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For anyone wondering whether Harry’s long history of tilting at windmills is over after a fourth loss to a conman’s lackey, history may be your guide. 

My history includes six losses before a first win. It includes a hundred sculptures after my daughter asked for a snow dinosaur.  It includes 20 years of Not Something columns after I published a story about army worms. Throw in my personal goal to live to a hundred and you may have your answer. 
To this list you can add my decision at age 67 to speak French fluently.

I grudgingly took a year of Spanish as a college senior because of a last-minute switch to a teaching degree. The C, D and D I earned killed my GPA but it got me a job. I had always told myself that if I wanted to learn another language and habla español, for instance, I’d move to a country where it was spoken. But, of course, I never moved.

In 2017, nine months before I visited the battleground where my grandfather nearly met his maker, I decided to take up Duolingo. I wanted to parlay a little French.  

I may also have been motivated by one of the battles raging shortly before angry anti-Trumpers knocked me off the school board – the unfair distribution of French teachers between Denfeld and East High Schools. 

It was solved simply by dropping French.

A week after starting Duolingo my daughter Keely gave me a motivational birthday present a book in French. Le Petit Nicholas was a humorous take on French schools of the 1950s.

Helpfully, every page has an illustration by the beloved French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé. Yet for years it took me 10 minutes to translate a paragraph. “Reading” a chapter took a week. This was followed by months of avoiding the book all together. 

Since first opening the book I’ve visited France twice on month-long trips. Neither time was I conversant in French. I could struggle through children’s books.  I have two dozen French books, including dictionaries, Calvin and Hobbes, a French/English version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and the classic 1830 analysis of American politics Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. 
A children’s French Bible was digestible but Nicolas remained a challenge even after I got through it’s last chapter a couple years ago. The Kindle version has the advantage of highlighting tricky passages and instantly translating them.

I mostly avoided books to take on Duolingo. I worked far longer each day than the 15 minutes that Duo’s ads suggested was necessary to learn a second language. Rare is the day that I’ve spent less than an hour on Duo. I have a 2,148 long daily learning streak.

Duolingo was already five years old when I started it and it keeps evolving. For six years I kept trying to catch up to the end of a game that kept being added to. 

Finally, a month ago Duo effectively created an end to new skills thus giving me the illusion of having completed the course. I am however, not a fluent or fast French speaker. 

Duolingo continues to create new content so players can hone their skills. I’ve never relied solely on Duolingo. I have a French pen pal and a wife willing to watch French detective shows at night with English subtitles. 

Waking up in the middle of the night worrying about saving Earth or democracy has always had one solution – play Duolingo until it drives the problems out of my mind. 

A couple days ago when I woke up I decided to read Le Petit Nicholas. I hadn’t looked at it for a couple seasons but I thought I should check it out. Recently, I found it easier to follow the French version of Peppa the Pig cartoons.

To my gratification I could follow the scamp Nicholas. Conversation will not be far behind. What other things could this old coot have to look forward to?

I got this email today from a friend:

You have a long way to go to beat Harold Stassen who was best known for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. He ran for President nine times between 1944 and 1992 

I replied:
Yes, in terms of longevity Harold has me beat. 1938 to 1992 was a 54-year stretch of campaigns. So far, my stretch from 1976 to 2024 is 48 years. Yes, his campaigns were for more exalted offices like governor or president but that only assured him more notoriety. I have him beat in terms of the number of campaigns. 2024 was my 21st campaign and I have 3 victories under my belt. I think Harold only had 2. I don’t know that I’m done.

Welty also blathers at lincolndemocrat.com.