Aren’t sports meant to be played on natural turf? That’s what I thought when I first heard Mount Union College (now University) was trading in its natural grass for an artificial field in the summer of 2002. It wasn’t until after I investigated this new breed of synthetic turf that my ...

It’s been said that age is just a number. If you want evidence of that, look no further than the timeless Willie Nelson. As readers who regularly follow this column will know, my husband, Mike, and I often attend concerts as our form of getting away from it all. We did so again on ...

There are events in our lives we remember clearly. I was in junior high shop class when I heard President John F. Kennedy was shot and died. I was in Chicago on a job site when the engineer, Alan, drove up and with his southern accent said, “You need to call your mama right away.” Mom told ...

Last week I read a good column on the value of a tree — commercially (wood or fruit), beauty, shade in summer, fun like a tire swing or tree house and ecological benefits including taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and producing oxygen. Foreign visitors are amazed by the number of trees we ...

I recently took my annual “staycation” — an opportunity to spend a few days at home with my husband, Mike, working on every project we can come up with. We managed to do a little better at relaxing this time around. Rather than spending all of our time off from work performing manual ...

Traditional comedy has always been based on situations that all of us face during our daily affairs at home, work and play. We need to return to such humanistic humor. The problem with some segments of society today is taking humor too seriously, feeling offended. Laughter is important to our ...