BY ELAINE KLAASSEN A friend’s beaten dog inspired the kindness of Southside Pride’s IT support person. Celia Wirth and her husband, Ron Wirth, are friends with a senior citizen, Gemma Barry, who lives a few blocks from the restaurant/bar where Ron is a brewer, Roma in Mahtomedi (50 beers on…
A celebration of life service for John Karrigan was held Saturday, Jan. 19, at Calvary Lutheran Church, 3901 Chicago Ave. S. in Minneapolis. John’s longtime partner, Bonnie Rae, wrote this: John R. Karrigan passed away peacefully on Jan. 11, 2019, at the age of 74, after a 10-month battle with…
John R. Karrigan passed away peacefully on Jan. 11, 2019, at the age of 74, after a 10-month battle with metastatic melanoma. Preceded in death by his parents, Ellsworth and Vivien (Rasmussen) Karrigan, of Aberdeen, SD. Survived by his longtime partner, Bonnie Rae; siblings Steve (Lynn) Karrigan and Dave Karrigan,…
COMPILED BY ELAINE KLAASSEN According to treehuggers.com, “Icelanders have a beautiful tradition of giving books to each other on Christmas Eve and then spending the night reading. This custom is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it is the reason for the Jolabokaflod, or “Christmas Book Flood,” when the…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Sunday night, Dec. 9, I went out into the cold dark night to witness wonderful collaborations—people creating art moments together—at Pillsbury House Theatre, 35th and Chicago. Children in the after-school program there had paired up with professional volunteer performers, playwrights and directors to create the little 10-minute…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN My friend Alex Chandler, who describes herself as a person with a passion for making the world a better place, is part of the ethical consumer movement. She looks for “companies that are committed to Fair Trade and environmentally-friendly practices, treat their employees well, and do not…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Seward Neighborhood has written an intriguing book about its own history. The project has involved a “cast of thousands,” and took seven years to complete. Its 19 chapters start before the arrival, in 1850, of the first non-Natives who built homes and settled, and end in the…
FROM ST. JOAN OF ARC CATHOLIC COMMUNITY After years of silence, the bells of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community are ready to bring their joyous sound to the neighborhood again. Church bell ringing goes back thousands of years. Historically, church bells announced the time of day, ringing on the…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE Although it was not quite the blue wave hoped for nationwide, it sure felt like it in South Minneapolis last night. Nationally, there was a mixture of the bitter and the sweet, for Democrats and progressives alike. So what can we say about the immediate future?…
resistance persistence BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE There have been a few victories in the resistance in the past month. Before the arraignment hearing (Sept. 27) came around for the group of immigrant rights protestors known as #ICEbreakers18, the court dismissed all the charges on Sept. 9. That was one victory.…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN Daily emails to my inbox plead with me to “save the wolves, save the polar bears, save the bees … !” Two environmental films I saw recently at Transition Longfellow warned me of the fragile state of our Earth. I am still shaken. I know the Earth…
Hope Lutheran Church is celebrating its unique choir camping trip program, which ran from 1967 to 2003, with a reunion on Saturday, Sept. 15. All choristers and chaperones that made these trips possible are invited. These were not singing or performing tours, nor were they educational programs or religious retreats. They…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN If I were to rank different activities in the order of physical difficulty, that is, the amount of effort required, from the most difficult to the easiest, it would look like this: 1) giving birth 2) emerging from the ocean not having drowned 3) playing Chopin Etudes…
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN I read FB posts too many times a day. I am shattered time and again by the evil afoot in our world. I despair. Then I remember my dear friend Rev. Harry Maghakian, who retired from pastoring Andrew Riverside Presbyterian Church a few years ago, and died…
