Having heard it was about to be demolished, one Sunday afternoon in the late 1950s my father drove by his old one-room country school. While his young sons watched from the car, Dad parked along the gravel road, climbed a fence and walked into the dilapidated structure. He spent several ...
There may be a solution to the complaint some Republican legislators have about the University of Iowa’s plan to close a tranche of departments and programs and create a School of Social and Cultural Analysis. The lawmakers object to merging African American Studies; American Studies; ...
Once my reading skills advanced beyond the Alice and Jerry primers I became a newspaper reader. My parents’ nerdy first born devoured newspapers, often not understanding everything I read. More than 50 years ago I discovered a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, L.M. Boyd, who wrote ...
When I was a kid I observed that old men enjoyed telling stories of harrowing storms they had survived when they were younger. I didn’t understand it all back then, but I do now. So let me tell you about one of the nastiest blizzards in my memory. It happened 50 years ago this month. In ...
Many people today cannot remember (or imagine) a time when a television set was not a familiar item in most homes. I can. I was nearly 9 years old when our family acquired its first television receiver. My father made the purchase on New Year’s Day 1957. To put this in perspective, ...
It’s a new year and a new season for high school showtime! It won’t be long before high schools will be announcing their spring musicals and plays. I enjoyed high school plays but during my abbreviated college experience I was working 30 to 40 hours a week and had no time for plays. Over ...