Noting trade-offs and disappearing acts

March 21, 2024

Today’s generation of young people is growing up with their phones permanently in hand – a native appendage. By middle school they all have flying fingers that are impossible for this fossil to imitate. Our flowing handwriting is fast disappearing, replaced by choppy printing. Man has been handwriting since 3000 BC but probably will not be by 2050. By then all we seniors who prize our penmanship will be dead and the “digital natives” will be relearning how to write an “X.” Many kids today don’t have signatures. I got to thinking about the long list of things that have ...

River development plans still in choppy water

March 16, 2024

I just read the article on the riverfront development proposal in today’s newspaper late last month when I got home from work. What a fiasco! I was at that meeting on Feb. 26. That article didn’t mention anything about the opposition to where they are putting this Kayak/Canoe/Motorized Boat launch. There were some attendees opposed to this proposal. One person mentioned how they’re trying to jam everything into a small area. Another person mentioned that this is not a lake. It’s a river with current and that you’re going to have this current pushing around whatever ...

View from Hickory Heights: Growing up on a farm

March 15, 2024

It has been a long time since I had children growing up on a farm. Things have changed dramatically over the years. Farm children now participate in many more activities. When our children grew up the opportunities were fewer. Our children rode the bus to school. They were part of the marching band while in high school. They made many friends. When they stayed for practice, there was a late bus that brought them to Hale’s Store. There was a neighborhood carpool with the moms taking turns to transport them. That made it very nice since I did not have to go every day. Our daughter ...

Special flying days with Brooklyn legend

March 14, 2024

Rounding Third … Flying days with a Brooklyn legend Working a first-class flight with Eddie Gold was guaranteed to be a CRAZY day. As much as I loved flying with him – he terrified me. Back in the ‘70s, traveling businessmen wore suits and ties. Good manners and some formality still existed. Not with Eddie. After any trip with him, I feared for my job, but I would have laughed for six or eight hours. Eddie was incorrigible. He was a Brooklyn boy with the predictable accent. When native New Yorkers boarded, he spotted and heard them immediately and began his disrespectful ...

Praise for the farmer

March 8, 2024

I will never forget the way some of my “friends” looked at me after my engagement was announced. In fact, I heard some of them snicker when I walked past them. I heard the one girl say, “She is going to marry a dairy farmer! Can you believe that?” I thought nothing about marrying a farmer. I had dated my farmer for almost two years. He was different than many you might find. When he went to town, he always wore clean clothes and had taken a shower before he went. That kind of stuff was important to him. He did not want to smell like a farmer! Another reason he was different ...

Rounding Third …An important talk with The Man

March 7, 2024

OK, God. We need to talk. It occurs to me that since I’ll probably be making your acquaintance face to face sometime in the next decade or so, we have to get a few things straight. If you have plans for me sooner – like next year, or next month, or Saturday – then this is definitely the right time. I’m pretty sure I was one of your animal creatures before you sent me out into the world again – in this body. Full disclosure, here, sir: many of those parts are no longer in the shape they were when you doled them out. Could I have been a bird in another lifetime? I really do ...