Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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The new “fall” season of television is already a washout. On the four main networks, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, there is a deadening similarity to most of the shows, which fall into four categories: sitcoms about big families; sitcoms about loser singles on the make; police-courtroom procedurals; and conspiracy tales that develop over a season. Fortunately, the second season of Fargo, returns on Monday, Oct. 12, with a prequel of sorts to incidents in the first season. Minority Report and Limitless are adapted from movies and end up being two mor...
Now that we've had a light frost, we can enjoy a bit of lingering summer. Sometimes this is the best part of summer for us. Our harvest is finished so we aren't worried about hailstorms or early snows. All the fall chores can be finished without having to wear extra-bulky clothing for warmth. The summer fallow strips have been plowed. The combine is in the shop for a tune-up. When it comes back it will be stored inside until next harvest season. The grain cart will be put away for the winter....
He came into the gallery in the morning in a small crowd of regular customers. I thought they were together, or maybe he needed to pick up his laundry, but when I asked if he was a friend of theirs, she said she'd never met him. I looked closer and saw his hands were muddled with oil paint that matched the specks on his jeans. Rather bluntly, I asked who he was. He replied, "Paul Rolfes. I'm an artist, and I was told to come to your gallery." My curiosity drove me into conversation with this pai...
The cooler weather we had last week means it's officially 'worry about frost' season. This is the time of year I start thinking about dragging out the old truck tarps, blankets, and frost cloths. They need to be laid out so it will be quicker and easier to cover the tender plants I'm not ready to let freeze yet when frost is in the forecast. The tomatoes always get covered first, followed by the peppers, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins. I'm thinking about trying to cover a few of the husk...
Back in the previous century when I was a kid, we looked forward to the fall season of television, when the three networks unleashed what seemed to be hundreds of new and returning shows in the course of a week. We’d tick them off with the help of the fall season preview issue of T. V. Guide, which lavishly covered the event. Nowadays, there is too much television, the shows are announced in about 400 magazines and websites, and there is no fall season. New programs dribble out perennially, like baby’s drool. Still, new and returning shows are...
I want to climb a mountain about as much as a dog wants fleas, but an excellent documentary like Meru at least gives the indolent viewer an idea of why climbers go in for this grueling activity in the first place, while allowing we sloths the chance to experience the chill, the trench foot, the sharp rocks, and sleepless nights vicariously as a warning to never try the exercise ourselves. Meru features Bozeman resident Conrad Anker, one of the world's most skilled climbers, an Outside cover...
We finished our wheat harvest on Sept. 2. Now I have time to catch up on my garden chores, if only the weather and my body cooperate. While I'm much recovered from my boute with pneumonia, I haven't yet recovered my pre-illness stamina. I miss it. The damp, cooler temperatures and high winds are not helping in that recovery. The cooler mornings find me working inside the house, catching up on laundry and the dreaded dusting and vacuuming, definitely not my favorite things to do. The warmer after...
Amy Nelson, photographer, GHS senior, and photo intern extraordinaire here at the Courier was first introduced to the community in the July 29 edition of the Glasgow Courier. This Friday, she will be formally introduced to the public during an artist's reception at the Sean R. Heavey Gallery in Glasgow. Heavey explains that he wants Nelson to gain experience setting up a showing of her photography in a gallery – from choosing the photos to interacting with the public during the show. The r...
I grew up as a military dependent, known to many as a brat. We brats embrace the term, not as a slur, but as a mark of distinction. We recognize in each other a shared lifestyle, foreign to most staties. Most of us experienced varied cultures and countries, making us adaptable to most of what life has to offer. Our symbol is the dandelion, scattered by the winds of life, yet able to set down roots and thrive where we land. When I was a teen, of an age to meet my life partner, my father was...
Get ready, home viewers, because as the colder nights are looming, Netflix is about to lose thousands of its most popular movies. Two of the top causalities are The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Transformers: Age of Extinction. This radical change is due to the lapse of a licensing agreement Netflix enjoys with a distributor, and Netflix has decided against renewal. The firm is called Epix, and it handles films for companies such as Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM (the Bond films). You'll still be able to see these movies elsewhere, say, on...
Last week I talked about harvest interfering with my gardening. On top of that, I managed to catch pneumonia, which I know nobody wants to hear about. Even medical professionals only listen to one's litany of ailments because they get paid to listen. It just means that I haven't been able to take advantage of my couple hours each morning before I've had to head out to my "office" in the Trac. Yesterday, one of my pretty maids (our eldest daughter, and now my copy editor) came up to visit us,...
“Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.” ― Kurt Vonnegut As a teenager, my brother got me hooked on reading Kurt Vonnegut. Novels like Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World fixed themselves on my list of favorites. Yet, over the years I somehow forgot all about science fiction. Then I picked up Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, and I remembered what it’s like to fall into that kind of w...
One of the most significant changes in the history of motion pictures is the retreat from the big screen to increasingly smaller ones. Television wasn't the cause, though it predicted the idea of free moving images at home. Rather, the cause was the rise of the personal computer. As its power and memory increased, as it became portable and sharper, the big screen lost its potency. If you haven't been to a theater lately, try it, because the larger image and darkened room is still powerful. But y...
This is the time of year my garden gets short shrift. Every year I know it's coming, and every year I still put in a large garden. Every year I swear I'm not going to do so much, but then spring happens. You know, that time of year when hope springs eternal, and I dare to believe I will become Wonder Woman and able to do it all. Then harvest time hits, and I am Wonder Woman, wondering why did I do this to myself again? So here I am, out in the fields, sitting in our Trac, pulling the grain cart,...
Many years ago, Dennis and I moved up north to become farmers with his parents. Before that, we were both employed at the former Glasgow Air Force base, long before it became St Marie. We didn't have any clear plans for the move, other than his dad needed him. We certainly had no master plan for our yard. That all happened piecemeal and very haphazardly. We put in a double-wide mobile home after revamping the well that has been here from the homesteading days. A septic system was also added, a...
Showing at Valley Cinemas (VC): Fans of Tom Cruise and his action films will be pleased to know that Mission Impossible Rogue Nation is a good, solid, and entertaining, if still workmanlike, entry in the 20-year, now-five-film franchise. The actor can handle stunts, comedy, and other facets demanded by tentpole summer epics with flair, while the film itself mixes its action scenes with lengthy plot explanations in opaque dialogue. The premise is that a secret organization called the Syndicate is piggybacking on the MI team’s assignments and c...
Many plants can be successfully grown in containers. Greenhouses do a thriving business selling both flowers and vegetables specifically for pots. The advantage is versatility. Flowers may bloom on your front steps, or on your deck or patio, places where there is no soil for them. Those who don't have a yard they can dig up can grow tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, and flowers on their balcony or wherever they have enough sunlight during the day. The disadvantage is the need for daily watering. Conta...
Didn’t we just see a Marvel comic book movie last week? Well, if it’s Friday that means yet another ransacking of the comic book heritage, which adults hated when I was a kid. This week it’s Fantastic Four. Same genre (comic character origin story), different company (Fox instead of Ant-Man’s Disney or Spider-Man’s Sony). If you’ve seen the Jessica Alba FF you’ve seen this one. Four scientists, out in space, rendered mutants. It’s a familiar story told with numbing repetition and noise. Pixels is a Saturday afternoon wish fulfillment epi...
To know her paintings is to know Barb Hansen, the Wheatgrass Arts and Gallery's Artist of the Month, August 7-31. Barb's paintings not only share with the viewer her love of nature, but are also witnesses to the beauty of God's creation. Barb began her love of nature at an early age. Her father would take her on walks through the countryside pointing out the native plant species and local birds. He would teach her how to observe and identify her environment and their common names. When Barb was...
This week I thought I'd write about flowers. But this morning, just before 4 a.m., I was awakened by the winds and some thunder. The windows were open, bringing in the cool air, and I got up to close them. I knew the forecast was for rain, and while we have been fervently wishing for rain up here north of Glasgow, I didn't want it inside the house. I checked the weather station we have inside the house, and it showed the winds gusting to 50 mph. While I was shutting the windows, there was a...
Paper Towns is another teenage love story, in this case about a boy who sets out to help the girl next door, whom he has always loved. The film is directed in a conventional manner by TV director Jack Schrier, who previously did Robot and Frank, but the main attraction is the story the book author tells. Like Nicholas Sparks, Mr. Green is the real star of the show, and his films are almost actor- or director-proof. Therefore the characteristic theme of the film is Mr. Green’s. These are teens stories anchored with interesting themes, o...
It's raspberry season! I always look forward to the first delectable berries from my garden. Every time I head out there to work, I'll be checking on the progress of the canes. Early in the spring I'll look for signs of life. I search for the green, having missed it all winter. There will be a few violas blooming (they seem to blossom under the snow). The rhubarb starts crowning. There are green blades of grass here and there (the first green grass is on the edges of the highway, using the...
On July 29, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 10 (wait, didn’t Windows 8 just come out and now they’re already releasing another one? Yes . . .yes, they are). For users of Windows 7 and Windows 8, this upgrade will be free for the first year and then will cost $119 (for the Home version) afterwards. Many of us have already received a notification on our computers telling us to “Reserve your copy of Windows 10.” But should we update? I guess the better question is, “Do we NEED to update?” At the moment, not really. Windows 7 and 8 will be sup...
My garden is bordered on the north and west by our shelterbelts. We have planted lilacs to the east as a living fence and to allow me to labor in the garden sheltered from view. We aren't far from the highway, and I prefer to not have everyone driving by seeing me slaving away. The house itself blocks the view from the south. Each fall, the trees will drop their leaves – lots of leaves. I will use the mower with the grass catcher to mulch and gather the leaves from the lawn. That mulch is d...
Loren John "Larry" O'Connor was born in New York City on February 12, 1911; he was later nick-named Larry and was known by that name most of his life. Records indicate that hewas baptized as "John Francis O'Connor" on February 13th, 1911, at St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Manhattan. He was orphaned at a very early age as his mother died shortly after childbirth. His father passed away a month or two later. When O'Connor was four -years-old he was sent west on what was commonly known at the time...
