I’ve just returned with my daughter, Kristi, from a sentimental journey to Ketchum, Idaho. A goal — not the primary one since breathing mountain air and photographing the magnificent scenery were paramount for both of us — was for me to pay my respects at the writer Ernest Hemingway’s grave. Like many readers my age, I’ve been fascinated by Hemingway’s …
Check out what’s caught the eye this past month of Dave Vorland, Bloomington, Minn., photographer and former Grand Forks resident.
This picture above, taken of me years ago with my boss and mentor, the late Thomas J. Clifford, then president of the University of North Dakota, surfaced recently from deep within my personal archives. I share with my favorite writer Ernest Hemingway the quality of being a “pack rat.” Hemingway apparently saved everything — manuscripts, of course, including early drafts …
I shared an article on Facebook on Friday morning from the Atlantic Monthly in which various authors reflect upon the importance of a novel having a great and memorable first line. As an elderly retired guy, I had plenty of time to create my own tentative “Top Ten” of first sentences. The opening line of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James …
It was in a freshman English class at the University of North Dakota in 1961 that I first encountered the writing of Ernest Hemingway, just a few weeks after he committed suicide at Ketchum, Idaho. The short story was “A Clean Well-lighted Place,” published in 1933. James Joyce regarded it as one of the best ever written. I was inspired …
When I was in Grand Forks this past Wednesday, I visited two favorite golf courses, the University of North Dakota’s Ray Richards and what remains of the classic 1920s vintage Lincoln Park course. The latter was damaged in the Red River Flood of 1997, then mutilated by the permanent dikes that were built on it. Only nine of its former …
It was a traveling month for Dave Vorland. Along the way, the Bloomington, Minn., photographer captured images from the PGA Memorial Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, the Vesterheim Museum and Heritage Center in Decorah, Iowa, as well as others from around the Twin Cities.
I took the above photo in 2011 of the land that constituted the first of two North Dakota homesteads owned by my Norwegian grandfather, Hans Vorland, 1865-1930. It’s located in Grand Forks County outside the Red River Valley, east of Aneta. I had been to the courthouse earlier in the day to see the deed and determine the exact location. …
It’s been said “you can’t go home again.” Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel with that title. Ernest Hemingway often returned to places that had been important in his life, such as the spot in Italy where he had been wounded in World War I. But invariably, he arrived at the same conclusion. My favorite French author, Marcel Proust (his novel …
Bloomington, Minn., photographer Dave Vorland snapped these shots this past month, including a shot of legendary Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant at his annual yard sale. You just never know what Dave will come up next.
I’ve been legally blind in my left eye for as long as I can remember. There is a tad of vision on that side and, unlike with my right eye, it is perfectly sharp. That bit of vision on the left has served me well, for example, by detecting the motion of passing cars before they come into the right …
Early in my career as the University of North Dakota’s director of public relations, I mentioned to the late School of Medicine Professor Helge Ederstrom that I was looking for more insight into what it was that motivated human attitudes and behavior. I was especially interested in those individual PR people — then rather naively described as “opinion leaders” — …
A third and final passage from the late Arch Monroe’s book “The Lighter Side of the Law.” It’s his tribute to his friend, Wayne Lubenow. “Out of the ‘Roughrider Country,’ which brought our nation Maxwell Anderson, Louis L’Amour and Lawrence Welk, comes Lubenow. He’s the Will Rogers, Damon Runyon and Art Buchwald of the prairies. His column appears in a …
I appreciate the responses, on Facebook and privately, to my post Sunday about my old friend Arch Monroe’s book of letters, “The Lighter Side of the Law.” I can’t resist adding a bit more about him. University of North Dakota President Tom Clifford hired Arch in 1983 and assigned him to the public relations office to assist with UND’s Centennial …
Some of my friends may recall a slightly eccentric individual, the late Arch Monroe, who worked for me briefly at the University of North Dakota. A few years earlier, Arch had published a book with replies to his request for humorous stories from judges, lawyers and politicians. Many responded, among them Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, Sen. Sam Ervin and Congressman …
Dave Vorland’s 34-page book “Paris in Monochrome,” produced last year, is available at “VorlandPhoto” at Blurb.com.
For a time, my father, Kermit Vorland, was a hobo (not a “bum,” he insisted) during the Great Depression. He traveled in or on top of railroad cars to and from the West Coast, looking for and sometimes finding work. I can recall him telling of his fear of the private police who checked the trains from time to time. …
Pablo Picasso’s famous untitled sculpture overlooking over a farmer’s market in Chicago and Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” in the Art Institute of Chicago caught the eye of Bloomington, Minn., photographer Dave Vorland on a recent trip to the Windy City.
Bloomington, Minn., photographer Dave Vorland has an eye for the outdoors, as evidenced by these photos: A hummingbird checking out one of his partner Dorette Kerian’s feeders at their home, an orange-ish moon over the city Friday evening and a scenic view of the St. Croix River near Taylor Falls. The optical effect as shown in the moon photo is known …
