by James Glaser
September 5, 2003

It seem like every time I turn around, someone else is either asking me for money or asking me to work on a fund raiser for some worthy cause. This week they are having a community get together with dinner, some singing, and ministers talking. This one is to raise money for our Fire Department.

Hey I think that is a good cause, but so is the Farmers Market I'm working on, as is getting uniforms for the little league and money to support the ambulance, flags for the school classrooms, equipment for the First Responders, and the list goes on and on.

Many of these things were supported with tax money, both federal and state, but everyone seems to be in deficit spending and looking for ways to balance the books.

One old lady came up to me today and said, "look at this." She had an article from the paper about President Bush wanting another 60-70 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq and this women didn't like that at all. Well to tell you the truth I don't like it either, but we did destroy that country and we did kill tens of thousands of their people.

So I told that to this lady and she looked down at the ground and said that was true and we do owe those poor people enough to get them back on their feet. She went on to say that we had better hurry up and get out of there before we have to spend any more.

This week was the first day of school. I was there to give a talk on Flag Etiquette and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. The State of Minnesota passed a law that each school had to say the Pledge once a week and our school board said we would say it every day.

I have to tell you that the kids at the school really impressed me. Everyone seemed like they wanted to be there, they paid attention to the speakers, and all the teachers looked and acted like they were ready to teach and wanted to. You could tell that the teachers liked the students and that the students liked their teachers.

Our school is twenty years old, but it looks like it is very new. The students respect the place and take care of it. This school is out in the woods, over a mile from town. It has its own School Forest with walking trails. They have their own Greenhouse and there must be a good ten acres of open space around the school with ponds for ducks and tadpoles. If students take care of their school it frees up so much more time for the staff to do things that make their learning experience even better. This year the senior class is twice as big as last year with sixteen.

Yesterday was cold and rainy and all I could think of was fall, but today it was sunny and warm. They are talking about in the 90s by Monday. I could use another couple weeks of hot weather. I like winter, but every year it seems like the summer flies by faster.

Every where you look this week you see bear hunters. There has to be a hundred right in the Northome area. Many report getting bears of 160 to 200 pounds. One report from Squaw Lake said that a hunter got one weighing in at 462. That is a big bear.

Everyone is trying to get those last projects of summer done before the cold sets in and that one cold day got everyone going. I won't get everything done, but I can look around and see that I did get more done than most years.