“Sorry, wrong number” is not a message one hears often these days, unless a local directory has listed someone’s else’s phone number in its place. While some of us still keep a landline, there are growing numbers who have reverted to only to a cell phone. A few years ago[Read More…]
Tag: Loose Ends
Loose Ends: Beans, beans and more beans!
MEEKER | This was standard fare out on the ranch or on the range, and usually included quite a few variations by using up whatever was handy in the larder. Facing our bare cupboards these days, many of us find enough fixins’ for an old Dutch oven dinner not simmered[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Learning from Max
RBC | You know things are going downhill quickly when you find yourself hiding from the dog. Everywhere we go, inside and out, he has to go too. He is suddenly needy. He isn’t used to our being inside the confines of home, all day, everyday-neither are we. Our chocolate[Read More…]
Loose Ends: A small price to pay
MEEKER | More than 100 years ago, members of this community had their own version of staying-in-place. It was called homesteading and eventually ranching. Stories passed down from the families that settled here always include the bond they felt with the people who lived the closest to them. They may[Read More…]
Guest Column: Loose Ends
MEEKER I A long time ago there was a special category of conversation called small talk. It served as a bridge to ensuring the continuance of a casual conversation. “How is the weather there?” was not a loaded question.
Loose Ends: The ties that bind
MEEKER | I never thought that the first page I would turn to in a newspaper would be the obituary page. I admit I do tend to glance at the significant dates (birth and death), so I might be accused of this tendency to assure myself, as usually I am[Read More…]
Loose Ends: The sounds of silence … loud
MEEKER | Reporting and telling someone else’s stories is an awesome responsibility. The editor of this community’s paper, Niki Turner of the Rio Blanco Herald Times, understands the importance of that. It also seems that she also understands that the word awesome seems to be put in conversation daily. Ask[Read More…]
{OPED} Loose Ends: A teacher or a writer?
MEEKER | “So, which are you, a teacher or a writer? The blunt question took me aback for a minute. I had only been teaching in this community (and anywhere else for that matter) for a couple of years. When I accepted the part-time teaching position, I was working in[Read More…]
{OPED} Loose Ends: The Real West
MEEKER | “Do you ever get over the blueness of the sky?” is a question that has been asked by more than a few visitors to our house over the years. Most of them are from another section of the country and used to seeing gunmetal grey over their heads.[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Rebuilding the bridge between cultures
MEEKER | “Where did the Indians go?” continues to be a commonly asked question from first time visitors to this area. The White River Utes were removed to a desert reservation from their homeland in 1879 after Indian Agent Nathan Meeker and the other men working with him were killed.[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Encountering the county fair
MEEKER | The county fair held in a neighboring community in my youth was an end-of-the summer tradition; and although the animal barns and educational exhibits lent it some appeal, the cotton candy, candy apples, and plethora of carnival booths were the main event. It was enough to follow my[Read More…]
Guest Column: Loose Ends
MEEKER I “Why did you move here” is not an inquiry that is often overheard in front of the post office these days. According to newcomers, though, it continues to be one of the first questions they are asked upon their arrival. With the influx of more people who are[Read More…]
