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Merry Christmas ! ! ! I hope everyone has prepared to celebrate the birth of Jesus and all that goes with it. I’ll grant that some people maybe go overboard with activities that are not directly related to the real reason for Christmas, but do tie in with our celebration, even though they don’t realize it. I’m not sure when it started, but in today’s world I’m guessing about 50 to 70 years ago, some ‘liberals’ and others not thrilled with the whole concept of Christmas began to turn society away from the fact we make a big deal of Christmas...
The stores are bursting with Christmas decorations, gifts and delicious holiday menu options. Whenever I walk into such a store, it takes control to remain on point with my Christmas shopping list in hand to find only the things needed. It is hard though with so many items to see and imagine gifting or decorating our home with. In all the hustle and bustle of this Christmas season, we should remain focused on the true “Reason For The Season,” the birth of our Lord Jesus. My thoughts turn back to the simple Christmas programs at my home cou...
A few months ago an Omaha World-Herald reporter asked if I was the longest serving of any current Nebraska newspaper editor. Though I have been in this editor’s position for 52 years and have sat behind the same Alma brand desk for 47 years, I didn’t know how to answer him. It was a question I hadn’t considered. I do know I hold the record for both the editor’s and publisher’s title at The Superior Express. I also know I am far from obtaining the oldest title of any editor in Nuckolls County. That record is held by the late F. A. Scherzing...
One year my husband and I decided to sell Christmas trees in Connecticut with a friend, Rick. We bought an old truck with a tool body on it. After buying two wheels with tires from two different junk yards, we traveled to Pennsylvania to buy 100 trees. We bought another wheel with better tread and took off the tool body, replacing it with a plywood flat bed. When we returned to Connecticut with the trees, we proudly put up a “trees for sale” sign and put six trees in the sale spot we had picked under a three-way bridge. The next morning we fou...
It’s raining! Usually, I would be down in the dumps because of the gloomy weather, but I am thankful for the warmer temperatures. It seems odd to me that it is raining in December and 50 degrees, but I’ll take it. The politicians would say it’s “climate change,” but I feel it’s simply the natural cycle of things. If I remember correctly, this area we call home was once desertlike. The past couple of weeks have been rough. I’ve been down in the dumps and swamped with emotions. I get lost in my head over all the ways I’m falling behind and then...
Gosh . . . what a week! Everyone says a person gets busy around Christmas time. That I believe, but I have done very little Christmas related so far. I’m not sure just where this week’s letter will go, but I’ll get started with a few comments concerning the acquisition of a certain virtue, called patience. • Had a question concerning the operation of a new kitchen appliance. Called in and waited about 1 1/2 hours to even talk to someone. • Another trip was to the E R at the hospital over the weekend. Doctors and nurses were quick to see us, b...
I’m finding fast as we age, our memory just isn’t like it used to be. It’s tempting when a person reads about all the pills that if taken can improve the memory. I never seem to follow through with purchasing them though. When I see some of the things those pills are made out of, I lose interest. A while back a dear friend gave me a small statuette of two angels standing close together. Written across their robes was the saying, “We’ll be friends until we’re old and senile...then we’ll be New friends!” Now that’s an idea. There are those d...
Earlier this week, while going through The Express picture files, I found a picture taken about 45 years ago at the Sullivan Dairy which was then located west of the Superior Airport. The dairy had built a new milking barn and installed a carousel. When the dairy cows were brought in, they stepped onto the carousel. The milk man or milkmaid, as the case might be, stood in the center and did their thing with the cows as the animals rode past on the rotating carousel. The operation of the carousel was much different than the herringbone style of...
Over the years a number of different people ask how I keeping coming up with subjects to write about. I surely don’t have a method, but something always happens to come up and sometimes there are just too many to write about and I don’t get it all done. This is one of those weeks that a number of items seemed to present themselves for my attention. Don’t know how many I’ll get included this week, but I’m going to start with something that happened this week that brought back memories. We were just getting back into some kind of ‘normal...
For the last two weeks, the house has been a chaotic mess of various piles of Christmas ornaments, garlands and wreaths. Over the years, I have accumulated tons of holiday decorations, the problem being that many of them are worn out from years of use or broken from the many times I have moved. I have also given many decorations away in years past, and I have to remind myself of that every year when I go in search of the lost decor. This year, I am taking my sweet time decorating for the holiday. I am going through every box, and every bulb,...
When we first moved from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania, my parents were excited because our 110 acres had many pine trees. They envisioned treks to find the perfect Christmas tree, plucked from their own property. So began the annual Christmas tree hunt. There was a large learning curve along with this hunt over the years. The first being the first day of rifle hunting season begins the first Monday after Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania. This event is so popular the schools are closed that day because everyone is out hunting and nobody, including t...
Here it is, the first week in December 2022! It’s beginning to feel and look like a Kansas-Nebraska December. Tuesday, it was cloudy, and the cold northern winds were blowing. North of us there were reports of slick roadways because of moisture falling and freezing. For me, it was a good day to stay inside my comfy home. Maybe it was a good day to begin decorating our home for Christmas as many are now doing but I’m really not in the true spirit yet. I could have begun baking Christmas treats and freezing them. But no, I’m not in that spirit ye...
I was surprised last Wednesday morning when I looked out and found a heavy fog had descended on the area. It has been so dry in recent weeks I didn’t think there would be enough moisture in the atmosphere to form fog. Most mornings fog doesn’t inconvenience me greatly other than I may chose to walk rather than ride to work. Only two blocks separate my home from work and generally I make the commute via a bicycle. If I need a vehicle during the day, I have access to a vehicle left in the newspaper’s garage. But Wednesday mornings are diffe...
Presenting Biblical answers to tough questions Q: I’m not a Christian, can I still pray? A: When most people today speak about prayer they usually mean “to talk to God.” But there is another meaning for prayer that is more common in the Bible, and it is the idea of bringing a petition or request to Him. Understanding this, I think the best answer to the above question is that unbelievers can both talk to God and bring petitions to Him, but only Christians can engage in these activities most fully and effectively. There are many examples of pe...
Just as Christmas is not “just a day,” Thanksgiving is also not “just a day.” You may think this opinion is a day, or two, late, but I think it is never too late to say “Thank You.” For the Thanksgiving holiday many families take time for each to say “Thank You” for whatever is most important to them. To do so, is a good practice, but we’ve just never got around to doing that. We try to attend a morning Mass that day and use the day to thank God for all of his many blessings. “If” I were asked to give a single thing I’m most grateful for, I wo...
Here I am, last minute, sitting down to write about this week’s Crazy Life. Tuesday morning when George told me goodbye, he said, if you go anywhere today, please be careful. I took one look outside, and my decision to stay home held firm. The only plan for the day was to cover the drafty windows with plastic. We made it to California and back again. It’s all a blur, and it feels like I dreamt rather than experienced it. Flying wasn’t all that bad, although I felt like a sardine shoved into a tin can. Given a choice, I still prefer to drive...
In today’s world there seems to be so many terrible happenings, people with grudges, wars, politics that aren’t going the way we’d like, the high cost of living and people getting mad at others. We need to step back and think about the things we are thankful for. I know I’m thankful I was born here in rural America, in the times that I was raised, by the parents I had, and what I was taught. There were good morals and respect for each other instilled in us. We didn’t have to have the best of things material wise, but we knew we had everythin...
This is Thanksgiving week and my mind is drifting back to a time when my grandparents lived and Thanksgiving meant a time for all the aunts and uncles and their children to gather at my grandparents' home for a special meal. The main course included a bird. One year my father had fattened a goose which grandmother dressed and served. Another year the meal featured wild quail which my father had shot and grandmother also fixed. Most years the meat was turkey. There were mashed potatoes, gravy,...
My deer hunting experiences over recent years has always been with a son-in-law. We’ve had our share of success . . . and failure. I can remember a couple of years when we saw “NO” deer at all. Well, I can report for the 2022 deer hunting season, my hunting partner and myself had a 100 percent successful season. On the final hour of the final day of the 2022 season, we saw our first deer of the season and my partner was successful in harvesting the deer. To be honest, we did see a couple of other deer, but they were not on the land we were...
Presenting Biblical answers to tough questions Q: As a parent with grown children, I’m struggling to know how involved in their decisions I should be. What does the Bible say? A: This is a great question. The Bible reveals an important change that should take place in our relationship with our children when they are grown. If we are not intentional in making this change at the proper time, we can cause a lot of hardship for ourselves and our children. The basis for this change is found by examining several passages. But first, we should note t...
A matriarch aunt is now missing from our Heskett family. Aunt Joan died recently and has left a void in the hearts of her family. Even though she lived a ways away from the rest of her siblings, nieces and nephews, she made an effort to drive herself to about every family event that was scheduled including weddings, graduations, holiday get-togethers, birthday and anniversary celebrations and baby or wedding showers. She loved her parents and would often visit them. Whenever a sibling came back home to visit, she was there to visit also. Her...
In what some may call the dark ages when I attended journalism school there were courses to prepare people to work in weekly journalism. That is apparently no longer true. Many colleges no longer train young people for traditional journalism careers. That is a mistake for there are still many opportunities and hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs to be filled in this country. Personally, I can’t think of a career better than the one I have with this newspaper. This year a private company, Kansas Publishing Ventures has launched an online platfor...
We’ve been spoiled folks. So many of us have been familiar with “instant gratification” that when we don’t get it, something is wrong. That concept is so common, we don’t ever realize it any more. A prime example was the election last week. We didn’t get “all” of the election results that night . . . and we were agitated because of it. Our current culture is so used to getting what it wants, when it wants it, we do not understand things when they don’t happen right away. I’m not giving those states that still haven’t finished counting the...
Have you ever been so anxious you felt claustrophobic in your skin? It sounds strange, I know, but that’s how I feel right now. I’m a stressed mess! This is why I hate traveling. In case you missed it last week, we are flying to San Diego to see Jacob officially become a Marine. I have been stress cleaning, making lists, organizing and delegating all weekend, and I have yet to pack one thing into a suitcase. Why is it so hard to decide what to wear for four days? Ill tell you why, Because I’ve never been to California. Do I take sweaters or T-s...
Tuesday morning’s Omaha World-Herald contained a story about Duane Hansen, a Nebraska man who paddled a pumpkin 37.5 miles down the Missouri River and qualified for a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records. The previous record was 25.5 miles. The Omaha paper reported Hansen rode a hollowed-out 846-pound pumpkin from Bellevue to Nebraska City. The trip took him 11.5 hours. Now he wants to grow a pumpkin large enough that he and his daughter can ride down the river together. I’ve ridden some strange things and seen some strange things use...
