I don’t spend a lot of time being discouraged. Too much to do. But I’ll postpone my book writing for another update of life and politics. First, having mentioned my kitchen remodling I’ll show you the minute long video tour of the almost finished kitchen from a couple days ago. It generated a number of friendly comments on my personal Facebook Page which is not the same as my school board page: Harry Welty Give’m Helty.
https://www.facebook.com/harry.welty/videos/10156116774876394/
Its finally finished. Last night I painted the newly resurfaced areas of the dining room wall that leads into the kitchen. We had the door widened to better bring the rooms together. Today one of my Mother’s paintings will be reframed and hung in the dining room. Its always been one of my favorites.
And Summer’s over! My grandsons are back in school. I will have fewer reasons to be distracted from book writing except that I will continue to feel obligated to comment about the schools, Trump, and the school board campaign on the blog. The man in the middle of that list keeps trying to suck up all the oxygen in the room. No problem with the Amazon burning, diverting FEMA money to wall building just before another hurricane has set its course for Puerto Rico, telling subordinates to break laws to get the wall built by the next election because he will pardon them for their crimes. And that’s just the last ten seconds.
With Trump along I hardly have room in my head for campaigning but I’ll try to eke out a few words. My Mother’s art has stood me in good stead. I got one envelope today from a person who wanted a lawn sign…..but not a book. She told me she loved my snowsculptures. I’ll take that. BTW here’s the latest Reader Ad with my artwork that you should find in tomorrow’s edition:
The sole return envelope I found today had to have been dropped in the mail on Saturday (the day after it was received and) before the Duluth PO sent it to be postmarked in St. Paul. St. Paul postmarked it Monday and it took two days to get back to Duluth. That kind of turnaround has to be killing the US Post Office. Tomorrow will give me a better idea if there will be enough orders to proceed with more mailings. In the old days when mail was the only way for people to return campaign letters a fundraising letter might expect a 1% return. That would be about 20 replies for the one I just sent out. If I get them they may be just enough for me to proceed with additional mailings. Yesterday I was sitting on pins and needles. Today. Not so much. Que Sera Sera.
I got a notification from the Chuck Frederick by email that the Trib and the Chamber of Commerce will have a day at the Depot with candidates for this fall’s election. These are traditionally poorly attended affairs with a hundred of the 50,000 eligible voters present. About six questions will be asked of them and each candidate will get about one minute to explain how to lift the earth with a bicycle pump. “Uh, well, I’d.” “Thank you very much.” “Next!” Its always scintillating. I wish they could come up with a forum more like the Democratic Presidential candidates have recently had allowing them some time to challenge one another.
In the email Chuck sent to me there was no indication that the Trib’s hand-picked Editorial Board with citizen journalists would invite any of the general election candidates to have a private interview where this kind of one-on-one dialogue, might be possible. These are the meetings after which you could expect non-attenders to get an editorial scolding…”Candidate B did not choose to speak with the News Tribune so in good conscience we can not consider him for endorsement.”
I replied to Chuck that I was looking forward to the forum and the opportunity to write a “candidate’s view” column for the Trib but I asked him what had happened to this more in depth interview. Chuck wrote back to tell me that he thought the public forum (sticking finger down throat) would suffice. Geez!
Here’s how a local amateur does an interview that packs a punch.
