Iowegin Rick, the Hobo King for 2022, is a man of few words, but the steam engine tattoo on his forehead hints at his history. The Waterloo, Iowa, native has been on the road for most of his 66 years, a lot of them in boxcars heading west and south. He rode the rails for more than three decades, until age and health problems intervened, about ten years ago.

He managed to get to Britt, Iowa, for 30 years straight for the National Hobo Convention, where the festivities include electing a hobo king and queen. It was there, 23 years ago, that Iowegin met Minneapolis Jewel, who recalled, “He was a hot mess – no bedroll, no water.” Jewel, whose non-hobo name is Julianna Porrazzo-Ray, has been a Holland neighborhood resident for 36 years. She’s been Hobo Queen five times herself.

The Sept. 10 Good Morning Gardening Party at Łomianki Park was a multi-age, multi-organization event, as HeightsNEXT, the Fridley-Columbia Heights Rotary and Columbia Heights’ Sister Cities clubs, and Heights neighbors came together for a few hours of planting, consuming Heights Bakery donuts and touring the Blooming Sunshine Food Forest.
That afternoon, the annual Waite Park Fall Festival featured horror movie-inspired puppets, vegan mushroom jerky and a variety of locally crafted goods. Food trucks from Ben and Jerry’s and Chimborazo provided sweet and savory options, while the Waite Park Community Council served additional no-cost foods.

When folks gathered Sept. 17 for a concert on the grounds at Main Street and 8th Avenue NE, they enjoyed the fountain, flowers, benches and a new pavilion. Eight days earlier on a chilly day, at this newly improved spot, called St. Anthony Garden and the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Catholic Eldercare held a garden blessing and ribbon cutting.

Taxpayer-funded park benches meant to give resting hikers a lovely view of the river instead face a wall of fast-growing shrubs. A few hundred feet away, the river view appears, but the ground is crunchy. What these two spots have in common is they’ve been taken over by fast-growing non-native species that crowd out positive pollinator- friendly native plants. They’re not pleasant to look at and about all they contribute is erosion control.

The solution is not simply to pull out the invasives, though that is a first step. Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) has engaged with many community-based groups in long-range programs of reclaiming and stabilizing riverbanks pulling by hand, no chemicals, then seeding or planting anew.

Sept. 1, a group of volunteers involved with Sheridan Neighborhood Organization (SNO) started working with FMR’s guidance on removing invasive plants at the rain garden serving Sheridan Memorial Park’s veterans’/peace memorial. Out came 19 huge bags of Canada thistle, Virginia creeper, bouncing bet, butter-and-eggs, absinthe wormwood, leafy spurge and more. Several identifiable trees were weed-wrenched out. In rain gardens, tree roots change the hydrology (the way water flows) and make the gardens less effective at their purpose, so need to come out.

What do Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Paul Gauguin, Marcel Duchamp, and Viola Frey all have in common? All were famous painters and sculptors who took a deep dive into the world of ceramics. MCAD professor and Casket Arts Studio artist Piotr Szyhalski steps into this realm with his latest museum show, the Weisman Art Museum’s (WAM) survey exhibition, PIOTR SZYHALSKI: WE ARE WORKING ALL THE TIME! The show features work in a variety of media across three decades of Szyhalski’s prolific and pioneering practice, including poster design, web projects, mail art, painting, installation, and public performance.

Now 91 years old, Volna reflected on the experiences that led to an engineering career with Honeywell and his years as a consultant out of “The Sandbox,” a concrete block building he and his father built on Quincy Street Northeast. He talked about the inventions he tooled in his machine shop, including a portable observatory that was used in Antarctica and now sits in Volna’s St. Anthony Village driveway.

Despite the forecast for heavy storms, Audubon Neighborhood Association (ANA) members and city representatives met on Aug. 18 to discuss and observe ongoing safety concerns along 29th Avenue NE. The association has arduously advocated for a full reconstruction of the thoroughfare for several years.

Members of the 29th Avenue Project, a subcommittee of the ANA, led a discussion and walking tour of the areas along the route they believe pose the potential for accidents and serious injury. Residents who attended expressed concerns about the road conditions.