WEDNESDAYS WITH WOSTER

Opinion: ‘Snake’ is close enough during the Sturgis rally

One nice thing about being a newspaper reporter covering the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was being able to quote people with names like “Snake” and “Miss Kitty.”
In the news business, we usually wanted first and last names, hometowns and sometimes age. During the years I worked in news, I sometimes had the feeling during rally week that even people who volunteered their names might be putting me on. How would I know if Jimmy Joe Sullivan was from Little Rock? Maybe he was really James Smith from Belle Fourche.

By Terry Woster , August 11, 2010

Opinion: Mirror provides insight into health-care costs

I looked in the mirror the other evening and saw why the cost of medical care is climbing.
I’m becoming a case study in the many ways living longer increases health-care costs. I read somewhere what percentage of the cost of health care in the United States is because of older folks like me. I can’t remember the number, but it was higher than I would have imagined.

By Terry Woster , August 04, 2010

Opinion: Facebook not as good as being there, but still good

I finally found something of enormous value on Facebook.
As some of you know, I have a Facebook account, or presence or whatever it’s called. My place on the book is a bit monastic, lacking in decoration and color and, you know, vigor, as President Kennedy used to say in the days before that word became synonymous with harder high-school courses.

By Terry Woster , July 28, 2010

Opinion: Accident reports should be required reading

I’m coming to the conclusion that highway accident reports should be required reading for anyone who is driving on South Dakota roads.
I just finished four days on the road, traveling with Nancy, our daughter and her husband and their daughter. We went to the Black Hills for an extended family reunion and managed to get in a couple of days of sight-seeing, too. It was my truck — big enough to hold the five of us, all of our luggage and a couple of coolers — so I did the bulk of the driving.

By Terry Woster , July 21, 2010

Opinion: Remembering Bill Dougherty and his tales

Bill Dougherty told me once that things were so desperate during some of his Democratic Party organizing days in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he and another guy stood on a street corner in Mobridge trying to sell George McGovern campaign buttons to pick up enough cash to buy gas to get to Pierre for an evening political event.

By Terry Woster , July 07, 2010

Opinion: Anniversary is reminder of state’s short history

Some years ago, my old newspaper sent me to Albany, N.Y., for a week.
I wasn’t particularly excited about traveling halfway across the country and living in a hotel room out of a suitcase for seven days. I was rather interested in seeing the capital city of New York State, though, as well as — according to at least one history I checked — the oldest surviving European settlement from the original 13 colonies.

By Terry Woster , June 30, 2010

Opinion: South Dakotans keep competition in its place

I read with more than passing interest a story about a 50-year reunion of the high school basketball team from Ethan.
The team lost just one game, but that was in the regional finals against Chamberlain. The story noted that the game was a one-point affair, with Chuck Yates hitting a free throw to win it for the Cubs. One of the Ethan players was quoted in the recent story as saying his team should have won the game.

By Terry Woster , June 23, 2010

Opinion: Can’t imagine life without Capitol

My first visit to the South Dakota Capitol building in Pierre is memorable for a chance meeting with Gov. Sigurd Anderson.
In truth, I have only a vague memory of the incident. I was 7 or 8 at the time and in the capital city because my cousin Leo invited me along when his folks made the trip to take in a summer rodeo in Fort Pierre. We had a picnic in the park — Griffin Park, I assume — and we visited the Capitol building briefly before heading to the rodeo arena across the river.

By Terry Woster , June 16, 2010

Opinion: With cell etiquette, mark me down as 'very annoyed'

Let me tell you about young people. They are different from you and me.
They are, that is, if — like me — you are old enough to receive the “AARP Bulletin.” And, yes, I paraphrased the opening sentences from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s rather more famous, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

By Terry Woster , June 09, 2010

Opinion: Begrudging technophile

It’s no secret that my initial reaction to virtually any new bit of technology is negative.
If you asked some members of my family, they’d say that’s my initial reaction to anything new, period. I’m not sure that’s true. I simply have a healthy skepticism about the value of certain new and improved gadgets and gismos. If a couple of tin cans and a string were good enough in the old neighborhood, why try something new?

By Terry Woster , June 02, 2010

Opinion: Radar from the ‘bones’

Neither of my parents had any formal training as weather spotters, but each could read an approaching storm through smell, sounds and a feeling in the bones.
Back on the farm, being a self-taught meteorologist was as critically important as knowing how to pull a calf or can a crop of beans. Where we lived, WNAX in Yankton provided most of the weather reports. They did a fine job, an essential job, since they were the one source we could reach most days. They weren’t up to the minute, though.

By Terry Woster , May 26, 2010

Opinion: Battle of bulge back on

Well, I just did my annual health assessment and found out I am overweight.
I kind of figured I would be when I filled in the height and weight numbers on the computer screen. Even so, it was a bit of a shock to finish the assessment, click the button and get back an instant response telling me to lose eight or 10 pounds. Come on, nobody likes to be told they need to lose weight — especially not by a machine.
I’m guessing my Dell laptop wouldn’t like it a bit if I were to tell the piece of electronics that it’s not so slender itself, certainly not compared to the Apple notebook I had when I worked at the newspaper. That baby was sleek. The Dell is serviceable and not, you know, bulky, but it could stand to drop some of the bulge around the edges.

By Terry Woster , May 19, 2010

Opinion: Extremes are the norm for S.D. farmers

If you grow up on a farm, for as long as you live, the regular crop and livestock reports from the U.S. Agriculture Department are required reading.
It’s been a long time since I actually worked a farm. I was a kid about the time gumbo was invented in Lyman County. Even so, I read the ag reports, worry about the weather and temperature and generally act like someone who is nervous about getting the last quarter-section of corn planted.

By Terry Woster , May 12, 2010

Opinion: S.D. candidates get their say as June primary season nears

South Dakota is less than five weeks from its primary elections, so the political ads and stories are sure to be increasing in quantity and intensity.
Relax. I’m not going to write about politics, at least not the partisan sort of politics that chooses one candidate or party over another. But with the primary drawing near, I’ve been thinking about a governor’s race I covered as a newspaper reporter eight years ago.

By Terry Woster , May 05, 2010

Opinion: Whatever happened to going to the library?

One of the big surprises of my freshman week at Creighton University was visiting the campus library and finding out that bags and briefcases were searched at the exit.
Eighteen years old, and it had never occurred to me that someone would steal a library book. I knew people who would check books out and forget to return them. I ran up some late fees myself during the time I was a regular customer at the city library in Chamberlain. That was simple forgetfulness, though, or maybe laziness. It certainly wasn’t criminal intent.

By Terry Woster , April 28, 2010