Opinion

If you attended the Granite Falls Home Companion Meander Opening Night sketch comedy performance, you may recall there was a bit about the “Meetings Meeting”, which mocked the number of meetings that happen locally.There are, always, plenty of meetings to be held, and because there are a number of people involved with multiple non-profits and organizations who do a whole lot of things for their communities, sometimes those meetings are held at odd times of day, on odd days of the week.So when I was asked to meet with a member of one organization on a Sunday evening to discuss potential ideas for an upcoming event, and how, as a photographer, I may contribute to the event, I, of course, agreed - because meetings is what we do around these parts - no matter what time of day or day of the week.However, after a full day of volunteering - cooking/bartending/cleaning, etc while the weather was so lovely outside - all I wanted to do was be outside.

There’s no easy way to say something like this so I’m just going to come out and say it: Beyond Reason really likes to take ‘er easy.

The Democratic nominee proposes Medicare assistance for home health aides to help people who must care for elderly parents while holding down a job and perhaps raising children, and on the same day the journalist Bob Woodward makes serious allegations about the Republican nominee to which a Republican spokesman says the journalist is “a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally.” There is the 2024 campaign in a paragraph.

I am finally going to get my COVID booster shot, which I postponed while I was on the road doing shows after each of which I wound up in the theater lobby commingling with the crowd, shaking hands, patting shoulders, posing for pictures, 80-year-old ladies snuggling up to me, being breathed upon, which is the proper thing to do.

My relationship with a broom usually goes like this: I see many somethings on the floor I dislike; I go get a broom; I use that broom to sweep up those dislikable many somethings; I realize I should have brought a dustpan to the party; I hunt for that dustpan because no one ever puts it away; I finally locate said dustpan in an inexplicable place (the garage?!); I sweep up the dislikable debris; I return the broom to whence it lives; walking out the door I realize I forgot to put the dustpan away and promise to put it away later; then I don’t think about a broom until the next time I see terribleness on the floor.But the other day I had a broom and was sweeping leaves and sticks off our front steps.

The last couple of weeks have been intensely busy with events, preparation for election coverage, etc.

I got off a Delta flight in Fargo, N.D., last week and heard a brass band playing “Over There” and found the terminal packed with hundreds of people waving flags, holding up signs, welcoming a planeload of men returning from Washington who, I was told, were veterans who’d gone to the capital to see the sights.

Another year of the local Arts Meander has passed, and it was a busy weekend for many.

The sun hangs low on this warm autumn day.