A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
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It’s said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. Regardless, this will be my last “Harry’s Gang” column for a while, because I have decided to run for the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 11A, which encompasses all of Carlton County and a small part of Pine & St. Louis counties. Again. There is no legal restriction preventing me from continuing this column. The First Amendment guarantees that the press is free fr...
My office is in the old Cloquet Co-op building in Esko, and it carries a lot of history. The thing is built solid. Those Finlanders obviously expected the building to be around for a hundred years or more. It’s tight, too, not drafty at all. So many people have stopped in over the years to reminisce about the old co-op. I feel like I’ve been here since the 1950s, when it was built. It carried groceries, of course, but also hardware, sewing stuff, farm supplies, and some clothing. And yes, to...
The holidays were fun, with so many relatives at our house that no one really wanted it to end. So, after Christmas, my sisters invited Tommy, 16, to drive back to the Cities with them. He jumped at the chance. Fifteen minutes later, he had packed a bag, made a few calls, and was ready to go. As he asked me for a few bucks, he said, “Dad, I’m heading to Minneapolis. I don’t know where I’m staying. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. And I’m not really sure how I’m getting home. This is gonna b...
Years ago, the United Way of Carlton County was in a bit of a pickle. Potlatch had just been sold to Sappi; there were layoffs and uncertainty, and the annual United Way campaign was in jeopardy. A significant amount of the money raised each year was from the good people at Potlatch, and that year the donations were way down from previous years. Thankfully, they’ve rebounded since, but that year things were tough. Of course, the community was hurting too, and organizations and people who r...
Opinions are as unique as fingerprints. Everybody has one, and every one is different, even if only slightly. In politics, we gather together based on our opinions, much like metal shavings around a magnet, with people gravitating to one magnetic pole or the other, even if you don’t share the exact opinion with everyone in your group. In America, we call the magnetic poles “conservatives” and “liberals.” Republicans and Democrats. What most people are forgetting is that a magnet needs both pole...
I recently had the fun of chatting with some members of the local Rotary Club. Rotary, for those of you who don’t know, is a service club of local professionals and business people, whose mission seems to be networking with fellow members, coupled around public service. They meet for lunch weekly, and get themselves involved in community projects from providing books for young readers to maintaining Fauley Park in Cloquet. When I first got to town in 1999, Cloquet schools superintendent Russ Smi...
There seems to be a cultural crisis facing Barnum that threatens the very existence of the city and its high school. The crisis? Kids at the school this fall elected two boys as the top homecoming royalty. There’s been no such thing as a homecoming “king and queen” in Barnum since 2019, when the annual tradition morphed into “royalty,” rather than kings and queens. Now, the students vote for a slate of popular kids and the top two vote-getters are the royalty of the homecoming court. No kings....
There’s a real need for housing in Cloquet. It seems to me, slowly but surely, the central part of the city is deteriorating as more and more people move out to the larger lots available on the city’s edges. For example, some lots in the Sunnyside neighborhood are about one-third acre, while many lots in the older parts of Cloquet are much, much smaller. So when those older houses get too worn out to repair, they become vacant, taking up space that can’t readily be sold, because the lots are t...
It won’t be long before I can relax during the last few weeks of October, maybe get some yardwork done before the snow flies, clean the car, take a leisurely walk in the woods in our neighborhood. But for now, with a fourth-grader at home, fall means Halloween. It’s all-consuming in our house. Some of you may know Alexa, the internet-based voice-activated tool that’s become very popular in recent years. It’s like having the entire wealth of human knowledge at your disposal by simply asking....
People keep asking me what I’m doing with my building in the West End. It’s the original Barr Brothers funeral parlor on the corner of Avenue C and Vine Street. Most recently, it was the home of Carol and Gene Risdon’s The Rock Place store. For months now, the windows have been boarded over and some exterior canopies have been removed. I have lots of ideas. We haven’t had a restaurant in the West End since the terrific Avenue C restaurant closed after less than a year in business. Whateve...
I learned about monks during my time at Saint John’s University, a college near St. Cloud run by a Benedictine monastery. Being a monk is fascinating. They live a communal life, a true socialist society that actually works. One popular monk, Brother Willie, spent his evenings as the night watchman, with a toy “Sheriff” badge hanging off his overalls, checking doors and keeping an eye on things. Father Jerome was the abbott then, overseeing the university, prep school, liturgical press busin...
The Court of Appeals met in Duluth recently, and I was lucky to watch it and attend a reception afterwards, meeting all three of the Court of Appeal judges hearing the cases. One of the cases involved the old Kozy Bar building in Duluth, as a group backed by one-time owner Eric Ringsred sued the city of Duluth, which had issued a demolition permit to have the building torn down. Regardless of how you feel about that eyesore in downtown Duluth or how much you miss having a beer and an argument...
I’m disturbed by the attorney general in Texas. Recently, he was acquitted by the Texas legislature on corruption charges, even though every Texan who cares knows the man is corrupt. In fact, even the legislature who declined to convict him knows he’s guilty. So why did they acquit? Politics. Then, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted (again!) on corruption charges, and while a good number of his fellow party members are encouraging him to resign, his reaction has been to...
School kids seem to always create a language of their own, mostly, I assume, so they can communicate with each other without their parents knowing what they are talking about. But when a kid goes to the effort to learn German, he just may have an ulterior motive. In this case, that motive was to be able to join Cloquet high school German teacher Cara Jago, known as "Frau Yago" to her students, on her biannual trip to Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany for three weeks, immersing themselves with...
They’re called “homes” for a reason. It’s where we live. Eat. Sleep. It’s where we keep our most precious possessions; it’s where we raise our kids. No one wants to leave their homes. Even after a wonderful, relaxing vacation, what do people always say? “It was a great vacation, but it’s good to be home.” I know I do. When I meet with older clients about estate planning, one of their biggest concerns is how they can stay at home as long as possible. It’s not just old people. Other seniors feel...
One of the best experiences I had running for office last year was traveling throughout Carlton County, meeting people in their homes and discussing politics. It’s true that a few people were annoyed by a stranger knocking on their door, unannounced, canvassing for votes, but a surprising number of people in our community were welcoming and accepting, even when they didn’t share my political leanings. But even more enlightening was seeing how well we live, overall, in Carlton County. No dou...
I heard Ricard Puumala passed away last week. The funeral is tomorrow and I'm planning to go, out of deep respect for my old friend. Doc Puumala seemed old when I met him, back in 1999 when I first got to town. He was 30 years older than me. He was filling up his truck at the same time I was getting gas, and he struck up a conversation that seemed, to me, a bit odd. He was insinuating he carried dead bodies around in his truck. Well, he didn't actually insinuate it, he outright said he needed...
When Esko kids want safer crosswalks, they get safer crosswalks, even if it means they have to make some noise to get it done. There’s a wide, paved trail running from the high school to the playing fields a half-mile away that passes the town’s only public park, Northridge Park. But kids need to cross busy Canosia Road to get to the park, and it’s dangerous. Until recently, the crosswalk was marked only with faded stripes on the road and a lone “Crosswalk” sign, partially obscured by overgrown...
I try to keep my parking lot tidy, but there’s a stubborn cigarette butt that keeps lodging itself in the sidewalk crack right in front of my office door. I pick it up, but it keeps appearing. Sometimes it’s dark orange, like an Old Gold or Camel. Sometimes it’s white, like a Marlboro. I’m not sure how they get there, nobody I know smokes anymore. And I find it hard to believe that people still toss their butts on the ground, expecting someone else to clean up their garbage. But apparen...
Sydney J. Harris was a columnist I read as a kid in the Duluth News Tribune. One of my favorite recurring columns was his “Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things.” I suppose a newspaper columnist, like a personal injury and divorce lawyer like me, is often looking up things and accidentally discovering interesting facts. Here’s some of mine from the past year or so: • The city of Minneapolis, due to the occupational hazards associated with milling, became a national powerho...
Practicing family law can be far more difficult than expected. “This should be an easy one,” potential divorce clients tell me all the time. “We pretty much agree on everything.” Of course, that might be true, but they usually don’t understand what “everything” is. Did you discuss parenting time? Income tax issues? Where will the kids go to school? Or the myriad other issues that need to be addressed? The answer, usually, is: “Gee, we never thought of that.” One of the most complex issues in...
In town for a family reunion, and to help her grandparents Jim and Ann Mosack of Esko move to assisted living, Roz Chromy tracked me down to give me an update on her life since she left in 2009, a couple years after I opened Eskomo Pizza Pies in Esko, where Roz would hang out with her friends. She’s changed a bit, but is more Roz as ever. And she’s about to be promoted to the rank of major in the U.S. Air Force, which is pretty impressive for a 32-year-old Esko grad. She went off to college at...
I’m disappointed in the recent Supreme Court rulings, but not for the reasons you probably think I am. Sure, I would like to have seen President Biden carry out his plan to reduce student loan debt, for example. While the government spends way, way too much money and is involved in way, way too much of our everyday lives, the facts are that the government does, already, spend all that money and is, already, very involved in our everyday lives. If the government is already so omnipotent, r...
I sure learned a lot at the two town hall meetings I held in Moose Lake and Scanlon earlier this month. The big issues, such as abortion rights, gun restrictions and taxes were not the top priority for most people. No, much of the discussion revolved around trains, lunch, and jails. (There were a few conspiracy theories bantered about, but that was mostly just for fun.) That passenger train line we are about to build from Minneapolis to Duluth sure drew the ire of conservatives and liberals both...
I hope some of you can join us at the “town hall” meetings we’re holding around Carlton County next week. The first is Tuesday, June 6 at the Moose Lake Brewing conference room, and the other is Thursday, June 8 at the Scanlon Community Center. Both start at 7 p.m., and everyone is invited. I really do mean everyone. As these types of meetings have become popular with elected officials, they’ve become more “fixed,” with only certain viewpoints allowed. Even worse, some town halls allow the m...
