My memory is selective, but I clearly recall two pivotal moments from junior high. On my first day of seventh grade our bus was late, it had rained, and the lane to our farmhouse was extraordinarily muddy. By the time I climbed into the bus, there was so much goo caked to the bottom of my ...

A short time ago, I had that particular joy of taking my granddaughter to Sunday brunch at the Grid Iron Sports Bar & Grill here in Webster City. Its brunch buffet is not to be missed and will satisfy a 9-year-old as well as a 69-year-old! My mind drifted, as it is prone to do, and I ...

When you get to be closer to 80 than to 70, when your career has involved multiple jobs and when you have resided in more than a dozen communities in your lifetime you have become acquainted with many different people. Sadly, I have forgotten some of the people I have met over the decades, ...

I love this time of year: cooler mornings, the back-to-school shopping craze is in full swing and the anticipation of early Christmas deals is already gaining momentum. There was a time when I’d get caught up in all of it. When I was a postmaster, our office personnel would have a lottery ...

What makes us so resistant to change? It seems many developments — especially technical developments — are unwelcome for the first few years. Case in point: electric vehicles. I am amused by the memes and comments on Facebook that ridicule electric cars or EVs for short. Certainly there ...

“But it wasn’t the money. Like manure, that stuff was better spread around.” That’s a line from near the end of a novel I wrote. It refers to the life-changing infusion of funds won by the book’s heroine, an Iowa farm woman whose dreams collide with a trans lounge singer in Las ...