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Wife Lives Earthly Life Extraordinarily Well

Today’s Thanksgiving column, which first ran in 2021, has excerpts from my 2021 eulogy for Mrs. Elf and is in thankfulness for our marriage: ♦♦♦ Once when you, My HilaryLove, came to visit, you shared strategy for five-card draw. Including this: When you have nothing in your hand, keep your highest card and draw four. So for one hand, I drew four. You drew one card and had a straight. I had four kings. In utter astonishment, you said, “But you drew four cards.” Yes, you dealt me one king, and I drew three. ♦♦♦ In the way that brings everyone here ...

May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You!

Next week we celebrate Thanksgiving. At this point I have no plans but it will all come together. How Thanksgiving has changed down through the years. We used to go to Grandma Swanson’s but when she no longer could do it, we went to my sister-in-law’s. I always worked right up through Wednesday, so I had little time to prepare. One year we had a Peterson reunion. That year I had Dick’s cousin, his wife, and two children at my house. I made pies. Of course, I used lard for the crust. Laurie wondered how I got it so flaky. I hesitated to tell her it was the lard. I even made some ...

The Latest On The Bridge

Every day I go over the Chautauqua Lake Bridge at least two or three times. You can see that a lot is going on there, and good weather has obviously helped construction activities move along. Last week, as I entered the expressway and bridge eastbound at Stow—I followed a huge semi-truck hauling what looked like something you would see in the oil or gas fields. It was a combination of pumps, holding tanks, pipes, hoses and gadgets of all kinds. It slowed down and pulled over into the construction area on the south side of the bridge. Apparently, it is a sophisticated sand-blasting ...

Responding To Pre-, Post-Election Rhetoric

Before the election, I wrote on Facebook, “Even if you have been called a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, transphobe, xenophobe, Islamophobe, misogynist, white Christian nationalist, cultist, fascist, NAZI, and every other kind of insulting pejorative, put down, and label including garbage, deplorable, bitter clinger , and anti-American (by our governor in NY), yet may you and I be gracious in losing, humble in winning and always praying.” Facebook friend Rob replied, “I’m trying, boss, I’m trying.’” Melanie, a seminary classmate, said, “This is my prayer” ...

Adding Diversity To Business Ownership

The American Dream for many people means starting a business and working for themselves. That’s a good thing because small businesses form the backbone of our economy. According to recent statistics from the U.S. Small Business Administration, 99.9% of American businesses are small and employ 45.9% of American workers, or about 59 million people. Small businesses have accounted for 65.3 percent of net new job creation. There are 34,752,434 small businesses in the U.S. compared to 19,688 large businesses. In fact, most of the biggest of big companies started as small ...

Reasons To Pay More For EVs

Who wants to buy a dozen doughnuts and throw 9 of them in the trash before they leave the store? That is about what you’re doing when buying gasoline for your car. Americans spend $179 on gasoline each month on average. That adds up to $2,148 a year. What makes this even worse, according to the Department of Energy, is that only 12-21% of the energy you paid $2000 for is used to move your car. The rest is lost in waste heat from the engine and out the exhaust (that’s why you have a radiator, muffler, and tailpipe). Think of that next time you are filling up at $3.70 per gallon. ...