Category Archives: education

2025, education, Family, Kids, Uncategorized

Welcome Back!

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Today is the first day of school here in our town’s public schools, the parochial schools, and all the schools in the neighboring smaller communities. It is, if course, one of the hottest days we will have all summer.

I believe that all the school buildings in our public schools here have air conditioning. We certainly didn’t have it when I was in elementary school or high school. The public schools here didn’t have it until after our children started school in the 1990’s. I don’t remember being really hot in my unairconditioned classrooms. Perhaps we were just more accustomed to functioning in hot buildings.

What I do remember about the first day of school is the excitement I felt the night before and being unable to sleep. My favorite elementary teacher was Mrs. Remme, Grade 3, who was a really energetic woman who loved bringing exciting things like butterfly cocoons into the classroom and having us watch them hatch. She also could have cared less about neat handwriting, which was a good thing for me since no matter how hard I tried, I could never write neatly in cursive.

My least favorite elementary teacher was Mrs. Peterson, Grade 4, a bitter woman who complained how she was bilked by door to door bible salesmen after her husband died. She also talked a lot about cooking lentils, and how it was a sad thing that we didn’t have more lentils in our diets. She went on to be an elementary principal in Iowa somewhere.

Who were your favorite/least favorite elementary teachers? How is your handwriting these days? Memories of first days of school?

2025, Art, education, Kids, sports, Uncategorized

A New Logo

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The big local news here lately is that the public high school mascot/logo is being retired. We are known as the Dickinson Midgets. We have apparently been Midgets for 100 years.

What is even bigger news is that virtually no one is protesting the change. The school board tried to change the name in 1996, and the whole board was recalled in a special election by disgruntled citizens who wouldn’t stand for a new mascot. This time, things are different, and students talk openly about how embarrassing the mascot is. Another good reason for a new mascot now is that they are renovating the gymnasium, and they can incorporate the new mascot logo into the gym floor. It will save money in the long run, you see. It will be good to have this little guy put to rest.

The superintendent asked for ideas for a new mascot and had 850 entries. A committee of students and faculty settled on two: The Defenders or The Mavericks. Both ideas seem pretty palatable to me, and seem to go well with our Old West ethos out here.

What was your school mascot? What are some of the sillier mascots you have heard of? Make up some new school mascot names.

2025, education, Farming Update, Food, Uncategorized

Maple-ing. The Work

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I spent a few days down at the farm of my godson last week; he invited me down to see his process for making maple syrup.  The past few years I’ve been the recipient of his syrup and have asked quite a few questions.   He thought I would like to see you it’s done – he was correct.

We started at 6:45 a.m. by getting the fire pit going.  He does his boiling out in the open – no hut or roof or anything.  You have to watch the weather forecast carefully when you do it this way.  The three pans fit right over the edges and we filled them about 2/3 full of sap.  With the 10 gallons that we harvested that day, we were working with 60 gallons total.

After about 5 hours, the farthest two pans started to darken as the water in the sap boiled off; the closest pan, due to being near the opening for adding wood, didn’t boil quite as vigorously.  We spent a far amount of time transferring from this pan into the darker pans.  That way we only added cold sap to the closest pan.  It takes quite some time to boil down 60 gallons of sap so we were still at it into the night.  The fire kept us warm as the temperature started to drop and it rained (lightly) for about 40 minutes.

When we had it all boiled down to about 3 gallons, we closed up shop and moved the syrup into the kitchen, where it sat overnight.  There was about an hour more of boiling on the stovetop the next morning.  There was quite a bit of fiddling with it, using a hydrometer to make sure it was the right density.  Not dense enough and the syrup can develop mold, too dense and the syrup crystallizes.  At that point we had about 2½ gallons and we filtered it through a very heavy duty filter that was hung from a camera tripod; why purchase something when the camera tripod works wonders?

Then all that was left was to get the syrup into bottles.  Although I had worked hard the day before, the bottling was the only thing I really helped with all morning.  It was really a one-person operation once it moved inside. 

Seems like a LOT of work (16 hours on Friday and 4 hours on Saturday) for the amount of syrup we got but I will say that the ½ cup that was left over after bottling, that we all ate with spoons was probably the best syrup I’ve had in my life.  See the bottle with the green cap in the photo above, that is a little larger than the other bottles?  That’s the one I claimed. 

What do you like to pour maple syrup on?

2025, education, Gatherings, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

School Dance

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Our community of 28,000 people has four Catholic churches and a very large parochial school system. The churches were originally started for and attended by the various immigrant groups who settled here. The Germans from Russia and the German Hungarians attended St. Joseph’s Church on the south side (less affluent section) of town by the railroad tracks and stockyards. The more affluent Czech immigrants attended St. Wenceslaus, north of the tracks, and the most affluent attended St. Patrick’s Church in the downtown area. The 1970’s oil boom led to a need for another church, Queen of Peace, built in the area of new houses near the interstate.

The Catholic School system has a big Mardi Gras celebration/fundraiser every your during the first weekend of February, ostensibly close to when Mardi Gras happens, although this year it was way earlier than Mardi Gras since Easter is so late this year. The festivities take place at the Catholic High School, just a block from our house. We have never attended, but I understand that every year it is the same with games of chance, big dinners, cakewalks, and fun activities for children. This year, however, they added something quite surprising-dance lessons.

Local dance teachers came to teach Line dancing and Swing dancing, and most surprising, Salsa dancing. We have a fair number of immigrants from Central and South America, and a group of them started a Salsa dance company that is apparently very popular and booked way out for for engagements. They also perform every December 12 at Queen of Peace in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I found a video of Salsa dancing, and it just doesn’t fit the conservative stereotype of our Catholic community.

Can you imagine this happening at a Mass? It sounds like everyone at Mardi Gras had fun learning the moves. What next?

What are your memories of school dances? What is your favorite way to dance?

2025, animals, education, pets, Theatre, Travel, Uncategorized

Home Away From Home

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Last year our local college terminated the Theatre, Music, and English departments. There is a rather fine auditorium at the college that has remained pretty silent and unused for the last while. It is in the main building on campus and is surrounded by the library and classrooms. There are multiple ways of accessing the other rooms and hallways from the auditorium.

The Badlands Opera Company is putting on Into The Woods in a couple of months. They often use our church sanctuary for their productions, but this time they are using the college auditorium. Last week the Opera Company folks paid a visit to the auditorium to scope out the place and see what they would need to do to get it up and running. There is a loft above the stage that was used for costumes and props. It was left in incredible disarray by the theatre faculty as a sort of “screw you” to the college administration. Much to the Opera Company folks surprise, they noticed a cat sticking its head from out of the loft ceiling. They also noticed a litter box and the personal effects of someone who had been squatting in the loft.

They phoned the police and campus security, who secured the auditorium and found another cat. Both cats were taken to the city animal shelter. They also figured out who had been living in the loft and had him get his stuff out. I don’t know how long the guy had been living there. The college is upping its security. The Opera Company folks decided that they would only go to the auditorium in groups of three from now on. It was interesting that public comment indicated more concern about the welfare of the cats than the fact that someone had been living in the theatre loft. I hope they are comfortable in their new digs at the animal shelter.

What is the most memorable hotel you ever stayed at? What hotel would you like to stay in if you got the chance.?

2025, education, Mysteries, Words

Weird Words

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Vocabulary has always been a fun topic for me.  It started in the fifth grade when Mrs. McCracken offered extra credit if we found the week’s vocabulary words out and about in the real world (books, newspaper, etc.) 

I get an email every day with a new vocabulary word from a dictionary site.  I’d say that about 60% of the time, I know the word or can work it out based on its parts.  Nothing else, just a few seconds of each day.

But in the last couple of weeks I’ve come across two that not only did I not know, but I had to look up how they would be used in a sentence to make sense of them. 

Animadvert – to comment unfavorably or critically.  First recorded in 1630–40.  From the Latin animadvertere, meaning “to heed, censure;” combines animum, meaning “mind,” + advertere, meaning “to notice or advert¹.”   Here are two examples.  “The famous director was not afraid to animadvert on the lack of originality in modern filmmaking” and “The union leaders publicly animadverted on the company’s decision to cut wages, arguing it was retaliation”. 

Carpophagous – feed on fruit, fruit-eating.  First recorded in 1830–40.   Combines carpo-¹, meaning “fruit,” + -phagous, meaning “eating.”   Again, two examples.  “The carpophagous bat species are crucial for pollination as they feed on nectar and fruit” and “The carpophagous diet of the iguana primarily consists of fruits and leafy greens”. 

Both of these words strike me as not being too useful these days.  I suppose in biology circles you might eventually stumble across carpophagous but even having sentences for animadvert, I’m having trouble imagining anybody using it these days.  I could be wrong – but I don’t think so (Monk theme song…)

Any words you think the English language would be better off without?

2025, Business, education, Uncategorized

Out With the Old

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Most of my adult life, the new year has come with the headache (mild) of having to remember to write the correct year on forms and checks, mostly checks.  I can’t even guess how many times into a new year I have still been writing the old year in the date.

As I changed out all my calendars this morning, I thought was thinking about this problem and realized that it’s not much of a problem anymore.  I write almost no checks anymore.  I still write a check to Bachmans most months since they do not have any kind of online billing yet.  And the place where I pick strawberries in the spring and raspberries in the fall still needs a check.  Even the apple picking place accepts cards now.  Since I write so few checks, writing the date isn’t as automatic as it used to be either.  Of course, I haven’t had to order checks for a couple of years now.

When I got my first checking account, my mother spent a couple of hours teaching me how to balance my checkbook, which I did religiously for decades.  These days I check my bank stuff online every few days so even balancing the checkbook has gone by the wayside. 

Do you still write many checks?  How do you remember the new year’s date?

2024, books, education, Movies, Music, Uncategorized

Excuse Me?

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I’m re-reading Fried Green Tomatoes for Sunday – not sure the first time I read it but it was quite some time ago, before the movie.

In the chapter about Stump and his friend Peggy taking a picture of the dead Harold Pinto, Fannie Flagg writes that “Peggy screamed … and Stump squealed like a girl.” I did a double-take and re-wound the CD a bit to make sure I’d heard it correctly. Ticked me off.

That made me think about the end of Sahara, a movie that I adore even though it has so many plot holes that you could strain rice through it, when the Matthew McConaughy characters says “you do throw like a girl”.  This pisses me off every time I watch the movie.  Since it’s the very end of the movie, often I just turn it off at the beginning of that scene.

Guess I have trouble with phrases ending “like a little girl”.  I don’t even like the Bob Dylan song although “she breaks just like a little girl” isn’t quite as derogatory as the usual “like a girl” comment.

Run like a girl, cry like a girl, squeal like a girl, throw like a girl, drive like a girl (one of those Allstate Mayhem commercials) – these all drive me crazy. 

I guess don’t really have anything else to say – just ranting today.

Any words/phrases that make you nuts?  Anything you need to rant about?

2024, Automotive, education, History, Kids, Uncategorized

What’s Your Ride?

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I made it home from South Dakota early yesterday afternoon. There were lots of newspapers waiting for me to go through. We subscribe to print editions of the Bismarck Tribune (6 days a week), the Dickinson Press (1 day a week), and the Rock County Star Herald (1 day a week). They are usually delivered on time. I was only gone 4 days , but that still left a lot of news to read.

I was tickled by an article in the Star Herald about Luverne’s recent High School Homecoming and the ABC Parade (Anything But A Car), which challenged students to drive on a parade route from the ice arena across town to the high school in unusual vehicles. Motorcycles were the most common, followed by tractors, lawn mowers. scooters, golf carts, a race car, a bulldozer, and a dump truck. How fun!

My first vehicle was a very old Nash Rambler my dad got very cheap from someone in 1973. I graduated to a Chevy Chevette when I got to college. I would probably have driven in an ABC Parade in one of my Dad’s U-Haul trucks. No CDL needed for that!

What did you drive to school in? What was your first vehicle? Ever been in a parade? What news outlets do you subscribe to?

2024, education, Family, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Happy Kids Music Day

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The National Day folks have determined that today is National Kids Music Day, to emphasize the importance of music education for children.

My first music teacher in school was Miss Roesetter, who studied music in Paris at the Sorbonne. How she ended up in a small, rural school in Minnesota I’ll never know. Our school was blessed with wonderful band directors, most who had been educated at Luther College. Husband played cello in his school orchestra. Son played trombone. Daughter played piano, French Horn, and violin. Grandson is to start piano in a year ago. He loves to toot on his great grandfather’s bugle.

Grandson loves our recording of Peter and the Wolf and The Carnival of the Animals, narrated by Hermione Gingold. He listens to it on a cd player in his bedroom. His parents value music education as much as we do. His mother was a vocal performance major, so perhaps he will have a voice, too. It fun to watch how much children benefit from music.

Daughter is currently on vacation in Maine with a former Suzuki violin student she studied with in Bismarck as a child. Last year they visited their violin teacher who had moved to New Mexico. How fun is that?

Tell about your experiences with music teachers and music lessons as a child. What was your favorite music as a child? As a teen? Any instruments in your home now?