Uncle Vern
Uncle Vern When I lived in Wisconsin with my parents, Vern, my mom’s brother, and his wife, Alice, lived in Welch Village, Minnesota. We would […]
Lost Identity
Solo Trip to Wisconsin In 2018, I was still focused on my genealogy project so I decided to make a solo driving trip that would […]
The Song Remains The Same
Standardize Everything A personal project I recently completed was the curation of our music collection. I worked on it off-and-on for most of 2020. […]
Photo Under Glass
The Photo Collection While going through old printed photographs taken by my mom’s grandparents I came across some negatives that were actually applied to glass. […]
The Bowery Nightclub
The Photo Collection Years ago I decided to digitize thousands of my parents printed photos, slides, and negatives and put them into a ‘family history’ […]
Detroit to St. Louis
Looking for a Change After five years living in Detroit, Michigan (1983 – 1988), I was tired of the gloomy weather, the rustbelt industries, the […]
Michael in Brazil
“A Year in Brazil” In 1999, I was scouring the world-wide web for interesting stuff and stumbled upon a simple blog written by a man […]
An Old Flu
It Happened 100 Years Ago “The horrific scale of the 1918 influenza pandemic—known as the “Spanish flu”—is hard to fathom. The virus infected 500 million […]
Scout’s Honor
My dad retired from the United State Air Force in 1968. For the first 7 years of my life, he was not around much, so […]
License to Drive
Every kid in my public high school class who was 15 years old took in-classroom training from our shop teacher, Mr. Kinzler. I considered him […]
Henriksen’s Pond
Growing up in northwest Wisconsin in the 1970s, I had the advantage of being able to spend time exploring the woods and land of my […]
Stuff It
Growing up, my sister, Barb, and I had dozens of stuffed animals to keep us occupied and assist in our creativity. Any time a picture […]
First Dead Body
My first encounter with a lifeless human body was very brief and a long time ago. The details are fuzzy. I recently contacted my old […]
4-H – 1976 Bicentennial Heritage Tour (Washington D. C.)
My mother was the leader of the Little Butternut 4-H Club for decades – starting in the early 1970s. She became involved when my sister […]
A Mighty Wind (Saxophone)
After three years playing the clarinet in the Luck Public School Band, I decided to change to saxophone. I played in concert band, marching band, […]
A Mighty Wind (Clarinet)
In the 7th grade at Luck Public School, I remember being taken into the old auditorium for the first day of the Junior High band […]
Skate Away
Growing up in the upper Midwestern United States, one of our winter activities was ice skating. Minnesota is called the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”. I […]
Halloween
As a Kid When my sister and I were pre-teen, we would go door-to-door in the neighborhood for trick-or-treat. I don’t think we went more […]
Poison Ivy
As a child growing up in northwest Wisconsin I played in fields that contained poison ivy. I am sure my mother told me the memory […]
The Test Of Time
I was thinking the other day about the longevity of consumer products. What do I have in my house today that has lasted longer than […]