Up until a couple of months ago, I used to enjoy watching the morning news on TV while I ate breakfast and sipped a cup of coffee. I can’t do it any more.

The presidential election has sent me over the edge. The constant drumbeat of politics in my ears, the incessant reporting of every inconsequential move or statement from Trump or Clinton has become too much to bear. It’s been an endless drone of Donald, Hillary, Donald, Hillary, Donald, Hillary until I finally said enough is enough. I’ve turned my back on the news, at least the national news.

My job requires I be in the know about local news, which I’m happy to do.

I recently found a pleasant alternative for getting my news fix.

Mom still keeps every issue of our hometown newspaper, the Hawley Herald, where, incidentally, I began my long-running journalism career the summer of 1974. I was home for a week over Memorial Day and, as usual, looked through the papers to see what I’d missed.

On May 23 one of the front-page headlines was “Man arrested with bologna in his pants.” The article detailed how an observant clerk at the SuperValu store watched a young man shove not only the bologna into his sweatpants but also a jug of bleach and a box of frozen burritos.

The clerk called 911 and a local police officer nabbed the bologna thief. The newspaper editor interviewed the Hawley police chief, who said “nothing surprises me anymore,” and the grocery store owner agreed. The bologna wasn’t the only meat he’d seen go down a person’s pants.

“When I was working in Wahpeton [North Dakota] we caught a gal that shoved a 15-pound ham down her pants — that was pretty weird, too,” the store owner assured.

On that same front page was another article titled: “Just how safe is Hawley?” It may have been a coincidence that a story about crime in town appeared at the same time as the bologna incident. The editor assured his readers that “when it comes to reported violent crime, Hawley has pretty low rates.”

By and large, Hawley Herald Managing Editor Marc Ness does a wonderful job of chronicling the hometown news, with dozens of pictures of school activities, stories about new businesses and fun features like a recent piece about how Lysne Lutheran Church had welcomed its second set of twins in 75 years.

Some of the stories are so quintessential small-town Minnesota you’d be hard-pressed to make them up. In January the newspaper reported that Ralph Braaten’s fish house was stolen off Leaf Lake. He had moved his prized fish house out “to its rightful spot,” with plans of fishing that Sunday.

“Sunday after church, Ralph returned home and headed out to the ice, only to find his fish house was nowhere to be found,” the paper reported.

Ralph immediately called the police, but decided to take matters into his own hands by posting a photo of his fish house on Facebook and offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the brazen fish house stealer.

Within three hours his post had 1,000 shares, and sure enough they tracked down the two young hooligans who had skidded the house off the ice. It was returned to its rightful owner.

“We can be happy that this time, the good guys won,” the editor declared.

He ran an accompanying article about the importance of insuring your fish house because ice fishing in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” is very serious business. And Lord knows, hell hath no fury like an ice fisherman scorned, at least in Minnesota.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.