The Blaisdell Blog

  I love our National Anthem.   It is strong.   The words have force and it can be played with soft passages followed by magnificent crescendos.   It fits this country.   But, of course, it is well nigh impossible to sing.   [Not that I can sing anything.   I may have many good qualities but anything approaching, “the arts” falls well out of my bailiwick.]    But whether I sing it or just lip sync, The Star Spangled Banner is a great anthem. However, it is not my favorite patriotic song.   That ranking goes to America the Beautiful, written by Katherine Lee Bates in 1893. America the Beautiful O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! Most every American knows that first verse.   They also know that Bates wrote the original poem (ther...

  I only heard my father cry once. Born in 1919, coming of age in the fang-bearing years of the Great Depression and rising to a fast adulthood on the battlefields of the Pacific during World War II, Dad had a pretty tough shell around him. But that night, Dad had reached his limit. It was the early 60’s. My father had worked his entire life in the dairy industry, and he knew it from cows in the field to processing at the plant, to delivery on the front porch. We had finally settled in Denver when the physical pressures of this life, his war wounds and a life of poverty and stress caught up with him. Not yet 50 years old Dad suffered two heart attacks in quick succession. The doctors suggested a less rigorous vocation. At about this same time my father was offered a position with the state department of agriculture, inspecting dairies. The job was his, all he had to do was pass a competitive oral and written examination. Here was the problem. My father, like many you...

 This will always be my favorite column to honor all of those who served, especially those who died in that service.  Some died on the field.  Some died from the scars of their service.  All gave more than they should have in a perfect world.          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 ...

  Weld County, Colorado, where I went to college, is known for sugar beets, winter wheat and cattle.   The cattle were raised on huge feed lots. As the cattle fattened, they were moved to pens that got closer and closer to the big, white slaughterhouse.   It is the classic example of that admonition, “Don’t go toward the light.”   The cattle did not know any better.               If you are going to raise beef cattle, you must have bulls impregnating cows.   Farmers found out decades ago that this impregnation could be done faster by a man with a syringe than with an actual bull.   But you still need the semen.   Back when I was in school you had farms of champion bulls that were tapped four to eight times weekly for their sperm.   It sounds like a tricky business, getting a huge, mean-tempered bull excited and then offering him a plastic cup.        ...