It is always a thrill for teachers when former students do well. I keep track of many of them because their parents are still around even if they are not. Conversely, I always say a prayer for those whose names make the police blotter. Most of them do not surprise me. If they were a ...

When we go on a morning canoe ride from our cabin on the Althom Eddy during the warmer months of the year, my wife often asks, "Are you going to swim today?" The reason for her query is that if I respond in the affirmative, she will take a magazine along to read while I am taking my dip. (She ...

Winter seems to be the perfect time to cuddle up with a book to read. I always enjoyed it when we had a snow day. That meant I would have time to read. Now, I love to read but that was not always the case. When I was growing up, I read what I had to for school, but neglected the ...

My day began with a simple plan. Resolve a few questions on the phone. Make a few appointments then finish my column. This is not the column I started. You’ll see. I got side-tracked ... “Please continue to hold – our representatives are currently assisting other ...

Public discourse. A phrase that can be attributed to many things being posted on Facebook, Twitter, or any form of social media or otherwise in this day and age. We publish editorials every day on page A4 of the Times Observer. We publish letters to the editor on whatever subjects you ...

It's over. All the hoopla. Christmas 2019 is now in the memory banks and I have to say that for us, it was a very different holiday. Our family Christmas is usually here, at home, in Warren. And for me, that's the way it should be. I know, I know, you're supposed to share your ...

Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and day you find out why". Have you ever wondered why you were born? What you were placed on this earth for? What your purpose is? Thomas Carlyle said "The person without a purpose is like a ship ...

I have kept a diary for more than forty years. Of course, I do not have everything that ever happened in there, but I do have many things. A few years ago, I began doing a wrap-up piece each year. That helps me see at a glance the important things that have happened that year. I also do ...

"If you suspect you might have extramammary Paget's disease (EMPD), I encourage you to see a doctor. Don't put it off and don't be embarrassed!" — Steve Schroeder (EMPD patient) Up until the late spring of 2019, I figured that for a relatively old codger, I was in pretty good health. I ...

‘Tis the season of death, or at least a long rest, in nature. The trees are bare, the grass has stopped growing, and the stems of plants brown, shriveled, and lifeless. Many in New York find the season dreary and mundane. Yet we are all guilty of not realizing how important this time of year ...

This article was first published in the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine, December 6, 1998. It was the first article I ever sold. I’ve been told that it made a lasting impression having been used as the basis for Christmas church sermons and in a few Sunday School classrooms in Massachusetts. In ...

The Publisher and Managing Editor punished their employees this week. Oh, it wasn’t your normal workplace discipline. But it’s becoming an annual thing. On Sundays, during fantasy football season. This weekend, the first-place or championship matchup of the Times Observer Laid Back ...

A question on “Jeopardy” the other night was one I knew the answer to. What popular children’s tale is a Christmas favorite? Of course, “Hansel and Gretel” was the answer. This is not a tale I was particularly fond of as a child. I disliked the idea of Hansel and Gretel being ...

There are so many symbols of Christmas that it is hard to connect with just a few of them. I begin with the candy cane. It is said that the cane candy is a shepherd’s staff which if turned upside down is a “J” for Jesus, the baby born at Christmas that we celebrate. The red color ...

We bought a new Christmas tree just before Thanksgiving. Another fake tree. We had to give up on my beloved fresh Fraser firs back when the trees got too heavy and we got too feeble. Funny, both happened in the same year. We were living downtown in the big Victorian house with the big ...

When you combine the onset of winter weather worsened by climate change with a “super senior citizen” (me) whose motto has never been “safety first,” you can arrive at risky situations. I had taken two fairly serious falls this year prior to even the formal meteorological start of ...

It is the season for festive decorations. It is the season for Christmas cookies. It is the season for gift shopping and wrapping and giving. It is the season for holiday gatherings. It is the season for anxiety. It is the season for depression. It is the season for grief. It is the ...

We learned all types of music from the classical to the current modern ones when I was in the school chorus. We even sang some carols in foreign languages. That was always a challenge. I am not sure if anyone who spoke the language would have understood us. I participated in the chorus ...

Sunrise (today) will open the deer season, ending a long custom in Pennsylvania's outdoors. Since at least the early 1960s, the season has begun on the Monday after Thanksgiving. The board of Pennsylvania game commissioners, responsible for establishing hunting seasons and limits, voted for the ...

The Japanese promote visits by foreigners to their atom-bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where some 214,000 perished in the final throes of World War II so that those from abroad can bear testimony to the beyond- comprehension happenings that occurred there. I am sure that such was ...