Eight Years Ago Today

Today is the first time since 2001 that September 11 has fallen on a Friday, the day this paper is published. I suppose most people remember where they were and what they were doing that morning.

I'd started my freshman year at Foggton State University, and was between classes in Sivertson Hall. Someone had a radio going. New York City under attack or not, I had classes to go to, so it wasn't until around 4:00 that I could start catching up.

The Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette doesn't, as a rule, do national or even state news, but the September 14, 2001, issue was an exception. The lead story's headline was simply, "America Attacked."

It shared the front page with an article on the Loonfoot Falls School Board's approval of a referendum for an operating levy, and another about allegations that a feedlot operator approved his own feedlot proposal, misrepresented the plan to his neighbors, and walked away with a quarter-million dollars.

Since then, this area's Minnesota National Guard unit has been deployed in Iraq, and returned; the referendum passed, and the operator was convicted.

This week's paper isn't quite so dramatic. A story about the trial of a man suspected of burglarizing the Mighty Minn Mart last year is the lead. The other two are about a traffic stop that turned into a drug arrest; and the end of Loonfoot Falls Police Department's K-9 program.

Rambler the bloodhound has been patrolling with Daniel Brown since 2003.

But that's another story.