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Rounding Third: Life is great. Cheese makes it better

Truer words were never spoken. That quote by author Avery Aames sums up my lifelong love affair with cheese. After I stopped eating school cafeteria lunches, good old American cheese became a thing of my past. In college, I met a few French students who knew the cheese world. It was all new to me, but oh, what a discovery that new world was. Gruyere, blue, and brie? Sacre bleu! Where had you been all my life? When it was first explained to me that blue cheese was essentially mold – but in wedge shape – I gulped a bit. Then I smelled it. I still was not so sure. But the first bite ...

View from Hickory Heights: Family has farm ties

June is Dairy Month. Our family was in the dairy business for four generations. First, my husband’s grandfather owned the farm. Then it went to my father-in-law. Next his daughter had that farm. My husband moved to the farm that we now call Meldick Farms. It is on Howard Road near Russell. My husband and his father milked cows on that farm for more than thirty years. That is when my children became involved. They did not help with the morning milking but were there for the evening shift. Todd began helping when he was in fifth grade. The deal was that he could help if it did not ...

Public media attack hurts our community

Imagine turning on your TV or radio and finding silence where “Sesame Street,” local news, and emergency alerts used to be. No more “Our Town” stories celebrating your neighbors in Warren County. No more trusted voices guiding your children through their earliest years. No more WPSU. That’s the future we could face if Congress approves the rescission package recently submitted by the White House. Among its sweeping cuts is the elimination of critical funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — the lifeblood of local stations like WPSU. This funding represents 17% ...

Nation needs common sense cannabis reform

My job as the District Attorney of Warren County is to uphold the law and protect public safety. But our laws must make sense — and when it comes to cannabis, the federal government’s policy is increasingly out of step with reality. Cannabis is currently classified under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the same category as heroin and LSD. That designation means it’s considered to have “no accepted medical use,” despite the fact that 38 states, including Pennsylvania, have legal medical marijuana programs helping patients and veterans with chronic pain, cancer ...

More than a toy

Recently I have seen a lot of posts about paper dolls. I have not seen any that I had as a youngster. My favorite set was a set of twins. They came in a cardboard case so I could carry them around. They were probably about two or three years old as their clothes indicated. More than half the fun with paper dolls is when you got to cut out their clothes. There were always tabs that fit over the shoulder to hold them on. I was an only child so I played alone a lot. Paper dolls were some of my favorite things to play with. On nice days when it was not windy, I often took them out to the ...

Delights of the old stomping grounds

This New England trip has definitely been adventuresome, eye opening, and fun. I’m writing from Lexington, Mass., home of the Minute Man, home of “the shot heard around the world,” home of my daughter and her family. My itinerary was packed: My grandson’s birthday dinner and his Spring Concert with a Boston area youth symphony. An afternoon visit with old friends and a weekend trip to Maine with really old friends. Our day trip to decorate the family graves along with a traditional stop for seafood at Plymouth harbor. An adventure-packed flick in a fancy cinema plus some ...