Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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It's over. Despite the last bit of unseemly flailing about by the administration, the election is over, and when the last votes are counted in what will prove to be the most transparent election in history – despite the propaganda suggesting otherwise – Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States with 306 electoral votes, the same number Donald Trump got in 2016. The results of the election absolutely should be verified and confidence in the foundation of American democracy, the electoral process, should be affirmed despite an...
You've probably noticed that there are a lot of scary movies available on streaming services as we approach Halloween. Doesn't Halloween seem a little redundant this year? It seems like it should be the official holiday of 2020. Well, I've never been more enthused about masks... You won't catch me watching any horror flicks this season— or any season for that matter. I'll admit I'm a cinema coward. I've never understood why people would pay to be scared out of their wits, especially when you can just turn on the news for free. If I want a h...
As you can imagine having a birthday on 9/11, as I do, can elicit some complicated emotions. Only once in my life have I celebrated the demise of another human being, but that day in 2011 when those soldiers got bin Laden, I got my birthday back. I was driving the kids to daycare 10 years earlier when I heard the news on the radio, and while the kids chirped away, I knew what it meant and I knew that life would change— at least for a while. I lamented the loss of innocence that childhood should guarantee but seldom does. At least not in my life...
Over Labor Day I spent some time thinking about the jobs I've done, skills I developed, and things I learned, including how much a body can endure. I never considered a career in bale-hauling or rock-picking, but there was satisfaction when that last load of hay was hauled, the hay mound was packed, and the frustration of losing a load or two while navigating a cowpath with a wobbly flatbed, was forgotten. As for picking rocks on my Grandpa Spilloway's farm in Gackle, N.D., well, they just kept belching to the surface each spring. Satisfaction...
I was mowing in the backyard a couple of weeks ago – better described as haying – when a mourning dove flopped out of the tall grass ahead. At first, I figured it was a mother feigning injury to lead me away from a nest. Any child of the prairie has seen that maneuver. When I made another round with the mower, the bird was still there, dragging it's left wing. He was so weak, I was able to easily pick him up. I know, I know, the experts will tell you to just let nature take its course. Earlier this year I found a hawk with a broken wing and rep...
Several weeks ago, I chronicled a herculean effort to smuggle dry curd cottage cheese from Ashley Super Valu to my mother in Frederick, S.D., with the help of a hearse that happened to be going that direction. The mission was a success, so we were able to have cheese buttons for Christmas dinner. They taste better when delivered in a Lincoln. The episode was even mentioned on Prairie Public Radio. Sue Balcom, once alerted to the shortage of dry curd cottage cheese, made an emergency broadcast to listeners to tell them how they might make their...
I'd just pulled up to the post office to mail a couple of packages when Delbert Eszlinger called to wish me a Happy New Year from his ranch seven miles northeast of Ashley. After we bragged about the size of our snowdrifts for a while, I asked him about the famous onion calendar he and Donna do every New Year's Eve, which predicts moisture for the coming year. The way it works is you slice an onion in half vertically to create 12 “cups” representing the months of the year. Then you add a teaspoon of salt to draw out the moisture from the oni...
With all due respect, my old pickup has killed more deer than some hunters. It's a 2005 Silverado. Muzzle velocity, about 65 mph. It's a little crinkly, but still running strong. Dylan's driving it these days. You know the hunters I'm talking about. They look like L.L. Bean and drive shiny Land Rovers with out-of-state plates. I hate to sound provincial or speak in stereotypes, but that's my observation. For a few weeks in November out here, everyone looks a Denver Bronco fan. When deer season opens, I wear neon-orange Kevlar and wrap myself...
By holding this newspaper in your hands you're supporting democracy. Democracy doesn't work without an informed citizenry and informed votes. It's easy to overlook what a newspaper brings to a community, but thousands of communities across the country have discovered that when it's gone, the cost is high. A study by Paul Gao, an associate professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame, and others, found that there is a direct and devastating correlation to the costs borne by taxpayers in communities that lose their public watchdog. A...
India and Gus the Wonder Pug waited in my old Mustang convertible while I surveyed my hat rack, trying to decide which one I would take on our pilgrimage. I finally grabbed my Baltimore Orioles cap. The sun was high when we stopped at the Sitting Bull and Sakakawea monuments near Mobridge. We stood a while at an obelisk marking Sakakawea's time on this earth, a legend at 19, dead in 1812 at 25 of a fever during childbirth, about 25 miles from that spot. India and Gus trotted out ahead of me to the chief's grave on a bluff, overlooking the...
