Forty years ago today, I helped celebrate my girlfriend Amy’s 26th birthday over lunch at a circular restaurant at Famous Barr department store in Southern Illinois near St Louis, MO, with a proposal of marriage. The circular dining table under a sun-filled dome was a special, private spot in the dining area on the top
Ironically, the news that Starbucks is stopping the sale of newspapers at its coffee shops hit the streets on one of the national papers that the chain will stop selling on Sept. 1: The New York Times. The Seattle-based chain says papers aren’t big-enough sellers in their shops so The Times, The Wall Street Journal,
A friend who transplanted from life in the Midwest to Floyd County in retirement a few years ago says he and his wife would have found another place if the weather here would have been as humid when they first visited 13 years ago. I spent my high school years in Floyd County from 1961-65
The current “first lady” of the United States began her modeling career posing nude for those willing to pay. Donald Trump’s relationship with his daughter also raises serious questions.
We have celebrated America’s Independence Day in many places, including the National Mall in Washington during our 23 years living and working in the nation’s capital. We’ve witnessed, photographed and filmed fireworks shows in Manhattan, Washington, St. Louis, Los Angeles, the Mountains of New Mexico, at home here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
Bruce L. Patchen of Seattle, Washington, served in the Army for more than 20 years. He was a proud veteran who served his country. Pride, however, is not what he feels about America today. He wrote in the Seattle Times: I was a medic in Vietnam who held brave, dying soldiers on the battlefield. I
Genetics, we are told, provides much of that we might or might not face in health issues during our lives. If our parents or grandparents suffered cancer-related issues, for example, we might face the same fate, particularly later in life. My father died in an industrial accident at age 29, which I was nine months
Better top off the gas tanks on all of your vehicles this weekend because prices go up 7.6 cents a gallon at midnight Sunday to “help pay for improvements” under a state funding program along the Interstate 81 corridor. That gas that costs 2.39.9 cents a gallon for regular will cost at least 2.47.5 cents
Lots of anger flowed into my email inbox and out of a discussion group on Facebook this past weekend over what some claimed was the “banning” of abortions in Floyd County by the Board of Supervisors. Emails spurred by the debate on social media this past weekend demanded to know why I “hid the fact”
Friday was a depressing, tense day after learning that an old friend from my political operative days killed himself. He left Washington a bitter man and quit the Republican party over its descent into right-wing zealotry and the election of our current president. Suicides are on the increase in America. In 2016, suicide among veterans
