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Smaller Warren remains the heart of county

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a four-part series about actions needed to address challenges pertaining to the future of The city of Warren is the principal municipality driving the success, or failure, of the entire Warren County-wide community. Serious challenges lay ahead. The outcomes will determine the future for all who live, work, and do business here. Many people do not appreciate the importance and specialness that Warren held in the early 20th Century. The Warren community, once one of the most significant and prosperous places in the nation, is today ...

State cannot allow our youth to keep going hungry

Every good story needs a villain, and in the story of Pennsylvania’s 2023-24 budget, it seems like the Republicans who’ve controlled the state Senate since 1994 have found the bad guy they want you to hate: hungry children who expect to eat food every day. COVID-era supports for school meals and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the federal government are going away, and, even with record low unemployment and a roaring economy, too many working people are struggling to put food on the table. Corporate greed and price gouging, combined with a minimum wage that ...

An ode to Micah

It is hard to believe that it was nine years ago that I visited Pet Animal Hospital to look for a puppy. Hannah, my Spaniel/Beagle had some big health issues that I knew would eventually take her. I wanted another dog. I decided I could not wait I needed to start looking right away. When I went to the hospital, they had some puppies that they had spayed and neutered. They were not themselves that day because of the surgeries so I made an appointment to come up two days later to look at them. I was told they were a Shitzu mix. It was near April 1 and my granddaughter thought that I ...

Smiling days with rich, famous

Years ago, I spent more than five hours locked up with The Everly Brothers. And they never sang me a single song. They could have, I suppose, but I think they wanted to recline in their first-class seats for some well-earned rest. They were just plum tuckered out after an evening of singing “Wake Up Little Susie” and “Dream, Dream, Dream.” That was in the 60’s, when I was a stewardess. Our popular midnight flight from New York to Los Angeles saved many performers another day flying back to the coast. Don and Phil Everly were a delight to have on board, not just because they ...

St. Monica had way of bridging gap of generations

Editor’s note: This saint series will feature a saint and how he or she is a meaningful example for us today. Pope Francis wrote that “the saints help all the faithful” for “their lives are concrete proof that it is possible to put the Gospel into practice.” St. Monica and St. Augustine are examples of how to engage in intergenerational spiritual dialogue. St. Monica’s parents gave her in marriage to a Roman pagan in the 300s. She and her husband had three children. One of her children, Augustine, was raised Catholic but fell away. When Augustine was 17 his father died. ...

Human actions can take tremendous toll on our wildlife

I was reminded the other day of the sad toll we take as motorists on the animals with which we share our environment. I was returning to our Boardman home on Glenwood Avenue after a short walk in nearby Mill Creek Park, which borders the avenue, when I noticed a crouched cat right in the middle of the street’s intersection with Midlothian Boulevard. Another car coming in the opposite direction had slowed to almost a stop to also observe the stricken animal. I continued on to our home a short distance away where my curiosity as to what had happened to the cat got the better of ...