Celebrating Spring

We survived another winter!! With the warmer temps I love to get out and enjoy nature. Of course Amy and I always love a good photo shoot as well. That dragon fly I discovered just resting on the porch. He was huge. He was a very good subject, sitting still while I got my shot. And as you can see the apple blossoms have come out to grace us with their presence. We have a lot to celebrate.

Put on your Hats

This proves that Greg really graduated! From July 1980, that's about the right year isn't it?

The Lyncher In Me

I was listening to MPR recently and my ears perked up when I heard 'Duluth' and 'lynching'. A man named Warren Read was being interviewed about his new book, The Lyncher In Me. I immediately realized I had to read it. It's amazing - growing up in Duluth and knowing almost nothing about the lynching of 1920. Did any of you ever learn about it in school? It seems like it would've been a great teaching opportunity. It should've been a required unit as part of the high school history curiculum.

The book was very interesting. Read wrote the book shortly after he discovered that his great grandfather had been one of the ring leaders of the mob - one of three people to spend a short time in prison for it. The questions started flooding into my mind. There were 10,000 people in the mob. Was our grandfather involved? Certainly he would have at least known people who were involved. Did dad ever discuss anything of what he'd heard of the lynching with any of you? It sounds like the girl who claimed she was raped lived real close to our house in West Duluth.

Unbelievably, the picture above was made into a postcard! Can you imagine sending a postcard like that?

In the book Mr. Read roams back and forth between the lynchings, his mother's dysfunctional family, and then his own dysfunctional upbringing.

A memorial has been established - the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial - to the memory of the three young men who were killed that day. It's right across the street from where the lynching took place (2nd Av E and 1st St I believe).

Have any of you seen it? The opening ceremony was in 2003. (Video)

Hiking Trail

A friend emailed this 6 minute hiking movie. It's kind of exciting to just watch.

Please be Seated - July 1978

I was scanning some slides and came across these relaxing photos from July 1978.

Pre-Cavities, Crowns and Root Canals

My parents decided to indulge their grown up daughters this year and so we got Easter baskets just like the good old days. Notice the size of my dads basket....some people just never grow up. Hope everyone had a happy easter and congrats Heidi and John on the baby. I'm excited for you guys.

Medical Update

I realize that we have come upon lean times for the blog lately. The above photo is a sign that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. If it would be any help, there is now a quick way to link other webpages to your posts. There is a little chain and globe symbol that you click on after you highlight a word and write the web address in the space provided.

Or, when you run out of stuff to say you can always have an organ recital. Here are three from Alaska and Washington.

1. I now have a new GOLD tooth to cover up an old toothache. I also got a day of sick leave to sit in the dentist chair for about 4 hours to get a root canal, and lost 7 pounds due to difficult eating and penicillan antibiotic that cleaned me out. It's called the toothache diet.
   
2. Holly is now minus her appendix as of last month. She is feeling good now.
   
3. Congratulations to John and Heidi. Heidi is pregnant, so we will be grandparents in October!

Hope you are all doing good. Maybe you have some better photos also.

We were in Anacortes a week ago and i put some new posts on marks alaska blog. There will be some more coming soon.

We need more comments just to know everyone is alive and well....

Nobody Motorcycle Club

Snowman, Machine, Kickstand, Pretzel

If you happen to be stuck behind this slow moving motorcycle club somewhere in northern Minnesota, please be careful when you pass because our good friend Tom Bergum (Kickstand) is probably near the back of the pack. Be sure you click the title to see Tom's blog.

An Interesting Book

Thought some of you might enjoy Glenn Becks perspective on many issues.
By the way is anyone still there? This March 17 post is getting old. (See Below)

Two More from Travailles

Greetings from Travailles

Tim handed me 6 photos from his parents that they thought we'd enjoy. This first one is a test of my new high speed connection. I'm not going to reduce this, as I usually do, to less than 100 mb. I'm just going to send it as is and see what happens.

Are We Rome?

I recently read an interesting, well written book comparing ancient Rome at it's height to modern America. If you google 'Are We Rome' you will find many links to reviews etc. It was interesting to read about Rome's history and see the parallels that we are repeating today. Below is an exerpt from a review on Amazon.com written by Daniel B. Clendenin: (i made the bold words)
"After a short prologue, Murphy devotes one chapter each to six parallels of "direct relevance" between ancient Rome and modern America. Both empires exhibit the symptoms of solipsism-- an exaggerated self-identity, the isolating effects of exceptionalism, ignorance of others, the presumptions of privilege, and sheer arrogance. Militarism characterizes both societies. Today America has 700 bases in 60 countries, and in any one year will conduct "operations" of some sort in 170 countries. Murphy suggests that our military is both "too large to be affordable, and too small to do everything it is asked to do." He then turns to how America has blurred the distinctions between the private and public (government) sectors, "the deflection of public purpose by private interest." Outsourcing government responsibilities might be effective and even necessary, but selling the public good for private profit isn't. The fourth parallel between Rome and America is the disdain with which both view outsiders ("barbarians") as inferior. Fifth, Murphy explores the complex notion of borders, both literal (eg, immigration) and figurative. Finally, in his epilogue he examines the "inherent complexity" of large empires like Rome and America. Are they ungovernable?"
An interesting observation was made in the epilogue that the 'fall' was really not noticeable until decades after it happened. Finding the peak of an empire is much harder to find than say the peak of a stock price. Many aspects of the Roman empire carried on even centuries after it's apex. After reading this book i wonder has America reached it's peak already? What can we do as a nation and as individuals to improve life in this country and the world? Murphy talks about his book if you click here.

Mighty Casey Has Struck Out!

Alas, for Paul and Faith and all their kids and the people of Roseau and all the people living in north western Minnesota and everybody in the world who likes to cheer for the little guy. The undefeated Roseau hockey team, tiny in size but mighty in spirit, the team the experts thought would win it all handily, met its tragic fate and got trounced by Hill Murray. What was it. . .the semi finals? So don't expect to hear anything from Paul for many a day. He is, I'm sure, numb and paralyzed with grief.

From the Archives

We borrowed a slide projector for 3 days from the library and then got my scanner running on windows vista. Here are 5 slides that were pretty good. It takes about 10 minutes to do each batch of 4 slides that become JPEG's. These are from 1976 except for the Halsey street house which is from 1971. Hope you enjoy them.

Beaten/Unbeaten

Global warming? Bring it on. Yes, it's been very cold up here for the past month or so. I'm sure that's why I haven't been posting lately.

JaNae was a battered wife in the one-act play this year. Their play, 'Dragons', was very good. It took first place at sections. They certainly would have won the regional competition, also, if the judges would have chosen the most emotional play. JaNae did a great job, as did her make-up team.

While we're on the subject - the Roseau boys hockey team is 25-0 this season. They're rated #1 in the state heading into the playoffs which begin tomorrow.

And, speaking of hockey, the girls hockey team is headed to state for the first time. They will be playing their first game on Wednesday.

Frozen Computers???

I heard that Paul had some cool weather way up there in Northern Minnesota. Have your computers frozen?? We haven't seen any blogger postings lately. Have you begun to thaw out yet?

Christoffer is a homeowner!

Here are a few shots of the house CBS bought a few weeks ago. He is about 4 miles away from us.

Stepping Boldly into the 21st Century

The Lindstroms have been quiet for awhile. One reason is that the Lindstroms have moved from a dial up connection to high speed access. We have been spending the past few weeks enjoying the new "wonderful world of color"!

Things have been quiet here (quiet is good). So as an excuse for announcing our coming out I have posted a picture from the delightful "three kings" celebration at Greg and Denise's house, documenting my wife's thorough delight and approval of the anticipation of the wedding of Amy and Jadon.

Christmas Day

This post finishes the items on Christmas at the Lindstroms. One tradition we have is to work on a puzzle.

The puzzle needs to be difficult in some way or other. This year there were two dimensions to the difficulty. The first degree was color: every piece was a shade of blue.

Second was speed: we needed to put pieces together faster than Pepper could pull them asunder.

More Egg Nog for crying out loud!!!