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Absence makes the heart grow fonder. While this statement applies to people, it can also be applied to the past.

Which brings me to the way weather is reported these days.

I remember one cold spell in the middle 1970s when the temps dropped to 29 below and later warmed to around minus 19. After hovering inside for a few days, I was soon walking leisurely to the drugstore at the corner of Highland Pkwy. and Cleveland Avenue S. in St. Paul at minus 19 and even taking off my scarf!

There was nothing on the news to tell me I couldn't.

No "feels like" temperature.

No "polar vortex."

Just Barry Zevan telling me it was getting warmer after being really cold.

I don't recall anything too hyperbolic in the newspapers, either. If anything, back then they probably joked about Minnesota Vikings player Bob Lurtsema freezing on a bench without seat heaters, thanks to coach Bud Grant.

Life was just better back then.

At the very least it was simply more real.

The only thing good about today is that it allows me to question the science behind global warming, if only for a second. With that I'd better sign off before the climate police cancel me on Facebook, thereby forcing me to post on Twitter, where the owner really makes people shudder.

Chris Birt, Edina

I read a Jan. 3 response to a Dec. 28 letter written by a student lamenting the degradation of decorum in the classroom. The response noted that "they sit where they want, use personal screens when they want, talk back and argue, and disrupt classes constantly."

I did a double-take, because I thought the reader was describing adults, although it's primarily outside of the school environs where adults are constantly exhibiting these same behaviors.

Children emulate adults. Change starts with adults — parents, guardians, relatives, role models and, dare I say, celebrities. I think the respondent's teenaged son offered a great suggestion: minimize screen time (iPads and phones) in schools. Sounds like a sensible new Golden Rule.

James Cooke, Eden Prairie

I keep reading articles about Minnesota's hiring challenges, including "Can we stay rich without growth?" and "State faces complex labor-pool challenge," both published Jan. 1. Maybe those themes are true for low-paying jobs, but I won't believe there is a problem until Ameriprise calls and offers me a job.

I worked there for 17 years before being laid off at the end of 2010. I tried for six years to get my career going again, then I gave up and retired, even though I am in Generation X. Nothing worked out long-term, largely because the four promising jobs I had (even low-pay) came with a lot of overtime. Many of my other jobs were temp jobs to begin with, and few companies were hiring their temps. I see old friends who still work at Ameriprise and tell them I want to work there again, but my friends aren't hiring managers. I can't apply for jobs online, because my résumé shows 12 years of short jobs and retirement. For what my old job would pay now (almost $80,000) and no overtime, Minnesota can have one more worker.

As to the state demographer and others wondering why people have left Minnesota or aren't moving there, I can enlighten them in one word: crime. After the multiple riots of 2020-21 and the huge uptick in crime, my neighbors and I bailed to the suburbs. I talked to five neighbors near 54th Street and Columbus Avenue S. in Minneapolis who left just before I did. Everyone mentioned crime in their top two reasons for moving. I, like many others, had lived in my house for decades, and I still miss it, but I don't regret moving. If we moved after decades, why would new people move to a state now known for crime?

Kieran Duncan, Hudson, Wis.

So now the DFL have all the keys to the kingdom and have a laundry list of things to accomplish. I say "go for it," that is why we gave you the majority. But there is one thing that has always irked me when it doesn't happen, and I will be watching for it. Pass the bonding bill early and on time. Do your fundamental job. When it comes time to vote once again, that alone will be an accomplishment to crow about.

Jim Weidner, Minneapolis

I enjoyed reading Martin Schram's Jan. 5 commentary "Trifecta of failure fuels border chaos." I liked it especially because he summarized the situation, then actually offered a solution:

"Let [President Joe] Biden start 2023 by convening a televised White House summit of Central American officials and congressional leaders of both parties. There, Biden will announce that from now on, the number one way migrants will be granted U.S. asylum — and work permits — will be in highly visible lines at each U.S. embassy or at special ad hoc U.S. consulates in every Latin American nation. Migrants who are terrified by gang violence and fleeing in fear will be processed at a new asylum center to be established in Mexico, perhaps at its southern border with Guatemala.

"Let the Biden White House make solving this solvable border crisis its most prominent New Year's resolution."

The quote speaks for itself.

Linda Peterson, Plymouth

Tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and gambling all have the potential to derail lives. The effects of those derailments have significant economic and social consequences for all of us. So, it seems logical to me that they would all be similarly regulated and taxed.

When marijuana is singled out for prohibition, as in "Follow the science: Don't legalize pot" (Jan. 3), it seems unfair. Today we stand where we stood in 1933 with the prohibition of alcohol. We realized that the negative effects of enforcing prohibition were higher than the costs of legalization. The answer to the problems caused by potentially hazardous products and practices never is realized through prohibition, but rather education, education, education.

Betty Anne Lotterman, St. Paul

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The author of "Follow the science: Don't legalize pot," John Hagen, references Yale Medical School scientist Kevin Sabet's research on pot, identifies him as ethnicity Iranian-Yemeni, and religion Baha'i, and states that "[h]is instincts are clearly those of a Democrat … ." That's Hagen's opinion, but Sabet wouldn't appreciate it.

Baha'is are nonpartisan and choose as a matter of faith not to belong to political parties. Political parties are divisive, not unifying, and the whole purpose of the Baha'i Faith is to unite.

Susan Frenzel, Minneapolis

I think it is necessary to respond to the Jan. 4 letter writer ("Complex, tragic and worth discussing") who defended Curtis Dahlin's Dec. 30 counterpoint "We should also remember other victims of 1862." Dahlin had an agenda, which was to criticize Gov. Tim Walz for his apology in connection with the anniversary of the Dec. 26, 1862, hangings of 38 Dakota men in Mankato.

(At the commemoration, Walz said: "On behalf of the people of Minnesota and as governor, I express my deepest condolences for what happened here, and our deepest apologies for what happened to the Dakota people. This memorial ride is an important time to acknowledge the wrongs that have been done and recommit ourselves to accountability and healing. Working together in common good is our goal.")

Did Dahlin expect the governor to tell the gathered people "but you killed many white people"? Perhaps Dahlin could organize a horse ride from the Lower Sioux Agency to Mankato on Aug. 18 — the anniversary of the Dakota attacks on settlers that resulted in the executions — and demand a Star Tribune article.

James Halvorson, Farmington