Essential service, essential people
This is Shelby. She cheerfully rang me through at Mississippi Market this past Tuesday. She is one of the “essential” workers (along with the others at the market I saw that day stocking shelves, helping…
St. Patrick’s Day Parade Shots! (2018, that is)
Yes, in our sudden new Covid-19 reality, a parade certainly counts as a large gathering. And a St. Patrick’s Day parade and subsequent celebrations that result in extremely tight crowds and some folks’ body fluids…
Diesel Heart
St. Paul’s history bridged vividly to the present If there is an important local author—wait, scratch that. If there is an important author to read this year, it’s Melvin Whitfield Carter Jr. Carter is a St. Paul…
Amid snow, summer reflections
The first blizzard of the season rolled in after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t a “doozy” (the technical term for “big,” I believe), it was one of those that unravel slowly in temperatures that hover around freezing:…
The Uncomfortable Embrace
Social media is not going away (duh), and to succeed, businesses need to embrace it (again, duh). But it doesn’t have infect your life (much). “Facebook is the Internet for a lot of people,” said…
The Labor of Lobster
The price of lobster has dropped, but the cost to catch and process them it has not. Note: A version of this story was first published in Foodservice News in February 2013, thus explaining some…
Photography, Dignity and Journalism
While looking through (and jettisoning) some virtual desktop materials, I found photographs I took for a story I wrote for Foodservice News back in 2009 about nutrition at assisted-living/memory-care facilities. It was an interesting story…
Primate Blues
Mirror mirror in my hand Who’s the fairest creature in The land? Not the jerks back there that beWhen I turn this glass like this, You see? Rainbow hulks point their fingers, Turn their backs…
The Possum’s Window to ’68
If My Heart Had WindowsArtist: George JonesLabel/Year: Musicor Records, 1968 I’m not sure what was my earliest introduction to George Jones. Probably at the Court ‘n House bar in Eau Claire, Wis., where 25-plus years…
Joseph Anton: A Memoir
Author: Salman RushdiePublished: 2012, Random House I will admit it took me a while to get through this book, for all the usual reasons (work, child-rearing, house maintenance, sleep-deprivation). But there’s also this fact: this…