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Opinion

Some of my best friends are doctors

Local Columns

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 ...

Murray Fest builds on a local legacy

Local Columns

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

Local Columns

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 ...

The aroma of Independence Day on the farm

Local Columns

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 ...

A different kind of history book

Local Columns

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 ...