Between your beautiful overview of the arc of your dad’s life in your column, and the sharply written editorial column about the President George W. Bush years, I am now a very enthusiastic fan of the Timberjay.  The importance of bringing empathy and sharp, incisive critical thinking to our families, and to our politics should never be underestimated.
But what first grabbed my attention was the story “The old-fashioned way” about the tintype photographer.  I have been involved in photography, video, film, and image-making since I was fifteen and made a career of it, an involved witness during the transition from analog-chemical to electronic-digital, until I retired during the pandemic.   
I am sitting in my 550 square-foot studio apartment in NYC’s Greenwich Village, reading the Timberjay because my girlfriend and her sister flew off to Minnesota this morning for a visit with their cousins from Proctor, who run the Proctor Journal up there.  
I was curious about where they’re staying, in Tower’s Marjo Motel, and happened to see a story from last year about a redevelopment plan in what looks like to me about as pristine and natural a wooded haven as can be left in our country.  “Redevelopment” occurs every day here in Manhattan with concrete and glass towers in way too many architectural styles! Even my beloved Central Park can’t compare to images I saw from the story in last year’s Timberjay story about the developers buying up the land.
Mind you, just outside my window there are non-stop tourists, traffic, and noise, air pollution, and some homeless lost souls sleeping on the sidewalks.  Quite a difference! 
Then I read your editorial about the Bush (The Younger) years and the reminder of just how damaging his eight years in office really were, and how it predated Trump and how Trump and his cronies have sent our budgets off the rails, and you reminded us of how Bill Clinton actually left office with a BALANCED budget!!   
I was surprised to read how strongly worded and forthright your piece is. And I thought I was the only person who thought about how, back in the day, Bush screwed up our beautiful (sorry to use a Trump modifier here) balanced budget after Clinton cleaned up 12 years of Republican hooliganism. Now that’s a word I’d never have used in the past, when I was a young man.
My dad, who was born in 1918 and died in 2004, used “hooligan.” I look and think back a lot about him now that he’s been gone for 20 years.  I felt your pride in your columns, and the focused earnestness of reaching people in your “swing” state, each of them having a vote, and I certainly hope you can reach enough of them in your world to make a difference in our outcome in November.   
Your humanity is commendable. We need more of it. 
Your opinion column is a paean, a beautiful tribute to your dad’s life.  My dad wasn’t a farmer, he worked hard as a second generation American doing his best to attain the American dream and raise a family to be educated and well fed, after starting work from the age of 15 to help his parents earn enough for a family of five, then he married my mom at 21, then he fought in WWII, then came Truman and Eisenhower, the 50’s dreams, the status quo, three young kids. I think it’s all a miracle.
Thanks for your writing and the Timberjay! It was completely unexpected!
Mickey Faeder
New York City