Breaking News

Local Columns

Stonega

The historic grain elevator site of Stonega east of Webster City is still burning. Not in the spectacular conflagration that greeted the 15 fire departments called to the scene very early Sunday morning. This is a slow burn, fueled by grain and whipped by the winds that seem to have decided it’s time to blow. As Sunday turned into Monday, and then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the fire crept into every cranny it could find, seeming to hide from the breeze that drove it. Managing this scene has been Blairsburg Fire, whose volunteer 11-person crew rushed to the scene when the ...

A barber and a citizen

With a neighborhood as large as ours, it’s not all that easy finding someone to write about. Sometimes a walk leads me to someone interesting, other walks seem to lead nowhere in particular; yet they are all enjoyable. With the wind blowing so hard this past week, my mind wandered to how ...

Raise your own food for a new perspective

America’s eating habits have changed drastically over recent decades. The Norman Rockwell version of the family meal is increasingly rare. Beyond that, many folks have little knowledge of the origin of their food. There are millions of Americans who have never snapped a green bean, pulled a carrot from rich black soil, picked a juicy red apple from a tree, harvested sweet corn in the field or butchered a chicken. While I’m totally comfortable shopping for food at the supermarket and eating at a restaurant or deli, I had an opportunity to learn a little about raising food as a ...

Interims

Two years ago April 1 I became interim editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. I distinctly recall the look on Doug Getter’s face when I explained that I would step in for two months to lead the DFJ in the wake of Managing Editor Anne Blankenship’s departure for a new position with Van Diest Medical Center. He rolled his eyes. Two months turned into two years. A lot can happen to a community in two years. New businesses opened, old businesses closed and then some of them reopened. The failure of an unstable building threatened a beloved coffee shop. Fire ravaged a ...

‘Mr Ely was a progressive citizen’

It’s estimated that 45% of eligible American men served in the military during the Second World War; another 35% worked in industries directly tied to the war effort. In the Civil War, about 48% of northern men were in the Union Army and more than 90% of southern men served the ...

Useta-coulds and still cans

A colleague at the Sioux City Journal 40 years ago was a native of Oklahoma. Our offices were adjacent and we got to know each other well. I enjoyed his Oklahoma idioms and his Okie drawl. One of his frequently used phrases was “useta-could” as in “I useta-could eat a whole bowl of okra all by myself.” He loved fried okra and even tried to grow okra in his South Sioux City garden. While it’s been more than 20 years since I last visited with my old friend, I still find myself occasionally using his Oklahoma “useta-could.” As I get older the phrase becomes more and more ...