Columnists

My appreciation of the people I meet began on the main drag of Braddock, Pennsylvania just a few blocks from the slag-spewing furnaces of the US Steel Works. My father had grown up on these streets and unlike most of his peers he went on to enjoy the benefits of the GI Bill after serving in the US Marines. Whenever we visited his old neighborhood, he’d always spend time reminiscing with childhood friends who often stood around an oil drum with a bonfire lit inside.
This drove my mother nuts. Something about my dad conversing with a bunch of bums (in her opinion) ignited her disgust. Pacing in my grandparent’s apartment above the street. Eventually she’d send me to retrieve him.

While it may be too cold this weekend to spend much time outdoors, here’s a couple of things to gnaw on as you’re staring out the window.
Dave Mech, the world renowned wolf researcher, has released another study. This time he and his co-authors looked at the correlation in the moose and wolf populations, according to a story in the Duluth News-Tribune.
Here’s what they found. As the number of moose plummeted in northeast Minnesota, the number of wolves increased. Fewer moose, more wolves.
Mech looked at the survival rate of moose calves, something the DNR has failed to account for and at times ignored in studying moose populations.
The study reports a correlation between moose calves and wolf numbers. More calves survive when there are fewer wolves.
What’s the takeaway? The DNR should pay much more attention to the wolf population if they want the moose population to recover.

Current television news lately has reported on young people who have died in the current influenza outbreak. If that media had been extant over 100 years ago, I imagine that this could have been a news flash of APRIL 15, 1904, PONCA CITY, OK, Elora Grace (Gelvin) Standard, 34, mother of six, died of the grippe (influenza) six days after the death of her husband, Alva A. Standard, 41, (April 9, 1904). On April 7, 1904, Elora gave birth to her sixth child.
Although farm neighbors considered adopting them or placing the children on the orphan train, the six children, ages 12, 10, 7, 5, 2 and eight days, remain on the family farm.
They are being cared for by their Illinois grandparents: Martha, age 60, and her husband, James R. Gelvin, 79.
The crops were harvested and on August 5, 1904 the Standard farm: 3 horses, 12 cattle, 4 hogs, farm equipment, chickens, household furniture including an organ was sold at auction.

Starting with 2010, every 10 years the US population has grown or will grow in its over-65 age population by at least three percent. By 2030 that percentage of population will be at 19.3 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Although I understand that some toddlers have chomped on the attractively colored Tide Detergent Pods, I’m wondering where the adults were and what they were thinking and why these detergents weren’t safely placed out of reach of youngsters. Yes, I know slip-ups can happen and we all feel terrible when a child’s life is affected or lost.
Somehow, though, in the need for children’s safety, the safety of the elderly is being compromised and forgotten.
I keep a pair of pliers by my bedside to open medicine bottles and get a firm grip on any immovable object.
How many elderly have punctured themselves trying to open a heavily plastic-encased product?

Last week the Echo’s publisher, Anne Swenson emailed me and asked if I had kept diaries of my experiences. Afterwards, I pulled out my oldest journal from 1975 that detailed a three-week trek into the border country.
I was surprised by the clarity of my early writing, as I detailed day after day of paddling and portaging.
Meeting others along the way, I asked them to write down their names and addresses, so I would remember them over the passing years. As I re-read this list the other day, I recalled the impact those brief encounters had had on my life.

by Anne Swenson -

Cribbage is a great two person card game. Louie Palcher taught me to play years ago and I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to pass his knowledge down to the younger generations.
Of course it was hard to focus when I was playing with Louie. We’d take a break from playing in the kitchen and wander over to the porch.
From there we could look out over Burntside Lake on a nice summer day. There’d be some piano music playing from a cassette and soon one of us would be drifting off for an afternoon nap.
Back in the kitchen Louie would be taking the apple potica he made that morning out of the oven. That was another distraction, the delicious smell of the apples and cinnamon baking.
Louie was patient and I was eager to learn. There were many, many games before he decided I should know better and stole points I forgot to count.

by David Krikorian -

The holidays don’t always bring cheer and goodwill to everyone. Listen to the heart speak and revealed will be fears and sorrows as well as hopes and dreams.
In my family, growing up, my mother was the religious one - a lifelong Methodist - while my dad was a former Lutheran who had become an atheist. All in all, he probably wouldn’t be considered a “nice” person. He disliked Jews, blacks, and other ethnicities unfamiliar to him. At least he said he did.
But as a young adult when asked by my Mom to invite some friends for my birthday dinner at her house, I chose a young Jewish family. I worked with the wife and was close to them all.
Then I crossed my fingers. Hours later that evening, I had to pry my friends away from the conversational exchange with my Dad. He and they had such a good time, finding things in life in common and some not so different.

The freezer is full of venison. It took two 16-day hunting seasons but we’ll be able to dine on deer meat this winter and hopefully right up to the 2018 season.
Heading into the last weekend of the muzzleloader season there were some doubters among my hunting partners. I had to send photos of two deer on the ground to prove them wrong.
Saturday morning was a chance to hunt on my buddy Jim’s land up the Fernberg. Twenty-five years ago we used to park trucks there and walk north, crossing ridges as we headed toward the invisible BWCA line.
Today not only are there hunting shacks but year-round homes as well. Jim’s land lies in this area and had been holding deer all fall.
The deal was I would sit in his enclosed tower stand and when I was done, take down the fabric covering the stand and haul it back to town.