Opinion

We last saw each other when we were quite young. She showed me photos of herself frozen in time in my childhood cottage. It was definitely her, but I had no memory of it. But there’s something about family ties that makes it not...

For members of previous generations, a “wakeup call” meant having a hotel employee ring their room at a certain time to rouse them from bed. Today the term is used when we’ve been doing something self destructive for some time (perhaps without realizing it)...

Did you find something different in your mailbox this past weekend? By different I mean something that wasn’t there. By something that wasn’t there, I mean my weekly scribbling. I have to tell you that it was all my fault.  You see, like all newspapers,...

The first part of today’s Funny Papers Again column is an off-handed comment on the present politically charged situation, so if you are as fed up with anything even slightly political, just skip to below the three asterisks and read on. In last week’s column,...

I was reading about the origins of Christmas and the various ways the day is celebrated around the world. It is a day with a history that originally involved more than a few countries and belief systems. What we know today as Christmas has...

About this time of year — February blending into March — I can get really sick and tired of winter. Folks back home might have a chortle at that; because, yeah, I know, we don’t really have “winter” per se in our neck of...

I recall so clearly the simplicity of the holidays when we were young. We would show up and be fed and presented with presents, as it were. (Occasionally I would help Mum with the wrapping, but that was about the extent of my responsibilities.)...

I had to do it, the time had come, so I walked stoutly to the middle of the Oak Avenue overcrossing and stepped over the rail, took a long look around me at my hometown of Greenfield, California, then jumped to the dirt below. That...

I don’t know if other writers run into the same problems that I do. I have to find a thousand words to contribute to this paper every week, so I am constantly looking for a hint of something that you might find interesting enough...

In an age of universal communications via satellites circling the globe when any human on the planet who has a capable device may offer up opinions and speculations about any subject known to humankind it is not unreasonable, given the testimony of history, to...