeping, and playing, and the temperature in my back yard in Bismarck. The colors are different too. White where I came from, green where I am now. That’s the reason Lillian and I came … Continue reading Halfway Through A Winter Odyssey

But Tom Robbins lived a long time. He was 92 when he died Sunday. Still . . . I wish he’d written just one more book. I could never get enough of him. I never met Tom Robbins. But I came close. It was long ago, back in 1990 or ‘91, when I was North … Continue reading Tom Robbins Is Dead. Dang.

            A few years ago, Lillian and her sister and her niece took a long trip to England, about three weeks, I think. About two weeks in, I was folding laundry one morning, and when I was done, I looked down and noticed the laundry was all mine. Not a single thing of hers.             … Continue reading Monday Morning Musings