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Over the last few weeks, I have read a handful of articles in various publications on how to start an argument over politics with your family at Thanksgiving Dinner. The authors of these helpful guides included catchphrases and tricks you could play to bait your family into expressing a viewpoint about one side of the political spectrum or another just so you can argue about why they’re are wrong. This included such petty acts as changing the WiFi password to something they will hate so that they have to type in your opinion to go on the i...
I pray everyone had a Blessed Thanksgiving, as another month slides into the sunsets of times gone. I reflect on reasons to be thankful living here by the beautiful Missouri River. We appreciate being apart of the broader community of Big Sandy. A relevant source of food supplies of grains, beef, and numerous variety of other crops to feed the people in our glorious state of Montana as well as the 50 United States we are proudly apart. God Bless our country, home of the brave and the free! God...
This week my positive praise is for our Instructional Aids, Paraprofessionals, Teacher Aids, or what I really like to call them- “the glue that holds us all together”. We have 7 of these amazing people on our staff and we couldn’t be successful without them. They do so many different jobs that if I were to begin to make a list it would fill up the whole paper! What makes them all so valuable to us at school is their willingness to help in whatever situation, with whatever students at whatever time. I never find any of them sitting still, I mor...
Every Saturday morning, my family and I enjoy a pancake breakfast, then sit down together to watch our favorite travel shows. In the middle of one of the videos, a commercial for Calgary appeared. It was sponsored by their local tourism board and was about two minutes long, showcasing some adrenaline-filled, fun, winter activities. My husband Chris and I were hooked at first sight! I immediately jumped on my computer to make the necessary reservations. I was especially excited about the close...
In 1929, Calvin Coolidge traveled to the Black Hills in North Dakota for a vacation. While there, he was photographed many times dressed in cowboy attire. The one catch being that it isn’t actually cowboy attire. It’s a very fancy, almost silly version of it. At the time, the press mocked the president mercilessly. He responded that it was ok for them to laugh, but that he was living out a childhood dream. Looking at the pictures, there is no way anyone would think that the president was a real cowboy. He tried to dress the part, but in rea...
The past couple of weeks have brought many hunters and fishermen down to the ferry. Some hunters I see every year, and they have nicknamed me the "River Queen." It makes me smile and helps me remember who I am talking to. This year I haven't seen many animals riding in the back of trucks. However, I did see an impressive five-point atypical mule deer. Horns were straight on one side and laying over massive thickness on the other side. It was an impressive rack! I had another encounter with a...
The treadmill was originally invented as a torture device for prisoners. Prisoners were chained in place on a cycling belt that simply continued to move. The prisoners were forced to run or walk in place for hours at a time as a form of torture. It’s a pretty ingenious torture device, if you think about it. You work all day, exhausting yourself, but never accomplish anything for your efforts. After sweating and straining all day, you are still standing in the same place you were when you started. I recently read a book by a philosophy p...
As I was processing the last of the ripe tomatoes that I picked green before the first snowstorm of the season, I got thinking about my mom, how she kept ten people fed, clean, and healthy. Amazing how she canned hundreds of quarts of vegetables and meats for the year. I was having trouble with one sick little boy, and getting anything done. The ferry was my first priority after taking care of my grandson. Then the chickens because I have food and water set-up so they can go for days without...
As a young child, I developed a love for travel from road trips with my family. The destination was always predictable. We would either visit family in San Diego or my family in Baja California, Mexico. Being as I grew up in Central California in the predominantly agricultural town of Bakersfield, the final destinations were not distant, but were vastly different from home! San Diego was my favorite in that there were many beaches to walk and play in, as well as delicious restaurants, outlet malls, and it always seemed to have the most ideal...
This week my positive praise is for our TEACHERS! We have 19 certified teachers in our K-12 district, 7 teachers in the elementary and 12 in the high school, six of those teachers travel between both buildings. Together they have more than 250 years of experience! They each hold a 4 year degree. Among them they have 14 minor degrees or concentrations and 6 masters. They have spent 24,960 minutes with your children so far this year, that number being based on their contracted hours. Although I would estimate that they have put in an extra...
I needed to prepare for Thanksgiving for a holiday, which allows us to express our gratitude. Although when asked what we are most thankful for, we always say something like, my family, my health, my home, my job. Ok, those are, of course, what we are all most thankful for, but gratitude should be more profound than that. It should penetrate our lives by the hour. One of the greatest truths I have discovered is you find what you are looking for. I started keeping a gratitude journal; I called...
In ancient Israel, every Jewish boy would learn the Torah in school. Specifically, they would memorize the Jewish religious writings starting at an early age until the rabbi teaching them decided they had reached their potential as students. At that time, they were sent off to work in whatever field their family had always worked in. Some students would be sent away early to work, while others would progress to the point that they were accepted as a disciple to a rabbi. This was sort of like earning your doctorate. Anyone who studied under a...
Khrushchev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, used to tell a story about a factory guard who was posted at a lumber mill in Leningrad to guard against employee theft. One day, a worker came walking out of the factory with a wheelbarrow containing a sack. The guard asked the worker what was in the sack, assuming that it was something the worker was stealing. The factory worker explained that it was a bag of sawdust, which he had permission to take home. The unconvinced guard searched the bag and found it to contain nothing but sawdust. Day...
It won’t be the first time I didn’t know what to do. A paper requires a lot of advertisements to publish. I knew when I bought the Big Sandy paper that this would be a challenge for me. That’s not saying writing isn’t it, but I had been writing, learning, as I went for over almost two years when I bought the paper. I knew nothing about how to sell ads. I also knew that Big Sandy didn’t even have enough businesses to place ads to pay for the process of printing, so I had to find and sell the paper to prospective businesses. It takes about 43% to...
One of the hardest parts of professional pastoring is ministering to families in times of loss. It is hard because our natural inclination when folks are hurting is to try to fix it. We want to make the sorrow stop, but it’s impossible. You can’t make it so folks don’t weep and hurt at the death of a family member or friend. Nor should you make it stop. Hurt is a part of life and mourning is a healthy natural thing that has to happen. As a Christian, we often turn to Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4. In that letter, he reminds the church that...
Growing seasons are unpredictable in most parts of the country, and living here by the Missouri River is no different and sometimes worse! We always plan to plant our seeds in the garden around the 10th of May. Then we plant our plants and seedlings out around the 25th of May. It is a super plan, but most often, we have to expect or plan for variables. This year we had the garden rototilled ready for planting right on schedule. Then the variable came in the form of rain that lasted for days until my garden was a bog! We had planted potatoes...
Over the third weekend in September, my high school class (‘69) celebrated our 50th reunion in the Bay Area of California. We were a class of about 250 students. I was quite a bit more socially inhibited in those days, so I pretty much kept to my crew of about a half a dozen close friends. One of those close friends, perhaps the closest, was John Doe (not his real name). John had continued to live in that part of the country. He had a successful dental practice, married, and had one beautiful daughter. John and I lived in the same suburban n...
I hate shopping for cars. I would probably enjoy it more of I had a lot more money, but as it is, I typically go into car buying with a strict set of rules and a limited budget. The worst part is when you talk to a salesman and he has you test drive a fancy car that is out of your price range or doesn’t fit your needs well. You wind up sitting in a car you want, because it is attractive and fun, but know you shouldn’t buy because it costs too much or has some impractical aspects that make it the wrong choice for you. The salesman is just doi...
I have a work out schedule I follow from week to week. It is Tuesday morning as I write this, and I will confess honestly that I dread going to the gym on Tuesday mornings. My Tuesday workout is very difficult. I have to push myself to finish it because it is so strenuous. My whole body is always sore by the middle of the day on Tuesdays. What makes matters worse is, this morning I added to the workout because I am trying to improve my fitness level, and I’m going to continue to make it a little harder every week in pursuit of that goal. It i...
When you crest the hill into the Virgelle Valley, you will see the first glimpses of fall. The leaves are turning yellow, and the grasses have their fall hues. It is an excellent time to cut the dry grasses and flower buds for fall arrangements. This time of year is always great for a Sunday drive, and the gravel roads are in good condition. If you decide to take a drive down to our quaint little valley, you will find plenty of things to do. You can go to Coal Banks Landing for a picnic lunch and enjoy the sound of the river flowing by as you t...
A while back, Apple added a feature to their iPhones that tracks the amount of time you spend looking at the screen and sends you a report at the end of the week. I usually don’t pay attention to this report because I get so many notifications during the average day, so I simply dismiss them. A few weeks back, I took the time to read the weekly report and realized that I use my phone a ton on the average day. Much of that time is spent using Facebook and Twitter, though a handful of other apps appear prominently. The crazy thing is that I h...
I recently watched an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger where he talked about going from being a small, self-doubting kid to winning Mr. Universe 7 times. He described hanging photographs of boxers and athletes he idolized all over his room. Every morning, he would wake up early and look at the pictures, which were his goal. He wanted to look like those athletes. He described this as the source of his early motivation to push himself to train as hard as possible. He kept his goal in front and center, focused on it every day, and pushed...
Last week, I listened to an interview with business coach/best selling author Steve Chandler. His business has been built up around the idea of being a “Time Warrior.” Put simply, he teaches folks how to overcome procrastination and accomplish more in life. The thing that I found most interesting about the guy is that his solution could be boiled down to one line: If you have something to do, do it now. It seems really simple, and it is. He argues that we tend to look at time in terms of deadlines or when we need to begin something in ord...
My wife and I enjoy doing Escape Rooms. These are games where you are locked in a room and have an hour to escape by solving puzzles that provide you with keys, combinations, or directions for escaping the room. We have done a dozen or so over the years in different cities around the country and love the challenge of solving problems together. Last night, we did one in Billings while on vacation. I watched as one of the gals we were doing the puzzle room with made an interesting mistake. It is one I’ve observed frequently in the past. She faced...
Ancient rabbis used to tell a story about the Jewish exodus from slavery in Egypt. At the climax of the story, God parted the Red Sea so that His people could cross on dry land and escape from the pursuing Egyptian army. In the story, two men were walking along and complaining. They were looking down at the deep mud that they were trudging through, where the vast sea had been before. They complained about the mud on their legs and feet. They complained about all the walking. They complained about their clothes getting messy. The whole time they...
