Ahh ... that tastes good. It’s my first sip of coffee this morning. After breakfast, a hot “cup of joe” is the first order of business for me each day. My parents drank coffee regularly but I didn’t care for it until I was about 16 and a girl cousin I was visiting drank a cup. Not to ...

This week across the United States, Thanksgiving is being celebrated. Many of us remember making a construction paper hat or headband in elementary school. My first-grade teacher let us choose if we wanted to identify as a Pilgrim or as a Native American for our classroom “feast,” which ...

Driving through rural Iowa some time ago we encountered a swarm of insects. Soon the windshield was plastered with dozens of bug innards. If I practiced entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, it would have been a picnic. Instead, several attempts with the vehicle’s windshield washer ...

What scares you? Spiders? Snakes? Heights? Public speaking? Death? Congress? I am fascinated with phobias which, my dictionary says, are “an intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, animals, or people.” What makes the fear a phobia is the “excessive and ...

Take an afternoon drive around an urban or suburban area anywhere in the Midwest. Look at the houses. What is missing from these homes that would likely have been there 50 years ago? Give up? How about a television antenna? Fifty years ago you would have found a television antenna on most ...

When I learned to read I quickly became a little nerd, reading anything I could get my hands on. It’s amazing what a kid can learn by reading, especially when he finds stuff he shouldn’t be reading. While I have learned a great deal from reading, I’ve learned even more from listening ...