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Words we no longer use

Local Columns

“Jeepers Creepers, where’d ya get those peepers?” Now there’s a phrase you probably haven’t heard for a while. Perhaps you’ve never heard it. The line is from a song recorded by Louis Armstrong in the late 1930s. At the time of the recording, the word jeepers was quite common but I haven’t heard it used for years. I recall hearing jeepers as an exclamation back when I was a kid. For example, “Jeepers, that’s a swell bicycle!” Peepers, of course, referred to the eyes. And swell was an adjective; nowadays it is a verb. There are many other 20th century words that ...

The value of remembering

Local Columns

Reflections on the 9/11 tragedies are vivid in most of my friends' and families' memories. It might be hard to understand if you did not live through it, but it haunts most of us. My parents compared it to the way they felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed during World War II. It was shattering. Twenty-four years later, it’s still vivid. We can’t forget, and we shouldn’t forget. We need to help our younger generations understand the immense terror felt all across America. The planes stopped flying. The cell phones were flooded, and family members were saying goodbye, trapped in ...

Joining The Army

Local Columns

Very few experiences have impacted my life as strongly as the Army. The Salvation Army, that is. Uncle Sam didn’t want me for the U.S. Army. It was 18 years ago about right now that I interviewed for the position of development and communications director for The Salvation Army of Des Moines. The job began a few weeks later. Subsequently, I was assigned to also assist several other Iowa Salvation Army Corps with their development and communications efforts. My hiring followed a four-month period of unemployment. I had walked away from a job and a career that was making me ill. This ...

If you're fed up with a politician, vote him/her out

Letters to Editor

To the editor: I’m sure that math teachers are trying to but it’s not getting through. I guess young people don’t care and old people like me must be diminished. They say rich people make up 1% then the rest of us working people are 99%. Each person gets one vote. The last I knew 99% was 99 times more powerful than 1%. If your politician is catering to the rich and not you then VOTE THEM OUT! If you’re as fed up as I am show them. People have the power. That’s Democracy — save it! P.S. Discovery is seeing what everyone else has seen but thinking what no one else has ...

Who knows what changes next?

Local Columns

The world is changing so quickly we hardly notice anymore when some changes take place. For those of us over 70, many things have quietly faded from our lives. For example, when is the last time you saw … ? — Clothespin bags. Sure, you still might see clotheslines in backyards. However, you seldom see the clothespin bags which used to hang from nearly every set of clotheslines. Some of those bags were plain; others were made from colorful fabrics to resemble little dresses. And they all held the wooden clothespins that held the laundry to the clothesline. — Sprinkler bottles. ...

Gone but not forgotten

Local Columns

Each summer my family — siblings and their families — get together in a town park back home in northern Iowa for a big potluck dinner and an afternoon of conversation. For many years we met at Christmastime but the family has outgrown most of the potential indoor spaces. Summer reunions can better handle all the many Huismans. In addition to the opportunity to see my siblings and their spouses, I enjoy seeing my nieces and nephews and their families. They are all great people. At each year’s reunion, however, an important someone is missing. My oldest nephew, Mark, died in a ...