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 ...
"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 ...
There’s something about this time of year that feels like it moves faster than it should. The calendar fills up. The weather starts to shift. There are baskets to fill, meals to plan, schedules to coordinate. And before we know it, Easter is here… and gone. But this week—the week leading up to Easter—was never meant to be rushed. In the Christian tradition, we call it Holy Week. It’s a journey through some of the most meaningful moments of Jesus’ life: celebration, betrayal, suffering, waiting… and ultimately hope. And if we’re honest, it’s also a journey that looks a ...
Four centuries ago William Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This line from Romeo and Juliet is valid for today’s column, even if used out of context. We are largely who we are regardless of our name. I’ve been an Arvid for more than 78 years but if my parents had named me Ralph or Elmer I’d probably still be the same loud, outspoken story teller I am today. At some point of development we recognize and accept our name and then become protective of it. Some folks may choose to use their middle name or even change their name. Whatever we ...
Winter wasn’t done with us yet. After we were teased with some beautiful sunny 60 degree days Mother Nature sent a blizzard our way. The snow fall totals weren’t that substantial but just a few inches of snow combined with sustained winds of 30 miles per hour and gusts in the 50 plus mile range made travel after dark nearly impossible. Many of you woke up the next morning to find the sun out and little snow on the ground and thought, “what was all the fuss about”. There were blizzard warnings and programming interruptions by your favorite weatherman telling you how bad ...
Several years ago a Facebook friend who is a past schoolmate from the mid-1950s sent me some copies of yearbook photos from that era. The photos included one of his class, the class a year behind him and my class, which was two years behind his. The first-grade photo (my class) brought back a lot of memories. Surprisingly, I remembered all but one of my first-grade classmates. Even more surprisingly, I had forgotten how large I was. Smack dab in the middle of the photo, in the middle of the second row, there was this boy obviously much larger than all his classmates. An old school ...
