I enjoyed and appreciated editor Sarah Nigbor's thoughtful column “Change is hard to accept sometimes” that appeared in the June 24 number of the Pierce County Journal and detailed the vicissitudes of working as a journalist in these parlous times.

I couldn't agree more.

That's because I recently found myself in a perilous position regarding my own employment at the same newspaper, the Star Observer, where Sarah used to work. There was a difference. Sarah resigned because of the 80-hour a week demands of her editorial job. My departure wasn’t entirely voluntary. After 22 years of writing a column for the newspaper once located in River Falls, the new management at the Star Observer began to shelve the columns I submitted. When I asked why, the editor told me that the new management had decided my services were no longer needed.

That's why I was very happy when Pierce County Journal publisher John McLoone offered me a spot as columnist for his newspaper which I've been reading for a year having subscribed because I was hungry for genuine local news. Before McLoone hired me, an old friend had told me to quit bellyaching and relax. “You're 86 years old, for gosh sakes. You've been writing for newspapers since we were still in college. Why don't you just hang it up? Relax and take it easy. Smell the roses!”

I felt like a retired fire engine horse waiting for my harness to drop from the ceiling just one more time, so I could race out of the firebarn with my horsemates for just one more go at it.

And Glory be! John McLoone dropped the old harness on sway back for yet another adventure!

I know, I know. Very possibly some readers who don't know me from Adam will be leery and probably wonder what an octogenarian from faraway River Falls would be interested in or know anything about Prescott (or the rest of Pierce County).

I'll put that concern to rest right now.

Those readers who have their doubts should know that my family has had a long and rewarding relationship with Prescott. I've researched my family, read my great grandmother's letters and my great grandfather's 57 years of diaries. And here's what I found: In 1927, great grandad Dave Wood died, which occasioned a hot letter to the local editor from his wife Mary who wanted his obituary corrected: “Dave's biographer called Dave 'a lifelong Christian' He was no such thing. For years after we married he'd stay home from Meeting and read novels, sending the hired man with me and my sons to church in our buggy.”

Poor Mary's admission must have been a shock to readers as the Wood family had a long tradition of its relationship with the Baptist church. My nickname given me by oldtimers at the barbershop was “Deke,” because Dave's father Alvah was a Deacon in the church and his nephew Nathan was a renowned sermonizer in Chicago, a founder of Wayland University in Beaver Dam and president of Newton Theological Seminary.

The Wood family's rescue came on March 8, 1874 when Dave announced in his diary that he was “going to meeting with Mary to hear Chaplain Green,” who was running a series of revivals in Whitehall. After the first meeting, Dave never missed one for seven nights. And it stuck. At 37 Dave was baptized in the muddy waters of the Trempealeau River. He got busy and convinced the local Baptists to sell the old church to the Lutherans and he spent months helping erect (including paying for the materials) the new Baptist Church. Dave's creation served the growing congregation for 75 years before it was replaced with a new edifice.

So who was this Green, this miracle worker who converted Dave, who was by all accounts as stubborn as a mule. He was Asa Barlow Green, who was ordained at the Baptist Church in Prescott, where he lived for several years. And served as a missionary to the pioneers of western Wisconsin and also as sheriff.

Let's hope I can get along with Prescott as well as Asa Barlow Green.

And the story doesn't end there. In 1970, I married the love of my life, Ruth Pirsig, whom I met in grad school. At the time I was teaching at Augsburg College, she at Robbinsdale Senior High. We both had just gotten our degrees, and money was scarce. I phoned around town to find a suitable hotel to spend our sumptuous, nay extravagant, two-day honeymoon. The Radisson was too pricey at $20 per night, so I settled on the St. Paul Hotel, which was asking $12, thinking that perhaps we could dine at the oft advertised Gopher Grill on the premises. But, alas, St. Paul had seen better days, was sort of dusty, sort of empty, and the Gopher Grill was closed.

So we awoke on Sunday morning with no prospect for dining that day in Minnesota because few restaurants stayed open on the Sabbath in Minnesota. It was a fine day, so we decided to venture into the Badger State in search of one of its famous backsliding supper clubs to celebrate our marriage. We hopped in Ruth's ‘59 Chevy, a tank-like vehicle which we called the “Powder Blue Panzer” and in a few minutes found ourselves in—guess where?-Prescott, which sported a very fine restaurant called the Steamboat Inn, a resting spot for weary, hungry and thirsty Minnesotans.

We opened with Escargots Bourguignon. With such an appetizer we dreamily ate several other courses, which has slipped from our memory because we were having such fun casting our eyes at each other and the beautiful St. Croix River which flowed by that oasis.

Year after year we returned to Prescott to the Steamboat and other dining spots for anniversaries until the Steamboat sailed away. Our marriage is now 51 years old and is still going strong– and it's good to be back in Prescott.

Dave would like to hear from Journal readers, but he's a Luddite and has no email account. So just phone him at 715-426-9554 and tell him what you think. Be kind.