Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours. I missed the festiveness of the office since I’ve been retired for the past year. I missed the candy and all the food except I’m a bit smaller for my absence.
My sister and her family will have been here for Christmas by the time you are reading this which is a perfect segway into my small world story. My sister, when she was in her early twenties, gave piano lessons in Elkhart, IN to a boy named Tom Harder who was part of the concert given by 5 x Harder at First Mennonite church on Sunday afternoon December 22. I asked her how she could remember it was him, and she said that she thought he was talented and that is why she could remember him. Based on the concert given this past Sunday, he is definitely talented. Our families go back much further than this. Our moms were the best of friends growing up in Mt. Lake, MN. Tom’s dad, Leland, grew up in Hillsboro and was a classmate of my mother-in-law. I printed a book for Leland plus he wrote a column for the Free Press in the early years called Life & Times.
Nancy told me I was ahead of my time when I put my seatbelt through her purse strap. There was a shopping safety segment on TV that suggested this as a theft deterrent.
I tried to write this column this week and last using the dictation feature of my iMac. The built-in mic didn’t pick my voice up very well. Then I met Kevin Hower at Rhubarb Market on a Saturday and told him what I had been up to. He offered to go home and get a headset that he thought might work better. I thought it might be working better at first but then I still couldn’t make sense of it. My wife cleaned this text up so I am grateful for her help. Maybe I just need to give this up or run a wire to my brain and my thoughts will fill in the template.
The best ticket in town Tuesday night, Dec. 17, was the HHS girls and boys basketball teams’ games where they both lit up the scoreboard all night long and it was a running clock the entire fourth quarter in both games.
The best of the NFL season is upon us. Will Mahomes take the Chiefs to the promised land? n This hot shot door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman tells this woman that he can cut her cleaning time in half if she would buy one of his machines. The astute woman ponders his offer for just a second and says, “I will take two.”
If you wish to share your comments or ideas, e-mail joel@hillsborofreepress.com
