From deep inside the Polar Vortex – the Dark Ice of the Moon, Winter 2018-2019 issue.
Lake Zumbro – the First 100 Years
Lake Zumbro Forever
Hardcover copies are available from Lake Zumbro Forever board members, Mazeppa, Minnesota.
A collectable photobook and narrative history of Lake Zumbro, the Zumbro dam, the neighborhoods that grew around the lake, and the future of Lake Zumbro, its water, its wetlands and its residents.
Into the Backlands—a Peace Corps Memoir
Ken Fliés
An uplifting two year odyssey of a young man to Brazil and back home again.
A spirited memoir of Ken Fliés’ wild odyssey from the dairy farm in southeast Minnesota to the Backlands of Brazil in 1962, where he learned about the frustrations and joys of rural community development, the satisfaction and longing that comes from genuine friendship, and back home again, a principled young man eager to take on the world.
Reviews:
I was present at the creation when the bright flame of conviction took hold in the imagination of the country and the Peace Corps became a promise fulfilled.—Bill Moyers
Into the Backlands, a Peace Corps Memoir, by Kenneth E. Dugan Fliés, reminded me of reading Eric Sevareid’s classic coming-of-age book, Canoeing with the Creed. While Sevareid paddled a canoe 2,250 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay in 1930, Fliés followed President Kennedy’s challenge and joined the Peace Corps in 1962. His anecdote-ladened account of a dairy farm kid’s journey to Brazil resonates as a wide-eyed adventure during climatic times.
From training in the Deep South as racial tensions began to explode, to venturing to South America just as the Cuban Missile Crisis ratcheted up, there’s a Forrest Gump-esque feeling of witnessing history first hand. I can’t help shrugging when I think of today’s youth, glued to their screens, Twitter and text messages. Writers like Sevareid and Fliés rekindle the spirit of adventure I hope still percolates in our youth.
“Lived to its fullest, the hero’s journey results in the ascent or flight of an individual from unconsciousness to illumination and to a newfound freedom of understanding,” Fliés writes. “The flying white dove on the Peace Corps emblem fittingly symbolizes this ascent. In this way, my work and adventures in Brazil as a Volunteer expanded both my world-consciousness and self-consciousness, leading to a deeper understanding of life. Brazil became my portal of transformation. I crossed a great divide and came back with a new perspective on life.” Ken’s account will widen and broaden the reader’s perspective as well.—Curt Brown
Amazon Reviews—
From Bruce: This is a fascinating personal story of a Peace Corps volunteer. This book provides insight into the early, somewhat bumpy first few years of the Peace Corps. Told through the eyes of a talented, inquisitive, and sincere volunteer, the historical context and difficulties of making a difference in Brazil make this an excellent read.
Bill says: Great well written book. The story line flowed very nicely and the book is well written. Background information was provided throughout to bring a sense of the moment and give it context. I truly enjoyed the adventures that the Author endured. I Highly recommend this book.
From Elliott: A Wonderful Suspense, Adventure and Love Story.This memoir is a compellingly woven tale with so much depth, touching on themes of adventure, coming-of-age, religious faith, family, politics, and above all – love. I found it to be a “page-turner” that you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. The author’s vocabulary and imagery are first-rate and in my mind I could see it as a movie while I read the book. What a great window Flies has provided to us into the 1960s, the “Backlands” of the Brazilian frontier, and into the heart of a young man leaving home for the first time ever heading off into the adventure of a lifetime to serve his country and the people of Brazil. And, in the end, the underlying love story with his long-distance girlfriend back home make this story complete and utterly satisfying.
Bob Flaco: “Peace Corps brings an idealist down to earth!” Sargent Shriver. Want to know what Peace Corps was like then and now? Into The Backlands, a Peace Corps Memoir takes you by the hand into the early years of JFK’s Peace Corps and the spirit and challenges of the times…1962-1964. Ken Flies was 19 years old when he reported to Training at the University of Oklahoma as part of Brazil II, one of the first. I doubt if Ken knew what he was getting himself into, and Brazil…where’s that?
Back Roads: the Best of the Best
John Weiss
the former Rochester Post Bulletin columnist’s best ever
$18.95 – Buy a print copy online.
John Weiss was the best-known name and face of the Post Bulletin outside the city limits of Rochester. Need to know someone in Plainview? If John didn’t know the person, he’d know the person who’d know the person you needed. Need to know which roads were in danger of flooding that spring? John knew—and could tell you which roads had flooded last and who lived on them.
John was also a one-man band: he could report a hard news story, do a feature, file away a possible story angle for weeks or months later, AND take pictures to go with all of it. And you’d get all of this with his statement “I’m heading to the river” as he walked to the exit. Whenever John left the building, it was always “to the river.” Which river, you could never be sure. And how close to a river he actually got was up for debate.
I was reluctant to assign John to Back Roads at first. Who in the world is interested in the run-of-the-mill junked-up shop? What makes that woman so special? Finally, I started to see things John’s way. That junked-up shop is a treasure trove of stories. That woman’s story is unique, all the while being so typical.
All right, I finally said. Let’s give it a try. BUT, no going out of the way. It has to be something you find on your way to a legit story assignment.
Soon enough, Back Roads columns and pictures started to fill our files. Stories with hopes and dreams, and joys and sorrows. John put the folks and places that we see every day but somehow overlook into focus. John broadened our definition of neighbor and friend. —Randi Kallas, former City Editor and Newspaper in Education Coordinator, Rochester Post-Bulletin.
Amazon Reviews—
Dave in Minnesota says: Wonderful Writings. John Weiss is one of those local reporters who truly loved his job and became one with the places he visited; it shows through in is writings. John travelled the back roads of southeast Minnesota and came to know the roads, the rivers, the hills and bluffs, and the people. He wrote about, and photographed, all that he encountered with an eye toward nature, history and the stories of the folks who made their lives there. Even if you know nothing about the southeast part of Minnesota and have never travelled through it John’s explorations into the region will draw you in and let you feel a part of his corner of the world.
Janet M.: Great local stories. Being from Wabasha, this is great read for me. Very well done.
Return to Backyard Canyon
Peg Bauernfeind
$16.95 – Buy a print copy online
“I love to ride into Whitewater Park from Olmsted County Road 9. I love to feel the rush of oxygen into my lungs, and I love to sing a song like You are My Sunshine. In spring and summer, the green trees and brush climb up both sides of State Highway 74 to make canyon walls. As you descend the bluff, you catch glimpses of the bedrock, millions of years old. In the fall and winter, after the leaves disappear, the color changes to black. Only the bedrock is yellow.
“No matter the weather, I roll the car windows down and breathe deep before taking off. I give myself permission to speed a little. Fifty years ago I did it. Twenty years ago I did it. And I still do it. I hurry to return to Whitewater year after year because it’s my Backyard Canyon.
“As you level out on Route 74 into the Whitewater State Park, there’s a mile marker and an open field. Once this field was a golf course. Long ago it was a powwow site.
“Don, my ninety-five-year-old friend, recalled an Indian powwow.
“‘The Indians came dressed in war paint and feathers. Scared the hell out of me,’ he’d chuckled. ‘They came for days and danced, sang what I heard as war hoops, and howled while they pounded their drums. They were probably Sioux, Sioux the Snakes the French called them. There were plenty of snakes in Whitewater.’
“Today the Timber Snakes in the Whitewater Park are in trouble. Endangered.” —Peg Bauernfeind 2017
Publication of Return to Backyard Canyon was made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.