Ah, the joys of growing up in Chelsea in the 50's & 60's and going to school at South Tama. No cell phones, Facebook, GPS, Googling, TiK-Tok or anything else that we have today. Life was hard back in our era, wasn't it but would any of us change our "growing up" years for the days of ...
I was going to start this little piece by saying, 'Now, that camping season is nearing an end,' but I don't know when camping season is, so I'll skip ahead. Camping, it's not my thing. Firstly, I am not an "outdoors" person. I am sure most of you already know that. I mean, no one has ever ...
My mom would get frustrated with me when I was a kid. She’d say “Mike, I have ‘half a mind’ to give you a whoopin’!” Now, I don’t know about you, but I knew that if mama ever got a “full mind,” she could shorten my lifespan. So, I’d better not push any more of her buttons ...
In the amazing albeit crazy world of "Shedaville," it's time to empty the circular file and share needless and useless information for you. Not needless or useless to me but definitely so for you. But, what the heck, as long as you started reading this column, you might as well as finish ...
Supervisors have taken drastic efforts to bring the road fund expenditures down to a level where it will be possible to stay within the 1948 budget. They are laying off 29 men from the maintenance and construction crews and all construction will stop on county roads. The supervisors will ...
Back to school reminds me of bicycling to school as a kid. For some reason, it seemed cool to use wooden close pins to attach playing cards flapping against the tire spokes so that we could make simulated motorcycle sounds up and down the street. Equally cool was a large headlight on your ...
Alright, I've been putting this off for a while. I went to Chicago a few weeks ago. I know what you're saying, "Hey, Mike, what the chestnuts? You don't travel unless there's a funeral, so who died?" The answer, my friend, is my sister's taste in music. Ya see she got these tickets to a ...
When my dad was living, I shopped for groceries for him in his elder years. He wanted his “3 P’s” to life: Pizza, Pop, and Potato Chips! How could life go on without these? Cleaning out his home when he went to a nursing home, I found an array of untouched foods that boggles the ...
TAMA - The iconic Lincoln Highway bridge here will have to be replaced in some manner, but the exact strategy has yet to be decided. The Tama City Council held a work session last Monday (Aug. 14) to go over the options. The tug-of-war between the 1915 bridge’s status on the National ...
My dad never kicked me, and I appreciate that so much...even though I certainly deserved swift kicks! I knew a man who got mad at his son and booted him right out into the front yard! That’s wrong, but I can think of a time when a brutal, swift kick was warranted to one. They had committed ...