Happy New Year! It’s my favorite holiday. I love the sense of optimism that comes with opening a new calendar, brushing off the dust from the last 12 months and welcoming a new one. Whether you make New Year’s resolutions or not, it’s a good time for introspection and setting[Read More…]
Columns
EDITOR’S COLUMN: Merry Christmas
Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.” ~ Oren Arnold As most prepare to take time off over the weekend to celebrate the holiday, let’s[Read More…]
Wildfire victims–one year later
As we turn the calendar to 2023, my emotions return to the Boulder/Marshall wildfire of Dec. 31, 2022, that destroyed 1000 homes in minutes. Living in western USA, we all know wildfire is a threat around the clock and even in urban areas. As victims of this fire face their[Read More…]
‘Have yourself a merry!’
If you say that to anyone during any other season, you might get some puzzled looks. I don’t know the specific origin of the word, but happy takes precedence with so many other holidays. I am assuming with the traditional gifting of cards depicting all the wonderfully celebratory activities celebrated[Read More…]
Guest Column: RED
I would like to tell you of my favorite color, RED. You may have a different color in mind. Maybe you chose that color based the clothes you look best in, or perhaps a color that reminds of you of a favorite flower. I would like you to take a[Read More…]
EDITOR’S COLUMN: Good deeds
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. ~ William Shakespeare The best thing about this time of year isn’t the gifts or the decorations or the obligatory holiday parties (definitely not the best part). It’s certainly not the media hyperbole[Read More…]
Guest Column: Thank you, voters
To the voters of Colorado’s 8th State Senate District: thank you. Last month, tens of thousands of voters across Central and Northwest Colorado filled out their ballots with our state’s future in mind, and I am honored to have earned your trust to serve as your next State Senator. Whether[Read More…]
Guest Column: TSA
This holiday season, you may be crisscrossing the country by air. Rules change constantly, so my wife Tracy checked the latest and greatest TSA rules for what we could pack. She was reading some of the more bizarre items to me. I thought they would make a good laugh at[Read More…]
LOOSE ENDS: Hurried holidays
Time feels as if it is speeding up. It is common knowledge that this general feeling, of being behind before one has even started, takes over as one ages. Unfortunately after the lengthy siege of various forms of the pandemic, the off-balance feeling that one gets that time is snapping[Read More…]
EDITOR’S COLUMN: The words of 2022
The word “gaslighting” had a 1,740% increase in lookups in 2022, prompting the folks at Merriam-Webster Dictionary to officially deem it the “word of the year.” Gaslighting is defined as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” It stems from a 1938 movie called[Read More…]
Remembering Mike
Family man, loyal friend, and active community member are only a few of the words describing our community’s most recent loss of a good man. Mike Cook has always been a man behind the scenes in the community, offering his help to family, friends, and many strangers in his longtime[Read More…]
Christmas movies
As you have gathered from some of my other stories, much of my life has been influenced by movies. Seen on either TV repeats, VHS tapes, or now the almost extinct DVD. Tracy and I have most of the Star Wars character lines memorized. An off-hand comment often triggers a[Read More…]
