In an effort to
MARCH 21, 2012 - INTER-COUNTY LEADER - NORTHERN CURRENTS, SECTION B - PAGE 3
Just for
determine the top crime-fighting agency in the country, the president narrowed the field Joe Roberts to three finalist, the CIA, the FBI, and the Chicago Police. The three remaining contenders were given the task of catching a rabbit which was released into the forest. The CIA went into the forest. They placed animal informants throughout. They questioned all plant and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigation they concluded that rabbits do not exist. The FBI went into the forest. After two weeks without a capture, they burned the forest, killing everything in it including the rabbit. They made no apologies. The rabbit deserved it. The CPD went into the forest. They came out two hours later with a badly beaten bear. The bear was yelling, “OK, OK, I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit.” •••
Laughs
Leader reader
This poem was written by Mikhaila Lampert and is dedicated to Bernice Abrahamzon. Lampert is a member of the Northwest ReSend reflections to: gional Writers, and she the-leader@centurytel.net wrote this as part of the club’s tributes to Bernice that they’re submitting to the Leader for publication.
Reflections
Tribute to Bernice Sunlight reached through the trees grasping like fingers at everything it reached it painted shadows, this cool spring morning, setting dips and valleys aglow in light. She felt it warm her fingers; her breath as she stood there admiring; jealous of its beauty. Her feet whispered through the high grass, casting shadows on her feet she looked back to the wind, watching her shadow dance and whirl. Lying on her back, fog escaping above wet dew seeped into places unseen. Golden buds; pink and yellow, called to her like a whistling fellow. Feet back on the ground, pacing and zigzagging, sunlight bathing the whole field. She was exhilarated; alive. She loped by the sun, leaping and catching it. Leaves fell upon her head, and she laughed. The wind laughed too, and said, “You’re oh so Beautiful ...” as she danced into the arms of loved ones.
Woody emerged from the
Letters from
woods behind the barn, which seemed appropriate. My dog Milo, who had not seen Woody in a year, barked nervously at this intruder Carrie Classon emerging from the forest until Woody called his name. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Milo remembered, “the guy who sneaks around behind the maple trees.” Woody had come to see about tapping my trees and of course I said it was all right. Woody hangs buckets on a few of my oldest maple trees and I get a big jug of syrup out of the deal. But this year, it is less certain. The days are too warm and the nights are not freezing. Without the freezing nights, the sap won’t flow and there will be no maple syrup this season. “Have you ever seen a winter like this?” Woody inquired. I had to admit I had not. “Strange weather.” The local church youth group makes most of their annual budget tapping trees, a few trees here and a few there all over the community, until they end up with an astonishing haul of sap which they boil down, bottle, and sell to parishioners and neighbors. The youth group leader is worried. No buckets are hanging yet. No sap is flowing. The sugar shack men, who sit long hours watching sap boil down to one fortieth its volume, are checking the long-term weather forecasts and making dour prognostications but nobody knows for sure. If the trees bud out, they say, it will be too late and there will be no syrup this year. If the trees bud out and then it freezes, that will be bad for the orchards. They watch their thermometers and compare notes. “Strange weather,” the sugar shack men agree. This winter that never became a real winter is now becoming a spring that is not a normal spring. It is
Home
unsettling for the sugar shack men and me. We expect the seasons to follow some sort of reasonable order and have an expected outcome. March is the month when winter storms come and they blow over. We do not get comfortable in a March thaw because we have learned that March is a month of changes and change is the norm. Every March, snow falls and then it melts. The weather warms and freezes again. The sap flows and gallons are distilled into sweet amber pints. Then the cycle repeats the following year. My expectations of love are similar. I expect love to follow some sort of time honored principles. I expect it to look and conduct itself in a certain way. Even though it is at times tumultuous, I am confident that love has a season of its own and follows rules that are bigger than me and more lasting. Even if there is a temporary disruption, I reason, love will return. I expect that love, given enough time, will ultimately distill to a sweet nectar. Instead, I find that love does not look or behave the way I expect this season. In this strange weather, I am looking for signs of a return to the sweet and familiar. As unsettled and speculative as the sugar shack men, I’m making my own prognostications which vary by the hour. The sound of geese flying low woke me this morning before the sun was up. I stepped outside and looked at the moon still hanging in the sky. A strong wind was blowing from the south. I stood in my pajamas and felt a warm March wind blowing in my face. Till next time, —Carrie
Frederic Area American Cancer Society Walk/Run kickoff date set
FREDERIC – The Frederic ACS Walk/Run kickoff meeting will be held Friday, March 30, at Hacker’s Lanes at 7 a.m. Please contact Elvira Schmidt at 715-653-2684 if you would like to attend or if your team captain has not been contacted. Registration forms and additional information will be available at the meeting. Spring is just around the corner, and so is the Frederic Area American Cancer Society Walk/Run. Plan ahead and set aside Saturday, May 12, for this big event. The walk can be a fun family or organization activity and a healthy way to help a worthy cause. It is also a chance for the Frederic community to rally together and support cancer survivors, help fund education and raise money to eliminate cancer in the future. The ACS Walk/Run is also an important way to support cancer research. Walk participants may choose a 2-, 3- or 5-mile route. Refreshments will be available, and each participant who raises at least $60 will receive a T-shirt. Teams and individuals who raise over $500 will receive a team picture. LUCK - The Polk County Genealogy Society will hold its If you are unable to walk, consider supporting a March meeting on Monday, March 26, at the Luck Area His- walker with your donation or purchasing a tribute flag to torical Society Museum, Main Street Luck. The board meeting will begin at 1 p.m. and the program, Records Prior to the First Census 1790, will begin at 2 p.m. Refreshments will be served. In addition to the above listed March program, MADISON — USDA officials learned late Friday afsupplemental instructions will be given by PCGS members to assist others in learning the steps needed to index the 1940 ternoon, March 16, that fraudulent letters are being sent federal census due to be released on April 1. The indexing by fax to individuals and businesses in at least four project is being undertaken by FamilySearch to provide free states. The letters purportedly come from a USDA proaccess to all who may be interested in seeking out targeted in- curement officer and seek personal information. These formation provided by the 1940 census. PCGS members are letters are false and in no case should a recipient respond encouraged to attend this meeting as PCGS joins with count- with personal and financial information. less other genealogy societies across the United States, who The fraudulent letters bear USDA’s logo and seal and all operate independently, in the project of indexing the 1940 are signed by an individual identified as “Frank Rutenfederal census. - submitted berg” using a title of Senior Procurement Officer. Letters
Genealogy society to meet
honor a cancer survivor or in memory of a loved one. Tribute flags forms will be available at both banks in Frederic after the kickoff. Many area Frederic businesses will be taking $1 donations for paper athletic shoes and displaying them in their windows or the interior of their stores. Again this year, Frederic area businesses may purchase a Sign of Hope for $35. The signs will be placed along Hwy. 35 with the name of the business. The signs are a good way to advertise and support the walk. “The American Cancer Society is a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives and diminishing suffering from cancer through research, education, advocacy and service.” The ACS offers hope, progress and answers. For further information on the Frederic ACS Walk/Run, contact Schmidt at the aforementioned number. For cancer information and resources call 800-ACS2345 or visit the Web site at www.cancer.org. - submitted
USDA warns of fraudulent letters
Packing my bags
Cold Turkey
Jesus said, “In this world you will have troubles.” That must have meant that he went on vacation. I love to travel and that guar- John W. Ingalls antees I will have problems. No vacation, no matter how well planned and executed, will ever follow expectations. I have had the privilege of visiting many different countries, and not once have I ever had a trip that was trouble free. In fact, of the trips most revered, it is usually when adversity was in the driver’s seat. At this moment I am supposed to be packing my bags for a family vacation. My organized wife, and the most organized of my children, have already been sifting, sorting and packing for days. I tend to wait until about two hours before departure. By that time I have reserved enough energy to really focus on the task. In the past, I tended to overpack, so now I use a small bag. When it is full, I’m done, simple. Airline travel has become increasingly more frustrating. One airline claims that bags fly free; the problem is you don’t know which direction they are flying. My daughter once flew to London; her bags went to Frankfurt. After a brief tour of the country they returned to London to join her. On one trip my bags went with me part way, and when we got to Puerto Rico we parted ways. I never did find out where the bag went, but about a week later it showed up at my
door feeling remorseful. I forgave him for going astray, but when he broke his zipper we parted ways for good. We once flew into the city of Istanbul, Turkey, and in the airport were MD mountains of lost and unclaimed luggage. The rightful owners were probably in Paris or South Africa. I think most of the bags of our fellow travelers ended up in Iceland or Bangladesh. Weather is another factor that is never quite what we expect. I have traveled in Florida expecting warm sunny weather, and thought I was going to die from hypothermia. In Alaska, 11 out of 12 days it rained. Our one sunny day was spent on an endless rough gravel road peppered with enough rain-filled potholes to completely cover our camper in mud. Last summer, we packed for a fishing trip to Canada. Expecting cool, damp weather, we were greeted with 80 degrees and sunshine every day. Warm jackets and wool socks remained packed while our limited supply of shorts and T-shirts worked overtime. On another fishing trip, we had sleet in July. The float plane flight was so rough my wife made me promise to update our last will and testament as soon as we returned home. On a sailing ship in the Caribbean, we had such wind that we lost four sails, and the crew served us ginger soup, ginger ale, ginger tea and ginger beer so we wouldn’t get seasick. I gingerly threw up anyway. In Greece, it
have been received by fax in Alabama, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but may have also been sent to other states. Recipients should not respond and should not supply the requested information. USDA is investigating this matter through the Office of the Inspector General. If you suspect you have received such a letter or have questions please contact USDA at: procurement.policy@dm.usda.gov or call 202-720-9448. — from USDA
was so hot you couldn’t sit on the park benches even late at night without branding yourself. No matter what country we entered, the locals would always say the same thing, “This is very unusual weather.” Lodging is never ready when we are and seldom what we expect. On one trip we found the beds to be stiffer than a stack of plywood. In that city of 10 million people, everyone drove past your bedroom at night, usually honking or with sirens wailing. On that particular trip we made careful arrangements to be greeted at the airport by someone we knew. It was Bangkok, Thailand, in the middle of the night. We landed in a hot, steamy environment without our expected hosts. Our sweaty, wrinkled clothes boldly announced our condition of being lost and confused. One compassionate person at the airport assisted us in efforts to find lodging and transportation. The taxi driver spoke rudimentary English but enough for us. “Farang want 5-star hotel?” (We later learned that farang meant foreigner.) “No” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked at my bedraggled family. “Just someplace nice.” We drove for miles and miles and finally arrived at a quiet place. As I was checking in the receptionist said something to me in Thai, which I didn’t understand, so I answered in Spanish. We both nodded and smiled. $26 for two rooms seemed fair. In the morning, I noticed the sign outside the hotel, “Nice Palace.” Finally I got what I asked for.