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A mini reunion

Yesterday I journeyed over to Dunkirk to attend a mini class reunion. I say it was a mini reunion because this group meets for lunch once a month. I had never been invited to attend before I guess because I live more than a few miles away. It was well worth my effort. There were four people who I attended elementary school with there. One girl I went clear through college with. It was nice to meet informally and just chat about what we were doing, what our families were doing, and how we were feeling. I guess in years past many others attended this reunion. I was always envious of ...

Rounding Third: Give us this day our daily bread

\Dear Richard and I have always been content with that fourth petition in the Lord’s Prayer. Until Oct. 1. On the last day of September, we made a difficult decision. We would not eat bread for a month and see if it helped reduce our ever-expanding waistlines. The conversation began as we were chatting about meal planning. Richard is easy about food. He will eat whatever I put in front of him. When I make something he hasn’t eaten before, he responds mostly with gusto. Mostly. He just likes to eat. I told him about my friend, John, who lost 20 pounds in one month by giving up ...

Vote comes down to ‘ideals’

“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.” These are the words of George Washington, our nation’s first president. This is in stark contrast to our 45th president, who mocked a cancer-stricken POW who spent 5 1/2 years in captivity. He humiliated the Gold Star parents mourning the loss of their son who was killed in combat, and then referred to those who died in the service and the uniform of their nation as suckers and ...

People, not politics, are the real election issue

As Election Day draws near, it’s time for all of us in this community to consider what kind of leadership we want in Harrisburg. If you haven’t met me yet, I’m running to represent the values, needs, and priorities of this district. I’m not a career politician — I’m a small business owner who understands the struggles of working families in our rural district. I know how hard it is to keep a business afloat, balance the budget, and still find time to focus on family. That’s why I’ve built my campaign around the principle of common-sense solutions for real-world ...

Teachers’ focus remains on history, not ‘indoctrination’

Just about every adult in America who attended a public school has passed through a history class, and maybe they had an aptitude for the subject, had a teacher who inspired them to dig deeper, or were turned off completely by a clock-punching instructor who offered little more than a dry recitation of dates and names. Over the last couple of years, history classes in middle schools and high schools have become yet another battlefield in America’s ongoing culture wars. Some parents and activists have argued that they are hotbeds of indoctrination that drive students to loathe their ...

View from Hickory Heights: Television is older than you think

Are you old enough to remember when television channels signed off for the night? I recall them playing the national anthem, then shutting down. There was no television to watch during the night. The next morning the process worked in reverse. They played the national anthem, then were up and running. I was surprised when I looked into the history of television. Men were pioneering devices for transmission of television pictures as early as the 1920s. Frank Lloyd Wright described television as “chewing gum for the eyes”. Television was introduced in England in the early 1930s. An ...