Years ago, I took a youth group to Door County, Wis., for a retreat. We decided to watch a movie, and set up a projector, as one of our teens wrestled with a projector screen, getting the legs of the screen going in the right direction. Sitting down, he tripped on the projector’s audio ...
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will relax the fishing regulations at Cherry Lake on the south side of the city of Tama starting September 15 to allow anglers to more freely harvest fish. Anglers with a valid sport fishing license may harvest all sizes and unlimited quantities ...
Schedules, I've never stuck to one. Never have, more than likely, never will. I don't have any pet peeves against schedules; it's just I've never been able to keep one. And yes, this is in direct correlation to my near constant lateness; more than once, I've run out of the house late to a ...
The yearly calendar tells us (or at the very least gives us clues) as to what we should dwell on - a.k.a. think about at any given time. We just passed the back-to-school, number-two pencil, don’t wear white after Labor Day stage and are entering the spooky, scary movie, costumized, ...
The oldest ploy in the political handbag: find an enemy (or better yet, create one) to pile blame on to scare voters into voting for you. Desperate politicians always need a boogeyman, the current tact of Republican leadership. Create a frenzy, by all means! “Watch out!!! The Chinese ...
As a kid, I listened to the radio to hear the one-minute mystery called, “Only the Shadow Knows!” We’d try to figure out the answer to his minute mystery! But only the Shadow knew the answer. Donald Barnhouse was driving home with his children from the funeral of his first wife. ...
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 ...
Regular readers of this column will attest to the fact that my summer has been defined by two words: home improvement. I was set to start the summer with a new storm door at the front of the house and a walk-in shower at the very back. Both are still undone. But fret not! I’ve ...
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 ...