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Two Books To Read For Fall

I recently received two books to review, one featuring a dog, and one a cat, both published by St. Martin's Press.The first is a paperback, selling for $7.99, entitled "Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything," by Nancy Martin. It's a cozy, with the body safely and bloodlessly disposed of before the book begins. Wealthy Honeybelle Hensley has died, and, while she is leaving some of her money to family members, there's a catch. No funds will be distributed for an entire year, and even then, it's based on how well Miss Ruffles is treated during that year.Miss Ruffles is Honeybelle's dog, ...

Editor’s Note

There's a lot to worry about as a parent. It's never what's happening to you as a result of your actions, but what's happening to your children because of them. You just don't want to mess them up.I can probably write a topic a week about this. But for now, I'm going to focus on sports.Full disclosure: If I could redo my childhood I'd tell my parents that I want to play hockey. I played soccer and baseball from the time I could run until I was 18; my soccer career officially ended after one year of college.I love everything about hockey. Before my sons were ever born, I knew I wanted to ...

Preserving The Past Amid High Taxes

My neighbor's house is an old queen. She sits back from the street atop a small slope, surveying the passage of time with her steady eye - a grand dame who has seen it all but will never relinquish her crown.I love her wide hallways and old floors. I love her porch because it is overly generous and is everything a good porch should be.And one of the stories I love most about that house is the man who came to paint it one day. Like any good wooden thing that sits near a lake it came to need a fresh coat, and luckily for the house the man who came to paint it first tried to understand ...

Busy Jamestown Mom Is Catching Up On Missed Time In The Kitchen

Tonya Taber of Jamestown may not have had a lot of cooking experience as she was growing up, but once she got started there was no holding her back."I didn't cook much when I was growing up, but I did bake pies and cakes when I was seven," she says. "I pretty much lived with my grandmother on weekends and school holidays. She was always baking pies - peach, apple, berry, coconut cream and banana cream. There were always big family dinners on Sundays, so she was always baking pies. She would have me help whether it was measuring, rolling or making thumbprints filled with jam from the ...

Early Commercial Travelers

Many fraternal organizations began during the last half of the 1800s. The Masons and the Oddfellows had earlier beginnings. These organizations usually began when a group of men saw a need within their circle of friends. Many were patterned after the Masonic orders with degrees, rituals and, of course, rules and regulations.The Grange is one organization that included women in the organization on an equal basis. Some lodges had auxiliaries for the women, but many were exclusively for male members. Each organization was composed of local, state and national levels of meetings, officers ...

The Rule Of Thirds, Dynamic Symmetry And Other Tools

Welcome to another edition of Let's Talk Photography! As we move from one topic to the next, you'll find me bouncing between basic camera information for beginners and more advanced topics for those of us "photo nerds" out there. I want to maintain interest for as many photo enthusiasts as possible. This topic, however, applies to everyone and it deals with composing your photograph to make it more interesting.Composition is important in that it gives your photograph life. You never look at the world centered directly in front of you and you should take that into consideration when ...