Diary (February 11, 2021)

My mother told me that her mother's mother, Elise Henry, who lived a pioneer life in the Northwoods, was told by Indians that she could "build a canoe like an Indian." Great-grandma and great-grandpa Herb both lived into their nineties; I remember them vividly. They had a house at what had formerly been the edge of Brainerd, when Brainerd was yet small and quiet; more of a hut than a bungalow, with cold running water next to the pot-bellied wood-fired stove, and an outhouse in garden. This was the 1970's mind you. Christmas was quite the event for young Karl, braving that outhouse with all the mysteries implied by that pit hole.

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