Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/judy-woodward/)
Picture an ill-assorted group of urban dwellers who escape their stifling daily lives by spending their evenings smoking, drinking and joking, passengers aboard a houseboat as it floats down the River Nile under a jeweled sky.
Ask Chuck Dayton for the name of the most beautiful place on Earth and you’re in for a long wait. When the retired environmental lawyer finally responds he asks, “Do I have to pick only one?”
Ah, dandelions! And plantains, those broad-leaf green weeds that spring up everywhere they shouldn’t be. Not to mention stinging nettles, our landscape’s very own answer to the Portuguese man-of-war. Three good reasons to be glad that lawn care season is behind us for a while, right?
It’s August and time for St. Anthony Park resident Teresa Anderson to go to seed again. It’s something she does quite well, regularly winning awards for her efforts.
Fracking is in the news these days. The process involves extracting natural gas from shale rock formations deep below the earth’s surface by hydraulic fracturing—essentially blasting out the gas under high pressure with chemically treated water.
The Gremlin Theatre is moving at the end of July. Citing changes in ownership and developmental plans for the building at 2400 University Ave. that has housed the company for the last five years, artistic director Peter Christian Hansen says the time has come to look for new quarters.
When does a concerned citizen become a committed activist?For St. Anthony Park resident Anna Dick Gambucci, the turning point came on the afternoon of Dec. 14. She was sitting in a car after lunch that day when she heard the initial reports of the deadly shooting at a Connecticut grade school that had claimed the lives of 26 children and teachers.“I felt as if the wind were knocked out of me,” she says. “I started crying.”A former high school choir teacher and the mother of two students at St. Continue Reading
In this area, the dominant color of the last election was orange. More common and more prominent than signs for any candidate—including the presidential contenders—the bright orange lawn signs advising passers-by to Vote No on the Marriage Amendment became the visual signature of the election.This is the third in a series of occasional articles by Judy Woodward that look at different aspects of the Bugle’s communities as revealed by the findings of the 2010 U. S. Census.Election results bore out the lack of enthusiasm for the amendment that would have enshrined traditional heterosexual marriage in the Minnesota State Constitution. About 47 percent of Minnesotans statewide voted to approve the amendment, but in St. Paul, Falcon Heights and Lauderdale, more than two-thirds of voters opposed the measure. In Legislative District 64A, the no vote was a remarkable 82 percent, outpolling every politician from Barack Obama down to State Rep. Erin Murphy.Quite a display for an area that, according to the 2010 Census results, contains no more than 2 or 3 percent of households that define themselves as same-sex partnerships.No one knows how many gay couples and families have lived in the area in the past, since 2010 was the first year that the U.S. Census included a question that allowed same-sex couples to identify themselves as such. Continue Reading
In 1983, geographers Judith Martin and David Lanegran described St.
When you think of the accordion, what comes to mind? Be honest. Are you thinking Lawrence Welk? Terminally uncool polkas thumped out by maniacally grinning fellows in sateen vests and bad haircuts?You may not be alone. Accordions have long had an image problem.Como Park resident Dan Newton would like to change all that. Continue Reading