Columnists
I am currently reading the book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” a 2015 more-than-a-million-sold nonfiction book by Yuval Noah Harari.
The book delivers some surprising information. Delivered in no particular order, here are some facts which caught my attention: Neanderthals were “...
A friend and I spent more than an hour parked along a dark country road Tuesday night watching the aurora borealis.
When I say the show was “breathtaking,” I am not speaking only figuratively. More than once I looked at the colors in the sky and gasped, it was so impressively wondrous...
Something I like about this time of year is the personality change the sun undergoes.
Through July and August, it had the character of a domineering supervisor–someone whose gaze you would rather avoid, even if you weren’t misbehaving or breaking some kind of rule. It would glare harshly,...
You are going to question my sanity after you read this.
In order to allow my granddaughter to visit with some of her cousins, and also to visit “Fright Fest,” a spooky celebration at the Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Illinois, I drove from Grand Marais, Minnesota, where she...
Thanks to some reading I’ve been doing, I’ve come across the information that indigenous people named the “months” by what happened at the particular time of year. The Hopi of the Southwest call October the “Wind Moon.” The Ojibwe of the north call September “Changing Leaves Moon” and October “...
I recently came across a problem of semantics.
Should it be called “distracted driving” if the matter distracting me IS the driving?
I have owned my current vehicle for five years or more, but in all that time, I have never let the fuel gauge touch the “empty” mark–until the other...
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about how Farmamerica is looking for volunteers to fill various roles during the facility’s round of fall school field trips. I had the chance to speak with volunteers Ron Wood and Rita and Jerry Janish about the sense of personal fulfillment it brings them to...
I’ve mentioned before that I like going to thrift stores. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the socially responsible way to shop. Rather than contributing to the excessive trend of “out with the old, in with the new,” it’s a way to “reduce, re-use, recycle.”
As I’m sure nearly everyone has, I...
MARVELING - This is one of the thunderstorm pictures Deb Bently has taken this summer. Star Eagle photo by Deb Bently
I am transfixed by thunderstorms.
That means that this stormy summer, I have spent a fair amount of time marveling at the sky.
I acknowledge they are dangerous and that the strongest of them can do horrendous damage, but since they are an unremovable feature of nature, I am doing no...
THRILLING RIDE - One of Deb Bently's priorities for her weekend visit to Illinois was to ride the "Wrath of Rakshasa" roller coaster at Six Flags Great America. Star Eagle photo by Deb Bently
After my very enjoyable ride on an Amtrak passenger train a week ago, it wasn’t long before I was taking the ride I had been looking forward to all summer.
A roller coaster named “Wrath of Rakshasa” opened at the Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Ill. in June. I had been looking...