'Local Foods': high-calorie memories

Written by Dale Suderman Wednesday, 19 September 2007 10:17

A whole bunch of chic city folks are now gaga about eating “local foods.” They insist most of their diet must be produced less than a hundred miles from their dinner table.

After these trendy folks eat locally for about a year, they write a book about it and fly around the country sharing their experiences in well-lighted TV studios bleating, “My food is all organic and almost no fossil fuels were used hauling it across the country to my apartment.”

I grew up eating local foods, meaning, foods produced no more than 40 yards from where they were eaten. Eggs came from the chicken house.

Milk was not just whole milk, it was also unpasteurized—the end product of hand-milking one to three cows early morning and late night. If the...

Read more: 'Local Foods': high-calorie memories

'Dumb Bomb' fallout still evident

Written by Dale Suderman Wednesday, 05 September 2007 04:35

Maybe there was a secret, second terrorist attack six years ago on 9-11. The entire United States was hit by a Dumb Bomb causing us to take leave of our senses producing irrationality, amnesia, moral blindness and a sheep-like acceptance of political absurdity.

Conspiracy theories about the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center were inevitable. All tragedies, from Pearl Harbor to the assassination of JFK, produced nonsensical explanations. But even nonsense may contain an element of truth.

The consequences of a Dumb Bomb hitting the United States helps to explain events of the past six years. The Dumb Bomb is completely different than the computer guided Smart Bombs that strike with pinpoint accuracy.

Therefore, when citizens of...

Read more: 'Dumb Bomb' fallout still evident

Hillsboro, home of 'The Simpsons'

Written by Dale Suderman Wednesday, 15 August 2007 04:25

For two decades “The Simpsons” cartoon show on the Fox network has made people laugh and groan at antics of the most dysfunctional family in America.

Homer and Marge Simpson and their three children, Bart the brat, Lisa the child genius and Maggie the pacifier-sucking infant along with Grandpa Abraham live in the mythical city of Springfield.

The creative genius of the show, Matt Groening, has been coy about where Springfield is located—even suggesting it might be Winnipeg, Man., since his father was born Canadian.

Groening has carefully recreated his own family tree in cartoon form. His real-life parents are Homer and Margaret Groening, and he has a sister Lisa.

After reconstructing the genealogy of both Matt Groening and...

Read more: Hillsboro, home of 'The Simpsons'

Travel habits have come a long way

Written by Dale Suderman Wednesday, 01 August 2007 10:33

This summer I have been pondering about the meaning of travel—while staying at home and essentially running a weekend bed and breakfast for family and friends visiting Chicago.

My great-grandparents—the Sudermans, Steltings, Harders and Fischers traveled. They bought one-way tickets on railroads and ships and traveled halfway around the world from the Ukraine to Kansas and Oklahoma in the 19th century.

Jacob Suderman paid five rubles in 1879 for a Russian passport to take his wife and nine children across the Atlantic to Philadelphia. They then boarded a train that dumped them off in Peabody, Kansas. Along the way they did not stay in a Motel 6.

After they settled south of Hillsboro, my grandfather recalled, “When our family...

Read more: Travel habits have come a long way

Rural retirement raises pros and cons

Written by Dale Suderman Wednesday, 18 July 2007 09:58

"You are going to do what?”

This is the shocked reaction of my friends when I tell them I plan to retire in Hillsboro in a little more than three years.

“You won't last a year before you get bored with watching sunsets and come blubbering back to Chicago with your tail between your legs,” they say sarcastically.

I have lived more than half my life in big cities. My first urban experience was Saigon when it was a combat zone in the 1960s. (And after Saigon, no American city has seemed that menacing.)

But increasingly I miss the sunrises and sunsets in Kansas plus the slower—and less expensive—way of life. The idea of someday talking to a Hillsboro real-estate agent and asking to be shown some fixer-up houses costing less than...

Read more: Rural retirement raises pros and cons