Bob CollinsThe Monday Morning Rouser (h/t: Vince Tuss):
1) THE PEOPLE WHO LOOK OUT FOR YOU
Julie Buchholz has returned to visit the cafe she owns — Irene’s By Julie Café — on Main Street in Hendricks, Minn. It wouldn’t still be in business but for the volunteers who chipped in when she, her mother, and a friend were hurt in an accident on Interstate 29 in Watertown, S.D., last August. She’s been in the hospital and a rehab facility ever since.
“Some night we’re just going to have a meal in here and just have everybody come in and just say, ‘This is on us for the things you’ve done for us,'” Mike, her husband, tells KDLT.
“I knew somebody had to be here and I knew it was my place, as Mike’s sister and Julie’s sister-in-law, to be here and take care of their livelihood,” Cindy Larson said.
“She’s had a rough road. It’s been a rough road and it’s been hard for her family too,” Barb Milton, Julie’s mom, explained.
That road has taken the Buchholz family from Sioux Falls, to St. Paul, then to Marshall and finally back in Hendricks.
“The community has stood behind and made sure things kept going,” Julie said.
Things have “kept going,” but now in a different way.
“It helped my dad too because he kind of had to get used to running everything because that was kind of my mom’s job,” Jessica Buchholz, Julie’s daughter, said.
Now the roles are reversed. Julie’s husband Mike does the cooking. And her daughter Jessica has spent every day taking care of her mom.
RELATED: A waitress who served more than just food (LA Times)
Sam Cook, the Duluth News Tribune writer, found a deer carcass in the “usual place,” he reports — by the side of Vermilion Road. Deer carcasses have been tossed there for years.
Nearly every year, other hunters and non-hunters ask me to write something to let hunters know it isn’t OK to drop deer carcasses in road ditches and gravel pits and other public places. I sympathize, but I regret to say that I believe such publicity will do little to advance the cause. It seems to me the kind of person who, under the cover of darkness, would toss a box and bag of deer parts along a city road is unlikely to read this and think, “Gee. That’s me. Maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore.”
3) JOY TO THE WORLD OF THE DOLLAR!
Oh, let he who hasn’t thrown money in the Mall of America in a desperate attempt to get a wife back cast the first stone.
The famously humorless Mall of America guards tossed Serge Vorobyov, had him ticketed, and banned him from the mall for a year.
Why?
“She took the cat,” he explained in another YouTube post.
Meanwhile, the mysterious person who drops the occasional grand into the Salvation Army kettle is back again. The person has given $45,000 over the last few years.
RELATED: Salvation Army takes down ‘ex-gay’ links, offers apology.
4) THE ALCOHOLIC PEOPLE DIDN’T KNOW
About a dozen years ago a man stumbled into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Milwaukee. After listening to the stories, a collection was held. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out what was apparently the last thing of value he had in his life — $1. He put it in the plate. Then he slumped over and died.
He had no identification, so he was buried in an unmarked grave, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says.
Last week, the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office said the man was Oliveros Perdomo, a 53-year-old Honduran immigrant, whose case baffled investigators and frustrated dozens of people who were desperately seeking missing loved ones.
“This whole thing is like a miracle,” said Jenni Penn, an investigator for the office. “It was like the timing was right. Everyone I asked to help helped.”
Related: The obituary section of the paper is filled with code words and phrases, to mask a true cause of death. In yesterday’s Star Tribune, the family of Craig Gerhard Swenson of Richmond, Wis., did not shy from the affliction from which he suffered.
During his 30-plus years as master hair stylist, he attended the University of Minnesota where he was accepted into their engineering program; later he would receive his Series 7 License and work as a stockbroker here in Minneapolis.
He was recently baptized at the Oscar Lutheran Church in Richmond, WI where he resided. He had a wonderful sense of humor and was very caring. His recreational love was the game of golf. He struggled with alcoholism most of his adult life and continued to attend AA meetings until his death. The family would like to thank all those in the treatment field who never gave up on Craig.
On Thursday, November 21, 2013, the Gearty- Delmore Funeral Chapel in St. Louis Park prepared him for cremation, and on Wednesday, November 27, 2013, he was cremated at Lakewood Cemetery and is now resting with his brother, Gary. A private family service will be held at Wooddale Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park on December 7, 2013 and the service will be led by Pastor Tim Rauk. Please pray for all those left behind that are struggling with this disease on a daily basis.
5) PLANET MONEY MAKES A T-SHIRT
NPR’s Planet Money held a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year to raise money to tell the story of the shirt you may have purchased recently that was made somewhere else. Behind the shirt, there’s a different world. Though some may not want to know about the people behind the shirt, Planet Money has put together an outstanding online story about it.
BONUS I: This actually is from a few months ago and my apologies if you’ve already seen it. Reader Brian Hanf passed it along and it strikes me as a pretty darned fine way to start off a week. Be sure to watch the entire thing.
BONUS II: The Supreme Court tomorrow will hear the case of a Minneapolis man who says Northwest Airlines wrongly stripped him of frequent flier miles. Northwest claimed he was a “frequent complainer,” he tells CNN.
BONUS III: It was on 60 Minutes, so it must be true. Amazon wants to use drones to deliver things.
What could possibly go wrong?
We’re guessing the story isn’t true, because, you know, it was on 60 Minutes.
WHAT WE’RE DOING
Daily Circuit (9-12 p.m.) – First hour: Teens and mental health.
Second hour: Poet Nikki Giovanni.
Third hour: The next generation of civic and philanthropic leadership in Minnesota.
MPR News Presents (12-1 pm) – Does Domestic Spying Keep Us Safe? An Intelligence Squared debate.
The Takeaway (1-2 p.m.) – TBA
All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) – Just since March, a single company has amassed about 700 single-family homes in the Twin Cities area with the intention of renting them out. The company, Invitation Homes, has also been snapping up properties in 13 other housing markets around the country. Its mission: to be the nation’s largest landlord of single family residences. Experts say the firm’s wide-scale acquisition of largely distressed properties has helped to stabilize the housing market. But lots of questions remain about Invitation Homes’ performance as a megalandlord. MPR’s Annie Baxter will have the story.
