Getting Older

Up North (with John Sanford)

There was a time when the phrase "up north" meant going to a mom and pop resort for a week or two of a fishing vacation in Northern Minnesota. That tradition has faded quite a bit over the years. Today, fancy resorts with tennis courts, golf courses, computer game rooms and "conference centers" dominate. Ah for the good old days.

 

Here I am checking out the beach with my Aunt Pearl and my mom (on the right) sometime during WWII.

A few years later, can you believe the striped pants my mom made me wear. The cabins were always "rustic." But what fun. I was an only child in those days as my little brothers didn't show up till I was almost nine...

 

This sudden dash of nostaligia may have been inspired by my perusing my childhood picture album on a rainy day yesterday. I'd just finished another John Sanford thriller. As typical the setting was in Minnesota.   The images of long past fishing lakes "up north" kept flashing through my mind. They are far away in time and distance but not in memory. Farm Island, Ball Club, Potato, Sawbill, Mantrap, Battle Axe, Lida, Hoot Owl, and on and on. Those were the days my friends.....

The Path

"Do not go where the path may lead,
go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail" Ralph Waldo Emerson

The nature path led me to fishing, hunting, camping, gardening, hiking, biking, dogs, canoeing & wilderness adventures. It even returned me to the classroom as, for example, here I'm speaking to a group of seniors in Apple Valley, Minn. about birding.

Varina

Think you know pretty much about all the key famous people in the American Civil War? Think again & read my review of Varina  the teenager who married a much older widower and rich planter who took up politics, went to Washington, played an important role in several administrations and later became President of the Confederate State of America.  Click on Mark Twain above to check it  out.... It's an amazing story