As a kid growing up on our dairy farm, October was my favorite month. It was high harvest season. After-school hours and weekends were filled with hard physical labor that seemed more palatable when working in the cool, crisp fall days. I remember watching my father tour the farm buildings every year around Halloween.

I’ve gone to a lot of funerals this year. Jon’s a member of the Legion Honor Guard, so he has attended more.

This may be an unpleasant topic, but when a person is closing in on 80, certain things get your attention. Remember the commercial where an old lady cries, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”? That used to put me in stitches. Now if a fall means just getting a few stitches, I consider that a blessing.

At Lakes Country Public Library Building Expansion Committee’s first meeting in 2020, Tom Thielke, Linda McKenna, Linda Denz, Ted Bartels and I created a vision of what we wanted the new library to be. Ambiance? Classy and comfortable. Function? Meet the needs of our patrons, a diverse population representing a wide variety of ethnic, economic, educational and social backgrounds. Best bang for the buck?

Common sense and thrift are personal traits that most folks my age learned from our parents who lived through unspeakable hardship. Dad was born during World War I; Mom just as the Roaring ’20s began. They survived the Great Depression, marrying during World War II. Making a living dairy farming tested their mettle during recessions and periods of raging inflation that threatened their livelihood again and again.