Opinion

Spring leaped out at us in New York last week — suddenly one day it was 80, just like me — it sprang at us shang a lang lang as once we’d sung so we were sprung from the steel corset of winter and I took a couple of Londoners to lunch at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station where, when I was 11, I ate my first oyster on a trip from Minnesota with my dad. I saw him eat one and so I ate one and I trace my independence back to that 1953 oyster — when you eagerly devour something that would disgust your beloved aunts, you’ve taken a step toward becoming your own person.

jstolen-jacobson@cherryroad.com Last week’s edition of the Advocate Tribune had a big error, that led to many a message left. Somehow all five of us that look over the pages before printing somehow missed that a story from Page one was missing the jump on the inside pages.

Proof of Insurance Question Question: My son recently got his driver’s license. Does his name need to be on the proof of auto insurance card? Answer: Minnesota accepts proof of auto insurance on paper or electronically.

Custom Front of Truck Question: I customized the front of my truck. Is it legal in Minnesota? Answer: There are two violations with your customized front end.

When you look at the body camera video of Nashville cops, guns drawn, dashing into the school, throwing doors open, shouting, “Shots fired, shots fired, move!" and a line of cops moving swiftly down the hall and up the stairs and shooting the attacker, you see men doing as they were trained to do, pursue a killer and take the killer out. From first call to completion of mission: 14 minutes.

In the last two weeks, a number of discussions in public meetings had to do with the potential transfer of land from the State of Minnesota to the Upper Sioux Community. Spe- cifically the land at Upper Sioux State Park. While this is an opinion column, I am not here to express my own opinion on the topic. However, what I am here to express is the handling of how some of the discussion on the top- ic went - specifically in two diuerent ways.

I’m just curious if you enjoyed reading the “If I Get Dementia” list that I shared in my last article? As I mentioned in that article, the author of the writing is Rachael Wonderlin, an internationally- recognized dementia care expert and educator. The reading that I shared has circulated the globe many times over! In addition, Rachael has her Master’s in Gerontology and is a John Hopkins University Press three-time published author.

I went down to the Bowery one night last week to see Aoife O’Donovan sing to a ballroom packed with young people standing for two hours and whooping and yelling — I sat up in the balcony and whooped and yelled too — and what the woman could do with her voice and guitar was astonishing, utterly fabulous, and for a man my age to be astonished is remarkable, she was competing with my memory of Uncle Jim handing me the reins to his horse-drawn hayrack and my grandma chopping the head ou a chicken and seeing Buster Keaton perform at the Minnesota State Fair and also Paul Simon at Madison Square Garden and Renée Fleming in Der Rosenkavalier, but there she is, Aoife, in my pantheon of wonderment. I came home from the Bowery to learn that a dear friend, Christine Jacobson, had died — amazement and mortality in one evening, and it’s a rare privilege to be aware of both, the beauty of life and the brevity.

Last week, I was invited to attend a dinner in honor of the Ambassador of Uruguay’s trip to Montevideo. Everyone in attendance was encouraged to sit at tables with people they didn’t know, and so I ended up sitting with a family from Uruguay that now lives in St. Paul and a gentleman from Uruguay who now lives in Minnetonka.