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Have the courage for an open honest discussion

Recently I made a new friend in California, I’ll call her Mary. She was looking for the answer to a question and one of my articles in the News and Sentinel on the topic showed up. That led to an email dialog and ultimately a Zoom call. I don’t believe in labels when it comes to people. People are complex. They can be liberal on social issues and conservative on financial issues etc. We shouldn’t generalize about any religion, race, gender or ethnic group. Mary and I probably disagree on a number of issues because of our backgrounds. We both consider ourselves environmentalists. ...

Leadership and influence solve problems

In October 15 years ago, my daughter, Dannielle who lives in Maryland called, “Dad, I signed you up for the half at Virginia Beach on St. Patrick’s Day. Half what Dannielle? I asked. “Half Marathon. It’s only 13.1 miles. I can’t run that far.” I protested. “Sure, you can.” Then she hung up. I ran, but then a long run was 3 miles. At Christmas Dannielle gave me a watch to time my runs and a training schedule starting at 3 miles. Every Saturday she scheduled a long run. I called her after the long runs to report how I did. I became accountable to her. Two weeks before the ...

Persistence, porches and preening parents

It’s time for “Round 3.” That’s right — those crazy, love struck doves are back in my potted plant incubating their third set of two eggs right there on our front porch. I must admit that I’m quite surprised that they have decided my spider plant is the best place in Belmont to raise a family. When they first nested there, I did a little research and learned that they sometimes do return to a nest where they had success. So, after the first two babies disappeared rather quickly, I wasn’t stunned to see the parents come back a few days later. That second set of chicks ...

The untimely demise of a backyard garden

Those of you who read this column on a regular basis likely have noticed that tales of my garden have been conspicuously absent from this space this spring and summer. There’s a good reason for that — actually, it’s more like eight or 10 reasons. Everything got off to a great start this year. My husband, Mike, and I with some help from my brother, Larry, got things ready to go early in the season. And I wrote about it when my eye doctor, Doug Huff of Barnesville, presented me with a gift of dozens of tiny lettuce plants to get us started. As he urged, I planted them in April and ...

Don’t just talk, take action toward change

As a young engineer, one of the engineers I worked under occasionally was Allen, a senior engineer in the Chicago area. Allen was from Alabama. He said what he thought. We hadn’t seen each other for months. As soon as Allen saw me he said, “I declare. Greg, I believe you’re getting fat like a hog!” The truth hurt. I had gained weight from eating deserts and two to three doughnuts midmorning when I was in the office. My exercise was playing with the kids and our dog. I traveled a lot and ate mostly fast food on the road. Our office was three blocks from the post office. One ...

Remember that we are better off together

If we learn from history we can avoid the mistakes of others. Our pastor is from India. He was telling me about the history of India and British colonial rule. India is a large and highly populated country. It’s remarkable the British could take control. From 1757 the British East India Company controlled India. In 1857 the Hindus and Muslims united in the Great Mutiny. The British put it down but it shocked them so much they instituted a divide and conquer policy to weaken India and maintain control. In 1858 India became a Crown colony until 1947. The British divided the country ...