Author Archives: Jerry Johnson

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About Jerry Johnson

Retired journalist and college public relations director. Former teacher, coach, mentor. Novelist and short story writer.

A name for the escape pod

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

A reader asks: “What did you name the new Scamp camping trailer?” Although I am not in the habit of naming my vehicles, I may make an exception with the Scamp. I am calling it Ramblin’ Prose.

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Ramblin’, Scampin’ Coot

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

The drive to Backus, Minnesota was long and tiring, more than 350 miles. But that is where Scamp trailers are manufactured, and we chose to take possession of our new Scamp at the factory rather than have it delivered. This … Continue reading →

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A builder’s guide to handbaskets for a world that is going to hell

Posted on July 8, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Basket weaving. I should probably learn the intricate skill of basket weaving. But I do not have a craftsman’s manual dexterity or an artist’s innate sense of creativity and elegance. Nor do I have the required patience or painstaking attention … Continue reading →

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A Slow Walk Through The North Country

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Building a box seemed the appropriate thing to do. To mark the publication of my 12th book, I constructed a wooden box to display the three novels and the five bound collections of essays, short stories, and poems in the … Continue reading →

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Iowa — a good old state

Posted on June 1, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Iowa is a good old state — quite literally. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 527,000 of us old folks, age 65 or older, live in the state: 17.5 percent of Iowa’s population of 3.1 million. That is only … Continue reading →

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We taught China a lesson

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Now that the COVID pandemic is subsiding in most First World countries (barring a resurgence caused by a mutated strain of the virus that erupts in Third World countries), we are returning to a more normal pace of life after … Continue reading →

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Facts vs. ‘The Truth’

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

In my former life as a journalist, a newspaper reporter, a Knight Errant of the most chivalrous of professions, I was eager to do battle with the Dragons of the Realm of Falsehoods, the firedrakes that were the scourge of … Continue reading →

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A new approach

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Hanging the steel gate was the easy part. The hard work was clearing the new approach into the South Ravine Pasture. Each sub-section of our North Country farm has acquired a name, an identity, over the previous 35 years: the … Continue reading →

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Fire in the compost bin!

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

We burned the compost bin in January. Not intentionally, but accidently. We never much liked that bin. Maybe we burned it accidently-on-purpose. Early one morning I cleaned the ashes out of the woodstove, shoveled them into a steel pail, and … Continue reading →

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High-tech snowshoes

Posted on February 26, 2021 by Jerry Johnson

Tradition is an anchor that secures my life in safe harbor in time of storm and keeps me from crashing onto the leeward rocks when winds of change blow strong. But at times tradition is a dead weight that holds … Continue reading →

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