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Sam’s father had the right idea

In the early 1980s I attended a one-week newspaper advertising sales training program in Rochester, New York. I was an invited guest of Gannett Newspapers at a seminar conducted by Rochester Institute of Technology. The western-most delegate, I enjoyed getting acquainted with the other delegates, most of whom were from New England, the Northeastern U.S. and Canada. One evening several of us enjoyed dinner (supper where I come from) together in the hotel restaurant. The discussion turned to our families back home and Sam, a brawny Italian from a city near Boston, talked about ...

Invest in your fishing

Buying stuff for fishing isn’t the best investment we could make from a strictly traditional definition of investing. Rarely can we sell a rod, reel, lure, or whatever for more than we paid for it. But some items that we should use when we go fishing are good examples of smart ...

Make Earth Day every day

Earth Day is next week. April 22 has been set aside as a day to honor the earth, clean up after winter, and spruce up where we live. With the weather this week warming up, it seems the right time. Some might argue that Earth Day should have been the day that the astronauts on Artemis II looked out their windows last week as they were streaking across the sky toward the Earth. I heard their words, as they expressed the awe they felt. Fragile. I’ve been thinking about how that had to appear — one beautiful blue, green and white ball in the midst of total black. It ...

My battle with quicksand; well, sort of

Everything I knew about quicksand was what I had learned from action programs on television. As a young boy I experienced it; well, at least I thought I did. This is my story. My father was a hardworking man, but every now and then he took an afternoon off to tend to some family activity. One summer afternoon in the late 1950s Dad indeed took off an afternoon and announced he was taking his three oldest sons fishing. He wasn’t an avid fisherman but he apparently thought an afternoon of angling would be good for his ornery sons. Our nearest fishing spot was Little Wall Lake, a ...

Sometimes new fishing ideas are old

In the world of fishing, it’s hard to believe that there is anything new when it comes to catching fish. But there is. It might be old news to some anglers, but it’s only old news if you’ve already heard it. There are new anglers entering the picture all the time who maybe are ...

How much does Jesus love us…

"Jesus Loves Me This I Know...," so goes the song many of us sang as youngsters. But how can we understand how much Jesus loves us? To comprehend, here's a real-life story of love and believing. It was 1961 when Lou Holtz had just married the love of his life, Beth. Lou was a graduate student and graduate assistant coach at the University of Iowa. Their main source of groceries were scraps from the Iowa football team training table. Spring training had just finished, and all the couple had was their love and a small apartment in Iowa City. One day Lou came home with a brand-new ...