I have many readers who often tell me about things they think is column material. And I appreciate their interest and input. Three tips I received this week deserve mention.
Glenn Goertz told me about an unusual lightning strike on a tree across from the middle school. I went and checked it out. Usually the tree is split apart when a bolt hits, but this baby bolt caused a thin strip of bark to be missing all of the way down one branch to the trunk to the ground.
Agnes Steinert of Hutchinson called to tell me that our word puzzle didn’t match the answers this past week. Ooops.
And Jan Amstutz told me about a 6-year-old girl who was competing in a talent show in England that has Simon Cowell as one of the judges. She sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which was really amazing. I’ll put a link to the video in my online version of “Nonsense” this week.
I’ve gotten hooked on the History Channel show “Ice Road Truckers.” It seems to be totally crazy, but also makes total sense as the only way to develop the diamond mines in the Northwest Territories.
If you haven’t seen it, the gist of it is that in a 60-day window during the winter months, trucks are able to traverse an ice road on about 60 frozen lakes from Yellowknife to the mines farther north. The goal this year was moving 10,000 loads during this time frame. The dangers are significant. It’s on Sunday nights if you wish to see it.
I’ve heard rumors around town that the Hillsboro High School All-School Reunion may be changing to a less frequent schedule. Here is one person who won’t let that happen. We can’t do it any other way except on an annual basis. Each year a class has a 50th-year anniversary, etc., and we need to bring them back and help them celebrate it. Stay tuned.
Why don’t we have a phone directory for cell phones? I tried to find one on the Web but the only way to get the number was to pay for it. The same phone companies that sell cell service also sell land lines.
I’ve become more obsessed with age lately. I always read in the newspaper the ages in the obits and the birthdays of famous people and their ages. Then it hit me—I was actually half as old as Hillsboro last week.
Now that our grandsons are getting older and bigger I came to the realization that we might need to start looking for all of the buffet options in the area to fill them up when they arrive.
The executive director of the national free-newspaper association we belong to has a 5- or 6-year-old grandson who lives about 30 miles away. He will call Grandpa and ask him to come get him, and then request that his parents not come along.
We went to hear David Basse at Botannica last Thursday night along with three other very talented musicians. Boy, they have a lot of flowers there.
Farmers are some of the best fix-it men. I remember in the old days when a press part would break at the newspaper we would take the pieces out to Karl Funk east of town and he would either fix (I guess weld) or simply fabricate a new one and we were back in business.
Karl was a big, gentle man with an easy smile who could fix practically anything.
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