Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

The difference between a newspaper column and a social media post is that one takes some time to work on a column idea, even when enraged, to make sure the point is valid and the rage is justified. Not so, social media. This column simmered on a back burner for a few weeks now. Still, the issue it addresses, prevarication, is something that sticks in my craw.  Prevarication doesn't necessarily involve outright lying. Instead, it uses ambiguity, misdirection, or half-truths to mislead or conceal the truth. What I call BS. Not a straight-out lie, but a circuitous route around the truth to hide mistakes, carelessness, ignorance, or guilt. Someone who prevaricates is trying to avoid being caught in a lie.  In decades of adulthood I’ve encountered more than my share of prevaricators. The ones who were going to pay me on Friday, deliver something on time, make the repairs when promised, and so many other things. As a part-time county chronicler, I’m used to elected officials and bur...

Our two dogs go out to “do their business” après breakfast every day. We load up on “poop bags,” attach them to leashes, and head out across the street for a peaceful stroll, me with the big dog and the Bohunk with the diminutive Gypsy. We, the humans, not the dogs, use this opportunity to check in on plans for the day and ask each other how we slept, how we’re feeling, and the status of each dog’s waste. On a recent morning, the Bohunk said she’d had two Charley Horses during the night, one on her left leg between her shin and her calf. When that calmed down, she turned over and immediately had one in the same place on her right leg. I sympathized, as I’ve had similar. After my ministrations, I smiled and recalled my childhood experience with those pesky cramps. I remember my dad, bounding off his beloved couch, screaming some swear words I’d never heard before, and bouncing on one leg. “GD Charley Horse,” he said. I didn’t know it was a cramp, but the name struck me as funny, and see...

Living again in a manufactured home community, my WOKE sensibilities won’t let me use the phrase trailer trash to describe me or the neighbors. I don’t care what pronoun, adjective, or noun you affix to me, refer to my people and me as “manufactured home trash.” Last week, I hinted at more tales about our move to the Duluth metro. Hoping this doesn’t disappoint, here goes.  The Duluth/Proctor frontier is the 16th neighborhood across four states that the Bohunk and I have called home over the last half century, some hoods for less than a year, and others for a decade or more. After meeting neighbors and making friends in each place, I've found that people are the same everywhere. Folks are just trying to keep their heads above water and leave the world a better place.  As we walk the dogs near the entrance to our community, we see new neighbors all the time. Like everywhere else, I often get what we call the manly nod, a bow of the head that says, “I see you. I acknowledge you....

Is Becky offended when I call her The Bohunk?  In the way-back years of the 20th century, Bohunk was a derogatory ethnic slur, used in the tolerant and welcoming USA to refer to immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. Most don’t know there was a kingdom called Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. That’s where Becky’s paternal relatives immigrated from more than 100 years ago.  Sometimes, friends call me “The Swede.” Ancestors on my paternal side immigrated from Sweden early in the last century. The last week of July earned me a new moniker, “The Dumb Swede.”  I’m not offended to share the story of how I came by it.  A couple of weeks ago, I explained our decision to leave the woods of Cook County for the bustling metropolis of Duluth. Moving is something a 70-something couple should avoid, for their health and relationship, even those who did the Swedish Death Cleaning since the start of the year.  The last weekend of July, the hottest weekend of the sum...

A day in the life of a local newspaper editor I mainly listen to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) when driving. It’s not talk radio in the popular sense of one-sided agitators screaming a rant as if the city, state, and nation are inflamed with evil doers. I prefer calmer voices.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been behind the wheel more than usual, and MPR was alive with reporting on the issue of press freedom. And well it should be.  Television networks are making significant cash and collateral settlements of lawsuits filed by the President of the United States and his minions. Now, even the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has been served by Trump’s lawyers for libel and slander.  Press freedom, another form of your liberty, is constantly under threat. And that’s why the press, the big boys, and the little ones like me, will always be sounding off.  Real people these days hear ‘threats to press freedom' and think it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a concept for journa...