Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

Is Becky offended when I call her The Bohunk?  In the way-back years of the 20th century, Bohunk was a derogatory ethnic slur, used in the tolerant and welcoming USA to refer to immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. Most don’t know there was a kingdom called Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. That’s where Becky’s paternal relatives immigrated from more than 100 years ago.  Sometimes, friends call me “The Swede.” Ancestors on my paternal side immigrated from Sweden early in the last century. The last week of July earned me a new moniker, “The Dumb Swede.”  I’m not offended to share the story of how I came by it.  A couple of weeks ago, I explained our decision to leave the woods of Cook County for the bustling metropolis of Duluth. Moving is something a 70-something couple should avoid, for their health and relationship, even those who did the Swedish Death Cleaning since the start of the year.  The last weekend of July, the hottest weekend of the sum...

A day in the life of a local newspaper editor I mainly listen to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) when driving. It’s not talk radio in the popular sense of one-sided agitators screaming a rant as if the city, state, and nation are inflamed with evil doers. I prefer calmer voices.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been behind the wheel more than usual, and MPR was alive with reporting on the issue of press freedom. And well it should be.  Television networks are making significant cash and collateral settlements of lawsuits filed by the President of the United States and his minions. Now, even the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has been served by Trump’s lawyers for libel and slander.  Press freedom, another form of your liberty, is constantly under threat. And that’s why the press, the big boys, and the little ones like me, will always be sounding off.  Real people these days hear ‘threats to press freedom' and think it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a concept for journa...

The Bohunk and I have been making weekly trips down Highway 61 to Duluth to set up our new residence for two geriatric loners and their pets. She does most of the driving, which is a new trend after half a century of wedded bliss. I sit in the passenger seat and start ranting whenever I need to disrupt the peace. Last week, we followed a late-model pickup truck, which, like most vehicles, slows way down on the curvy parts and speeds up on the passing lanes. So I started to rant about the pickup truck fad we’re living through. Once used as work vehicles to haul tools and cargo and occasionally fitted to haul campers, many of the trucks I see today haven’t hauled much more than a set of golf clubs in suburbia. Still, they are among the most popular of vehicles sold today--another of the unending series of fads fed by new, shiny things. More than just fleeting trends, fads reflect something fundamental about humanity. I just don’t know what. My golfing buddies in Las Vegas were into mov...

"Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"  Delivered by Chico Marx as Chicolini in the 1933 Marx Brothers film "Duck Soup," this quote is a classic question used to describe situations where someone is trying to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes.  When skillfully employed, deception proves highly effective in recruiting believers for Ponzi schemes, religious cults, political campaigns, and conspiracy theories. True believers are always shocked to find out they’d been duped. Until December 2008, Bernard Madoff operated a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions. His investors believed in his BS. He hooked them with promises of consistent, above-market returns and used new investments to pay off early investors. The investors all were true believers in Madoff’s genius (and integrity) right up to his arrest. Before its bankruptcy filing in December 2001, Enron was widely regarded as an innovative and highly profitable company. The believers in that story were ma...