Not my fault!
Working at Garrettsville’s Precinct A for thirteen hours on Election Day—with a fairly steady stream of citizens exercising their rights, good for them—was enough...
“Don’t stir up the hornet’s nest!”
“Why go looking for trouble?” Dad would ask. “Some trouble is sure to find you at some point in life, but only a fool...
Turnpike Proud!
Well, that was interesting...and informative...and fun too. The Ohio Turnpike had an Open House on Saturday, October 24, celebrating its 60th Anniversary; it officially opened...
Memorial Trash
Another Trick-or-Treat for adults? I am referring, of course, to the semi-annual trash pick-up in the village—not to be confused with the weekly services provided...
Stuck in Ohio…And Proud Of It!!
During my lifetime I have been blessed with many opportunities to experience nature and our natural world. I have been to National Parks from...
Forget the Memoir
Everybody is writing memoirs lately. It’s the literary style du jour in all of the magazines and reviews. So I’m thinking, hey, my...
Whadda Prize
It’s awards season just about all of the time now. There are awards in television, for the theatre, for movies, for sports of every...
Pretty Fair Fairs
Well, I seem to have hit my quota again this year. A little shy, perhaps, but got the basics done. I am speaking, of...
Skin In The Game
Ever since that piece about plastic surgery and the aestheticians who keep having the gall to send me email about how they can get...
Cat-astrophe!
At one time, there were, give or take, six—yes, six—cats in this house. That was, so to speak, the high water mark, but the...
Strawberry Fields Forever
If John Lennon hadn’t written it, Roger Monroe would have had to. Maybe with a Pochedly on vocals or bass. Who better to whip...
Smooth As Silk
Within the natural world there are many spectacular things. But none more spectacular than to find the ethereal Luna moth or the massive Cecrcopia...
Missing Brains…
I knew that I misplaced something. The Associated Press recently reported that nine—count ‘em, NINE—brains had been found alongside a railroad track near Gouverneur, northern...
Tell You What – An Editorial
Tell you what…. Let’s have everyone who says, “Why don’t they…(whatever it is about the rebuilding needed on Garrettsville’s Main St.) or “They need...
A Stitch In Time!
Here’s one for the Village Piece Makers, you know, the dedicated quilt-makers who every two years come up with a lovely handmade spread to be raffled off at the Christmas Walk. I don’t know how they come up with the patterns—maybe they make them up themselves—but recently the AB-J ran a cartoon (It’s a regular series called Non Sequitur, usually pretty apt for what they put out there) that might get a rise from out local needlewomen, even Ellie Foster Monroe who does “Quilts for Causes”, contributing to efforts that she supports.
12 Tips for Spring Home Buying in a Seller’s Market
With spring finally here for most of the nation, prospective homebuyers can look at houses and condos without traipsing through snow and ice. Better weather, plus the traditional belief that families search for homes so they can move in between school years, makes spring a major homebuying season in much of the country.
Like A Frog Trying To Ride A Bicycle
“Hey Dad, why don’t you think about taking some courses at Kent State. You are a senior citizen so you could take them free. ...
Thinking Spring!
Another weekend, another home & garden show! Getting to the John S. and James L. Knight Center in downtown Akron is not real tough, although...
Begin the Beguine
“Begin the Beguine” was a popular song written by Cole Porter in 1934. To my father, it was yet another one-liner he’d toss into...
“It is not fit for man nor beast outside”
The first time I heard that saying was when I was a little kid, it was 15 below, the wind howling, snow blowing and...
It Must Be February
Must be February, the Easter candy is on the shelves. And the “cabin fever news stories” are circulating. That’s what appears when all of the...
Cabin Fever Factoids
Being stuck inside(Where it’s marginally warmer) for extended periods can send a person(at least this one)over the edge, or at least out on the slippery part. While out there, one can run across some quirkily weird items in the news, To wit...
Feedback and Food For Thought
We are some six weeks into this topic of 65 and Single Again. I have gotten a great deal of feedback about the articles via e-mail, over the phone, and more often than not, in person. A great many people seem to identify with this predicament of life. The column mirrors their struggle and they are searching for solutions. As well, it has generated a good bit of thought on my part, re-thinking certain things, postulating new, and contemplating where to go next.
Red Letter Day
A RED-LETTER DAY Or a red something, anyway. As I have said before, you can’t make this stuff up. It seems that in Sheboygan, WI a...
Trying To Embrace The Dating Dot Coms Part 5 of a Series
The Dating Dot Com phenomenon came on the scene in the 1990s and since then has developed exponentially into a massive industry. You can’t...
Stupid Virus
So somebody on a slow news day—Newsweek was mentioned but the internet picked the mention up and ran with it—called it the “stupid virus” and implied that any lagging intellectual powers among us might be the fault of an insidious invasion by these viral marauders...
It’s A Failure!
A failure of Social Studies Education, I calls it. The recent election, that is…failure of turn-out, failure to understand the way government works(whether it’s supposed to work that way or not), failure to be informed on the issues and the candidates, failure to pay attention to the down-ticket contests…a whole bunch of things that we should all be thinking about but don’t. AND a prevailing, parsimonious attitude that makes a virtue of trying to do everything on the cheap. There’s a powerful big difference between wishing to do things in the most cost-conscious and efficient manner possible to do the best we can for the most citizens and trying to see how much we can get away with before the dreadful consequences which we have been outrunning finally catch up. The difference is the difference between “What’s the best we can afford?” and “What’s the cheapest we can get?” Strangely enough, there are cases in which quality actually does count.
Trying To Embrace The Dating Dot Coms Part 4 of a Series
How many times has it happened that I am notified that an attractive lady with a moniker such as NANNAN69 has just favorited me and would like to talk with me. The posted time is 7:15 PM. At 7:16 PM I respond and immediately a screen flashes that, “NANNAN69 is no longer available but here are 8 more people just like NANNAN69. Give them a response!” Now, tell me how, in 60 seconds, NANNAN got swept off her feet, married off and managed to get the Dot Com to take her out of contention when the rest of us can’t seem to even get the Dot Com to respond to us.
Take Up A New Hobby
So here’s the thing…. We need readers and scorekeepers for the Garfield QuizMasters to go out to vanquish our intellectual foes in upcoming Academic...
Trying To Embrace The Dating Dot Coms Part 3 of a Series
Why do people get hooked up with on-line dating services like EEK-Grominy and Lighter Dot Com. Well, if you believe all the hype shown...
