Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

As we proceed through life, minor aggravations are the number one cause of angry outbursts and sleepless nights. Incompetence, bureaucracy, and my favorite recent word, idiocracy, frustrate all of us to no end. Business, like life, is a process. And like life, business is filled with a seemingly endless scheme of rules and regulations that are ill-considered, antiquated, or downright stupid. These eventually swell to a tsunami of rage that generally leaves an ocean of regret.  As a manager of people and business processes for way too many years, I was obsessed with the small stuff. My goal? Eliminate all the processes (rules and regs) that customers find aggravating, even a little bit, so they and my co-workers could focus on the essential stuff.  "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and It's All Small Stuff” is a self-help book written in the 1990s by Richard Carlson, Ph.D. The title became a widely known and often-quoted piece of advice for stress management and maintaining p...

Money. We all need it. For millennia, it has been the lubricant that keeps the economy moving.  Talk about indoctrination; Centennial Elementary School in Richfield, MN, hooked us wee grade schoolers up with Richfield State Bank passbook savings accounts. We could stuff allowance there instead of in a mattress or a piggy bank. I don’t remember the logistics of getting money in or out, but I was proud to say I had a bank account. We learned early on that money, which may have been at the root of evil, was something we’d need for the rest of our days.  Our species has functioned quite well as "a trading people." The impulse to exchange goods and services is deeply embedded in human behavior, driven by necessity, efficiency, and the desire for specialized items. Long-distance trade networks have existed for thousands of years.  The beginning of agriculture centuries ago led to more settled communities and food surpluses, freeing people from the direct need to find food. This...

In the prime of life, let’s say when I was in my twenties and thirties, I had little interest in the health issues of peers and seemingly healthy friends. Our kids’ medical problems, especially son Dan’s asthma and chronic pneumonia, used up most of the small amount of empathy I didn’t keep bottled up. By the time I reached the age of majority, three of my four grandparents were dead, struck down by diseases that proved incurable but would today be quite manageable. My mother, who was the most involved relative with their end-of-life care, became, if she wasn’t always, an undiagnosed hypochondriac. Now that I’m on the bottom right side of the longevity bell curve, I can open up my whole inventory of empathy for dear old Mom. It was trying sometimes to be around her and listen to the endless symptoms she was having. In her mind, she always assumed the most dire diagnosis to explain what she was dealing with. I empathize with her doctors, who treated her with patience, if not understandi...

This article was published in The North Shore Journal on May 30, 2025 Work to replace the High Falls pedestrian bridge is underway at Tettegouche State Park, and several trail closures and detours will be visible near the construction site. High Falls is often cited as the highest waterfall entirely within Minnesota. The falls and bridge are a popular attraction on the North Shore. They can be accessed via a hiking trail from the Tettegouche State Park visitor center.  Crews began working on a temporary access trail in late February and will start bridge construction on June 30, 2025. The project is expected to be completed before the end of this year.  The new bridge, spanning over 100 feet, will be made from reinforced fiberglass polymer, a durable material designed to better withstand the elements and future flooding events. Its length and height have increased to ensure the new bridge will be secure in flood situations. Northland Constructors from Duluth is the lead contr...