The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

The nursery rhyme goes; Barber, barber, shave a pig! How many hairs will make a wig? Four-and twenty, that’s enough. Give the barber a pinch of snuff. I’m guessing that this nonsense is three or four hundred years old; that’s when rich people wore...

We don’t run out of these terms of which we might think there are only a few, but they crop up all the time. A few months ago, on my way to farthingale, I came upon fascet. It’s pronounced the same as facet yet is nothing like it. With the c, it mea...

A good game one can play with oneself is to look at new words that crop up here and there and try to figure out what they mean, before consulting the dictionary.. A “tool kit” of basic Greek and Latin roots will take you a long way along the path of...

In an article written by a European for other Europeans, the writer said, “Americans dress like children.” What the general topic of the article was I don’t know, but this flat statement has stayed in my mind for months. It makes me laugh every time...

By Kay Russo Alice and Weston arrived at Grandpa and Grandma’s house at lunch time. After some food, Grandpa took them out for a walk to enjoy the perfect spring weather. Grandma had a deadline and stayed home to do some desk work. Back in the h...

Several years ago, the Blaine County Library withdrew from circulation a thick book titled Gestures. I found this book on the cart in the library entryway. Never before having seen anything on this topic, I gave the librarian my 25 cents and took...

A couple of days ago, a friend sent me a long e.mail with a link to a video of dozens of old abandoned steam engines. He is a train enthusiast and thought maybe I am, too. I watched this parade to the end. These sad remnants of past glories were...

The wooded lot needed sprucing (joke) up after several years’ neglect of the fallen trees and a record-breaking snowstorm the previous winter. Karl and Hubert are neighbors on a wooded mountainside. Over time, their respective tracts had become l...

The Victorians spoke of, if they were not actually speaking in, the language of the flowers. It seems that using the language of the flowers allowed courting couples to say things to each other that propriety forbade their saying in plain English. Mu...

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” The poet means a person, but many people would say this about their downfall. Fortunate are you if you can take ‘em or leave ‘em—sweet things to eat, that is. One woman already of grandmother age says...

The dinner conversation turned to food in general. “I’ve been wondering what people commonly ate a couple of generations ago that we don’t eat any more,” one hungry person said. “Rutabagas!” another one said jokingly. Well, did most people ever...

There once were two tails, one on each of two chickens, but they are irrelevant. This is a tale of two chickens. One chicken was big and one was small, analogously to great-grandfather and young teenager. They were not related to each other and...

It pays to have two dictionaries at hand. The old one will tell you what the words you run across used to mean. You need the new one to tell you what people are saying that words mean now. Strangely enough, meanings change so much and so often that...

Not yet. We’re still wandering around this beautiful campus looking for the art museum. These streets are not streets; they are simply beautifully designed and maintained brick walkways which students can march down ten abreast and not feel c...

How little is little? In this case, little means age two but not yet two and a half, and four, but not yet four and a half. The girl is older. Parents were not on the scene; this was an overnight with Grandma. Grandpa was out of town, but Grandma is...

I don’t mean if you are deep in a crime novel and don’t want to be distracted. I mean if you are a character IN a crime novel, there are certain things you have to do. One is, if you are driving on a winding road to anywhere, with or without pur...

We’re going to put off the death part yet awhile. Taxes, not so easy. The dreaded packet came in the mail yesterday. They want to throw me off the scent so they try to pretend that there aren’t as many sheets of paper in the packet as I see. Do the...

It’s funny about snow. No matter how often, how firmly, we tell ourselves that snow has nothing to do with Christmas, Christmas has nothing to do with snow, do we really, truly, deep in our hearts believe it? Being honest, I can’t say Yes. A boy or g...

Christmas Day is past, yet the glow may still be lighting certain corners of our lives. The thought struck me a couple of days ago, “Candles are an important part of Christmas, from cultural tradition even if not part of the original story.” Wis...