Bonus Day Brightener – How True Is This!
Day Brightener – Minnesota – And You Thought It Couldn’t Get Better. Let Me Know If Any Of These Strike A Chord
History:
MADISON Township, first settled in 1877, organized in October 1879, was named on the suggestion of Claus P. Moe, “in memory of his former home at Madison, Wisconsin.” The city of Madison is located in sections 20, 21, 28, and 29; the townsite company organized by H. A. Larson, general store owner, purchased the land from John Anderson in 1884 and platted the townsite; the post office began as True in 1883, changing its name to Madison in 1884; it had a station of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad. The city was incorporated in 1886, became the county seat in 1889, and adopted its city charter March 12, 1902.
( 13″ x 18″ ) This is an original ( not a reprint ) 1864 civil war era map of Minnesota/ South Dakota. This is a great piece of history of what Minnesota and South Dakota looked like back then.This is in my collection along with my other maps that I collect.
Iron ore was discovered on the Mesabi Range in the 1880s and mining began in earnest in the 1890s. The deposits were different from anything previously mined in the Great Lakes region. The ore sat close to the surface in formations that allowed open pit mining rather than the underground shaft mining used elsewhere. That accessibility made extraction faster, cheaper, and possible at a scale that changed everything about how much American steel could be produced and how quickly.
The communities the Iron Range built are as distinctive as the geology that created them. Hibbing, Virginia, Eveleth, Chisholm, and the other Range towns developed a working class culture shaped by mining, by the labor movement, and by the waves of immigrant workers who came from Finland, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, and dozens of other countries to work the mines and build lives in northeastern Minnesota. That cultural mix produced a specific Iron Range identity that is neither northern Minnesota nor urban Minnesota but something entirely its own.
The open pit mines on the Mesabi Range are visible from space and some of them are among the largest man made excavations on Earth. The Hull Rust Mahoning Mine near Hibbing covers over 1,500 acres and reaches depths of 535 feet. Standing at the overlook above it produces the specific vertigo of looking at something so large that the human mind keeps trying to reframe it as something smaller and more manageable and failing every time. Minnesota dug that. Minnesota is still digging.
Minnesota does not let go of its people easily, and its people rarely manage to fully let go of Minnesota either. You can move across the country. You can stay gone for twenty years. Minnesota still shows up in the small things that never quite leave.
It shows up the first time you say pop in a state that calls it soda and get a confused look back. It shows up when you reach for lutefisk or lefse around the holidays and realize the nearest version is a thousand miles away. It shows up every time someone asks where you’re from and you answer with more pride than the question really required.
Minnesotans who leave become the state’s quiet ambassadors wherever they land. They explain hotdish without being asked. They defend the winters with a strange kind of affection that confuses people who have never experienced one. They talk about ten thousand lakes like the number is modest, because to them it always was.
Once a Minnesotan is not nostalgia. It is something closer to permanent installation. The cold built a tolerance that never fully resets. The lakes shaped an idea of what a good summer looks like that nothing else quite matches. Minnesota made you, and whatever Minnesota built into you in the process does not get uninstalled just because the zip code changed.
During Prohibition, those empty chambers became one of Saint Paul’s most notorious speakeasies. The city’s complicated relationship with organized crime during that era is well documented, and the Wabasha Street Caves reportedly hosted gangsters including John Dillinger and the Barker gang, who took advantage of Saint Paul’s unofficial policy at the time that allowed criminals to lay low in the city as long as they didn’t commit crimes within its limits. The caves offered exactly the kind of hidden, hard to monitor space that made an underground bar appealing when the activity happening inside was illegal.
After Prohibition ended, the caves cycled through different uses over the decades, including a stretch as a mushroom growing operation that took advantage of the naturally cool, dark, consistent conditions underground. Eventually the space was converted into an event venue, and today it hosts swing dancing nights, weddings, and tours that walk visitors through both the gangster era history and the natural geology of the sandstone caves themselves.
The Wabasha Street Caves are one of those rare places where the strange details all turn out to be true. Real sandstone, real Prohibition era crime, real Big Band swing nights happening today in the same chambers where Dillinger reportedly hid out decades earlier. Saint Paul built something underground that ended up holding nearly two centuries of Minnesota history in one space, and the caves are still telling that story to anyone who shows up for a dance lesson or a tour. See less
World War II is what turned Spam from a regional product into a global one. The U.S. military shipped massive quantities overseas to feed troops, and Spam became a fixture in rations across multiple theaters of war. Soldiers carried it home in their memories along with everything else they experienced, and the product’s reach expanded into places like Hawaii, the Philippines, and parts of Asia where it became deeply embedded in local food culture in ways nobody in Austin, Minnesota could have predicted when they were just trying to use up pork shoulder trim.
Hormel still produces Spam in Austin today, and the city has fully embraced what it created. The SPAM Museum draws visitors from across the country curious about a product that somehow became both a punchline and a beloved staple depending entirely on who you ask. Austin holds an annual Spam Jam festival, and the town’s relationship with the product runs far deeper than most people outside Minnesota probably realize.
Spam has spent decades absorbing jokes about its ingredients and its texture, and Minnesota has never seemed particularly bothered by any of it. The product solved a real problem, fed soldiers during a war, and built an entire identity for a small Minnesota meatpacking town that turned mystery meat into a genuine piece of American culinary history. Austin made it. The world decided what to do with it from there.
The process alone should have been a warning sign. Dried whitefish gets soaked in water for days. Then it gets soaked again in a lye solution that turns it into something with the approximate texture of a science experiment that succeeded in ways nobody wanted. Then it gets soaked a third time to remove the lye before anyone can safely eat it. Minnesota looked at that multi day process and decided it was worth doing every single year in December with extended family watching.
The smell precedes the dish by a notable margin. Lutefisk dinners have been emptying out church basements across Minnesota for generations and the people attending split cleanly into two groups. Those who genuinely love it and request seconds, and those who show up for the lefse and the meatballs while strategically taking the smallest possible lutefisk portion and nodding along when someone asks if it’s good.
Nobody outside Minnesota understands the appeal. Most people inside Minnesota cannot fully explain it either beyond “my grandfather ate it, so I eat it.” The tradition survives because retiring it would mean admitting nobody actually enjoys lutefisk, and that is a sentence Minnesota Lutherans are not ready to say out loud. The gelatinous fish keeps getting passed around the table every December while everyone politely insists it’s growing on them.
Day Brightener – Phrases Shakespeare Coined That We Still Use Today
Love is blind
“The Merchant of Venice,” “Henry V,” and “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”
In a pickle
“The Tempest”
Green-eyed monster
“Othello”
Foregone conclusion
“Othello”
Cold-blooded
“King John”
Salad days
“Antony and Cleopatra”
Break the ice
“The Taming of the Shrew”
As dead as a doornail
“Henry VI, Part II”
Cruel to be kind
“Hamlet”
Knock, knock! Who’s there?
“Macbeth”
One fell swoop
“Macbeth”
The world is your oyster
“The Merry Wives of Windsor”
Day Brightener – 12 Pearls Of Wisdom From T.S. Eliot. What Makes Them So Poignant Is That They Are Very True Today It is That They Were Written Over 80 Years Ago
The end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.
“Little Gidding,” 1942
Music heard so deeply / That is not heard at all, but you are / The music / While the music lasts.
“The Dry Salvages,” 1941
We do not pass through the same door twice / Or return to the door through which we did not pass.
“Little Gidding,” 1942
Love is most nearly itself / When here and now cease to matter.
“East Coker,” 1943
Fortunate the man who, at the right moment meets the right friend
“Notes Towards the Definition of Culture,” 1948
Fortunate the man who, at the right moment meets the right friend
“Notes Towards the Definition of Culture,” 1948
Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.
“Four Quartets,” 1943
Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things.
“The Family Reunion,” 1939
To make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from.
“Four Quartets,” 1943
In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” 1915
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Preface to “Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby,” 1931
Where is the Life we have lost in living? / Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
“The Rock,” 1934
T.S. Eliot was one of the most brilliant poets of the 20th century. Born Thomas Stearns Eliot in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888, he created an incredible oeuvre in his lifetime, spanning poetry, plays, literary criticism, and philosophy. His most famous works include “The Waste Land” and “Four Quartets,” the latter of which is a meditation on time and history. He graduated from Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. His work has influenced generations of writers: Stephen King is among his many famous fans, incorporating lines and references from Eliot’s work into his films. Eliot’s 1939 poem collection, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, also inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1981 hit musical Cats.
What makes Eliot’s writing so poignant even now, decades after publication, is not necessarily his accolades or prestige, but the timelessness of his observations. Eliot understood how to balance tradition and modernity, and how to skillfully wield his outsider status to create a trademark ethereal quality to his work. As he wrote in a letter to his friend Herbert Read, he saw himself as an American born in the South but educated in New England, who never fully fit in either place, “and who so was never anything anywhere.” Readers have found solace in and drawn deep inspiration from Eliot’s writing thanks in part to his relatable, nomadic core. Here, we’ve rounded up 12 quotes that best illustrate the timeless wisdom that this game-changing poet imparted on the world.
Day Brightener – 13 Hilariously – Relatable Quotes From ‘Garfield”
Television not only gives the eyeballs something to do, but it’s a socially acceptable excuse to snack.
You know you’re getting older when your favorite late-night show is the six o’clock news.
Just what is a Monday? Monday is a day designed to add depression to an otherwise happy week.
Life is a lot like a hot bath. It feels good while you’re in it. But the longer you stay, the more wrinkled you get.
All I ever do is eat and sleep, eat and sleep, eat and sleep. There must be more to a cat’s life than that. But, I hope not.
If I ignore the world, maybe it will go away … Except for the lasagna.
Never confuse being lazy for being apathetic. We lazy people are not apathetic. Apathetic people don’t care about anything. Lazy people care, we just don’t do anything about it.
I’d like mornings better if they started later.
The only thing active about me is my imagination.
I wish there were something I could do about the aging process. I’d do sit-ups, but I couldn’t stand the noise.
A goldfish is an aquatic expression of beauty and grace that provides its observers with many hours of blissful meditation. It also makes a darn fine breakfast.
When the lasagna content in my blood gets low, I get mean.
I’m not always right, but I’m never wrong.
Day Brightener – What Do You Know
IN 1 DAY, the Pink Moon rises — and it will determine the date of Easter for 2.4 billion Christians, exactly as it has every single year since 325 AD.
In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea established a rule that has never been changed: Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full Moon after the spring equinox. That full Moon is the Pink Moon. Not a Pope. Not a government. Not a committee. The Moon’s orbital position determines the most important date in the Christian calendar — and has done so for 1,701 years without exception.
This year, the Pink Moon reaches peak illumination on April 1, 2026 at 10:11 PM EDT. The spring equinox occurred on March 20. The first Sunday after April 1 is April 5. Easter 2026 falls on April 5 — determined entirely by the Moon’s position in its orbit around Earth.
The Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar, the Hebrew calendar, and the Islamic calendar all use lunar cycles as their foundation. Every civilization in recorded history has organized time around the Moon. The Pink Moon does not just rise above your house tomorrow night. It runs the calendar of 2.4 billion people.
Does it change how you see the Moon to know it still governs civilization’s most important dates?
You don’t drive in Minnesota… you endure politely.
One minute it’s dry pavement, next minute your lane is a frozen lake and everyone’s still going 40 like that’s reasonable. It’s 31° and there’s always that one guy in shorts proving a point nobody asked for.
Blinkers? Optional. Traction? Also optional. And somehow construction season and winter are the same season.
You’ll slide, you’ll wait, you’ll say “ope” at least twice—and still apologize when someone cuts you off.
And when you finally get there?
“Wasn’t too bad.”
We warned you. This is Minnesota
Minnesota has its own version of a second language—and it might be even more polite, indirect, and quietly final than Michigan’s. Around here, “no” doesn’t exist. It just gets translated into something softer… friendlier… and somehow way more permanent.
“Yeah, maybe” in Minnesota doesn’t mean maybe. It means the idea has already been gently set aside, like leftovers nobody plans to eat but also doesn’t want to throw away yet. It sounds hopeful… but it’s already over.
“I’ll see what’s going on” is classic Minnesota code for staying home, putting on something comfortable, and watching the plan unfold from a safe distance. You’ll still react to messages though—just enough to stay polite.
“Not sure yet” means the decision has been made. Quietly. Internally. And that decision is no. You just haven’t been officially let down yet.
“I might swing by” is where things get really optimistic. That phrase carries the energy of showing up… but in reality, the only thing swinging is the fridge door as you grab another snack and settle in for the night.
“I’ll try to make it” is probably the nicest way Minnesota says “I am absolutely not making it.” There’s effort in the sentence… just not in real life.
And then there’s the ultimate: “Let me think about it.”
That doesn’t mean thinking is happening. Thinking has already happened. The answer is no. But it’s being delivered with warmth, respect, and just enough softness that nobody feels bad.
That’s the Minnesota way.
It’s not flaking. It’s not avoiding. It’s just a quiet agreement that everyone values comfort, peace, and not leaving the house once the plan hits the group chat.
Plans here are like winter forecasts—everyone prepares, nobody fully commits, and somehow it all gets canceled anyway.
And honestly?
It’s kind of perfect.
Modern cars have lost their soul. Most drivers today just point and shoot, letting a computer handle the timing while they lose that visceral connection to the road. The art of the perfect heel-toe downshift is becoming a forgotten language. If you feel like a passenger in your own vehicle, you aren’t alone in wanting more control.
Our Classically Trained collection is built for those who still believe in the three-pedal lifestyle. It is a tribute to the skill, timing, and mechanical sympathy required to truly drive.
You don’t drive in Arizona, you endure it. One minute you’re cruising past endless desert, the next your tires hit a pothole that could swallow a cactus. You paid $12 in tolls for the privilege, too. There’s a truck glued to your bumper like you personally invented traffic, a roadrunner darting across the shoulder, and construction signs standing proudly with no workers in sight. It’s 85° on Tuesday, 110° by Thursday, and your AC sounds like it’s begging for mercy. And somehow, you still catch yourself saying, “Eh, it’s a dry heat.”
Welcome to Arizona.
Welcome to Arizona. Please lower expectations.
Everything starts out normal… then the road stretches forever, your GPS says “no signal,” and that “quick shortcut” turns into 40 extra miles through the desert.
You’ve got a dust storm behind you, a semi flying past you, and absolutely no idea how it’s 75° in the morning and 105° by afternoon.
Traffic appears out of nowhere. Distances look close but take hours. Someone’s wearing a hoodie while someone else is melting in flip-flops.
Gas stations feel like rare landmarks. Everything has spikes, stings, or bites. And somehow… your car is hotter inside than outside.
And no matter which way you’re driving… the sun is always in your face.
Makes no sense. Still home.
Back in the late 1860s, the heart of what we now call Phoenix wasn’t a grid of pavement and skyscrapers; it was a sprawling landscape of abandoned ancient canals and, believe it or not, massive fields of wild pumpkins. When Jack Swilling and the first group of modern pioneers settled near the Salt River, the most striking feature of the land was the abundance of these oversized gourds growing along the ditch banks. Naturally, the settlement started being called Pumpkinville. It wasn’t exactly the most “majestic” name for a future metropolis, but it was practical.
The amazing part of the history comes down to a man named Darrell Duppa. He was an eccentric, highly educated Englishman who saw something the others didn’t. He looked at the ruins of the Hohokam civilization—the people who had built those incredible irrigation canals centuries prior—and realized that a new civilization was literally rising from the ashes of the old one. During a meeting to officially name the town, he shot down “Pumpkinville” and proposed Phoenix. He argued that like the mythical bird, this new city would spring forth from the ruins of the past and soar. If it weren’t for Duppa’s flair for the dramatic, we might be telling people we live in the “Pumpkin Patch” today instead of the Valley of the Sun!
If you love uncovering the hidden secrets of the Southwest, make sure to share this post and follow the page for more deep dives into our wild history!
Interstate 35 (I-35) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route. It stretches from Laredo, Texas, near the Mexican border to Duluth, Minnesota, at Minnesota State Highway 61 (MN 61, London Road) and 26th Avenue East.[4] The highway splits into I-35E and I-35W in two separate places, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in Texas and at the Minnesota twin cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
The afternoon heat pressed down on Tombstone, Arizona, as a strange tension settled over the dusty streets. Shop doors stayed half-closed, curtains twitched, and quiet conversations stopped whenever boots echoed along the boardwalk. Virgil Earp walked steadily toward a vacant lot near the O.K. Corral, his brothers Wyatt and Morgan beside him, along with the sharp-eyed Doc Holliday. People watched from windows, sensing that something important was about to unfold. Virgil kept his expression calm, though Wyatt could tell his older brother carried the weight of the moment deep behind his eyes. Hidden beneath Virgil’s coat was a shotgun, unseen by the nervous crowd gathering in silence.
At the edge of the lot stood a group of armed Cowboys, tense and watchful beneath the blazing Arizona sun. Hands hovered close to holsters while horses shifted uneasily nearby. For a brief second, the entire street seemed frozen in place. Then Virgil stepped forward and demanded the men surrender their weapons. In one smooth motion, he revealed the shotgun from under his coat and passed it to Doc Holliday, whose faint grin only added to the uneasy stillness. Wyatt would later remember the smallest details from that moment — sunlight flashing against glass, dust drifting through the air, and the nervous movement of a horse’s hoof against the ground.
What happened next became one of the most talked-about moments in Old West history. A sudden gunshot shattered the silence, though no one could ever fully agree on who fired first. Smoke filled the narrow space as gunfire erupted from every direction, echoing through Tombstone in a storm of noise and confusion. The entire clash lasted less than a minute, yet when the smoke finally cleared, several men lay wounded and three Cowboys were dead. Virgil and Morgan had been hit, while Doc Holliday still gripped the shotgun tightly. Wyatt Earp stood untouched, staring across the dusty lot as if trying to understand how so much could change in only a few seconds. From that day forward, Tombstone would never quite feel the same again.
Day Brightener – 9 Quotes on Rejection From Famous Writers
Obviously this is talking about writers, but I suspect that there are many things here that we can all either identify with or that we can apply to our everyday travails.
I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.
Sylvia Plath
I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
Harper Lee
Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
Neil Gaiman
I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.”
Saul Bellow
You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success — but only if you persist.
Isaac Asimov
By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.
Stephen King
I encourage you to reject rejection. If someone says no, just say NEXT!
Jack Canfield
For every accomplishment there were twenty rejections … In the end, though, only one attitude enabled me to move ahead. That attitude said, “Rejection can simply mean redirection.”
Maya Angelou
Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better … Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe?
Chuck Wendig
Day Brightener – Words & Meanings
1. Dad, are we pyromaniacs? Yes, we arson.
2. What do you call a pig with laryngitis? Disgruntled.
3. Writing my name in cursive is my signature move.
4. Why do bees stay in their hives during winter? Swarm.
5. If you’re bad at haggling, you’ll end up paying the price.
6. Just so everyone’s clear, I’m going to put my glasses on.
7. A commander walks into a bar and orders everyone around.
8. I lost my job as a stage designer. I left without making a scene.
9. Never buy flowers from a monk. Only you can prevent florist friars.
10. How much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced? A buccaneer.
11. I once worked at a cheap pizza shop to get by. I kneaded the dough.
12. My friends and I have named our band ‘Duvet’. It’s a cover band.
13. I lost my girlfriend’s audiobook, and now I’ll never hear the end of it.
14. Why is ‘dark’ spelled with a k and not c? Because you can’t see in the dark.
15. Why is it unwise to share your secrets with a clock? Well, time will tell.
16. When I told my contractor I didn’t want carpeted steps, they gave me a blank stare.
17. Bono and The Edge walk into a Dublin bar and the bartender says, “Oh no, not U2 again.”
18. Prison is just one word to you, but for some people, it’s a whole sentence.
19. Scientists got together to study the effects of alcohol on a person’s walk, and the result was staggering.
20. I’m trying to organize a hide and seek tournament, but good players are really hard to find.
21. I got over my addiction to chocolate, marshmallows, and nuts. I won’t lie, it was a rocky road.
22. What do you say to comfort a friend who’s struggling with grammar? There, their, they’re.
23. I went to the toy store and asked the assistant where the Schwarzenegger dolls are and he replied, “Aisle B, back.”
24. What did the surgeon say to the patient who insisted on closing up their own incision? Suture self.
25. I’ve started telling everyone about the benefits of eating dried grapes. It’s all about raisin awareness.
Loren Berg's Blog 