Tag Archives: Gary Johnson

Mother’s Day Recollections at 100

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | MAY 9, 2021

Marge would have been 100 years old this year, in August. We were never sure whether she was born on August 1 or 2, but after a century it really doesn’t matter.

I loved my Mom and each passing Mother’s Day, I learn just how much.

Marguerite Ellen Brown was reared and went to school in Sioux Falls, SD, born there in 1921 to Earl and Veronica Adams-Brown. Earl and Veronica brought her up in a strict Catholic household during the depression with four younger brothers. It was a tough male-dominated environment.

All of the siblings served in World War II, except the youngest, Uncle Jack. Howard was a Navy pilot in the Pacific theater. Earl joined the Army and served in General Douglas MacArthur’s elite honor guard. My sister’s granddaughter Isabella found in her research that brother Richard Leo (Dick) lied about his age and joined the Army in 1942 at the age of 16. Continue reading →

Work More? Go Home? Honestly, Go Home

BY GARY JOHNSON
Loose Change Reprinted from TwinCitiesMagazine.com

I’ve heard hundreds of wails from people who claim they work 60- to 70-hour weeks. Occasionally, I’ll even hear about someone working 100-plus-hour weeks, the most recent example coming from my own company. The individual just had a heart bypass at age 47. Ahem.

I mostly don’t believe the hours-worked stories any more than I believe compensation stories. However, if one does the math on a 70-hour work week, over a five-day period one must work 14 hours per day, i.e., a 6 a.m. start would land you home at 8 p.m., every single flipping day of the week. Actually, working that schedule would not land you home—more likely you’d end up in a clinic or psych ward.

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Latest Case for Moderation

BY GARY JOHNSON

rerprinted from Loose Change, Twin Cities Business

What a shame that it takes the attempted assassination of a public servant and the murder of six people, including a federal judge and a lovely little girl aspiring to be a politician, to divert our attentions from the polarizing political climate we’ve created.

My Facebook page receives three or four hundred posts a day, and over the past year it has been populated mostly by political grinding of one sort or another. Because my Facebook friends lean mostly to the left, you can well imagine what the general rant du jours are. The “righties,” however, are no less virulent—and often move the dial well past reason. Both sides—and isn’t that really the problem: “sides”?—are terribly polarized, a condition brought on by the flashpoint issues of the past few elections.
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