La Llorona

My previous blog was about age and stupidity.  This blog is just about stupidity. With the Mississippi River so high, I haven’t been paddling at all this spring. Growing impatient, my friend Buzz and I put in at Black Deer to at least get ourselves on the water. ...

Sore Arm from Using a Crowbar

Last week I took a crowbar to some nails that held my backyard fence together, and I hurt my right arm.  It feels like tennis elbow, which I’ve had a few times in the past, but I am left handed, and this is the first time I’ve had it happen on my right side. I...

First Hour of the Day

This morning I tried something that didn’t work a lick. In retrospect, I see that I was stupid to think that it might work all, I came up with the idea at 4:30 in the morning, so I’ll give myself some latitude. At the time, I foolishly thought I’d found a loophole in...

La Crosse Public Library

Last night I woke up at 4am. This happens only rarely now that I’ve retired, but when it does I know that just lying there and hoping to fall back to the sleep does not work well. Usually I get up, go into the TV room, and read. Fifteen minutes later, my eyelids droop...

ABC, ABA

Last weekend Manyu and I drove down to Iowa to hear Clare in concert.  She plays violin for Grinnell College’s orchestra.  After the concert, we took Clare and a friend out for an early dinner before Manyu and I started our four and a half hour drive back to La...

A Sand County

Last week was the anniversary of Aldo Leopold’s death in 1948.  As all Leopold fans know, he died of a heart attack fighting a grass fire on a neighbor’s land. Wisconsin has a total of 72 counties, and none of them is named Sand County. There is a Richland County,...
Steven Simpson