News Cut Category Archive: Life

Moments with Baxter

Posted at 1:53 PM on October 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Life

There's nothing wrong with the world that a good dog story won't cure.

Here's a good dog story:

A funeral was held yesterday for Baxter, one of the oldest working therapy dogs in the United States. Baxter comforted hundreds of patients in their final hours at a hospice, even when he was in his final hours.

Here's a Kleenex.

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The Fun Theory

Posted at 1:42 PM on October 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life, Science

Forgetting for a moment that it's partly a marketing gimmick by Volkswagon, The Fun Theory Web site is offering an interesting perspective on behavior. If things are fun, people will do it.

That was the theory many years ago behind Select A Candidate on the MPR Web site. Give people a little fun -- at that time online quizzes were fairly unique -- and if they become informed voters, so much the better.

The Fun Theory is being used to get people to recycle:

Or take the stairs:

or throw stuff in the trash:

(h/t: Ken Paulman)

There are any number of behaviors to encourage -- voting, or washing hands, for example. It's the how-to-make-it-fun part that's missing.

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The land of one great sunset

Posted at 8:51 PM on September 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I was driving home from Walker on Wednesday night, observing the orange sunset from horizon to horizon and wondering if the world could be any prettier? Photographer Pete Howell proved it could, providing this snapshot from a sunset flight over the Twin Cities.

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The State Fair in 25 seconds

Posted at 2:00 PM on August 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

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The children of divorce

Posted at 12:34 PM on August 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (29 Comments)
Filed under: Life

(Photo: Liz Banfield Photography)

It's been 30 years since the peak of America's "divorce boom." Later this week, MPR's Sasha Aslanian looks at how the kids of divorce have turned out. She has some insight; she's one of them.

"'I have two bedrooms,' I bragged to other kids," Aslanian says in the hour-long documentary. "I bristled at hearing the term broken home. It wasn't until much later, in adulthood, that I laid down my guard a little bit." When she looked around her book club one night and found most of them were children of the divorce boom, she pressed ahead with her project.

"I thought it was like teams. And we were part of the losing team. And we got dumped by the captain," one woman says, recalling her parents' divorce.

Aslanian interviews her dad, who recalls the day the divorce became final, and even tracks down the divorce court mediator who processed the divorce like so many cattle in a stockyard. He turns out not to be mean and uncaring, and recalls that he often got calls from the children of divorcing parents.

Back in the early '70s, some pop psychologists of the day opined that "staying together" for the sake of the kids would do them more harm that good, granting permission for them to walk away from bad marriages.

We know more now.

"It's one of the few issues in our society where what's best for the parents is not necessarily best for the children," says Dr. Judith Wallerstein, who studied the kids from the divorce boom and produced a book about it in 2000, when Salon.com looked at the issue:

When a parent dies, a child suffers loss. With divorce, says Wallerstein, a child must cope not only with loss but with failure: "Even if the young person decides as an adult that the divorce was necessary, that in fact the parents had little in common to begin with," she writes, "the divorce still represents failure -- failure to keep the man or the woman, failure to maintain the relationship, failure to be faithful, or failure to stick around. This failure in turn shapes the child's inner template of self and family. If they failed, I can fail, too."

As a result, some of the children of divorce whose lives Wallerstein has followed (their average age at the latest interviews was 33) have grown up to be pathological commitment-phobes, expecting all relationships to end in disaster and pain. Others, going to the opposite extreme, have rushed into reckless, spur-of-the-moment, almost invariably doomed marriages in their late teens or early 20s, or selected clearly inadequate partners who are too weak and needy to leave. Even those who are happily married remain haunted by fear of abandonment and have trouble dealing with any disagreement or conflict.

That's the sort of talk Aslanian hated when she was a kid, though she acknowledged "it felt like the sky was falling" the day the divorce was announced.

The documentary tracks down the authors of "The Kids' Book of Divorce," written in 1979 by the kids at Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge, Mass. One didn't confront his parents about the divorce until years later. He chose not to marry the woman with whom he has a son. Another had a long-term relationship in her 30s that didn't lead to marriage, followed by a marriage at age 40.

What's the effect of divorce on kids when they have relationships years later? "The bad news is that you really are much more likely to get divorced as an adult if your parents divorced, and parental divorce really does affect almost every aspect of future relationships," according to Nick Wolfinger, a sociologist who studies divorce and has a formula for kids of divorce:

"If you want to stay married, marry someone just like you, except if you're from a divorced family, marry someone from an intact family."

For the record, Sasha Aslanian has been married for nearly 10 years to a man who does not come from a background of divorce. They dated for 12 years.

A segment of the documentary looks at what we've learned about the effect of divorce on kids. We're smarter now, sure, but conversations with today's kids reveal heartbreaking tales of kids still being stuck in the middle.

Hennepin County, for example, once funded mandatory programs for parents and children going through divorce, but those days are over and without the requirement, enrollment has dwindled. Aslanian tried to follow some of the kids in a class she visited three years ago, and found most had moved. One girl, now 13, whom she was able to follow, has gained a stepmother, a stepbrother, and a half brother. Her father says he and his ex-wife are better friends now than when they were married. He admits there's pain that comes with a blended family, "but there's more people to love the kids," he says.

That's known as a "good divorce." It comes partly from 30 years of doing it badly. Yet the question from the height of the divorce book is still relevant: What's best for the kids?

"I'm not advocating for loveless marriages," Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values. "But it's also the case that marriage doesn't make us happy every day. No marriage does, but your marriage serves as so much more than just a vehicle for immediate individual adult needs. It makes one world for your child, and children will tell you that means everything to them."

Aslanian says she started the project five years ago to show how kids "aren't all messed up." Then she realized the real story is "how deep this stuff cuts. The past stays with us as a cautionary tale. I still believe in love, even for divorced kids."

The documentary airs on MPR's Midday at noon on Wednesday. In the meantime, if you're a 'child of divorce,' share your story below.

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On August

Posted at 7:33 AM on August 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I'm still collecting your images that scream "August!". It's the month of perennials, for example. This weekend was also full of festivals, and a couple of neighbor kids-- I guess they're not kids, anymore -- left for college. One was stuffed into her own car and sent off, leaving the rest of us to wonder whether the marriage would survive the empty nest. The family in the other piled into the car and took the daughter to college to drop her off. August.

August -- right around August 23, actually -- is when the first fears of winter set in; the anxiety of looking at the calendar, and the still-long list of around-the-house projects. It's when the excitement of the first lawn mowing of the spring has long since given way to the mental calculations of how much of one's life is spent pushing a mower back and forth.

August. Shoot it. Send it.

Update 9:07a.m. - Mrs. News Cut sent this August scene from her ancestral homeland of the Berkshire hills.

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Moments

Posted at 12:09 PM on August 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Thanks to the good folks I follow on Twitter, I was alerted to this video today.

Moments. If you could add a second-long image from your life to the video, what would it be:

One of mine (not personally) was in the film, but I'll wait to tell you below until I see if a conversation breaks out.

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Taking risks. Facing uncertainty

Posted at 10:01 AM on August 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I have to admit I like the risk-taking, swashbuckling Tiger Woods rather than the play-it-safe brand that blew the PGA Championship at Hazeltine yesterday. Easy for me to say, it's his risk, not mine. But watching two days of "safe" golf left me unimpressed.

I admit that I often sit and think if I were younger, I'd go work on an Alaskan crab boat, spend the rest of the year as a bush pilot, and then top it off with a few months of being an ice-road trucker. Or live the life of the sons of Jack Beck, whom I wrote about here, who explore the world because they have a willingness to, while Jack and his wife, Marmy, pursue endeavors without security (BTW, I saw Jack and Marmy at Oshkosh last month and they reported their boys were "somewhere in East Africa.")

Do you take risks? And has doing so paid off for you in the quality of your life? Or have you played it safe, choosing safe harbor over the exhilaration of white water?

Lane Wallace, creator of the Web site No Maps. No Guides. No Limits, explores these questions. You can find her e-book -- Surviving Uncertainty: Take a Hero's Journey -- here is the guest on Midmorning at 10:06 (CT).

What I'm looking for is your stories of facing risk and uncertainty, especially in these troubled times. Submit them below.

LIVE BLOGGING

10:08 a.m. - Doesn't sound like News Cut is going to get an on-air plug, so I guess it'll just be the News Cut loyalists.

10:09 a.m. "If you really want to explore the world," she says, "there's risk that goes with that. Any entrepreneur knows that..." Interesting comment on "passion." "Passion is what gets you through the long night when things go wrong."

10:10 a.m. - So what is risk? "If-- by choice or not by choice, if you've been laid off or life changes on you without your permission -- or whether you say 'I'm not happy with my job and I want to form my own business,' you are agreeing to step into an uncomfortable place." She says there's never been an adventure -- whether being self-employed or flying relief supplies into Sudan or the Congo -- when she hasn't thought, "whatever possessed me to do this?"

10:13 a.m. - Question: Is the ability accept risk something we're "hard-wired" with? Consider this from Business Management Daily:

Now scientists find that a taste for risk is hard-wired in about 10% of us, with thrill-seekers making up a small fraction. When researchers compare brain scans of thrill seekers and controls, the thrill seekers' fear centers stay dark when a balloon explodes, while their pleasure centers light up. It's the opposite for everybody else.

10:17 a.m. - Calls coming soon. Ben writes in:

I'm not a risk/adrenaline junkie, but I perform better when I'm in new and challenging situations. I am more engaged and ambitious when I am living abroad or doing something that's new and competitive. If I'm at home in Minnesota listening to MPR, I'm not nearly as ambitious, emboldened, or hungry.

That brings up an interesting point. When are we most engaged at work? When we just started the job, right? It's new. It's a little scary.

10:18 a.m. - Caller from Rochester says she turned 50 and decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. She left one of the largest employers in the city to do so. Says her big risk was quitting her job. "People need to take responsibility personally for understanding their is risk. But risk is not death. Risk is not danger. You take responsibility for what may come your way," she said.

10:24 a.m. - Caller Michael tells story of his daughter who was stuck in the Rome airport at customs. "She found somebody and was able to persuade them to help her. I got her three voicemails at once and they changed to, 'No problem, Dad, I've got it.' If I'd been there, I'd have helped her and taken that world experience from her. She's a world traveler now."

10:29 a.m. - There are always people around to tell you you shouldn't take a risk. "Three-year-olds haven't learned that anything is impossible. You look at how alive they are and they think they can do anything. Along the way, the more that we hear people say 'you need to have a practical major,' or 'you have a family, you need to be more responsible,' put bricks around your heart," Wallace says.

10:35 a.m. - Related Wallace writing: "In Defense of Liberal Arts"

10:36 a.m. - Most of the time we're afraid of the future. Wallace says in any situation, look around and evaluate "how I am right now." Most of the time, you're OK.

10:42 a.m. - Caller has a good question: "When is the risk worth taking?" Answer: "It comes down to how badly you want it. If you think life is a dress rehearsal, think again. If you're at the point where you're saying, 'I don't like it here,' you have to leave. It's not easy. It's where passion becomes important."

10:43 a.m. - Lane mentions Alan Klapmeier of Cirrus Design in Duluth. He transformed an industry, maxing out family credit cars at some point to meet payroll. He's a heck of a success story, but it's worth noting the economy has not been kind to Cirrus. James Fallows of The Atlantic, well connected with Klapmeier, notes he's left the company as CEO.

10:47 a.m. - Elise of Minneapolis writes:

This is such an important topic. The barriers to risk--especially other people--really makes sense to me. I stayed in a job I hated for four years and my contract was finally not renewed. It wasn't until then that I actually started my own business--something that I'd dreamed about for a decade. My husband was very worried about my being successful and I had some sleepless nights myself. But I was okay; we were okay and I got my business off the ground. And, I'm much happier. Last December, when I declared that I was writing a novel, so many people were skeptical. But I put what I thought I needed as a support system into place -- fiction writing classes, membership in writing associations, and a writing group -- and am working toward my goal. After hearing Lane today, I recognize some of the things I still have in my way on my journey to writing fiction. Taking risk, having passion is what makes me feel alive! Great topic, great guest.

10:54 a.m. - Caller Bonnie, 60, says "during the course of my life I've made some bold choices. I'm now in this place where I'm financial fine, retired, my husband died three years ago and I don't have any reason to take risks and yet I feel I need to move forward and be more bold. I'm having trouble because there's not the need that was there when I was younger."

Ah, how to find passion at age 60. Wallace says the goal in life is to stay interested. Suggests embracing freedom in later stages of life. "You can figure out what you want to see, what you want to learn, what you are curious about? You're not on autopilot until you die."

10:57 a.m. - Wallace refers to the women who flew back in the "old days," which gives me another reason to post this YouTube video.

10:59 a.m. - The show has now ended, and I'm off to get coffee, pretty much the same as I do every day around this time. But today, it's a bit depressing.

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Woodstock's meaning?

Posted at 1:50 PM on August 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Yes, I grew up in the '60s. No, I didn't go to Woodstock.

I had to chuckle when I heard Gary Eichten read this response that someone sent in to Today's Question:

Woodstock to this octogenarian was an orgy in mud hat showed the decadent side of popular culture. It had no meaning to me personally at the time and has no meaning to me personally now. I've always been a bit bemused at all the fuss over it.

...and this one...

A more interesting question might be to ask how and why thousands of aimless and whimsical youth on a weekend holiday have come to symbolize an entire generation of tens of millions?

If I squint my eyes just so, I can read this and it can be 1969 again, and you're all my father talking about Hippies.

A newspaper in that neck of the woods put this video together and, I think, actually captured the meaning of Woodstock. It means when you look back on anything 40 years later, you're bound to feel older.

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Dogs yearn to be free; residents object

Posted at 12:04 PM on August 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Massachusetts, the home of 'activist judges' if you're inclined to believe such things, may have another nationwide case on its hands.

The issue? Dogs running free.

In the Boston suburb of Newton, some residents are fighting back against the city's designating a portion of a park as a leash-free zone for dogs, the Boston Globe reports.

''Look! Look!'' said one woman as she eyed a Volkswagon Jetta with an out-of-state license plate. ''What is that plate? Vermont? For all I know, that's a dog-walker. Now they're getting out and the radio is blaring. I don't want to be a meanie and call the cops. But really.''

Really, indeed.

There's always a lawyer ready to take any case and the one the residents hired is making a federal case out of it:

In a letter mailed to Mayor David Cohen last week, Peter F. Harrington, the lawyer retained for an undisclosed fee by Dyer and other residents, warned that adding the off-leash area to the park requires approval from the US Secretary of the Interior. He argued that the off-leash area has decreased the recreational uses of the park, in violation of provisions attached to federal money given by the department for park improvements.

Said one besieged resident:

"Until you live here, you just can't understand.''

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Working late

Posted at 1:21 PM on August 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Jack Borden of Dallas was honored this afternoon as the nation's "Outstanding Oldest Worker for 2009," which -- now that I think of it -- is an odd name for an award.

Border is a practicing lawyer. He's also 101. He gets to his office at 6:30 in the morning, leaves around 6 in the afternoon and takes a 45-minute nap in between, the Dallas Morning News reports.

"People ask me why I'm still working," he said. "When I was 5 years old, my dad handed me a hoe and said the corn needs weeding. And that's how I got started."

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The Kleenex channel

Posted at 12:19 PM on August 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Watching the return of the journalists from captivity in North Korea this morning, it hit me: Why isn't there a TV channel with nothing but tearful reunions?

How can you beat the surprise appearance of a returning soldier/parent at a kid's classroom?

Or the happy endings when lost kids are found:

It doesn't even have to be just people. Like this reunion of a man a few months ago and the dog he lost during Hurricane Katrina:

Tearful reunions are a good reminder that in the big scheme of things, not much else matters but those you've been waiting for.

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Sometimes you never know

Posted at 12:36 PM on August 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

A guy was shot this morning while sitting on his steps in south Minneapolis. He was simply waiting for his ride to work. The bullet hit his hands and then his chest. He wasn't seriously injured.

City living, eh?

In Pincher Creek, Alberta (Pop: 3,625) yesterday, a man decided to go for an early-morning stroll. Along the way, he was gored by a bison. He died.

Country living, eh?

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Goldie's Bucket Wish

Posted at 12:10 PM on July 31, 2009 by Than Tibbetts
Filed under: Life

My hometown of Cook, Minn., is buzzing over a bucket wish-come-true and the video to prove it. Goldie Knapp, 84 years old and a great-grandmother, went skydiving with her daughter earlier this month.

Here's part of the backstory as relayed to CookMN.com by Goldie's daughter, Shireen Schultz:

After visiting and having a nice meal I noticed Mom fidgeting and looking as if she had something on her mind. Out of the blue she said she wanted to talk about something. I asked if she was going to make me cry! She said that I might and in the same breath said, "Before I die, I want to go skydiving!".

There was a gasp in the room... I jumped up with a fist in the air and said, "YES!" Finally I had witnesses to her wishes! Over the years Mom had mentioned this to me.

How's your bucket list looking?

Uniquely Minnesota: Twin Cities 360

Posted at 3:51 PM on July 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I've been flying around the Twin Cities for about 12 years and the only time I notice how uniquely diverse Minnesota can be over the course of just a few miles is when I take someone for a flight who's never flown in a small airplane before; someone who knows how to take nice photographs

On Sunday, I took MPR's online producer, Steve Mullis, for a flight from the southern suburbs down to Lake Pepin, then up the Mississippi to St. Paul. A sample of his photographs provides a clearer perspective of just how different things are at the end of a stone's throw.

From the classic skyline of St. Paul (seen from the never-ending Wakota Bridge project):

To the suburban sprawl of -- I believe -- Apple Valley and Eagan

But there's still plenty of land that isn't a housing development... yet.

Prior Lake:

Holiday rush hour on the Mississippi River:

From the air, you realize just how close the Treasure Island casino is to the Prairie Island nuclear power plant in Red Wing. Lake Pepin is at the top of the picture.

Where does all the gravel come from for roads and construction and cement? It comes from scarring the heck out of the landscape:

There are more gravel pits out there than you may think.

Bluff country, Wisconsin style.

Knee high by the 4th of July? Hard to tell from up here:

(Click any image to enlarge)

Find more of Steve's photography on his Flickr page.

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Fireworks photos

Posted at 7:20 AM on July 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

MPR's Tom Weber is one of those people who clearly knows his way around a camera. He sent these shots from Saturday night's fireworks over the St. Croix River in Stillwater.

It's safe for the dogs to come out from under the bed now.

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Is Minnesota still tasty?

Posted at 8:42 AM on July 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Life

When we first moved to Minnesota in 1992, one of the great discoveries was Taste of Minnesota, which at the time was held on the grounds of the state Capitol. I can't imagine a better setting for the fireworks than the Minnesota Capitol. The food was provided by some of the finer restaurants in the region.

Fast forward. The Taste is under new ownership and it's now held on Harriet Island, but has time passed the Taste of Minnesota by?

Greg Bossany of Elk River sent us his review this morning:

I went to the real taste of minn. some 20 years ago. There was real food products from many places. This year was a bad carnival version of what i was expecting. The worst part was two of the things i had were not even cooked all the way. If it wasn't for the music i would call this a total flop from what it used to be!!!!!

The Star Tribune's review of Taste echoed Greg's, describing it as "warmed over."

We await your review.

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Growing old in America

Posted at 4:44 PM on June 29, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The Pew Research group is out with a survey that says growing old in America isn't as bad as people think it is. It also isn't as good as people think it is.

Among 18 to 29 year-olds, about half say they feel their age, while about quarter say they feel older than their age and another quarter say they feel younger. By contrast, among adults 65 and older, fully 60% say they feel younger than their age, compared with 32% who say they feel exactly their age and just 3% who say they feel older than their age.

What's the matter with you whippersnappers? You feel your age? At 18-29?

The survey also appears to settle the debate about when old age begins. 68.

But, of course, it's all a matter of perspective. In its profile of Jay Smooth on All Things Considered on Monday, NPR referred to him as "an aging hip-hopper .... he's 36."

And, no doubt, feeling his age.

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A weekend in the life of Minnesota

Posted at 12:37 PM on June 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

High school grad parties, biking in the rain, a circus, a rhubarb festival, sitting on the porch overlooking the back 40, moving out of a foreclosed home, or -- as in Darby Laing's photo above -- assessing the geology around Lake Superior -- these are all snapshots of a weekend in Minnesota. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

What does your Minnesota look like? We're taking photographic evidence across Minnesota this weekend and -- as we did last year -- whipping it into a photo essay that we'll grow in front of your eyes this weekend (I hope).

To do it, we need News Cut readers to submit not only your photos, but your thoughts about the photo. It doesn't have to be high art. We're not just looking for scenery -- we know what Split Rock Lighthouse or the Rothsay prairie chicken looks like. We want a sense of how you're interacting with Minnesota, too.

Here's the form to submit your photo, or you can e-mail it to me directly, or you can post it on Flickr and tag it newscut.

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A death worth noting

Posted at 3:54 PM on June 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Not that Michael Jackson's passing isn't worth noting, of course, but still...

Unless you keep up with North Dakota news, you probably haven't heard of Morgan Kolling, 8, who returned to Davenport from her Make-A-Wish trip from Disney World in April and set about raising $10,000 for Make-A-Wish trips for two North Dakota kids by selling pictures she drew.

She died on Monday.

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An apology

Posted at 12:14 PM on June 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (16 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I'm a baby boomer and, apparently, I'm supposed to apologize to this year's graduating college seniors, according to the Wall Street Journal (Boomers to This Year's Grads: We Are Really, Really Sorry), which is reviewing the commencement speeches of famous baby boomers.

Take Tom Friedman's address to Grinnell College kids in Iowa last month:

The kids weren't much buying it, the Journal article said.

But their apologies fell flat with some students, who wondered why the speakers weren't urging their fellow boomers to do more to clean up the mess they created.

"They have been pretty selfish, but they're still going to be around," said Ben Slaton, a Butler graduate. "They need to do their part."

That's a quote that makes me sad I won't be around in 40 years to hear Ben's apology.

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Out with the old...

Posted at 12:54 PM on June 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Why do demolitions make us sad?

In the case of the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit, the demolition of which started ended this week, it's easy to figure out. Old ballparks have emotional ties.

But what emotion does this picture (taken by MPR's Tom Weber) evoke?

It's a building by St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, no longer good for anything, and getting in the way of progress.

It was almost a year ago when the big smokestack by the river in St. Paul was blown up. Nobody cried, as far as I know, but there was a certain sadness involved.

But they're just stadiums, old buildings, and smokestacks, right?

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Obits

Posted at 5:05 PM on May 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

It is only in my latter years that I have come to realize why the obituary page is the second-most-read page in the newspaper. I don't know if that's really true; it's just what I was told.

I read obituaries for two reasons: (1) To find out how many people my age have gone toes up and (2) there are occasionally great stories and fine writing.

Failing on #1, the obituary of David Humphrey in Vancouver certainly qualifies under #2.

The honored justice of the Superior Court of Ontario, we learn, had a nickname -- the Tripper, which he gained at the 1957 Grey Cup game, as told by the Washington Post's Post Mortem blog.

Humphrey stood on the sidelines, sipping cheer, in the form of rye whiskey, from a brown paper bag. He would later say he had been unnerved by a chance encounter with a fellow fan, who turned out to be the foreman of a jury who had sent one of his client's to the hangman but a year earlier. Humphrey refused to shake the man's extended hand.

The lawyer nursed his grudge as well as his drink as he stood along the Winnipeg sidelines.

A roar from the crowd caught his attention. Hamilton's Ray (Bibbles) Bawel (pronounced bobble) had intercepted a pass and was racing along the sidelines towards the end zone. He had evaded all tacklers. Ahead of him lurked only grass.

It was at this point the lawyer stuck out a foot

Mere mortals can only dream about a send-off that rich. Be sure to read it all.

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Betty Ryan

Posted at 3:53 PM on May 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The people trying to save newspapers can do worse than reminding people that the Betty Ryans of the world help keep the "community" in the communities they cherish.

The reporter for the Lake Country Echo retired in December, but is still turning in stories as a correspondent from her Pequot Lakes cabin. They're not earth shattering, perhaps, by city-slicker standards, but then again community media isn't about the big city. It's about telling people what's happening in their town.

"What else would I do?" she asked me when I asked her why she's still working into her 80s (she's 81), something she's been doing since her 20s.

Her first job after graduating from the University of Minnesota was at the Post Bulletin in Rochester in 1949. "I learned that if you're a good writer, you can write when you're drunk," she says of a sportswriter on staff. "I never knew how he did it."

In her years on the Echo, she's glad she hasn't been assigned to cover sports. It's just as well. There's plenty to tell people about the people they see regularly in the area, but about whom they know nothing. There's the resorters who retired to the lakes, the citizens of the year (2006), the late bloomer in the community theater , or the folks who run the cellphone business in town.

Then again, some stories are earth shattering for those involved in them. The special needs kids who go to Camp Knutson may owe a debt to Ryan. Lutheran Social Services wanted to close the camp and sell the real estate a few years ago. Betty Ryan wrote about it, some influential neighbors read about it, and worked to save it.

"It was one of the times I actually felt I made a difference," she told me when I visited her last week.

She covers government meetings in the region and considers it a noble service. "There's nobody else going to the council meetings," she says. "There's lots of money involved. There can't be shenanigans."

Spend a few minutes with her and you get the news of the region, dominated by the effect of the vacationers, many of whom are regulars. Traffic is always the hot topic. Highway 371 reverts to a two-lane highway in Nisswa and MnDOT would like to expand it relocate it away from the downtown. Some businesses worry it'll hurt the downtown but Betty brings a more practical view to the issue.

"When I'm driving through a town, I've never felt that I needed to stop and go shopping," she said. "The only thing we wanted to do is get to the cabin," she says of her years traveling with her late husband from Mounds View to their then-vacation home. "On Saturdays we'd go shopping."

Ryan says she has no plans to end her newspaper career and is looking for the next story. "The next story is the best one," she says.

Through the summer I'll be profiling people in Minnesota who are in their 80s and above and still working. Make your suggestions.

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Perfectly Minnesota

Posted at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The closer one gets to the Minnesota Capitol and the exhausting politics therein, I find, the harder it is to remember that Minnesota is still a heck of a place to live.

Above is but one example I found today on a road trip to the Pequot Lakes area.

"We only have this shade of green for a few weeks," Betty Ryan told me. She's the longtime reporter-now-correspondent for the Pequot Lakes Echo. I went to see her today because she's 81, still reporting, and provides a good barometer for what constitutes news in her neck of the woods. I'll write about her later.

She and editor Nancy Vogt pointed me, however, to this story. The paper helped Publisher's Clearing House track down Anna Newton of Pine River, who won $1,000.

The woman plans to use the money to go to Dollywood. If there's money left, she might visit her sister in California, whom she hasn't seen in 50 years.

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Graduation speeches

Posted at 5:40 PM on May 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I had planned to pluck the occasional commencement speech and present them here during this graduation season, then I went and forgot to post up this one last weekend at Tulane by Ellen DeGeneres.

My favorite line in a speech of favorite lines: "Your definition of success will change as you get older."

Now then, does anyone remember anything from their commencement speaker? My college commencement speaker was Lee Remick, and I can't recall a thing she had to say.

(h/t: Gerry Tyrrell via Facebook)

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Overcoming the cult

Posted at 7:31 PM on May 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The lede (opening paragraphs) on some stories just scream, "read me."

Take this one for example in the Detroit Lakes Tribune (registration possibly required).

Erika Schumacher offered an odd answer in class when she was asked to write something about herself:

"I was abducted."

She graduated from college on Sunday after a rough few teenage years when she was taken by a cult started by her grandfather. She said her horse helped her through the ordeal and now she's graduated cum laude with a triple major in health sciences, biology and chemistry.

It's a nice pick-me-up story.

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Live chat: What's right, what's wrong when biking?

Posted at 1:06 PM on May 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Bridges and roads, Health, Life, Sports

Today, of course, is Bike to Work Day. If you have any pictures to share, I'd love to pass them along during the chat. Send them to me at bcollins@mpr.org.

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Around the world: "Box"

Posted at 4:09 PM on April 22, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

In the course of my work putting together news on MPR.org I'm often asked to find an image to accompany a story.

This often leads to an interesting trip across the world as seemingly thematically unrelated images congregate around a particular keyword search.

Today, we took a trip across the world with "box".

We previously went around the world in "Arms".

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Easter surprise

Posted at 9:50 AM on April 12, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Life

There's a video sweeping across the Twitterverse today that should. It's a marvelous antidote to the Billy Bob Thornton video below. It also is one of those moments in pop culture that forces us to think about the things we think we know, but don't.

Embedding is disabled for the video, so you'll have to click here.

The appearance of a would-be singing star has captured the hearts of the UK. Scotsman.com has a fabulous article on her.

Neighbours told how Miss Boyle had been teased by local children who called her names because she lives alone with her cat Pebbles - but added that no-one was laughing now.

"Her voice is lovely and we'll all be supporting her during the show. Hopefully this will stop kids making fun of her because I know it upsets her sometimes, even though she says it doesn't."

I presume someone is already writing the screenplay.

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The war on parenthood

Posted at 3:17 PM on April 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (21 Comments)
Filed under: Life

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Five at 8: 4/3/09

Posted at 7:58 AM on April 3, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

** It's probably a sign of the times that with just a few days before the start of the baseball season, most of the stories in the New York Times baseball section are about two new baseball stadiums in the city. There are a couple of nifty Flash presentations about Citi Field (which my cubicle neighbor, Bleacher Bums' writer Chris Dall calls "TARP field.") and the new Yankee stadium. If everyone in your office has busted their NCAA bracket, consider a pool for when the Mets will dismantle the walls in the outfield after the players start grumbling. A 16' high wall deep in centerfield, which is 408 feet from the plate? That's not going to last long.

At this time of the year, the sight of green grass in baseball is all the hope many of us have to cling to. So consider these images of Boston's Fenway Park an intervention.

** Is this really where we want to take high school athletics? A high school version of March madness?

** When is it OK to make a kid cry? This question is getting a surprising amount of attention because of an anti-smoking commercial from Australia in which a kid is lost in a train station (when you smoke, you abandon your kids.)

On the Today show this morning, Matt Lauer gave the commercial's producer a tougher grilling than Dick Cheney ever got.

** I'm filling in for Jon Gordon next week on Future Tense and thinking that maybe we should tackle this question. If something is taxed in its physical form, should it be taxed in its digital form? Minnesota wants to tax digital downloads of music. Sounds easy enough, right? It's not as if we didn't see it coming. But how about a little consistency when it comes to buying stuff online? The other day I renewed my Norton Anti-virus program. Symantec charges Minnesota sales tax. I ordered some electrical wire the week before, no Minnesota sales tax.

** Hot dish has the power to unite a community, says the Worthington Dailiy Globe. This is a sweet little story of people all over the country, making Sue Suman's hot dish recipe, and sharing Worthington memories while sending good thoughts to Sue, who has been diagnosed with cancer.

What we're covering

The governors of North Dakota and Minnesota are announcing a plan for a permanent flood control solution for the Fargo-Moorhead area. MPR's Dan Gunderson is on the case. Stephanie Hemphill will take a look at the "second crest" of the Red River. Former MPR reporter Martin Kaste, now a star at National Public Radio, looks at changes in how the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency conducts workplace raids under the Obama administration. Most of the people netted in a recent raid in the Pacific Northwest were released. And NPR's Linton Weeks considers how pets are doing during this recession.

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A survivor's tale

Posted at 11:08 AM on March 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

A page one-worthy story not found anywhere near page one.

As an aside, mainstream media, there's no point in putting videos out if you're not going to allow it to be embedded. Nothing goes viral that way.

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St. Paul wildlife

Posted at 8:21 AM on March 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Bob Bentley of South St. Paul has sent in some pictures worth sharing.

"I just wanted to share some pictures of a coyote we had visit us in downtown St. Paul on 3/16 and 3/17. He must have liked our little bit of shelter provided, because he was sill hanging around. We ended up calling animal control to capture him, after all, you just can't have a wild coyote right next door to United Hospital," he wrote.

Goes to show what a naturalist I am. I thought it was a fox.

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Around the World: "Arms"

Posted at 2:14 PM on March 18, 2009 by Than Tibbetts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

In the course of my work putting together news on MPR.org I'm often asked to find an image to accompany a story.

This often leads to an interesting trip across the world as seemingly thematically unrelated images congregate around a particular keyword search.

Today, I took a trip across the world in "arms".

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The 'mommy track'

Posted at 1:48 PM on March 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Life

I'm not sure exactly what to say about this story that crossed the Associated Press a few minutes ago. Plus, it's a minefield. The story? Women being laid off are getting to know their kids better.

Lucas and other laid-off women like her are involuntarily experiencing the life of a stay-at-home mom, and they are getting to know a lot more about the details of their children's daily existence. They are also discovering some of the things they have
been missing.

Couldn't the same be said of men getting laid off?

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Mondays

Posted at 10:45 AM on March 9, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Monday. Why does it seem like Mondays always behave like a Monday?

MPR's Tim Nelson was patrolling the St. Paul waterfront today when he saw someone's summer being ruined.

"This house boat was bobbing down the Mississippi in downtown St. Paul between the ice floes about a 7 AM. Firefighters watched until the motor vessel Mary J fetched a crane to get the boat out of the river. Police said the boat appeared to be unoccupied." --Tim Nelson

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Funeral stories

Posted at 5:53 PM on March 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

From what I understand, there was some discussion in ye olde newsroom about whether the death of Garrison Keillor's brother constitutes "news." The story ended up on our Web site.

I think the death of everyone's brother should be news, but only if the story is written by a brother or sister, the people who knew them best.

Former Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman is on Morning Edition tomorrow with Cathy Wurzer and he talks a bit during the interview about covering funerals. "I love funeral stories," he said. "They're not just sad and grieving, but you hear so many great, wonderful, funny, touching stories at funerals. The press rarely covers someone's funeral. You should be sad and happy if you're alive in this world because that's the kind of world we live in."

All of that is a prelude to tell you that Keillor has written a touching tribute to his brother.

When your brother dies, your childhood fades, there being one less person to remember it with, and you are left disinherited, unarmed, semi-literate, an exile. It's like losing your computer and there's no backup. (What it's like for the decedent, I can't imagine, though I try to be hopeful.) If I had died (say, by slipping on an emollient spill and whacking my head on a family heirloom anvil), I believe Philip, after decent mourning, would've gone about locating a replacement.

If your brother dies, improvise. Someone you run into who maybe doesn't fit the friendship profile but his voice is reedy like your brother's, the gait is similar, he takes his coffee black and his laugh is husky, he starts his sentences with "You know," and the first words out of his mouth are about boats. I didn't run into him in Rome but I'm sure he's out there someplace.

I may start stopping in at some funerals, just to write about the people we didn't know, and wish we had.

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Whatever happened to... ?

Posted at 7:47 AM on February 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

You know that game they play at the St. Paul Saints game where a couple of fans spin around while holding their head on a vertical bat, and then try to run a few yards? That must be what being a former president of the United States is like. You go from being the center of a universe to being a guy who does... well... what?

A Dallas hardware store took out an ad in a newspaper, offering a greeter's job to former president George Bush. On Saturday, the greeter-in-chief showed up to claim the gig.

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A view of the homeless

Posted at 11:26 AM on February 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

How do you perceive homeless people?

A story out of Boston today raises the question. A homeless man found a woman's wallet. A homeless man found it and returned it, which is what got the headlines in the city.

But perhaps the story was actually in the last sentence of the story:

Susan Clancy regrets not knowing the man's name, but said his honesty
has changed the way she perceives people living on the street.

Why is it news when a homeless person commits an act of honesty?

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The nostalgia crisis

Posted at 5:46 AM on February 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Life

For all the effort we put into the process of buying a car, including making sure it makes a distinctive statement about who we are, the reality is that most cars pretty much look like every other car out there, which may be the unintended message we send these days, now that I think of it. We're all pretty much like everybody else.

It wasn't always thus.

On Tuesday, General Motors announced it would consolidate its brands, close some plants, and fire more workers. Its Pontiac brand, already dying, would be taken off life support. Goodbye, muscle cars.

The economic meltdown may well finish off the brands that gave us a pathway to the nostalgia. We have a looming nostalgia crisis. What will the next generation turn to 30 or 40 years from now?

What will we be oogling at over at the State Fairgrounds or on the streets of downtown St. Paul on those hot summer nights? Old Starbucks coffee cups?

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Embracing winter (Pretending-it's-not-winter edition)

Posted at 4:25 PM on February 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

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Embracing winter: The art sled rally

Posted at 11:25 AM on February 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Arts, Life

Let's face it: It's a lot easier to embrace a Minnesota winter during a thaw in February. Nonetheless, the Art Sled Rally in Minneapolis this weekend really is one of those only in Minnesota events that makes you long to be outdoors, as depicted in this video by Chuck Tomlinson, posted today on MN Stories.

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Nice start

Posted at 10:51 AM on February 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

There's something about the early part of a gorgeous sunrise (this one was from this morning), that makes you feel like anything is possible in the coming day.

And then the sun comes up.

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Coming to America

Posted at 12:24 PM on February 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

About 400 immigrants became U.S. citizens today in a ceremony at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. They came from Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Cote D'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, The Gambia, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USSR, Vietnam, and Yemen.

Tom Crann will have some of their stories this afternoon on MPR's All Things Considered.

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No good deed goes unpunished

Posted at 9:36 AM on February 5, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I'm not a big fan of all of the prep sports coverage in the Twin Cities media, but the last two "I wish I had that story" stories have been from that genre.

The most recent is today's compelling story from the Star Tribune's Michael Rand about cross-country skier Libby Ellis, who is ranked #2 in the state but hadn't competed in enough races to quality for the state races, because she's been competing overseas.

And so her competition -- South High -- "threw together a last-minute competition in the subzero darkness at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday that allowed a jet-lagged Ellis to compete -- and win -- the Section 6 individual title on Wednesday."

It's the one thing that has saved prep sports from massive funding cuts: The assertion that sports still has the capacity to teach something to kids.

As usual, the greatest show in town is the comments attached to newspaper stories on Web sites. In this case, there was the expected appreciation that sportsmanship is still alive.

And then there was this:

Yes, I agree it was fantastic for the South coach to arrange this impromptu meet, but I don't get why they would bend-over-backwards for an egotistical person like this. Who are these "coaches" anyways? Before jet-setting across the globe to compete in international races, it might be a good idea to make sure you have your ducks in a row at home (i.e. keep track of races participated)! Before they edited the story, they reported that she had missed all but 2 races due to illness and international travel. It's unfortunate that a lesson couldn't have been taught here... instead she gets bailed-out and will probably expect others to go to extremes to cater to her needs in the future.

The reaction to what is a sweet story of sportsmanship raises the question: Is it possible to agree on anything in the age of the Internet?

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Your weekend

Posted at 8:11 AM on January 31, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Now this looks like fun, even though I realize that many things that look like sit-back-and-enjoy-it fun are often a lot of work. This is Mark Kiefer, zipping along Lake Phalen recently. The "Fire and Ice" Ice Racing Competition is taking place this weekend, according to this story from MPR's Toni Randolph.

It prompts me to issue one of my periodic requests for pictures showing how you've spent the weekend in the dead (perhaps that's the wrong word!) of winter. It'll be interesting to see how many are inside shots and how many are shot outside.

Use this form.

Lucie Amundsen of Duluth went for a walk today along Park Point in Duluth. I've played with the contrast for effect.

The temperature hit the 40s, making the snow snowmanmakeable for the first time in months. Sara Kimm of St. Paul sent us proof:

As did Matt Wells. The construction helmet might just get the snowman a share of the bailout funds.

Nathan Moore says he spent the afternoon trying to teach his three-year-old daughter to cross-country ski.

He says he failed. I think not... at least in the big scheme of things. When dealing with three-year-olds, as I recall, it's all about the big scheme of things.

Find more pictures from Nathan on Flickr.

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Fools, crooks, & liars

Posted at 7:17 AM on January 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

There are days I wonder what we'd talk about if we didn't have fools, crooks, and liars. This is one of those days.

Hitting us first today was news that the woman who gave birth to 8 children this week, already has six kids and had the 8 embroyos implanted. There also doesn't appear to be a father in the picture, and the grandfather -- with whom she lives -- has gone back to Iraq to try to make some money to support them all. That was the top story on the TV news today. Seriously.

That was followed by a story that Barack Obama showed a rare moment of anger when he found out that $18.4 billion of the bailout money -- you'll recall it was originally supposed to help people and banks with foreclosure problems -- went to Wall St. bonuses. "That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful," Obama said while hosting a meeting in the Oval Office with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Vice President Joe Biden.

Then we have Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, who was given the political death penalty, by the Illinois Senate on Thursday. "He reminded us today in real detail that he is an unusually good liar," Republican state Sen. Matt Murphy said.

Closer to home, John Harold Richardson, 40, was charged Thursday morning with felony theft. He allegedly stole a laptop from a blind woman on a bus. It was a special Braille laptop.

What would we be talking about if it weren't for these people?

Maybe the swell 6th birthday party Gabriel Hurles had in his kindergarten classroom on Wednesday. When he opened a large wrapped box, it was his dad, who shipped out to Iraq last summer. Earth-changing news? No. But neither is a woman with 14 kids.

Or maybe we'd be talking about the Minnesota kids who are wrapping up Catholic Schools Week by "donating a truckload of household items they collected for Bridging, a Twin Cities nonprofit that provides dishes, beds and other items for families in transition."

What's MPR covering today? It's day 5 of the Coleman-Franken election trial. Toni Randolph has a piece on All Things Considered tonight on ice sailing. Midmorning's first hour focuses on "the allure of Pluto and the public outrage over its recent demotion from planet status." (I had no idea there was such outrage. I was paying attention to the big gift-wrapped box). Gov. Pawlenty is continuing his public appearances to support his budget proposals, speaking primarily to business groups. As I mentioned yesterday, the Minnesota Department of Health today is unveiling its plan for deciding who gets immediate help when the flu pandemic comes.

What are people talking about around your water cooler?

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Some sports stories aren't about sports at all

Posted at 8:30 AM on January 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Recommended reading for a Saturday morning: John Millea of the Star Tribune wrote a piece today about last night's New Prague boys' basketball game against Shakopee. It was the first game for the kids since the death of their coach, Jeff Gravon, who died of cancer. It deserved a more prominent spot than the editors gave it (A stupid feud between some neighbors was somehow judged to be front-page material). Kids can surprise you when you only expect them to act like kids.

Here's an article from last year on Coach Gravon.

His funeral is being held today.

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Ice sculpting

Posted at 2:30 PM on January 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

As promised, here's a look at some of the ice sculpting taking place at St. Paul's Rice Park.

Caution: Amateur video ahead:

For other weekend entertainment options, we turn to Barbara Schaller from Burnsville, who wrote to us this week:

"I am easily amused. Last Thursday morning (January 15, 2009), I was in my back yard clad in silk long johns under my long nightgown, a turtleneck over my nightgown, taking pictures of frozen soap bubbles! See them here. The temperature was -24 degrees. I've been doing this for 35 years, weather permitting (believe it or not, it doesn't often get cold enough), and the last time was five years ago when our two-year-old granddaughter was visiting. She was out there with me and giggled and clapped and laughed from the bottom of her toes. She won't remember it and I will never forget it."

Release your inner soap bubble-maker this weekend.

And, of course, the Pond Hockey Championships are taking place on Lake Nokomis this weekend. MPR's Tom Weber did a dandy story on them last year.

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Embracing winter: The Winter Carnival

Posted at 10:56 AM on January 23, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The St. Paul Winter Carnival is underway. It's becoming harder to know when it's going on anymore. In recent years it adopted a rather Abe Vigoda-like place in the collective consciousness ("He's alive? I thought he was dead!") when announcements came in that the warm weather has canceled the ice sculpture competition. They don't do the big slide at the Capitol anymore. And there are quicker ways to blow zillions of dollars these days than building ice castles.

The Medallion Hunt was a big deal when the St. Paul Pioneer Press was a bigger deal.

The Vulcans? I still don't get the Vulcans. But I digress.

The Winter Carnival is underway and the ice sculpture work is starting around Rice Park. Later today, when we go over to celebrate winter with our every-Friday-lunch-hour skate at the rink outside Landmark Center, I'll snap some pictures and post them here.

Which brings us to.... your pictures.

In Ely the other day -- Wednesday, if you're aching to know for sure -- the town park was filled with giant boxes of packed snow. I'm guessing they'll be carving snow sculptures this weekend.

People who make ice sculptures are usually professionals. People who make snow sculptures often aren't. It's an art form for the people, by the people, and perishes from this earth in short fashion.

I'd pay big money* for your pictures of snow sculptures past, and the story behind them. Use this form.

And while I'm on my usual Friday topic -- embracing winter -- here's one from the mailbag.

Sara Kimm sent this picture of a pick-up hockey game last Saturday in the Groveland neighborhood (it was Hockey Day in Minnesota). The girls beat the boys. "I shared photos with the other hockey parents. One family is from Australia and the mom sent the photos to friends and family there and told me, 'I sent them because they have no idea what life is Minnesota is like.'"

As I recall, it was no more than 9 degrees on Saturday. Pressed for the truth, Sara admitted the girl with the T-shirt, is hers. That's embracing winter!

(* = This is a lie)

Photo via Getty Images.

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Hockey Day

Posted at 5:25 PM on January 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Life

The logic behind Hockey Day in Minnesota on Saturday was lost on the guy who takes care of a rink in the Birchwood Village neighborhood on the shore of White Bear Lake. It's a day of watching hockey on TV, if you have cable or satellite TV and subscribe to Fox Sports North, which came up with the idea. He figures everyone who wants to watch the sport in the state of hockey, should be able to. He works hard to make sure everyone who wants to play it, can play it, too.

He was just finishing up shoveling the overnight and morning snowfall off the rink on Sunday. He had flooded it the night before. It is, of course, outside, just the way God intended hockey to be played.

So on Sunday we had our own Hockey Day in Minnesota, the first time -- I have to admit -- I've tried to play the sport since I played in a senior league. That was 1983 -- 26 years ago -- and I'm much more senior now.

When I was a kid, we played pond hockey and our hockey leagues always played in outdoor rinks. After our games, we'd all pick up shovels and clean the ice. Those days, I learned on Sunday, are gone.

"Kids today," our snow-clearing benefactor said, "they drive around the neighborhood until they see me finish shoveling." Then it's hockey time. And they don't shovel the ice when they're done, he told us.

We arrived just as he was finished shoveling, oddly enough. After a bit of a warm-up, we were ready to organize a game among the 10 or so people who trickled in. When it's time for strangers to play hockey, there are no words. One person throws his stick down at center ice, and then another, and another.

Then, someone picks through the pile, throwing one stick on one side of the rink, and another on another side, until all the sticks have been sorted. Wherever your stick ends up is the team you're on.

We played for several hours, the snow still gently falling. The larger and younger players who had no trouble getting around me seeming larger and younger than ever before.

I scored a few goals, although I have to admit two of them came against the kid who was stuck in goal and wasn't that interested in being there. His dad had dragged him off to the rink along with his brother, and he wasn't about to enthusiastically work hard to keep our side from scoring on his team -- a team featuring his dad, by the way.

We had a few little kids playing with us, and when one of them got the puck, we all slowed down and let them by us, pretending to put up a spirited defense. That made me smile until I realized that the younger and larger players were doing the same thing to me.

And then it was over. I told my hockey-playing pal it was time to leave; I had things to do and having a coronary wasn't one of them.

Besides, I didn't want to get stuck shoveling the ice.

Photo: Clearing White Bear Lake for hockey in 1909. Courtesy: Minnesota Historical Society.

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Graduation day

Posted at 3:24 PM on January 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Life

Dennis LeTourneau knows where he'd be today if not for some of the people in the Hennepin County judicial system. "I'd be dead," he said without hesitation. He is sure heroin would've killed him.

LeTourneau was one of 23 people graduating today from the Hennepin County Drug Court, a unique program that people who know what they're talking about insist is the answer to reducing the problem of repeat criminal activity from addicts. It's the second graduating class since the program was changed to focus on addicts.

People who choose the drug court system undergo a 12-month program that includes 12-step meetings, therapy, and education classes. They have to report to probation officers and agree to be tested.

"It costs $36,000 to send someone to prison, " Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson said today. "It costs $6,000-$9,000 to get them through Drug Court." Nonetheless it's a tough sell at the Capitol. Magnuson eliminated pay raises for judges in his budget request this year, but included $6 million for Drug Court.

When it comes time to convince legislators, Magnuson could do worse than have them listen to LeTourneau, or Mindy Heinkel, who thanked her probation officers and judges today noting, "It changed my life forever." James Hill said his probation officer joked with him "we can always execute" during his 12-months in the program.

It wasn't a hard program for LeTourneau. "The hard part was making the decision (to go through the program), because I was still in that life," he said. That life was a heroin addiction that started five years ago. He remembers his first shot of heroin and why he took it. "I had a girlfriend who was into it," he said.

LeTourneau has gotten clean, earned his GED, and started a business. He's also mentoring others who are in the program, according to his probation officer, Stacey Pratt (shown below congratulating graduate James Hill). "It was easy for him because he made his mind up at the beginning that he would remain determined to turn his life around."

While receiving plaques at the Hennepin County Government Center this afternoon, many graduates hugged or at least shook hands with a gauntlet of probation officers. A couple muttered "thanks," and walked away, turning their back without acknowledging the people they had to call every day for a year.

But most also knew where they'd be today otherwise. "I know people in prison who'd give their left arm for this chance," LeTourneau said.

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Lessons from the coach

Posted at 1:10 PM on January 7, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life, Sports

This Saturday, an Aberdeen, South Dakota basketball coach is likely going to pass legendary hoops coach Bobby Knight for most collegiate victories. They have a few things in common besides basketball. Knight is known for throwing chairs. Don Meyer, the coach at Northern State University, has to sit in one; he's been in a wheelchair since last September when he fell asleep while driving to a team retreat and hit a semi-truck head-on.

His leg was amputated and during the operations to put him back together, doctors discovered he has cancer in his liver.

"I have to be strong for our team now," he told a local newspaper. "When alone with my wife, I might not be as strong, and I might break down and cry and wonder how I'm going to deal with (the cancer). When you are with people you work with, it's easier to be strong."

Today he told South Dakota Public Broadcasting "the people of South Dakota would do anything for people who need a hand," and he knows that first-hand. And like Coach Knight, his players insist he teaches more than basketball. Take this description of the accident in a recent Sports Illustrated article:

When his players reached the car, Meyer was still conscious, but his left side was battered. Yet instead of panicking, the players summoned the poise that Meyer had already cultivated in them. One of them called 911. Senior captain Kyle Schwan asked a few veteran players to help the younger players form a prayer circle, then joined graduate assistant Matt Hammer and sophomore guard Brett Newton next to Meyer.

Schwan grabbed Meyer's hand, and the young men fell back on the slogans of the practice court. We've gotta be tough, Coach! It's the fourth quarter! Dead-ball breathing! Narrow focus! NBA! Next Best Action!

"They saved my life," says Meyer, who was airlifted to an Aberdeen hospital after a 30-minute wait.

"It's a testament to Coach," Schwan says. "In essence he saved his own life because of the way he taught us."

Meyer, 64, will coach in his wheelchair Saturday night. A win against the University of Mary gives him his 903rd of his coaching career, one more than Knight.

(Photo courtesy of Northern State University)

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The city that gets it

Posted at 3:36 PM on January 2, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Life

We pause now to say something nice about downtown St. Paul. This afternoon, a small group of us went to the skating rink in downtown St. Paul next to Landmark Center. The weather was so cold (9 degrees) that even many Minnesotans said it was too cold to skate. But, in our continuing News Cut theme of "embracing winter," anything above -10, with bright sunshine, and with one of the world's most gorgeous buildings as a backdrop, it wasn't too cold. Oh, did I mention it's free? ($2 if you want to rent skates).

There were only three people on the ice when we showed up. Famed Realtor and blogger Teresa Boardman came to take some pictures (she took the one above). Equally famed blogger Mitch Berg stopped by to say "hello."

We're going to try to do this again next Friday, and we hope you'll stop by to join us, especially if you can't skate very well.

In the picture above (left to right): Annie Baxter, Tom Weber, Betsy Cole, Julia Schenkler, and some doofus. You can find more of Teresa's pictures here, all of which are a reminder that when it comes to winter, St. Paul "gets it."

Take that, Minneapolis.

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From Duluth with love

Posted at 2:39 PM on December 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

It would be a pleasant diversion if the year-end reviews of the news that are so commonplace, would include the many kindnesses extended by average people to other average people who have done extraordinary things.

If they did, the story of Joe Gomer, 87, and the people of Duluth would certainly make the list.

Joe is a Tuskegee Airman, an African American World War II pilot, one of a couple hundred who are still alive. Barack Obama invited them to his inauguration, but there were no plans made to transport them around Washington or find them a place to stay. When you're 80 and 90 years old, you don't just fly off somewhere without having things like that settled. Besides, hotels in the DC area are ushering in the era of change by jacking hotel prices up to around $1,000 a night.

An article in Monday's Duluth News Tribune (reg. required)started the donations. A travel agency and the Experimental Aircraft Association picked up the tab for the travel, and some Minnesotans have made arrangements with friends or relatives in the DC area to provide accommodations.

A similar story is playing out in Indiana. Quentin Smith, 90, told the Indiana Post Tribune a similar story. A day or so later, Smith had all he needed. "I was indifferent about going, really, but after all this the last few days, I feel obliged to go," he said Wednesday, chuckling. "I had no idea that many people cared about my going."

If you'd like to read more about Joe Gomer's WWII exploits, visit a Web site dedicated to him from his daughter.

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Your person of the year

Posted at 6:28 PM on December 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Life

You know by now that Barack Obama has been named Time's Person of the Year. Who saw that coming?

But who is your person of the year? Someone you know who made a difference in your life or someone else's life. It could be a big thing, it could be a little thing, it just has to be a thing that impressed the heck out of you.

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Generosity and anonymity

Posted at 9:58 AM on December 22, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I am not -- by virtue of DNA -- an optimist, and I've made a good living not being one. Still, when I opened up this morning's Star Tribune to read that not enough people are donating to the Salvation Army or Toys for Tots or the food shelves, I couldn't help but notice that thousands and thousands of people are. People are still often doing the best they can to help people they don't know.

Buried deep -- far too deep -- in the story was Kathy Ware, a public health nurse from Inver Grove Heights, who can't throw as much money into the Salvation Army pot this year as in past years, so she's helping out in another way -- she's taking her turn standing by the kettle ringing a bell.

And that's our DNA. Generosity and anonymity go hand in hand.

In today's New York Times, Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University, writes about growing up in Canton, Ohio. Around Christmas 1933, a local newspaper ran the story of Mr. B. Virdot , who vowed to help 75 unfortunate families, men and women "who might otherwise "hesitate to knock at charity's door for aid." He was said to be a man who was prosperous, lost it all during the Depression, and then returned to prosperity.

"...to me, the story had always served as an example of how selfless Americans reach out to one another in hard times," Gup wrote. "I can't even remember the first time I heard about Mr. B. Virdot, but I knew the tale well."

This past summer, Gup finally found out who the Mr. B. Virdot was.

It was his grandfather.

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Striking a blow for vets

Posted at 4:41 PM on November 12, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Life

A day after Veterans Day, four Twin Cities area vets got a 22-harmonica salute on Wednesday. (Left to right) Marie White, Merlin Marlow of Robbinsdale, Howard Helland of New Hope and Larry Robillard of Bloomington, are the oldest members of the Silvertones Harmonica Group.

Every Wednesday for more than seven years now, they and a couple of dozen others have met for a few hours in the Winnetka Learning Center in New Hope, ostensibly to play harmonicas together, but mostly to just be with each other. On Wednesday, their group serenaded them with some patriotic songs and then listened to their war stories. About 50 others showed up to listen.

"I was teaching harmonicas at the high school," Marlow said. "I came to the learning center and decided to start a band here. We started with four people and before long we had 27."

Robillard, 89, played with the Minnetonka Harmonicas before moving to the Silvertones. "It kind of dissolved," he said. "People died."

"When I was about 14 years old, I used to go up to Milaca and work on my aunt's dairy farm," Marlow said, describing his start in harmonica showbiz. "She played the harmonica and said, 'Merlin, you're going to learn how to play the harmonica. At night when we started milking the cows, she had me play the harmonica because the cows gave more milk."

Marlow went off to war before the others. He joined the Navy and served on the carrier Enterprise and thanks God that a storm delayed the carrier's scheduled December 7, 1941 return to Pearl Harbor by one day. . Helland was an engineer based in Iceland. Robillard was assigned to a destroyer, and White was a nurse with the Blue Devils 88th Division in Italy.

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The sandwich generation

Posted at 12:48 PM on November 10, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Life

A national law firm is providing a benefit unique to a generation. A support line for members of the "sandwich generation," the baby-boomers who are trying to raise their own kids, while also taking care of their parents, according to the Boston Globe. Goodwin Proctor is setting up a hotline specifically for care-givers in its employ:

Staffed by registered nurses and geriatric social workers, it will help employees navigate the complex maze of medical and social services for the elderly and disabled, including housing, transportation, insurance, nutrition, and nursing care.

It will also offer assessments and referrals, and will field questions such as how to persuade aging parents to move into assisted living or give up their driver's licenses.

In turn, the firm hopes the service will improve productivity and reduce turnover, since the time demands and emotional toll of caregiving can have a deleterious effect on workplace performance.

About 20 million people are in the "sandwich generation." Joan Brunwasser, who heads a national group for election reform, described the challenges last week when her mother got sick near Election Day:

My mother was most considerate about when she get sick. Timing really is everything. Had she been ill on Monday night, I would have been hard pressed to be downtown with her and at my polling place by 5:00 the next morning. (I was a volunteer poll watcher on November 4th.) Likewise, if she had gotten sick on Election Day itself, I would have been physically incapable of responding that evening. After that long, long day, I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. At least I was able to rack up one good night's sleep before the flu struck. Way to go, Mom!

Companies have good reason to consider adding the benefit. Members of the "sandwich generation" are more likely to get sick themselves, or lead an unhealthy life, according to a study this month from Indiana University.

Compared with people caring for a single generation, people in the sandwich generation were less likely to check food labels, wear seat belts or choose foods based on health values. They also smoke more.

Are you a member of the sandwich generation? Tell me about your life. You can either post in the comments below, or write to me using this form and we can talk about it.

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The "D" word

Posted at 6:23 PM on October 8, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Life

The economic meltdown is bad. Most of us are pretty scared, more than a little angry, and our ears perk up when we hear people throw the "D" word around pretty loosely.

Earlier this week, a poll showed that almost 60% of those surveyed think a depression is likely. "Most of those people don't know their history," a guest said Wednesday on MPR's Midmorning.

Elizabeth Schaefer, 86, of Shoreview is as good a history book as any of the thousands she probably touched in her career as a librarian. She was born seven years before the stock market crash of 1929 and grew up during the Great Depression.

Elizabeth was born in Chicago. Her mother took care of the kids and kept an eye on the money. Her father worked as a railroad engineer when the railroad had work.

"They didn't talk about their financial problems with us, but they must have saved their money, because my father wanted a place where we could walk to school without crossing the street, so he went out for a loaf of bread one day and came back with a house (See photo)," she told me during my visit at her retirement community in Shoreview.

Her parents were strict and kept the kids in the yard and sent them to a Catholic school. "My mother refused to buy the school uniforms so she made them for us. But, of course, it didn't look like everyone else's."

"Mom was always saving," Elizabeth said. "She'd make a little bit of meat and a lot of noodles to go with the soup. You were supposed to add one can of water and she'd add two." In the evenings, men would knock on the door looking for food. Her mother would share the supper. They'd eat it out on the porch and then move along. "We were fortunate we had a house to live in," she said.

Her mother kept strict track of what it took for her to go to college. "It was $800 and I paid it all back my first year." She worked as a librarian for 25 cents an hour. She tried to get a job in a library in Chicago, but didn't realize when she submitted an application to the alderman, she was supposed to include a bribe.

After getting married, she says she never had any arguments with her husband over money. "He'd cash his check and put it on the dresser, after putting some in the bank."

She never stopped "saving things that possibly had another life." At her retirement home, people put things they don't want anymore in a cart. She pulls things out of the cart and offers it to others. How often do they take it? "Not too often," she says.
She, too, made her childrens' clothes when they were small. Her kids have grown up to be frugal, but also generous with others through food drives and other charity.

How does she view the panic of the last few weeks?

"It's out of my hands and you just have to trust that God's gonna... whatever happens happens and hope somehow you have what it takes to cope with it," she said.

She says she always talked to her daughters about saving for tough times. "People didn't do that because they didn't believe that. They'd make fun of you for being frugal. You never know what's going to come. I see so many people that... when people get married, they think they have to start out with a house and everything in it, stuff that people worked for years to save for...I'd die before I'd pay finance charges on credit cards. It seems like if you don't have the money for it, you go without it until you do have it."

Things are bad. Things may get worse. But there's plenty of evidence that says it's no Great Depression.

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Rainbow logic

Posted at 6:57 PM on October 7, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I'm not much of a photographer, but even if I were, I have a rinky-dink camera that doesn't take much of a picture. But if you live in the Twin Cities, the chances are pretty good you saw it: One of the most vibrant rainbows anyone has ever seen. It went from horizon to horizon (this picture was just outside the door of the world headquarters of News Cut).

No, there's no pot of gold to be found. But, you know, the market had another bad day today, the economy is in complete shambles, and many of our workplaces and families are being (or about to be) decimated by layoffs.

What do you say that just for now, we believe that it really is a sign?

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An open letter to the next generation of parents

Posted at 10:15 AM on October 3, 2008 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Life

If you could write a letter to the people who will soon be raising the next generation, what would it say?

Dear parents of the next generation:

Don't stink at it.

Love,
Bob

I'm thinking about this because of an informative -- for some of us, depressing -- op-ed piece in the Star Tribune today by William J. Doherty, a professor of family social science and director of the Families and Democracy Project at the University of Minnesota. In Mom and Pop go over the top, Doherty takes on "hyper-parenting," specifically, attending your children's sports events:

The mark of a good parent in today's world is personal chauffeuring rather than group carpooling, cheering loudly from the sidelines at all games, advocating with coaches for their child's playing time, and backing away from any activity (such as family dinners and PTA meetings) that conflicts with year-round sports schedules that rival those of professional athletes. The top-rated parents become agents for their children's sports careers; average parents just try to keep their balance in a world that rewards excess.

... and....

It's ironic that parents who would never miss an athletic event often overlook what research and common sense attest are the most important activities that parents do with their children, things like having meals with them and quietly reading to them

Hyper-parenting, according to Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld is full of terrible consequences:

We suspect that this hyper-rearing way of life contributes to the increasing incidence of teen-age depression, substance abuse and sexual acting out. So what should parents do? Cutting back just 5-7 percent in scheduled activities can help families embrace sanity. Character development and interpersonal relationships can become central again, as they should, by de-emphasizing activities and accomplishments.

I have recently entered the phase of my life where my children are grown and -- mostly -- on their own. Neither of them has stuck up a bank (yet) or joined a violent underground movement to overthrow the country (yet). And so I have more time to reflect on their upbringing by reading articles like Professor Doherty's. It's guilt time.

I was one of the baby boomers who took comfort in the salve of the observation of the '80s that my generation of fathers would be more engaged in the raising of their children than our fathers who, if we read between the lines of the observation, apparently did it all wrong and we turned out as perfect as we were because of (a) our mothers and (b) our own cunning.

A generation later, we are learning that we did it wrong, too, and the correct way of raising children is -- as it turns out -- the way our fathers and mothers did. Who knew?

Parents of the next generation, here's tip #1. There's always someone out there telling you you're doing it wrong, warning you to change your ways before your kids rob a bank and undermine the government. Be ready for it.

You'll be constantly bombarded with studies and articles to make you question the quality of your parenting. Let's just take this week, for example:

When we die

Posted at 8:30 AM on September 19, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Life

A Time Magazine blog has an interview today with a man who is studying what happens when we die.

Many people, the author admits, aren't so sure about the project...

Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that well, when you die you die, that's it. Death is a moment, you know you're either dead or you're alive. All these things are not scientifically valid but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with -- except if you go to the really low level beyond the atoms.

Do we really want to know the answer if there's a possibility it totally rewires our concept of life and death?

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Housekeeping: What's your story? (redux)

Posted at 2:44 PM on August 14, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Life

Last week, while soliciting your everyday stories of life, I told you about a family I met while on vacation. I told you a little bit about them and mentioned that I'd interviewed them for a piece I was writing for a personal blog and newsletter. The piece is now done and I wanted to invite you to read more about the family, if you're so inclined. It's written for a specific audience -- airplane builders -- but I think you might enjoy it, anyway; at least, I hope so.

Oh, and this is me reminding you to share your tales of living your life. You'd be surprise how interesting you are.

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What's your story?

Posted at 8:39 AM on August 3, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Life

I'm back from vacation (Oshkosh). It was a working person's holiday as I spent much of the time talking to people with interesting stories to tell and then, ummm, telling them. Sound familiar? (I posted the stuff on my other blog).

Among the more fascinating people I met was Jack Beck and Marmy Clasen, and two of Jack's kids -- Jonathan and Peter. They live in Germantown, Wis.

Jack and Marmy were married back in 2004, and lost their jobs on the same day. Jack taught Hebrew and let's just say Craig's List is not full of people looking to hire professors of Hebrew. Marmy's dad died not long after they lost their jobs. Jack had a dream to build his own airplane and, so, without jobs and a low "vibal" state, Marmy bought Jack the first "kit." They'll be flying their plane within a few years.

Why did they proceed on a journey without the usual guarantees and security many of us prefer? Because you only live once and some journeys you have to take on faith. Peter and Jonathan -- both in their 20s -- have gone abroad, working in orphanages and traveling in countries from here to Nepal. Why? Because sometimes you begin a journey with no assurances; you take some things on faith.

Jack wanted to tell me their story (which I'll publish in a weekly newsletter I put out for airplane builders), but Marmy told him it's a boring story. It's not a boring story, and therein lies the #1 trait of people with interesting stories: they don't think their stories are interesting to other people.

So as I get back up to post-vacation speed on News Cut, it's time to ask you again for your story, even if you think your experiences are boring. Chances are, they're not. Here's the form. Tell me about your journey.

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