Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

With Christmas in the rearview mirror, my mind—and likely yours—is turning toward New Year’s resolutions. Statistics tell us a little more than a third of us will make one, but most will be forgotten before the first week of January is out. In fact, less than one in ten actually reach the finish line. I’m no saint in this department. I can’t tell you how many times my "resolutions" to eat better or quit smoking lasted all of forty-eight hours. But this year, I have one resolution I know I will keep forever. Being "up in years" and gainfully retired, the Bohunk and I watch our fair share of television—or stream it, as the kids say. Lately, the programs feel like they’re just filler between the commercials. We are inundated with heart-wrenching videos from the ASPCA, the NAACP, St. Jude, and Shriners. The formula is always the same: a sincere request, a sad pair of eyes, and the promise that for just $19 a month, I can be the difference between life and death. But muc...

My Christmas memories are cast in the warm, sepia tones of the mid-century—the 1950s and 1960s. Vinyl albums on the spindle with songs of the season by Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Andy Williams. A spindly spruce tree that smelled like outdoors, draped with tinsel and handmade ornaments. A small pile of gifts under the tree, mostly socks, underwear, and a toy or two. We idolize that time as one of simplicity, conformity, and anticipation—a season where the commercial engine was beginning to accelerate. Still, the pace of life itself was decidedly slower.  Each fall, we’d receive the Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, and Sears Christmas catalogs. I’d spend hours each day leading up to the visit from St. Nick, going page to page to see all the wonderful toys and mechanical games that I’d never own, yet still wishing. Then I’d admire the BB guns and rifles, which I’d also never own. And that’s how wishing and hoping became part of my DNA. Today,  the holiday landscape is fundamentall...

I do some of my best writing in my head while walking the dogs. Whether ruminating about the Long Way Home, a Facebook comment, or an angry email to someone who failed to deliver on a promise, by the time the dogs have done their duty, the best writing has started to fade away. By the time I sit at my keyboard or have a notebook in hand, that passage of marvelous writing proved to be just an all-too-brief visitation. Some of you may be thinking, based on my weak efforts that you read here, that the words and ideas that escape me probably weren’t perfect anyway. Maybe you’re right. But it bothers the you-know-what out of me. If losing good ideas hasn’t been true my whole life, I might attribute it to my advancing years.   I’ve tried almost every trick in my attempts to capture those lightning-in-a-bottle ideas and wonderfully profound sentences. I’ve carried recipe cards, scribbled on the back of business cards (remember those?), pocket notebooks, and note apps on my phone—resu...

The Bohunk finally convinced me to go with her to Bentleyville, the winter attraction in Duluth. Bentleyville is known as America's largest free walk-through light display, emphasizing the importance of local traditions during the holidays. The tradition started with a guy named Nathan Bentley decorating his home in Esko, MN, part of a friendly competition to put up more lights than his neighbor. In 2008, Duluth Mayor Don Ness called Bentley to propose moving the light display to Bayfront Festival Park on the shores of Lake Superior. The "Tour of Lights" lit up Bayfront Park for the first time on November 27, 2009.  I enjoy a healthy dislike of crowds and the depressing financial cost of popular public events. I was convinced to give this display of holiday lights a chance. The only expense we’d incur is $10 for parking. No entry fee, free coffee and cookie, along with complimentary popcorn and marshmallows for S’mores, to be warmed over a dozen or more wood fires on the ...