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Let’s get back to work — together

It’s good to be back. The flags are flying proudly, snapping in a wonderful Iowa breeze. I’m enjoying that first cup of early morning coffee, waiting for the sun to slowly light up Our Neighborhood with long shadows, turning the acres of grass to brilliant green. The birds are just waking, letting others know that they’re up. It was a great vacation, so rewarding and rejuvenating: a month-long drive through the wonders of western U.S. national parks, sparkling waters of the Pacific Ocean and the still-snow capped peaks of those incomparable Rocky Mountains. Now we’re back and ...

Some of my best friends are doctors

Dang … I missed it. National Doctor's Day was observed on July 1 and I missed it. This annual observance, which is new to me, honors the dedication and contributions of doctors to society. I’m a supporter. As I grow older I am appreciating medical doctors more each year. Sure they get paid for their work, some of them quite well. Frankly, it would take more money than most docs make to get me to do some of the things they have to do. Few of us have the gumption or brains necessary to endure the years of expensive education and grueling training required to become a medical doctor. ...

Murray Fest builds on a local legacy

Murray would have loved every minute of it. I was a few years too late to meet the original Murray McMurray, but from what I have learned about him over the years tells me that he would have thoroughly enjoyed and approved of every minute of the inaugural Murray Fest Midwest held this past ...

Dating when you’re old

My first wife, Cindy, and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in 2009 with a trip to Niagara Falls. It was an attempt to compensate for the low-budget honeymoon we experienced in 1969 when we were a pair of nearly broke newlyweds. The year 2009 was about the time that a few friends our age were going through life changes that involved dating. Cindy and I didn’t agree on everything but on this issue we were in lockstep thinking. We both agreed that we were happy we didn’t have to go through the process of dating again. We were happy being a predictable old married ...

The aroma of Independence Day on the farm

People who study those things tell us that the sense of smell is most closely related to our memory. An odor or fragrance can trigger a memory more quickly, they say, than sound, sight, touch or taste So it is with the smell of fireworks. For me, the first whiff of an exploding firecracker sets off a recall operation that brings back a host of memories of Fourth of July celebrations of long ago. Some of my favorite Fourth of July memories go back to the early and mid ’50s and to my paternal grandparents’ farm west of Titonka in northern Iowa’s Kossuth County. In a setting that ...

A different kind of history book

What’s hardbound, full of photographs and more embarrassing the older it gets? Your school yearbooks, of course. Can you believe that you ever looked like you do in your school yearbooks? Flat tops, DAs, “cat-eye” glasses, bee-hive hairdos. I came across my old high school yearbooks recently and enjoyed examining them once again. I pulled up a chair and spent the better part of an hour leafing through several years of memories. It’s difficult to believe that six decades have passed since those books were published. You know how gals will sometimes call a friend to ...