The Blaisdell Blog

  President Donald Trump has sparked global indignation by suggesting NATO troops avoid frontline combat, minimizing the sacrifice made by America’s allies.   These are lies, they are the work of Trump and Putin acting together and they are hypocritical from Old Bone Spurs, who used daddy’s money to avoid military service five times.        Here is just one example of Trump’s lie.      While visiting some friends on Vancouver Island, Canada, my husband and I were taken to a memorial on Radar Hill in the interior mountains of the island.    The memorial was a commemoration of the 2 nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2 PPCLI) and their moment of exceptional valor which occurred during the Battle of Kapyong, April 22-25, 1951.        The Korean War is frequently referred to as the, “forgotten” war.    It certainly isn’t by those who fought there, much less th...

 I have a Thanksgiving morning ritual.   Up before dawn, I make my coffee (Minnesotan’s don’t do much before coffee), clean the turkey, sauté the giblets and start chopping up the onion and celery for the dressing.   While they are cooking, I carry my coffee cup to the door, and step out on the cold, silent porch.    I count the subdued lights filtered through the curtains of every kitchen window.   I know that each small beacon represents a woman starting the hours of work that is the Thanksgiving feast.   This is a day designed to remind each of us that no matter what budgeting, what careful use of leftovers, what creativity needed in bargain cuts and coupons it takes, our families will be fed. And on this day of Thanksgiving, there will be food in abundance. Everyone has a favorite holiday.   Mine has always— always —been Thanksgiving.   As a child it meant the best food, unremitting talk and board games played, sitting cross-legged on t...

  There is a photograph on the wall of my sister’s home that is both precious and haunting to me.   It is a restored, blown up and framed photo of my father on his way to the South Pacific during World War II.   It was taken by an Army photographer from a small tender craft as my Dad’s ship, the S.S. Monterey, left harbor.   In a happy accident, the picture was taken with a close up of Pfc. Frank G. Yatckoske front and center.   He is in the midst of a host of soldiers leaning over the rail, all smiling and mugging for the camera.   My father is leaning out from the rest, his arms braced on the rail of the ship, his smile—a straight, wide grin filled with mischief—is set in a young, lean, handsome face.   Every man on that ship seems filled with enthusiasm, bonhomie, even a sense of adventure. Those poor young men didn’t have a clue.               I don’t want to contemplate what happ...

  We looked everywhere and could not find my sister’s wallet.   The house was one continual round of activity, the kind that surrounds a family celebration, and it was time to go to the bakery and pick up the cake.   We all know what those days are like.   Every member of the family is coming over.   The fatted calf is on the spit, tables are being set up under tents in the yard, and at least six coolers of beverages are already on the patio.   But where was that wallet?   The only person not involved in the search was my mother.   She had recently come to live with my sister as her declining health precluded her from living alone.   Mom sat at her place of choice at the kitchen table, sipping her bottomless cup of coffee, and telling everyone that they need to put things away in the proper place and then they wouldn’t get lost.   Her lecture on wise living was not helping.   My nieces decided to skip the sermon and go get the cak...