The Rural Diaries

  Remembering Paul Wellstone’s legacy. Again.   Ten years ago, I thought I’d write one last tribute to Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane...

Six years: Kim's Nov. 23, 2015 death floods us with memories Six years ago, I was driving up to Minneapolis with Kim in the passenger se...

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 In the fall of 1968, I entered the hospital for an appendectomy. It se...

Black History Month 2021: Digging deep Months come and go but as the years pile up, we need to dig deeper into Black history so the stories ...

Five years later: Kim's birthday, death make November a month of reflection Kim (Polzin) Melius would have turned 63 this Nov. 15. It wa...

Christmas 2017 It's Christmas Eve morning. It's quiet in Winthrop. I've got coffee, my thoughts and music. Yesterday was so ...

One year: A lasting love letter I made it. Kim died Nov. 23, 2015, and I vowed to write a monthly blog about this journey. Today, it ends....