ruminations
By Mavis Fodness, reporterOctober 06, 2020This week is National 4-H Week. In the early weeks of the new 4-H year, my social media feed was sprinkled with memories of my kids’ 4-H state livestock shows. 4-H is where we learned about sheep, hogs, rabbits, leadership, horses and cattle. It’s a program where I still participate as an adult adviser and have developed lifelong friendships as a result. For the past six years, as part of my job…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterSeptember 01, 2020As reporters, we routinely convey stories on a wide variety of topics. This week I’ve chosen to tell a high school classmate’s story. However, this one doesn’t have a happy ending, but maybe you can help write a positive chapter in the story. Doctors told Curt Thorson on Aug. 10 that the sharp abdominal pain he has suddenly begun to experience was the Stage IV pancreatic cancer spreading through…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterAugust 11, 2020While removing the leaf from the kitchen table one day, my thoughts landed on how a simple piece of furniture reflects the changes in our empty nest household. In our 30-plus years of marriage, Bryan and I always had a kitchen table and a dining table in each of the half dozen or so homes we’ve lived in during our time together. The duo tables are the result of an auctioneer husband who couldn’t…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterJune 16, 2020Since the first cases of the coronavirus hit Minnesota in March, one of my colleagues went missing. Gone. Poof. Vanished. In the past three months only a handful of sightings of former sports editor John Rittenhouse have been passed on to the newsroom, but none of these by me, this former colleague. Three months ago, as the newspaper was scrambling to understand the new health rules, John quietly…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterMay 19, 2020My last in-person visit with my granddaughter, Jayden, was March 6. Almost 60 days later, on the bright, sunny Sunday morning of May 3, the grandmother in me knew it was time to see Jayden face to face. Unbeknownst to me, when my daughter Courtney told Jayden that MeeMaw Mavis was coming to Iowa for a visit, her response was “MeeMaw Mavis is not dead?” It’s been a long two months for my 2-year-…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterApril 21, 2020Dear Logan, We’re sorry we won’t be able to share your first birthday with you this year. Again this MeeMaw will be late with her hugs and kisses of best wishes. It appears April 11 is just not a good date for us to get together. You don’t remember last year, but I was late meeting you in Iowa due to a blizzard here in Minnesota. We lost electricity and Papa Bryan had to hook up a generator to…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterMarch 03, 2020Leap Day rolls around every four years, and I was excited about this year’s Feb. 29. Similar to daylight saving time, when we push our clocks back an hour in the fall, I see the 2020 Leap Day as a 24-hour bonus because it occurred on a weekend. What would I do with a whole extra day? Not only that, but a day where temperatures were predicted to reach 50 degrees, an outdoor warmth we hadn’t…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterFebruary 04, 2020More than a year ago local readers were introduced to Ryan and Martha Tofteland. The young couple and their children, Finn and Liv, were visiting Ryan’s parents, Steve and Julie Tofteland, and his childhood home in rural Luverne for Thanksgiving 2018. It was a bittersweet visit for the young couple. Two years prior, in August 2016, Ryan was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou…
January 07, 2020Growing up, I often heard the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Now, I didn’t have any neighbors named Jones, but I knew the saying referred to buying something just because someone else already had the same item. By owning the item, you were at the same high social level, and those who didn’t have said item were somehow at a lower socio-economic scale. Decades later the “Keeping up with the…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterDecember 03, 2019Our new puppy, Lucy, a lab-Brittany spaniel mix, often chases her own tail. The sight is comical, as she spins and snaps her teeth at her long brown tail. She spins in both directions, quite fast, until she catches her tail in her mouth and, after a brief pause, continues to spin in circles. I often feel I’m spinning in circles, not seeming to accomplish much of anything when it comes to dealing…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterJuly 09, 2019Thousands of students — including me — have received diplomas from Luverne High School since it was built in 1956. The LHS Class of 1983 celebrates its “35th plus one” class reunion this weekend. The reunion comes on the heels of the June 20 groundbreaking ceremony that honored the changes coming to the 63-year-old facility. For days leading up to the groundbreaking, I watched two excavators…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterJune 04, 2019A “Tale of Two Cats” unfolded recently on social media involving mystery, mistaken identity and, best of all, a happy ending. The tale opens May 17 with Luverne’s Martha Nowatzki posting that her 18-year-old cat named Shamus “has gone on a walkabout” and had been gone for several days. It’s not unusual for the black cat with a cloudy left eye to cross people’s paths in the area of Freeman Avenue…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterMay 14, 2019My teenaged son and his friends introduced me to Marvel comics just before the cinematic franchise blossomed to include 22 movies and counting. Until the Marvel movies came along, I rarely watched movies at a multiplex, preferring to purchase the DVD and watch the movies multiple times in the comfort of my living room. Younger kids prefer to go to the cinema. One year when Adam and his friends…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterApril 22, 2019He’s arrived. Logan William Blenner. My newest grandchild and first grandson. Born in the early morning hours of the April 11 blizzard. Luckily, the wintry weather didn’t hinder his Iowa parents from getting to the Storm Lake hospital before Logan’s 3 a.m. arrival. The weather hindered this grandma, however, from meeting the little tike until some 36 hours after his birth. He didn’t seem to mind…
By Mavis Fodness, reporterApril 02, 2019In her book, “Girl, Wash Your Face,” author Rachel Hollis answers the question, “How do I …?” How do I pick myself up after a loss? How do I get rid of these looping negative thoughts that enter my head every day? How do I bring more purpose to my life? After reading her book, I’ve determined my question is, “How do I conquer my fears?” I am afraid of heights. I am afraid to wear a bathing suit…
By Mavis Fodness, ReporterOctober 09, 2017Luverne Homecoming King Mark Robinson was surrounded by three friends intent on unscrewing the decorative nut on top of the scepter he received during the coronation ceremony. The mom voice in me told me to see what shenanigans these teenagers were up to. I quickly snapped a photo of the foursome, because you never know if the moment would have story significance. A day later I began pulling at…
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