Farmers are the original eternal optimists. Indeed, it was a hailed-out farmer who first coined the phrase “Just wait until next year!” and not, as legend has it, a diehard sports fan. Optimism is an essential component of a farmer’s character. Perhaps the most pessimistic farmer I ...

Recently I was able to connect with other city administrators both near Marshall and across the State of Minnesota. One consistent message was the challenge of finding enough revenue to provide services — whether it be providing public safety, maintaining infrastructure like streets or ...

My Magical Mystery Nostalgia Tour has come to an end. It’s time to return to the present time. Which isn’t that great. But it’s all we got. Pam accuses me of being a serial nostalgic. She’s right. The longer-ago memories are, the more enjoyable they are to retrieve. One definition ...

At this time of year I always get a craving, one that reminds me of growing up on Marguerite Avenue. My family had a set of gardens in the backyard. They were mostly small flower gardens but we had one large vegetable garden below the hill. At this time of year the garden would be producing ...

Editor’s note: Jerry is taking some time off. Here is one of his past columns from his Oldies But Goodies file. Mesabi is the Ojibwa word for giant. Mesabi is also the name given to a range of iron-rich hills in northern Minnesota, knolls that the Ojibwa believed held a sleeping giant. ...

For the first time in 40 years, Minnesota has a central role in a presidential campaign as Gov. Tim Walz runs for vice-president with the Kamala Harris campaign. It’s bringing our state national attention, just like the Hubert Humphrey years of the 1960s and the Walter Mondale years of the ...