Most beautiful time of year

I topped Seminary Ridge one day this week and looked down Fairfield Road – through a tunnel of ice sparkling in what sunlight was making it through. It was like entering Narnia.
I think winter is potentially the most beautiful — certainly the most enrapturing — season.
Spring is beautiful, with the hillsides covered in pastels of [...]

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Thanks, y’all

Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe the climate is changing. Maybe both. Winter seemed to arrive very suddenly this year.
One day it’s a vest and short-sleeved shirt, the next it’s the L.L. Bean parka and the wool hat. Tuesday afternoon I drove through a blizzard. It was only a couple hundred yards, and it was gone [...]

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Affordable housing needed

I have attended two hearings in Harrisburg this month. Although they were before different committees, the theme was the same: People need a place to live, and some people need help finding a place that is affordable and safe.
“Affordable” is a variable term, of course. People making Big Money can afford Big Mortgages. On the [...]

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Columnizing on deadline

Sometimes things don’t go the way we propose they should, even when one has no particular plan in mind.
For instance, I am sitting here trying to make sense of my day while beside me sits a computer with two completed columns, one (the one I really intended to run today) about two-thirds done, and, well, [...]

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I’ve learned by hanging around …

One of the neat things about wondering around this whirling glob of mud as long as I have is I get to call “young lady” ladies I once had to call ma’am. And fairly often, if the moon is right, I get a hug.
One thing I learned long ago, even before I joined the U.S. [...]

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Newspapers, snow and political tradition

One of the cool things about writing in a newspaper is sometimes readers actually talk back. Sometimes, even, they are complimentary.
I wrote a story about Charles Caldwell, a World War II veteran who, it turned out, lives across the street from me. I didn’t know that before I went to talk with him about his [...]

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Reinstate the draft

Let’s establish a requirement that every able citizen contribute some dues to the organization known as The United States of America.
Joining the military is not a bad idea. I did it. I stayed 20 years. I know a lot of folks who stayed longer, and even more who stayed only a few years. Most of [...]

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Forgotten phrase

We were on our way home from a movie when granddaughter Kass, who will be 10 in a few months, said something about “colored people.” I don’t recall the rest of the comment; it was the phrase that caught my ear.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked.
I had not heard it in nearly 40 years.
“We [...]

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Time to build the world you want to live in

The day was half over when I found out school was closed for the day. A colleague came to me with the news that school was closed in Gettysburg. Who knew.
We had accumulated about an inch of dry white power during the early morning hours. I stepped outside, blew at my Jeep to clean it [...]

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It’s (political) Olympics time in the U.S. of A.

In sports and politics, there are a few who actually make it to the mountain.
In the sports Olympics, young people work hard for years with their eyes on the Gold. Skiers strengthen their legs and practice their timing, hoping some day someone will notice. One day, some of them find themselves on a mountain, competing [...]

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