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In 1960 author John Steinbeck traveled across country in a customized camper with his poodle Charley.He wanted to meet people and get a sense of the…
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Politics is a game. It seems that way because there are winners and losers -- and rules.At least that's what I thought in 1972. I was a young reporter…
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I am beginning to realize something.That ... in the end, you find yourself throwing away the beginning. I am going through boxes that were stored and…
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Many times, over my lifetime, I have been a bum. Well, actually I think the word my Dad used was "hobo."It was the perfect costume for Halloween -- a…
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Life. What's it all about?This question steamrolls over me now and then.Alan Watts in his 1951 essay on finding meaning in reality said: “If the universe…
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The mayor of Nagasaki, Japan, has made a plea to the world, including his own government.And to all communities in Illinois.He wants us to remember what…
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There’s love in the air.I see it every night in my backyard — surrounded by pulsing, blinking lights.Ahh, the splendor of the Lampyridae. Better known as…
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I had trouble digesting history classes in high school.I had no appetite for massive platefuls of dates and names … a chronology of events that I was…
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I love words. But sometimes this romance is a curse.I am not a word expert. But I should be.I read and write. A lot. Oh, and I’m a journalist.Words are my…
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I open my mailbox with a cleaning wipe.I wipe down the mail and then smother my hands with sanitizer.Welcome to my new normal — being abnormal … during…