Bob and I took all of our North Dakota grandsons to the lake last week, every one of them! Well, that’s two. We arrived at our place on Red Willow Lake about 1:30 p.m.

By Bob Simmons, CEO, Simmons Multimedia Picking up where I left you last week… Mum-z’s ashes were found safe and sound at the funeral home. Being that it was now late afternoon and I had dinner plans with my childhood friends, the Oyer boys, I decided I’d put off scattering Mum-z until the next morning.

What a beautiful weekend we got to enjoy last week! I did my best to take advantage of the beautiful weather by FINALLY tending to my slightly neglected vegetable garden. I had about three dozen plants started inside that were quickly outgrowing their little mason jars.

Last week, after reading my article, the boss (Mr. Bob Simmons, himself!) sent me a message asking if I found writing therapeutic. I had written – again - about my lifelong battle with insomnia and some unpleasant side effects of taking medication to help alleviate it. I talked about throwing up after enjoying a bottle of wine during a night out with a friend coupled with a dose of Ambien to help me sleep and topped with an unexpectedly grueling session of a hot yoga class. When I saw his message notification, I thought “uh-oh, I stepped over the line, and the boss is letting me have it!” His message, fortunately, was quite the opposite. He thought my article was great and wondered if writing it was therapeutic for me. It was an idea I had never considered.

I find the history of Langdon interesting, and I think many of you do as well. The following is reprinted from Wandermore in North Dakota with their permission.

You know you’re getting old when the majority of your conversations consist of asking people to repeat themselves or simply smiling and nodding because you’re tired of asking people to repeat themselves. Another sign of getting old is appreciating finding a seat at the bar with a good view of the stage during a concert and hoping that the music isn’t so loud that you can feel it beating in your chest like a toy drum. A final, true sign of aging is sitting with three of your best friends from college and having the discussion revolve around skin tags, colonoscopies, audiology appointments and good shoes for walking. The cherry on top of the aging sundae is prepping for a sleepover later that evening at your friend, Katy’s, having everyone insist on their own bed so they don’t have to listen to someone else snore then clearing space on the kitchen counter for a variety of medications for backaches and sleep trouble. This pretty much sums up my recent girl’s night out weekend in Fargo and Grand Forks.

Summer solstice is here! The following is reprinted from Valley News and Views, our Drayton sister newspaper. Many people anxiously await the first day of summer and look forward to summer activities.

By Bob Simmons, CEO, Simmons Multimedia Last week I left you while I was standing at the head of the scattering garden in the Springfield, Massachusetts, cemetery where my mom’s (Mum-z’s) ashes were scattered last fall, only to have my private moment of reflection interrupted by the gentleman from the cemetery office who previously relieved me of $300 cash to have Mumz’s name placed on the garden’s plaque tell me that she wasn’t there, and they had no record of her!

As I sat down to pen my weekly column, I took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. I just wrapped up one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in a long time and am still trying to decompress a bit! It was an overwhelming week that I just wrapped up, but it was all certainly worth it.

With the state primary season concluded, the forms of messaging statewide candidates used leading up to June 11 is curious. Likewise, the steady drumbeat we hear from local and state governments to move public notices to government websites, along with the decisions some state agencies make in bypassing legacy media to publicize state programs.