Over the past week, I have spent quite a bit of time in the car traveling for both work and personal reasons. While I tried my best to plan accordingly and pack healthy options for my travels or eat prior to leaving, there were instances when I needed to find options along the way. While it was ...

Happy May Day! Like so many of us, you might be looking a bit befuddled when someone wishes you Happy May Day! And, you might even reply: “Yeah, Happy May Day to you, too” and then wonder why you replied at all. Well, it’s May 1 and that’s May Day. And, again, you might be saying: ...

Question: Both my daughter and I have a disability. I have the handicap license plates on my car and she only has a placard. When she drives my car, does she have to use her placard to park? Answer: The registered license plates are designed for you to be able to park that vehicle in a ...

Each May, Social Security releases the top 10 baby names of the previous year. We are the leading source for America’s popular names because almost every newborn gets a Social Security number at birth. In a way, your name is your first “personal” information — a piece of ...

Part I It had been five years since I had been on the Rainy River in northern Minnesota and flung the weight-swivel-circle hook combination full of crawlers in that overhead style of a surf angler, made all the less graceful by the rocking of the current and the wakes of the passing boats ...

This happened more than a decade ago, but I remember it like yesterday because we took pictures. The Kentucky sun blazed down on my wife and me. Before us was a racetrack that had been groomed to fanatical perfection; behind us were the iconic twin spires of Churchill Downs. We were sitting ...

Congratulations Lyon County! We were able to recycle 200 tons of recyclables, which means we saved 200 tons of potential trash from going to the landfill from the period of March 22 to April 22. Great job! We also received some great news from Millennium Recycling in Sioux Falls. This is the ...

This is your absolute last chance to see what’s left of the brilliant winter constellations in the Marshall western sky. They’ve just about crashed in the low western sky, not to be seen again in the evening until late next autumn when they re-emerge above the eastern horizon. Since ...

I’ll be the first to admit, 11 years ago, I never thought it was possible. From what was considered at the time a crowded field of eight candidates, a relatively unknown congressman from Illinois emerged as the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. I wrote then it would ...

I first learned about “The Red Green Show” on PBS back in the mid-’90s from my former roommate in Duluth. It was an amusing show, probably geared more toward guys my dad’s age who liked to do “do-it-yourself” kind of projects, whether or not they’re a good idea. Yet this then ...

Question: I want to install a lift kit and put bigger tires on my Jeep. I want to comply with all the state laws. What is a bumper height law and the law about tires that extend out past the fenders? Answer: Anytime you make any modification or alteration to a vehicle’s stock suspension and ...

April in Minnesota this year hasn’t felt much like spring. For those who like to garden, their thoughts turn to seeds and planting in the spring, but it’s hard to think about planting seeds when everything was just covered with snow and the ground is still so cold. However, one of my ...

Baggage can be good or bad. When we think of baggage, most of us see that suitcase we pack for a trip, right? Yeah, so do I, but there’s also that other type of baggage connected to our mental being which can cause concern, anxiety or that all enveloping sense of stress. I was attending a ...

My wife and I, like millions of others, watched the event unfold on live TV. The affair was billed as possibly the biggest comeback since Lazarus. Much to our surprise, the outcome actually lived up to the hype. Collective opinions are now unanimous: Tiger’s victory at The Masters is ...

Part of what makes our nation unique is our diversity. Social Security touches the lives of nearly all Americans; so, we’re accustomed to serving a diverse population. Online, our People Like Me pages help inform the many different people we help. From people with disabilities to students and ...

There’s that moment of anticipation in early spring which transcends time. It occurs after the grill has been fired up in the first warm evening and is preceded by the sizzle which triggers some primordial salivatory response as red becomes pink becomes that ideal ...

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” This line from the musical, “Mary Poppins,” describes how mothers used to con their children into taking their medicine, whether it was prescribed by the family doctor or was a tonic that the mother believed would cure “whatever” ...

Now that we’re well into spring and winter is history, at least astronomically, big changes are going on with our evening constellations. Even though it’s spring, Orion and the rest of the winter constellations are still shining brightly in the Marshall southwestern sky. There’s the big ...

The front page headline on today’s Associated Press story says it all: Big issues in dispute as Legislature approaches home stretch. One of those big issues is taxes. Gov. Tim Walz wants to raise the gas tax by 20 cents per gallon to create a bigger dedicated revenue stream for road and ...

If you take a drive out to Flandrau State Park near New Ulm in the next couple weeks, you might get to see something unusual. No, it’s not green grass or ground absent of snowbanks, although that is something we have sorely missed for what seems like too long. More unique than that ...