I was sitting here this ….

I was sitting here this afternoon waiting for it to rain, snow or sleet and decided, why not start my column. Thankfully, last week’s made it into print and now I have a better idea of how much to write to fill the space. It took a little effort, but thanks to Cheyenne Thomas and Karie Schmidt they got it figured out.

Come to find out it wasn’t all my fault. Like everything else, it takes a while to work all the kinks out, one of which was a problem with how things were lining up. Sue was trying to help me on the phone and trying to tell me to hit the “send” mark, but I couldn’t find it. Later I discovered just a blue line and that worked for a bit, but then disappeared again. Finally I managed to get it lined up correctly, but have no idea what I did. Such is life.

What still scares me is the amount of stuff on the computer. I was reminiscing with Mark the other day about the McIntosh computer we started with in 1986, and how limited we were on how much we could put on each disk.

As I sat in the TRG office the other morning waiting for Cheyenne and Karie to get their magic tricks done, I was looking around at all the things that reminded me of the days when newspapers were printed on real type.

When I got out of the service in 1953, I signed up for on-the-job training as a printer and the course went for seven years. I doubt that anyone could sit down and learn all the techniques to running a linotype in as short a time as we can sit down and make a computer work. They never told me some day computers and other type setting equipment would replace them. But then I recall my friend Otto Becker telling me in high school that in ag classes they had to learn all the parts of a harness when he started.

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Well, it didn’t take long. As I glance out the window the snowflakes are beginning to fall. Here’s hoping it stays snow as we really don’t need rain or sleet this time of the year. Little do we have any choice and Florence’s niece who lives just south of Northfield, Minnesota, in the little town of Dundas, told me this morning about the mess they were getting. It didn’t sound good, but hope it don’t make it this far.

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Somehow part of my story about my grandson the doctor working in Seattle got left out. I was trying to tell you he had just gotten his second eligible shot for the virus.

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I did take a short drive around the countryside yesterday. Not much going on right now, but I did see a bald eagle on Mann Road southeast of Spokeville. There was something in the ditch that had his attention and he never flew as I drove by.

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Facebook on the computer has earned a reputation of bad stuff, but yet there are some good things on it as well. This was something I found the other day.

THINK T - Is it True H - Is it Helpful I - Is it Inspiring N - Is it Necessary K - Is it Kind Sure something to think about.

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After reading the editorial, my column and the letters to the editor in last week’s paper, a thought ran through my head. I recalled an incident that happened years ago at a Wisconsin Newspaper Association banquet. Our guest speaker was then Lt. Gov. George Nigh from Oklahoma. His claim to fame was the fact that he had become governor and his term only lasted nine days. The former governor had resigned to take a seat in the U. S. Senate and the new governor hadn’t taken office yet. He claimed his picture on the wall of the state capitol was just as big as all the rest.

Just prior to his speech, the association had given out some scholarships and one young man, in his thank you comments, said he hoped to be the best non-bias sportswriter.

Governor Nigh, when he got up, mentioned this and then added there isn’t anything that is non-bias. While I never had any formal journalism training I certainly agree with the governor. My style is just to write it as I see it and hope my readers agree. Which of course there are times they don’t. You can be bias by what you write, or in some cases, by not writing something.