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Our Winter Game: The Mouse, The House

Field mice like loose houses. Every autumn, they squeeze through the gaps in the plank walls of our farmhouse, which was probably built before the Civil War. Inside, the mice find shelter in the ancient crawl space attic and also between the lath-and-plaster ceilings and the (relatively) newer dropped, tiled ceilings. It’s a pretty good life for the mice, good enough to entice them to breed more mice. I do my best to see that each mouse’s good life ends with one bad day. So far this season, 14 of them have had those bad days. It might be perverse to keep track of the number ...

Numbers Add Up For ‘Child-Side’ Tax Policies

A weary America is suffering through the worst public health crisis in more than a century. COVID-19 has taken over 300,000 lives. Parts of the economy have effectively shut down, throwing millions out of work and bankrupting businesses large and small. In the richest country in the world, Thanksgiving dinner for tens of thousands came from food banks at the end of traffic jams stretching for miles. Now for the good news. Vaccines have arrived sooner than anybody could have expected. The latest pandemic relief bill should keep a double-dip recession from setting in. Lastly-if a divided ...

The Politics Of The Middle

During this past political campaign there was a lot hysteria going around about “Democratic Socialists” and “Right-wing Extremism,” as if both the extremes of the right and the left were becoming a huge threat to the Nation. In my view, such fears, though real, should not be overblown. The truth of our politics is that those legislators who are in “marginal” or “swing” districts, will continue to be the prime movers in how the country moves politically, and they are in the middle. Take for example, the current House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in ...

Christmas Parking: No Free Lunches

Who can argue against “free” stuff? I will. My current hometown of Brookville has OK’d placing green canvas bags over the parking meters along Main Street, giving users of a few hundred angled-in spaces “free” parking during the Christmas shopping season. That’s nice — if you do not care about finding open parking spaces near where you intend to shop. For as far back as I can remember, the merchants in downtown areas of Brookville, DuBois and Warren, my towns of residence during the past half-century, have asked for free parking during the shopping season. And ...

Staying Mindful In Uncertain Times Is Beneficial

With the current state of the world, you may find yourself missing the way things used to be or wondering what things will look like in the future. Thinking of the past or of the future is normal, even when there isn’t a global pandemic going on. However, if you find yourself dwelling on these thoughts or feeling like you are spiraling, there are things you can do to focus on the present. According to the dictionary, mindfulness is the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. For the purpose of this article, we can think of mindfulness as being aware of the present ...

Protect The DuBois Area From More Floods

I have not lived in or near DuBois for 18 years, but I was delighted by last week’s news that the city has received a $710,000 grant to modernize the flood control measures that were first put in in 1972, almost a half-century ago. During my 13 years in the DuBois area, the basement of our house along the Pentz Run creek just south of the city limits flooded twice, both times in 1996. In January, we heeded the advice of experienced neighbor Joe Woods. We pulled our sump pumps when the water outside our house covered the yard along three sides. Trying to keep a basement water-free ...