Each summer my family — siblings and their families — get together in a town park back home in northern Iowa for a big potluck dinner and an afternoon of conversation. For many years we met at Christmastime but the family has outgrown most of the potential indoor spaces. Summer reunions can ...

A few years in the news business transformed this naïve country boy into a skeptic. I want proof. Journalists live by the creed: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” Over the decades sources have told me incredible stories that, upon investigation, proved to be nothing ...

I fell last week. It’s not the first time, but this time I had a cake in my hands and, boy, was it a mess. I stepped on stones I couldn’t see and they rolled on the concrete like marbles. As I hit the ground, I thought, well, at least I’m not alone; it’s Market Night and there are ...

Okay, I will admit it: I enjoy studying euphemisms. Euphemisms are those words we use as a substitute for a word that may be unpleasant or offensive. Many years ago, for instance, a proper farm wife wouldn’t say “boar” or “bull.” She would euphemize with “the male animal.” The ...

My plan was to give a six-month update into how the position of sheriff has been going, but when I looked at my calendar and it was already August, I think I finally realized that time was slipping away from me as fast as I could think. I wanted to give the citizens of Hamilton County an ...

As we near the 80th anniversary of the explosion that ultimately convinced the Japanese that World War II was lost to them, I am reminded of another, far less volatile explosion, that perfectly illustrates the relationship between the Curtis family and the Dinsdales. Dad, as in my father, ...