This week’s From the Editor’s Notebook column is going to be exactly that.

Notes from my notebook about a variety of things.

A Pteranodon lands

in Blue Earth

So as a photo elsewhere in this issue of the Faribault County Register shows, the new exhibit at the Blue Earth Community Library and Fossil Discovery Center has arrived and was being assembled.

It is a Pteranodon, which, in my understanding, is a winged lizard with no teeth.

You may not have heard about a Pteranodon before, but maybe you have heard of Pterodactyls. They are a little similar, but the Pteranodon was much larger.

The skeleton of the one in the library/fossil discovery center covers over 20 feet of wall space.

It arrived in four panels which had to be put together, and then some plaster and paint added. That took a while.

There is much more to be done to it, including some other panels which will give much more detail on the whole exhibit.

Eventually, it will be the focal point of the fossil discovery center.

So who owns this large flying fossil? Well, the city of Blue Earth now does.

In a story in the Register last week, the Blue Earth City Council accepted the gift. But, while the official acceptance document says it was a gift from Jim Pollard, that is not exactly true.

Jim says he went out and fundraised for donations for the purchase, and he spearheaded the project, but it is the 40 or so individuals, businesses and organizations who donated the $40,000 necessary to purchase the Pteranodon who actually made the donation to the city.

While $40,000 seems like a lot of coin, the Pteranodon exhibit is actually worth much more. Dinosaur fossils are going for high dollars these days.

It is not quite ready for public viewing, but it will be soon. If you have not been in the library for a while, I invite you to stop in. Dinosaurs are not the only thing you will find of interest in the library.

There is a lot going on and they have a big assortment of great books for you to read.

More to the

Jimmy Farrar story

We have heard a lot of nice comments about the Our Heroes magazine which came out last week.

Now, we always hear a lot of nice comments and complements about that magazine every year. But this year, well, there seems to be more.

And a lot of folks are coming in and buying an extra copy, or two or three.

Many people knew both Gladys Owen and Kermit Chafee, or are their relatives, and all thought the stories were excellent.

One comment came from A.B. Russ, of Blue Earth, who gave me the idea of doing the story about Jimmy Farrar, which did not run in the Our Heroes magazine, but inside the Register last week.

It turns out that A.B. Russ actually met Jimmy Farrar.

It was back in 1946 or 1947, when he was in either first or second grade, A.B. says.

A.B.’s father, Dr. Russ, was friends with John Kopplin, father of Marie Kopplin, who married Jimmy Farrar.

One day his father said to A.B., “Come with me and I’ll show you something you will never forget.”

They went to John Kopplin’s home on East Second Street, across from the courthouse, and there were Jimmy and Marie Farrar.

A.B. says he never has forgotten that visit with the man with artificial arms and hands, and seeing what all he could do with those artificial limbs.

And one more thing.

A.B. said there is a stained glass window in the Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Blue Earth that was placed in honor of Minnie Kopplin, wife of John and mother to Marie.

Another heart attack?

Well, I did not have another heart attack, but I came dang close. And it is all the fault of the Minnesota Vikings.

If you watched the game last Sunday, you know exactly what I mean. If you heard about it, you don’t quite understand, because you had to see it unfold in front of you in order to get the full impact.

I have watched the Vikings since 1968 when I moved to Minnesota. I was a season ticket holder for 12 years or so, and as I have reported before, I saw the last game at Metropolitan Stadium, the first game at the Metrodome, the last game at the Metrodome and the first game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

I was a San Diego Chargers fan, then a Denver Broncos fan, then rooted for the Vikings.

I have watched a lot of high school, college and NFL football games on TV, over the last 60 years or so.

And never, and I mean never, have I witnessed a game like that.

I mean, yeah, there have been miracle finishes, including the Minneapolis Miracle a few years ago featuring ex-Viking, now Buffalo Bill, Stephan Diggs.

And yet, I have never, ever seen a game like last Sunday. The Vikings looked like they were going to win, then they looked like they were going to lose, then win, then lose, then win, well you get the idea.

And a lot of that was just in the last two minutes and in the overtime.

It was almost too hard to watch. I started to wonder where I had stashed my heart pills.

There will never be a game like that again. Ever.

And believe me, that might be a good thing, for anyone with a bad ticker, that is.

Where did the time go?

I see by the Register Reflections column that I have now been the editor at the Register for 15 years. That is very hard to believe. Especially when it means that I have written 780 of these From the Editor’s Notebook columns.

I admit, some were pretty good, most were average and a few were pretty bad.

I hereby offer my apologies for the bad ones. And, I will let you decide which kind – good, average or bad – that this one is.

Thanks for reading them.

There, I could not think of which of these many topics I should write about, so I wrote about all of them.