Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 311
Technology truly has changed everything. Remember when we would get a new wristwatch? We’d pull out the stem, set the watch to the appropriate time, push the stem back in, and then rotate that stem back and forth to wind the watch. The device kept great analog time and all of us could tell the hour and minute of the day by looking at that timepiece. People understood what a person meant when he or she announced that it was a quarter to six. It seems that kids today only understand digital time and have no idea what you are talking about when yo...
My mother grew up during the Depression. She only had a handful of books at her disposal, and since she loved to read, she read and reread those half dozen books multiple times and treasured each and every one of them. She still had those books when we cleaned out her apartment after her death. She never forgot the dearth of books in her household as she grew up. She made up her mind that her children would have books at their disposal, and she made good on that vow. I grew up surrounded by publications of all kinds, and I developed a love of...
It seems my husband and I always decide to begin a project at the wrong time of year. We purchase snow shovels in April, barbecues in November, and sleds after the snow melts, a new self-propelled four-wheel drive push lawn mower when the grass has withered in the fall, and the list goes on. Whatever we do, we end up waiting months before we get to use our new item. This September we pulled our usual “let’s do it now when it’s too late to take advantage of it this season” stunt. We decided to treat ourselves to a small greenhouse. This wasn’t...
I love my three siblings. After all, we grew up together, we knew what buttons to push if one of us wanted to start an argument, and we also knew the way to soothe those ruffled feelings. We banded together against perceived outside threats, we kept one another’s secrets, we understood and, in most cases, empathized with their problems as we navigated ourselves through childhood. In short, we grew up in a typical fashion and learned to respect and care about one another. Of course, we all matured and flew away with the four winds. All four of u...
The MonDak region has lost a newspaper icon. Russ Wells, born Dec. 5, 1945, passed away on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019 just a few months shy of his 74th birthday. Wells exhibited a talent for newspaper work from the outset. He participated in the publication of his high school paper and when he attended Dickinson College, he joined the college newspaper staff. He and a friend collaborated on the Me & Mrachek column, a feature that proved so popular everyone on campus knew Wells and his friend Don,...
Did you know that the phrase 'senior moments', which means a temporary lapse of memory, first made an appearance in 1996? The staff of Webster's New World College Dictionary made it the word of the year in 2000. The term seems to poke gentle fun at us older people, but it does give us an excuse when those annoying lapses of memory do occur, which seems to happen more frequently than one would like. Before we get to the point when we start to worry about those memory glitches, we tend to find...
When I moved to Virginia City, the sign “Welcome to Virginia City - Resisting Change since 1863” amused me. I understand the sentiment behind that statement, as the community wants to preserve the old buildings and atmosphere that attracts thousands of tourists every year. The town even has sign law restrictions for businesses that dictate sign size, color, and construction, along with restrictions on what people can or cannot do to their outside property that lies within the historic district. Townsfolks would like to preserve what they hav...
We all encounter inanities in life. Pet peeves, gripes, and complaints differ greatly among people. What drives me totally mad does not seem to bother others at all. Each one of us experiences minor life encounters and occurrences that annoy us as an individual immensely while others around us don’t seem to find the same happenings nearly as irritating as we do. Thank goodness tolerance levels differ from person to person. I thought I would share some of the occurrences in my life that vex me. I’ve listed several, in no particular order of ann...
I think I have moved to the right place. It seems in most parts of the country older people no longer receive the respect they deserve. We're often looked upon as a burden, as using up vanishing natural resources; younger people don't value our expertise nor do they want our advice. 'Old' often equates with relic, antique, artifact, shopworn, and used up. However, in Virginia City people delight in old objects. Visitors come from all fifty states and around the world to view the dated treasures...
Maybe this observation applies only to this household, but somehow I doubt it. It seems that when the man of the house does something silly, or makes a mistake, or has some sort of accident, the woman of the house is expected to soothe feelings, assure her man that accidents do happen, the incident of course was in no way his fault, she of course will pay any resulting bills, and she will never mention the peccadillo again. However, woe on the woman if she happens to make the same sort of...
Activity of any sort has always been a large part of my life. As a child, I had the nickname Worry Wart or Nervous Nellie as I could not seem to sit still for any length of time. When sitting, one or the other leg constantly jiggled up and down, my feet tapped the floor, and movement seemed an integral part of my being. I drove classmates who had the misfortune to sit directly in front of me totally berserk, as my feet always seemed to find the back rung of their chairs and those feet beat a...
I can't believe I've done this again. I thought we gained wisdom as we age, but not this old fall hen. Two years ago I broke my arm after slipping on ice. Learning from experience, I invested in trail crampons and used them faithfully in icy conditions to make certain I would not fall on ice again. However, the end of January this year, I was out collecting twigs (without the crampons, of course, as I was just in my own back yard) for kindling. I slipped on slushy snow, fell, slid downhill...
Last winter, I dreamed about sledding down our steep driveway (Lois Lane), and continuing down Cornucopia Road with its horseshoe curve followed by a precipitous straightaway. This combination of roadways promised a lot of entertainment for someone riding on a gliding device. So, at the end of the winter season last year, I bought a toboggan. Naturally all the snow had disappeared before its arrival, so I stored it in our shed and waited for the following three seasons to come and go before I could try it out. Snow arrived this year in time...
It’s that time of year again when the winter doldrums strike. Those incredibly dark three weeks on either side of the winter solstice are enough to drive anyone mad. The three weeks in December prior to the solstice pass relatively smoothly with the preparations for the holidays occupying everyone’s attention. However, those three weeks after the shortest day of the year, in bleak January without distractions of the Christmas season, seem interminable, and one wonders if the sun will in fact actually start its journey back across the skies to...
Occasionally a few childhood memories remind me that the good old days weren’t necessarily all that good. Dentistry comes to mind here, and how a visit to the dentist has greatly changed for the better over the course of the last fifty years. As a child, when my mother made a dental appointment for me, this meant a date with doom. The dreaded event would lurk on the horizon and when the dire day arrived, all other activities palled with the thought of the looming meeting with the man holding weapons of torture. Remember the high-speed drill, t...
Sometimes enough is enough. I'm thinking specifically here of cell phones. My husband and I both have used Tracfone for years; you maybe remember, those old-fashion flip phones that don't do much else other than allow us to dial out and to receive calls. Incidentally having a phone, not a mini computer, is our sole purpose in having a portable communications device we can carry in our pockets. We do not text, we don't want to check weather, access the Internet, nor do we feel the need to keep...
Every year, my sister and I plan a get-away together. We choose a destination, set a date for our adventure, and off we go. When we lived a mile apart, our sister trips took us in any direction we wanted. Now that we live nine hours apart, we investigate locations approximately equidistant between our respective residences. This way neither one of us has a long travel time to reach our chosen vacation spot. This year, we decided to meet in Wallace, Idaho, midway between my home in Virginia City and my sister’s home near Dayton, Washington. W...
The thought of approaching winter leaves me cold – no pun intended. Labor Day, in my opinion, denotes the most depressing holiday of the year because of the many events it signifies have come to an end. Hot languid days have come and gone for another year, summer has packed her bags with the intention of departing while winter lurks gleefully just around the corner. We have beautiful autumn to enjoy before winter truly arrives, but the season between summer and winter can prove finicky as well. To make matters worse, we never know what to e...
I used to believe that old dogs could certainly learn new tricks. After all, age and experience have to count for something. In the case of canines, dogs learn the fine art of manipulating their humans as the dogs age. They can learn at any age what it means when humans crinkle cheese wrappers but they can conveniently forget what a stern NO means if they decide they have something better to do. They learn what they need to know to keep their humans placated, and they will learn something new when they see what’s in it for them. They can still...
I have loved biking ever since I first mastered the balancing act required to propel a two wheeled conveyance down the road. Through the years I've had an assortment of bicycles ranging from a single speed clunker to a magnificent twenty-six speed mountain bike. When I moved to eastern Montana two decades ago, I would haul out my trusty bike and pedal down trails and paths and roads. I enjoyed the exercise as well as the opportunity to spend pleasurable time outdoors on the prairie. Four years...
We have absentee neighbors. They live just down the road from us during the summer months, but they have obligations in Nevada so they live in that state for the winter season. Sometimes they need to order items for their Montana home while they are still stuck in Nevada. On these occasions they email us to advise us that a parcel or package of theirs is on the way, sent to us under our name and at our post office box. We collect the parcel when it arrives and stow it safely at their house so their purchase sits waiting for them when they arriv...
Septuagenarian Edward Anklam has recently opened a truly unique business establishment in Culbertson. Open for business for the past month, Anklam's Studio and Gallery on Culbertson's main street offers a fascinating glimpse into America's past. Anklam carves pictures of wildlife or Native American themes onto old buffalo bones that he has collected over the course of the last six decades. These carvings on bone constitute the bulk of his business, but he also operates a gallery of historical Am...
It seems that anymore, someone somewhere has set a day aside for anything and everything imaginable. Just in the first several days of January and February alone, we have such oddities as Bloody Mary Day, Science Fiction Day, Fruitcake Day, Tater Tot Day, Wear Red Day, and Shower with a Friend Day. The list goes on and on for nearly every day of every month each year. I have no idea how these days are set, or for the most part, who would even celebrate them. I mean, there is even a Lumpy Rug Day and a Two Different Colored Shoes Day, both in...
I sat at my desk a few weeks ago looking out my window watching the snow fall. My mood turned as sour as curdled milk as those fluffy white flakes kept slowly but steadily falling out of the sky. If the calendar said November, I’d smile as the ground turned white. I’d pull out a latch hook project to start, gather good books for winter reading, haul out the toboggan, make sure my insulated boots stood ready by the door, and my thoughts would turn with pleasure to all sorts of upcoming winter activities. But it isn’t November, it is April...
We do have a few moose here in the Virginia City area. We don’t have herds of these largest members of the deer family, like we do elk or deer, but these majestic creatures do roam the countryside. My friends in Alder see them frequently throughout the winter, as these herbivores enjoy browsing through the willows along the creek. Both my friends enjoy watching these animals and they have a few pictures of their moose neighbors munching contentedly on branches and twigs just outside the front door. Two seasons ago, a young moose routinely r...
