2012-05-20 22:43:00
JOHN CASSIDY
The man walked into the bedroom, his eyes taking everything in, and he frowned.
He was heartsick, almost despondent. From the expression on his face, it appeared that his life was crashing down around him.
"It's not a very big master bedroom," he said, or something to that effect.......
2012-05-13 20:15:00
JANE HOLAHAN
The story you are about to read is true. Sure, it took place a long time ago, and maybe I was a little slow on the uptake, but it really did happen this way.
The summer I turned 5 the house next door was being torn down. It was an old Pittsburgh mansion, and four town houses w......
2012-05-10 15:16:00
BY KATHLEEN DAMINGER
Music Goes 'Beyond' ... Saturday
The music that concert-goers enjoy at Neffsville Mennonite Church Saturday night will resound much farther than the walls of the venue. Beyond Ourselves and the Lancaster-based choral group Voices of Cecilia will join forces in a Reaching Out Through Music......
2012-05-06 19:47:00
JON FERGUSON
I should be dead.
That's the conclusion I've come to after a mental review of some of the stupid things I've done during my years on this planet.
Unlike those brave Marines rushing toward danger, I've always sort of stumbled into death-defying situations by acting like a knucklehe......
2012-04-29 19:34:00
CINDY STAUFFER
My back aches, my hands are filthy, an angry-looking blister is swelling up between my pointer and my thumb, and it is starting to rain — no maybe sleet, no maybe hail.
I stand with my hands on the hips of my mud-streaked jeans, staring at my front yard. A stick, which I will d......
2012-04-22 18:04:00
AD CRABLE
You've heard about seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, in which people get down in the dumps every winter as the days get shorter? Sometimes people get depressed in the summertime as daylight lengthens.
I'm the anti-SAD.
The approach of each new season lifts my spirits. I g......
2012-04-15 21:57:00
DAN NEPHIN
Depending on when you're reading this, I'll either be preparing for, or running, the Boston Marathon.
And if you've lollygagged and it's midafternoon or evening, I'll likely be done and be about the important work of replacing lost carbohydrates. (Barring unforeseen circumstances. More on......
2012-04-08 19:43:00
RYAN ROBINSON
I don't know how many channels I get on television nowadays.
With cable, I thought it was 40 or 50, but every once in a while my finger errs on the remote and some channel like 175 pops up that I didn't know about.
It doesn't matter — few channels offer anything worthwhile t......
2012-04-01 19:53:00
JEN KOPF
Oh, rabbit hole of the Internet, how I love you.
There are 318 people out there who know how much I overly adore Facebook. Nearly 85 know more than they ever needed (or, probably, wanted) to know about my personal taste, via Pinterest.
(None of you knows what I'm thinking minute t......
2012-03-29 16:11:00
JANE HOLAHAN and KATHLEEN DAMINGER
Casting Crowns ... Friday
It's a long way from youth pastor to Grammy Award winner, but not for Mark Hall. Hall is the founder of Grammy and Dove Award-winning Christian rock band, Casting Crowns, performing Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Giant Center. What Hall began in 1999 as part of a you......
2012-03-25 21:16:00
PETE MEKEEL
Help, I'm shrinking.
Bad science fiction? Nope. Bad reality.
For my entire adult life, I have been 6 feet tall.
Exactly.
Anytime I've been measured by anybody anywhere for anything I've been 72 inches.
Precisely.
It's been a reliable constant, like ......
2012-03-18 16:39:00
TOM MURSE
You can't outrun your past.
It has a way of tiptoeing quietly in from the cold and dark long-ago, sidling up close and tapping you on the shoulder while whispering in its intimidating gravelly voice: "Psst. Remember me?"
(Yes, for some reason, the voice of my past is that of tough......
2012-03-11 21:04:00
JOHN CASSIDY
Let me say first that I love minor league baseball, from the Lancaster Barnstormers to the Reading Phillies to the Harrisburg Senators. (I'm not so sure about the York Revolution; they're a little sketchy.)
And I believe these organizations do a wonderful job of making the games enjoyable......
2012-03-04 21:10:00
JANE HOLAHAN
We live in a crowded world. And in the 50-odd years I've been living here, it's gotten more and more crowded. Just how much became evident a few weeks ago, when my boyfriend, Michael, and I took a trip to Washington, D.C.
It was going to be a quick trip. We'd see a play at American U......
2012-02-26 17:10:00
AD CRABLE
I like smells.
I'm not talking just about catching the intoxicating smell of honeysuckle or an arresting woman's perfume or the appetite-goosing aroma of a turkey basting in the oven.
I'm talking also about smells that drive my world of memories, emotions — even food choices......
2012-02-23 15:23:00
JANE HOLAHAN
From the moment Randall Frizado began organizing the Ware Center's Cabaret in the Sky series, he's wanted to do the cabaret that will be held Friday evening.
No, Frizado isn't singing and no, it's not based on a certain composer or style of music.
What Frizado has wanted to do fro......
2012-02-19 20:02:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I am the 5 percent.
I recently joined the 5 percent of workers — 6.8 million of us in the last year alone — who hold down more than one job in this country, according to federal statistics.
After my oldest child went off to college, I got a part-time job working in ret......
2012-02-12 20:23:00
JON FERGUSON
A high school English teacher once asked me: Can you know good without knowing evil?
A fair question, I always thought. As well as raising an interesting philosophical issue, it seemed to open the door to licentious behavior that might otherwise be frowned upon.
I think my mother ......
2012-02-05 19:44:00
DAN NEPHIN
After more than two decades away, I find myself back in Lancaster County, where I spent most of my childhood.
The opportunity to work at this newspaper drew me back. And being back "home" has stirred a tumble of feelings about just what that word means.
They say you can never go h......
2012-01-29 16:47:00
RYAN ROBINSON
Three years ago, I predicted it was only a matter of time before I would lose the Great Pet Debate in my household.
The kids yearned for a dog like a puppy covets shoes to chew.
Daddy wanted no more on his plate with a third child on the way.
Tie-breaking-voter Mommy sided......
2012-01-22 19:48:00
JEN KOPF
First comes the olive oil, I think to myself, splashing a little extra into the Dutch oven on my stove.
Since I splurged this summer on a really good chef's knife, the next part is pure pleasure: chopping up several onions, the carrots, the green and red peppers, the jalapeno, thwac......
2012-01-15 16:27:00
PETE MEKEEL
It was a fabulous evening, full of dancing and laughing and hugging and toasting.
But as the wedding reception rolled on, I found myself thinking more and more about something much less festive.
Peeing.
When you can't see, a basic trip to the men's room in a strange place ......
2012-01-01 19:30:00
AD CRABLE
Sometimes it's the smallest of things that can make your day.
As an after-church treat, we headed to a late breakfast at Friendly's restaurant on Route 30 East.
After the five of us had piled into a booth, a young waitress appeared. She was smiling, and, right off the bat, her ple......
2011-12-25 20:03:00
JANE HOLAHAN
In this very crowded holiday season, we are moving from Christmas (hope you had a good one) on to New Year's Eve.
I am skipping Boxing Day, which is Monday, because, well, does anyone know what Boxing Day is about?
Apparently, it's some sort of shopping holiday in the British Isle......
2011-12-18 17:26:00
JOHN CASSIDY
I was reminded recently that this is the season of giving, and it got me thinking about an incident from my childhood.
It was about 30 years ago, and my dad was driving us through a troubled neighborhood in North Philadelphia when the car slowed to a stop.
He turned to me, told me......
2011-12-11 16:27:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I was in a hurry, I had ink all over my hands and I was irritated.
That's why I almost rushed past the scene unfolding in the discount store on a Sunday afternoon.
I was there because our computer's printer cartridges had run dry as I was happily preparing to decorate the family C......
2011-12-08 20:46:00
JOHN CASSIDY
Perhaps you've read a movie review and wondered: "Was that written by a 2-month-old child?"
After reading this column, you can say: "Yes."
Soon after our newborn son, Cooper, arrived home from the hospital, my older son and my wife came down with ferocious colds.
Being tha......
2011-12-08 15:04:00
KATHLEEN DAMINGER
Ice Imagination ... Saturday
"We can fly, we can fly, we can fly" -- across the ice, that is! That will be the theme on Saturday, when the Red Rose Figure Skating Club presents "Peter Pan on Ice" at 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. at the Lancaster Ice Rink, 371 Carerra Drive. The production, which sho......
2011-12-05 13:09:00
correspondent
The Christmas story will be told through a live nativity and music at 7 p.m. Dec. 14 at Garden Spot Village's Chapel, 433 S. Kinzer Ave., New Holland.
Residents, staff members and their families will portray the timeless story of Christ's birth accompanied by the Village V......
2011-12-04 20:56:00
JON FERGUSON
Encores annoy me.
Let me clarify that.
I normally enjoy the music artists perform during their encores; it's the ridiculous ritual preceding them that makes my eyes roll.
As anybody who has attended more than a handful of concerts knows, encores are a scripted part of the ......
2011-11-27 17:30:00
RYAN ROBINSON
My parents told me as a boy that if I worked hard, I could be anything I wanted.
I just turned 40 and am growing more out than up these days, so let's see if they were right.
Despite throwing about 20 million balls against our front steps as a kid, I never got a call from the Phil......
2011-11-25 17:27:00
JOHN CASSIDY
The night before my son was released from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Women & Babies Hospital, I purchased soft pretzels for the staff there.
These weren't just any soft pretzels. They were from Philly Pretzel Factory in Lititz, which makes some of the best pretzels of any ent......
2011-11-13 19:16:00
PETE MEKEEL
It happened at my grandparents' home on a Thanksgiving many years ago.
In the dining room, family and friends gathered at the table.
In the kitchen, Gramps was carefully removing a spectacular, 24-pound turkey from the oven while Nana stood by clutching a platter the size of a man......
2011-11-06 19:33:00
TOM MURSE
This week we are going to explore one of the most pressing and complex issues of our time, a confounding matter of such public import that, frankly, my editors should have placed this column at the very top of Page 1.
But never mind that.
Without further ado, here is the Question ......
2011-10-30 16:15:00
JANE HOLAHAN
Yo, Happy Halloween.
Tonight is trick-or-treat night, which means an unusually large number of princesses and ninjas will be seen walking the darkened streets of Lancaster County, threatening to trick people unless they get some candy.
Despite this ominous threat — what does......
2011-10-24 00:01:00
AD CRABLE
Off came the decals. Yellowstone National Park; Walton's Mountain; West Virginia University; Friuli, a region of Italy where my wife's family still has a homestead.
Places and memories that were important to me, defined me, now being peeled off like scabs.
I hated doing it. I hate......
2011-10-16 20:33:00
CINDY STAUFFER
Frittering.
That's what I do best.
Sure, I have noble intentions. And a very detailed to-do list, with lots of exclamation points and CAPITAL LETTERS!
But, hey, life is busy. Stuff gets in the way.
Renew my driver's license? I keep meaning to, but I have a lot of o......
2011-10-09 19:28:00
JON FERGUSON
There's a wonderful statue of Albert Einstein in Washington, D.C.
Though it's near the National Mall, not far from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the statue is not in plain sight.
My wife and I and our two daughters stumbled upon it by accident years ago.
Nestled in a grov......
2011-10-03 11:54:00
CAROLE DECK
Saturday evening, members of the New Holland Area Historical Society will host a tour of two area cemeteries, providing the history behind some of the names on memorials there. "Voices from the Past" will provide residents with a link to days gone by with stories of the more familiar and rec......
2011-10-02 20:01:00
JEN KOPF
The trainees in question — some of them, anyway — are trying very hard to pay attention. But the smells! The toys! The rumble of trucks' Jake Brakes sputtering by behind the Farm & Home Center on Route 283!
It's all so distracting.
The trainees' job, though, i......
2011-09-25 21:47:00
RYAN ROBINSON
The Phillies have made the postseason for a glorious fifth year in a row and have a good chance to go all the way.
The early NFL season demands attention, and missing a televised game featuring my Penn State Nittany Lions would be downright sacrilegious.
That's my perspective, not......
2011-09-18 21:51:00
PETE MEKEEL
It was the middle of the night.
The house was relatively dark, except for the soft glow from a small lamp.
And relatively quiet, except for the sporadic belching and wheezing of an aging fridge.
And relatively pleasant, except for a faint yet distinctive odor that lingered......
2011-09-11 16:08:00
JOHN CASSIDY
My son's hands were clenched, shaking, an alarming blend of red and purple.
I could see Jake through the glass window of the nursery at Women & Babies Hospital, and I noticed that most of the other babies were calm or slumbering, though a few seemed to be perturbed.
I circled ......
2011-09-04 15:38:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I realize I don't understand the complexity of traffic or the challenges of making traffic flow in a city.
But it's driving me crazy seeing all the effort out there to calm me down.
Perhaps you've heard of "traffic calming," which is designed to slow traffic. Lancaster city seems ......
2011-08-28 16:17:00
AD CRABLE
Death has settled on the Crable family lately.
Seven weeks ago, I buried my 97-year-old grandmother, the last Crable in Paris, Ill.
On Aug. 22, her only son, my father, was laid to rest on a hillside overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains on an afternoon so glorious that I couldn't ......
2011-08-21 21:47:00
CINDY STAUFFER
It's been a long, complicated summer, kid. There have been war and peace, late nights hanging together on the sofa and anxious early mornings staring alone into the darkness, moments of laughter and flashes of white-hot anger. Living is like licking honey from a thorn, writer Louis Adam......
2011-08-14 20:34:00
JON FERGUSON
My expectations were absurdly high when we visited Stephen King's house in Bangor, Maine, last month.
I wanted more than to stand on the sidewalk and stare at the spiders, bats and dragon woven into the wrought-iron fence that encircles his handsome home.
I wanted more than to hav......
2011-08-07 20:27:00
JEN KOPF
It's become fashionable in certain circles to ridicule the axiom "it takes a village to raise a child," to argue that this attitude lets parents "off the hook" for raising their offspring.
And sure, you can tackle the task without a village — but, my lord, that makes it harder.
......
2011-07-31 22:34:00
RYAN ROBINSON
"La-La, La-La, La-La Da-Da."
My 2-year-old is singing again while I'm trying to put her down for a nap.
"La-La, La-La, La-La Mom-Ma."
Riley knows the tune to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" but not the words. Her lyrics are truncated names of family members and a lot o......
2011-07-24 19:50:00
TOM MURSE
Mark lube a steady sinner?
Arch roof a tad thinner?
Heart tooth stealthy winner?
I couldn't quite make it out.
I was sitting there, reading a trashy crime novel on the couch, when suddenly I heard a faint murmur coming from over my should......
2011-07-17 20:00:00
PETE MEKEEL
Dozed off during a meeting once. Not one of my finer moments.
I was listening intently — really, I was — as a superior droned on about something or other here at the newspaper a few years back. Then it happened.
My eyes got heavy. Fluttered shut. Stayed shut. ......
2011-07-10 17:06:00
JANE HOLAHAN
Next week, I will turn 52.
Don't bother to wish me a happy birthday. When you turn 52, "happy" and "birthday" don't go together all that well.
Truly, it feels as if I just turned 22 last July. OK, I exaggerate. But 32 for sure.
Fifty-two is the age presidents are, or sages......
2011-07-03 16:56:00
AD CRABLE
I've started running again.
My motivation is simple and vain — I don't want to be embarrassed in a swim suit for eight days on Mexico's Riviera Maya.
My oldest daughter and her husband will be along on part of the vacation and I've put on quite a spare tire since we were tog......
2011-06-26 19:44:00
CINDY STAUFFER
Summer is ...
It is "Pomp and Circumstance" played by a school band. It is the can-you-believe-it grin coming from beneath the mortarboard of a freshly minted graduate.
It is an empty school parking lot.
It is a neighbor kid wearing nothing but a red Kool-Aid mustache and ......
2011-06-23 16:18:00
JON FERGUSON
Both music and writing have played important roles in Jessica Smucker's life, but for the longest time the singer-songwriter didn't think it possible to join the two.
As a child, the graduate of Lancaster Mennonite High School took piano lessons and sang enough around the house for it to ......
2011-06-19 20:48:00
JON FERGUSON
Best summer job I ever had was driving an ice cream truck.
I don't remember the make of the truck, but it was big and white with a stick shift and squeaky brakes. It had a huge window with a shelf on the driver's side, the better to hand out Push-ups, Popsicles, fudgesicles, ice cream san......
2011-06-12 20:17:00
RYAN ROBINSON
My wife and I recently took her mother and our three children on what I've been calling our "once-in-a-lifetime" trip to Walt Disney World.
My kids got big Disney "1st Visit!" buttons there, but they should have said "1st and Last Visit."
I've got nothing against Mickey Mous......
2011-06-05 19:20:00
JEN KOPF
The encounter left me sleepless, tossing and turning and wondering if there was something else I could have said, should have said.
Something tells me the other woman had no such worries, no self-doubt.
Waiting on a downtown bench for my sister one evening last week, I was looking......
2011-05-29 18:34:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
Everyone's piling on poor old Harold Camping. I'd actually like to thank him. Not that I take his doomsday prophesies or his wacky followers seriously. Quite the opposite. The 89-year-old retired civil engineer from California predicted the rapture would begin May 21, and the faith......
2011-05-22 19:39:00
PETE MEKEEL
Blind. Funny. Two words you don't often find in the same sentence.
But blind people can stumble and bumble into some pretty funny situations sometimes. Take my word for it.
As I approached a set of glass doors in the lobby of the newspaper building one day, a young woman with an u......
2011-05-15 16:58:00
JANE HOLAHAN
In case you didn't know, tomorrow is Election Day.
I suspect the polls aren't going to be teeming with voters. After all, it's an off-year, with just smaller races.
And beyond that, it's a primary. Why bother?
Well, I am here to give you 10 reasons why you should vote tomo......
2011-05-08 20:19:00
AD CRABLE
I know I am in the minority, and I feel a bit unpatriotic.
But I didn't feel like wrapping myself in the Stars and Stripes and dancing in the streets as many of my fellow Americans did when the news flash burst through the night that Osama bin Laden had been tracked down and shot.
...
2011-05-01 19:40:00
CINDY STAUFFER
Here's what I would say if I gave a commencement speech this year:
Class of 2011, as I look out at you, I think back to 33 years ago, when I was awaiting my own graduation in an overheated gymnasium.
I was in a group getting ready to sing the Seals & Crofts song "We May Never ......
2011-04-24 19:39:00
JON FERGUSON
Lord, how I hate lawn mowers.
Not lawn mowing, mind you, just lawn mowers.
I actually love lawn mowing — always have and probably always will.
Ever since I was a kid, I enjoyed getting out in the sunshine and making patterns in the lawn by slicing off the tops of the......
2011-04-17 17:10:00
RYAN ROBINSON
Doing my taxes.
Alarm clock. Work. Deadlines.
Cold weather and cold symptoms.
Aches and pains from too many Girl Scout cookies and too little venturing from the couch in months.
News — bad news: Earthquakes, tsunami, radiation, Charlie Sheen.
Ugh.......
2011-04-10 22:26:00
JEN KOPF
•Number of weeks ago that my daughters' teachers invited me to chaperone a fourth-grade trip to the Philadelphia Zoo: 4
•Times my first thought was, Sure, it'll be warm by March 31: 1
•Approximate outdoor temperature March 31: 31
•Number of Burrowes Ele......
2011-04-03 20:26:00
TOM MURSE
Our first son was born 18 days ago today, and it was a mostly festive occasion.
Neighbors and friends baked Oh, Jesus! Chicken — yeah, it's that good — lasagna, cookies and all kinds of comfort food while lavishing gifts and attention on our two young daughters, now big sister......
2011-03-27 19:24:00
PETE MEKEEL
An earthshake. That's what he called it.
And I suppose that makes perfectly good sense when you're 5 years old.
I gently corrected him. But, of course, that simple word change didn't change his curiosity, concern or confusion about what was going on half a world away.
We w......
2011-03-24 15:55:00
LAURA KNOWLES
Carvens Lissaint is a Haitian American poet who was raised in Upper West Side Harlem in New York.
With his spoken-word poetry that mixes a depth of emotion with a rhythmic hip-hop performance style, Lissaint will be the featured poet in Saturday's poetry slam at Franklin & Marshall Co......
2011-03-20 20:39:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I envy my friends who grew up here in Lancaster County.
I'd love to be one of those folks who can count her family's generations back to Hans Herr, who goes to family reunions every summer, who has a road named after the family.
It's one of Lancaster County's most intriguing aspec......
2011-03-13 20:45:00
AD CRABLE
This was an actual recent exchange between one of my daughters and two of her friends on the Internet:
"BRB"
"IDC"
"UFO"
"Send me the link"
"KK"
Roughly translated, my daughter had to actually leave the keyboard for a second and promised to be right......
2011-03-06 17:19:00
CINDY STAUFFER
My kids absolutely despise a certain word.
My youngest can pronounce it in a drawn-out slurpy tone that elicits gags from her brother and sister.
The offending term?
Moist.
In fact, my oldest thinks "moist napkin" is possibly the vilest phrase in the English langua......
2011-02-27 20:00:00
JON FERGUSON
I'm pretty sure someone rooted through my car the other night.
When I climbed into it to leave work, the glove compartment door was hanging open.
I checked inside, noted it was crammed with the usual junk, shut the door and drove away.
When I reached the exit gate of the p......
2011-02-20 16:58:00
RYAN ROBINSON
A monthly surprise for my family happened again last week.
A brand-new children's book sent to my 1-year-old daughter popped out of the clutch of bills and junk mail from the mailbox.
"Look what Riley got in the mail!" I exclaimed to Riley and my two older children, Wyatt, 9, and ......
2011-02-13 19:43:00
JEN KOPF
Some days it's a sly turn of phrase, a well-composed "wink" to family and friends, that grabs my attention.
Some days it's a passing reminder that everyone has some tiny detail in his or her life that wonderfully captures the person behind that half-column black-and-white photo.
I......
2011-02-06 16:45:00
PETE MEKEEL
When my son was 10, it became painfully apparent that he was sick of the piano.
Parents just know these things. Trust me. We're not as stupid as we look.
Besides, the clues were obvious.
For starters, he didn't want to practice anymore, and when he did, it was uninsp......
2011-01-30 16:49:00
TOM MURSE
"Did you put gas in it?"
The question comes from the front door, which is open just a crack, barely enough room for such a massive insult, and it hangs there, unanswered, in that great mysterious gulf between the sexes.
Gas? Are you kidding me?
I......
2011-01-23 19:58:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I recently spent a cold but lovely weekend in New York marveling, as I always do, at just how amazing the city is.
I'm not talking about the great museums, though I visited two incredible ones: The Guggenheim and The Cloisters.
And I'm not talking about the magnificent theater, th......
2011-01-16 20:12:00
AD CRABLE
Does anybody else do some of their best work in the shower?
I can't tell you how many newspaper story ideas have come to me like a thunderbolt — including this one — while hot water is streaming down my face in this tiled enclosure.
And many a top of a story, cal......
2011-01-09 19:19:00
CINDY STAUFFER
The weird subject first arose at dinner, when the family was eating something that someone loved, loved, loved and wanted to eat each and every day forever and ever — another slice of white pizza from La Piazza's, please — amen.
I asked: If you knew you were going to eat your ......
2011-01-02 18:02:00
JON FERGUSON
Following the Chicago Cubs took on added urgency in the summer of 1969.
The Cubs looked like the class of the National League, racing to a big lead in the Eastern Division.
In the middle of it all was Ron Santo, the team's third baseman and cleanup hitter.
Santo created on......
2010-12-26 19:38:00
RYAN ROBINSON
The stories were on television sometime in the last couple weeks.
Five Americans who remember every moment of their lives since childhood were profiled on 60 Minutes.
That was topped by a 31-year-old London man on some other show with a mind so amazing, he cited pi — the cir......
2010-12-19 20:57:00
JEN KOPF
Thumbelina and Nemo might not, at first glance, have much in common besides being tiny and cute.
But they're part of the club.
So are Schneewittchen (Snow White) and Nancy Drew, Harry Potter and Cinderella, even in her earliest Chinese incarnations.
Who's missing in all th......
2010-12-05 19:18:00
PETE MEKEEL
It was ugly.
The 55-year-old man was writhing on the living-room floor of his suburban Lancaster home.
He pounded the carpet as tears flooded down his contorted face.
I know him as just an average, easygoing, middle-class guy. But at that moment a few months ago, my old fr......
2010-11-29 06:00:00
JANE HOLAHAN
A while back, I wrote about my dog, Henry, and how tough it was to say good-bye to him.
In that column, I said the best way to honor Henry was to get another dog, because he'd shown me that it is indeed a wonderful thing to live with a dog.
I got so many nice, comforting cards and......
2010-11-21 17:03:00
AD CRABLE
At the Landis Homes retirement community near Lititz, they call it "our special little visitor."
That drop-in guest, a tiny Allen's hummingbird found only once before in Pennsylvania, chose 83-year-old Edith S. Bailey to make its celebrated touchdown for 16 days.
The hundred or so......
2010-11-14 20:00:00
CINDY STAUFFER
Not the kind some people say when they sit down to dinner.
(Though I will share my favorite grace of that kind, called the Madeline prayer:
We love our bread.
We love our butter.
But most of all,
we love each other.)
No, a......
2010-10-24 19:18:00
JEN KOPF
I don't live all that far from the small southern Lancaster County town of Willow Street, and when I travel through it, I don't stray off the main drag all that often.
So, on a recent day when I swung off Willow Street Pike to take a one-block shortcut, I came to a stop sign and sat, bewi......
2010-10-17 17:44:00
TOM MURSE
We took the girls to the mall the other night, a sort of treat. The younger one had just turned 2; the older one had aced a first-grade math test.
Good reasons, nothing frivolous.
And I was somewhat taken aback.
On this crisp fall evening we could have driven our car down ......
2010-10-10 17:02:00
PETE MEKEEL
My grandson and I like to amble around my neighborhood sometimes.
We chat about all sorts of important things.
Who's braver: Batman or Spider-Man?
Why do ballplayers spit?
Wouldn't it be awesome if monsters lived in storm drains?
Do birds try to poop on our......
2010-10-07 16:30:00
JACK ROBERTS and ALEJANDRO RIOS
Once again it's time to rock and roll with Rios and Roberts, the two guys who keep you up to date on the local music scene.
• We have a winner! Actually, we've got a bunch of them.
Don Judy & Tom Cook took first place in the solo/duo category at the Blues Society of Centr......
2010-09-26 17:38:00
AD CRABLE
No doubt, if I was a hapless commuter flier forced to spend much of my job in airplanes or airports or anxiously rushing to one or the other, I'd find nothing exciting about flying, either.
But I fly infrequently enough that it's still an adventure, often tinged with a bit of anticipation......
2010-09-19 17:03:00
CINDY STAUFFER
Ten things I think I think (with a nod to sportswriter Peter King):
1. I think I will miss having a trick-or-treater in my house this fall.
One by one, my kids have given up the ghost on going door to door, and next month will bring the first Halloween in about 15 years that we wo......
2010-09-12 19:33:00
JON FERGUSON
I used to park in Jack's space.
Our church, St. Mary's, sits on a small hill at the corner of Vine and Prince streets in the city. The newspaper's parking garage is on the opposite side of Vine Street.
On Sundays, the members of the congregation use the garage to park their cars b......
2010-09-05 17:33:00
RYAN ROBINSON
"I will not whine.
"I will not whine.
"I will not whine."
My 8-year-old son is at it again.
Writing sentences for doing something bad.
It's one way my wife and I discipline our two oldest children.
Talking back to your parents gets you 10 sentences.......
2010-08-29 17:21:00
JEN KOPF
"History is who we are and why we are the way we are."
— Prize-winning author and historian David C. McCulloughWith his wife, Marianne, in the kitchen, sliding a fresh peach dessert into the oven, Francis X. Schaller pulls up a chair to his dining room table. ......
2010-08-22 17:08:00
PETE MEKEEL
Might even say I hate it.The stinking heat. The stinking bugs. The stinking weeds. The stinking electric bills. The stinking humidity. Boy, do I hate that.And, this summer being one of the hottest and stickiest on record has only made me more surly.Hurry up, October!My......
2010-08-15 16:56:00
TOM MURSE
I'd show you the inside, but it's a bear just to get the door open. And we might get lost. I don't want that.There's so much stuff crammed, piled, stacked and — yes, let's just come right out and say it — discarded in our dark little one-car that I'm afr......
2010-08-08 16:11:00
JANE HOLAHAN
Look, I don't mean to sound paranoid, but why is the world out to get me? The conspiracy is overwhelming. Everywhere I turn, it just seems to be getting worse.They won't let me get to work.They won't let me go homeThey even put up gigantic Hershey Kisses in the road to......
2010-08-01 16:58:00
AD CRABLE
Being a writer and all, you might think I spend a lot of my spare time reading books.Actually, no.Maybe it's because much of my day is spent writing and staring at — or trying to think of — words.Or maybe it's because when I read great books, it makes me feel infe......
2010-07-29 16:46:00
JACK ROBERTS and ALEJANDRO RIOS
Once again it's time to rock and roll with Rios and Roberts, the two guys who keep you up to date on the local music scene.• When Rich Ruoff told us he'd be bringing national acts to the Ephrata Main Theatre, he wasn't kidding.Rich has just announced that Joan Osbor......
2010-07-25 21:30:00
CINDY STAUFFER
What is it about turning 50?What is it about that feeling you are turning some kind of cosmic corner?Behind me, just out of sight around the bend: the swing set where you could just see the dog track in Detroit from the top of the monkey bars, the move to Rhoda Drive, the soft summe......
2010-07-18 20:17:00
JON FERGUSON
I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand as soon as I hung up the phone.For weeks I had been trying to arrange a telephone interview with Patti Smith, the poet-rocker who had been booked at the Chameleon Club.I had just about given up hope when I got a call from Smith's pu......
2010-07-11 17:11:00
RYAN ROBINSON
We just got back from a week's vacation at Raystown Lake in Huntingdon County.That meant living with in-laws in Altoona and commuting to the lake every day.We traveled nearly 1,000 miles up and down mountains with our three children: an 8-year-old belching champion, a 6-year-old......
2010-07-04 17:09:00
JEN KOPF
I had to double-check the front of the National Geographic magazine a couple times, because I wasn't sure:Hadn't I just discussed this article with someone?But no, this was the July 2010 issue on the kitchen table. No way I could have read about the interior decorating skills of bow......
2010-06-27 16:52:00
PETE MEKEEL
She was screaming with joy in the bedroom when it happened.In a dramatic upset a few years back, the Philadelphia Eagles had just squeaked by the ever-arrogant Dallas Cowboys.And my wife tends to make a little noise on such occasions.She bounced to her feet on the bed and let......
2010-06-20 20:31:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I was walking my dog, Henry, down an alley in my neighborhood the other day when I saw a pink house drawn in chalk on the bumpy roadway.Boy, did that bring back a lot of memories.There was an alley behind the house where I grew up in Pittsburgh and I often put my dubious artistic sk......
2010-06-17 17:02:00
Staff
Endless summer arts .... all week Summer officially begins on Monday, but the Lancaster Summer Arts Festival is already in full swing. This week the Steinman Park Series will host acoustic performer Maria Wilson at noon Friday, as well as The Blind Willies, a new jazz group, at noon on Tuesday.......
2010-06-13 20:10:00
TOM MURSE
Nobody else around here will dare say such a thing, so allow me: I believe you, Floyd Landis. I buy every word.I do now, that is.And, not that you've asked for such a thing, but I forgive you, too.These words do not come easy, mind you. Your deception, to borrow ......
2010-06-06 18:19:00
AD CRABLE
On a morning around this time of year 21 years ago, I rounded a corner on Slate Run in Lycoming County and found John W. Mimnall intently casting an artificial fly into the stream.Mimnall, of Columbia, was 70 years old and had been fishing the native trout stream in Pine Creek Gorge for 40......
2010-05-23 18:02:00
JON FERGUSON
I never knew that frogs screamed.My intentions were good after I spotted the frog hunkered under a pine tree, clearly alive but not moving with the alacrity you would expect.I called my wife and daughter over, and the three of us stood and stared at the frog, which stared back but d......
2010-05-09 17:38:00
JEN KOPF
You can try it, too:Stand in Penn Square. Squint through the sunshine at the Gothic traceries of the old Harold's furniture store on Penn Square, then twist around to peer at the Colonial-era building that houses The Heritage Center Museum (the old City Hall portion was Pennsylv......
2010-05-03 04:03:00
Pete Mekeel
Every family has them.Those quirky little things about each other they find amusing and endearing.Growing up, my siblings and I had the five "Oh, My's" — expressions my mom used in lieu of, well, swearing.A spilled glass of milk might get an "Oh, my w......
2010-04-25 18:10:00
TOM MURSE
A summer night, 10 years ago.Ringo Starr was just minutes from taking the stage with his All Starr Band at Red Rocks Amphitheater, set among towering slabs of natural sandstone in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Denver, Colo.But there was someone he wanted to meet first....
2010-04-11 17:57:00
AD CRABLE
We start today's column with a few questions for Frank Dogger.Frank, do you remember buying those storage units in Lancaster city last fall?Do you recall how frustrated you were when you tried to rent them out?And do you remember that promising call in late November from ......
2010-04-04 18:40:00
CINDY STAUFFER
For almost 25 years, I have been driving the same route back and forth to work.Up the hill, down the hill, past the airport, past the school, through the stoplights. Over and over and over again.The familiarity of this ride has bestowed on me an alarming ability to zone out as I pon......
2010-03-28 23:10:00
JON FERGUSON
My dog does not see well at night.I know this because she once mistook a toy kitchen playset for something that intended to do her harm. A neighbor had left it on the curb for the garbageman, and as soon as my dog spotted it, she cowered.I tried to drag her over to the playset so sh......
2010-03-22 02:52:00
RYAN ROBINSON
At 8:07 a.m., I started filling out my 2010 census form.At 8:20 a.m., I finished.But it's too important to be done in just 13 minutes, isn't it?After all, the U.S. Census Bureau spent a gazillion bucks to send notices out begging us not to toss the census in the trash......
2010-03-18 17:17:00
KATHLEEN DAMINGER
Rebecca Achenbach remembers seeing CNN footage of Haitian children amid the rubble left by the devastating earthquake that hit the country in January.They were singing."I remember the commentators saying that there was such joy in the midst of all this trouble," she says....
2010-03-14 21:28:00
JEN KOPF
I realize we're a bit older than the target demographic, but too bad:For better or for worse, my peers and I seem to have taken over Facebook.This might make Facebook uncool for the young'uns, but, you know, I was never too cool anyway, even when I was one of the young'u......
2010-03-07 22:47:00
PETE MEKEEL
A bank teller started it, actually.I was standing at her window recently with my wife, who was handling some stuff for her father.Please note: He wasn't with us. He is 86.As she shuffled through paperwork, the teller glanced up at me, smiled brightly and asked: "Are ......
2010-03-01 00:01:00
TOM MURSE
There's an old saying that buried inside every newspaper reporter's desk drawer is a half-written novel.It's not true.My desk drawer contains maybe 300,000 of those little plastic pouches of duck sauce; enough old pens to circle the globe twice; Post-it notes on which I've written a......
2010-02-22 00:01:00
JANE HOLAHAN
A friend of mine, who now lives in California, was home for a visit during the blizzard.He told me how much he loved the snow, how he walked for hours in it, that he wanted to take photographs of all the beauty surrounding him.I told him he was a sick ticket.Sorry, but I hate......
2010-02-15 05:12:00
AD CRABLE
Every now and then I am seized with an impulse to expose our girls to old movies or television shows that I'm convinced impart some timeless value they would not otherwise encounter.Lately, I've started making them watch, in chronological order, "The Waltons."For n......
2010-02-08 00:01:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I have these thoughts. They make my head hurt.I think I'll buy a pair of those American Eagle jeans, the same brand my daughters like. So I'm 49 and my girls are 12 and 16. I'm thinking maybe that swirly design on the pockets will make my butt look cute.I also think "Tik Tok," the l......
2010-02-01 00:01:00
JON FERGUSON
I'm still mad at Yoko.Forty years after the Beatles called it quits, you'd think I'd be over it.Not a chance. And I know the breakup of the band was inevitable — with or without Yoko's help. I do believe, however, that the Beatles might have squeezed out at least a couple more......
2010-01-25 00:01:00
RYAN ROBINSON
Children spend 7½ hours a day using electronic media, an hour more than just five years ago.That's more time than they spend in school.Two out of three children ages 8 to 18 have cell phones, and three out of four their own iPods.Three-quarters of seventh- to 12th-grad......
2010-01-18 05:50:00
JEN KOPF
I sensed it before I saw it, another driver drifting obliviously into my lane of traffic, rightinfrontofme, without a blinker or any acknowledgment that my car and I already were there."WHAT the ...!" I growled.Then I cut myself short, one hand waving silently in the......
2010-01-11 00:01:00
TOM MURSE
Welcome, fellas, to the He Decade. These are the years when we sensitive males of a certain age will all shuffle our chairs into tight circles to "explore our issues" and talk about our deepest emotions.Supposedly.Psychologists said so on the "Today Show&q......
2010-01-04 00:01:00
PETER MEKEEL
The latest chapter in my life, call it Adventures in Grandfatherhood, began quietly four years ago in a dimly lit hospital room. And from the moment I first held that precious little bundle, I dreamed of being the sort of grandfather who helps his grandkids through life's bumpy times w......
2009-12-28 00:01:00
AD CRABLE
You know our recent winters. So many touch-and-go storms that always seem to end up as freezing-rain headaches. Or just dreary, cold rain.I'm an unabashed snow lover, so I've been pretty down in the dumps about winters past of late.Thus, our pre-Christmas snow this year ......
2009-12-21 00:01:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I used to love the Christmas season.When you're a kid, it's an easy thing to do.The tree and all the presents, my grandmother's Christmas sugar cookies (still the best cookies I've ever had in my life), "Rudolph" and "Charlie Brown," that first glimpse of Santa at the end of the Mac......
2009-11-30 00:01:00
TOM MURSE
You cannot squeeze blood from a stone, so we're all trying to figure out which of our couch cushions the electric company plans to look under in hopes of scratching together 50 more bucks every month.The state-imposed rate caps expire in January, which means a roughly 30-percent hike f......
2009-11-23 07:00:00
Ad Crable: Voices
"Can I touch history?" one of my daughters asked me. She said it as I held a chiseled white piece of quartz in my palm and told her I thought it was likely an arrowhead fashioned on this spot more than 400 years ago by a vanished and vanquished race of man. As I primed the girls ......
2009-11-16 00:01:00
JANE HOLAHAN
I'm sorry, but is there anything more depressing than e-readers?E-readers are those little digital boxes — Amazon Kindles, Sony Readers, Samsung's Papyrus, — which the high tech crowd is convinced will replace books one day.A world without books? Imagine.No more b......
2009-11-09 00:01:00
RYAN ROBINSON
As you read this, my East Petersburg house is being torn apart, and not by my three kids for a change.I'm actually paying someone to do the honors.It's the latest recent case of biting the bullet and bucking my conservative fiscal nature, or "tightwaddedness," as m......
2009-11-02 00:01:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I keep lists in my head.Areas I should clean in my house. Books I should read. Recipes I should try.Right. Stuff I'm never going to do.The lists just give me something else to ruminate over and feel guilty about, while deluding myself that I might make a pumpkin roll &mda......
2009-10-26 00:01:00
TOM MURSE
Some things in life I just don't understand.OK. A lot of things in life I just don't understand.For example:• Why Major League Baseball doesn't hang a big clock behind home plate allowing pitchers, say, five seconds to Throw. The. Ball. Basketball has a shot clock. Footb......
2009-10-19 00:01:00
AD CRABLE
On the job only a week at Lancaster Newspapers in the summer of 1982, I was told to get out to 1730 Oregon Pike, where this guy was disassembling, brick by brick, a 138-year-old farmhouse to make way for an office complex.Sure enough, there was Sandy Good and a couple helpers cleaning and ......
2009-10-12 00:01:00
JANE HOLAHAN
When I was growing up in Pittsburgh back in the 1960s, I was more than a student.I was a guinea pig.Our small, public school tried out experimental ideas to see if they worked better than the traditional methods.It began in first grade, when we started to learn to read....
2009-10-05 09:16:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
I thought all the ants were dead. Not the intelligent buggers behind the coffee maker that dart across the kitchen counter when I spot them. They will never die. After a global nuclear war, they'll high-five antennas and claim their spoils. No, I'm talking about the 25 &qu......
2009-09-28 00:01:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I had a dad who had very eclectic taste in music.So the record collection of my youth contained both "Whipped Cream" by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass and "Scheherazade" by Rimsky-Korsakov. We listened to Frank Sinatra and Alice Cooper, The Who and Vikki Carr.I hold my dad responsible ......
2009-09-21 00:02:00
TOM MURSE
At some point, perhaps while sleepwalking or in a feverish bout of delirium brought on by a particularly nasty bump on the head, I allegedly — allegedly — signed up to coach soccer.Girls soccer.Ages 6 and under.And I think: a field full of screaming kids.......
2009-09-13 22:04:00
AD CRABLE
The "Na, na, na, na, na, na, na" refrain from The Beatles' "Hey Jude" comes wafting up the stairs. Curious, I creep downstairs to find our two 8-year-old daughters huddled around the computer in rapture. They've come across the song on YouTube. The lyrics are sc......
2009-09-07 00:02:00
JANE HOLAHAN
Hey, happy Labor Day.I thought it might be appropriate to talk about work today.According to the U.S. Department of Labor, "Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It ......
2009-08-31 00:07:00
RYAN ROBINSON
The Solanco Fair starts Sept. 16.At the end of its parade that night, 40 whistles of a one-of-a-kind steam calliope from Lancaster will toot out music like they have nearly every year for a half century.The late William Getz's family built the calliope from 1959 to 1963, and the ......
2009-08-24 07:00:00
CINDY STAUFFER
I drive a clunker.The deadline to trade it in under the Cash for Clunkers program is at 8 tonight.But I won't be rushing out to a car dealer.I love my car.This surprises, even horrifies, many people I consider to be good friends.This is......
2009-08-17 08:00:00
Tom Murse
It is football season again. You can hear the crunch of shoulder pads and the woodwinds practicing "Spanish Lady" and "Amazing Grace" in the parking lot near the stadium and sense the days are getting shorter. Manheim Central, Hempfield and Lancaster Catholic are expected t......
2009-08-10 05:53:00
AD CRABLE
It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. But that's the necessity for many of us former New Era staffers, as we adjust to being folded into a morning newspaper that doesn't even go to press by the time many of us used to be fast asleep. Now, for four days a week, I work banker's hours,......
2009-08-03 00:26:00
JANE HOLAHAN
OK, maybe it's been a long time since you took your driving test.Maybe you forget what a double yellow line means, how far from a fire hydrant you can park and who has the right of way at a stop sign.Heck, I forgot all of that five minutes after I passed my driver's test 33 years ag......
2009-07-27 00:01:00
Ryan Robinson
I've been using a lot of manila folders lately.When the two daily newspapers combined, I changed from farm and municipal news reporting to the police beat.I raided the supplies cabinet for a few dozen of the trusty, beige folders and neatly wrote labels on them like "City Police" an......
2009-07-20 07:58:00
Voices: Cindy Stauffer
How to be perfect:
Hold your mom's hand.Do not tell people how to live their lives.Say you are sorry right away.Accept other people's apologies.Shop in thrift stores.When you wear your thrift store dress, do not brag about how......
2009-07-13 00:01:00
TOM MURSE
Confession: I was never a big fan of Michael Jackson or his music. No, not even of "Thriller." At least not at first. His untimely death, though, brought back memories of growing up here in Lancaster County in the 1980s. My neighborhood pals and I would gather around the tube late a......
2009-07-06 00:13:00
AD CRABLE
Pencil on paper, rustling leaves, whispers and distant church bells.Those are the sounds that thrill when you've lost your hearing for 15 years and are given the gift of getting it back.It started in high school. Kelly Gutshall found herself asking people to repeat themselves a lot.......
2009-06-29 00:02:00
MARGARET GATES
While editing a story recently, I noticed that our spell-checker wanted to change Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Ruth Badger Ginsburg and Barbara Walters to Barbara Wallets.Sure, Ruth is tenacious and Barbara probably needs oodles of wallets to hold all of her money, but the spellings are still in......
2009-06-08 11:53:00
Margaret Gates, Voices
Like so many other proud families, we had a son stand on stage, shake hands with the principal and collect his diploma this year. Yes, we are officially parents of a kindergarten graduate. And like so many graduation ceremonies, this one was a time to celebrate accomplishments (like lear......
2009-06-01 13:07:00
CINDY STAUFFER, Voices
I live in Lititz. Yes, that town. My town. It's the town where four high school teachers and employees have been arrested or caught or imprisoned after having relationships with teenage girls in recent years. It's the town where the racist behavior of some high school stu......
2009-05-25 00:01:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
Well, well, well.What do we have here?Why, results from the long-awaited GMAC Insurance national driver's test. And what, pray tell, do they say about us motorists here in Pennsylvania?That we're horrid behind the wheels of our cars.That we don't know even ......
2009-05-18 12:39:00
AD CRABLE, Voices
I don't care how blissfully a family gets along, there are bound to be conflicts when there is only one full bathroom. I know there are lavatory peccadilloes that get under my skin. Let me say right off that I am a toilet lid saint. I have always been one of those men — call me a......
2009-05-04 08:50:00
JANE HOLAHAN, Voices
I want to make an amendment to Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity. You know, all that famous E=mc2 stuff, and talk about space allegedly being curved and time slowing down under certain conditions. I say allegedly not because I doubt the truth of it. No, I say allegedly beca......
2009-04-27 11:28:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
It sat on my bookshelf for years, untouched. "The Complete Tightwad Gazette," a book by Amy Dacyczyn that made the New York Times Best Seller List. I can't remember if I got it as a gag gift — making fun of my own tightwad tendencies — or if my mother-in-law gave ......
2009-04-20 12:33:00
MARGARET GATES, Voices
Our only foray into dog-sitting since our own dog died more than four years ago was a short stint with a relative's shih-tzu. It was more like having an extra stuffed animal in the house. Picture a princess being asked to take leave of her castle and live in the peasants' quarters ......
2009-04-13 12:18:00
CINDY STAUFFER, Voices
Craig McCoullum stands on the streets of Lancaster and waves at passing vehicles. The broad-shouldered, 6-foot-1 guy does this while swathed in a seafoam-green, crushed-velvet, drape-y Statue of Liberty costume with a red sash and a matching crown. I first saw him this winter in downtown L......
2009-04-06 12:14:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
The official record shows I committed the offense at 8:56 on the night of Feb. 27. I don't dispute that. But the events leading up to my actions have become, in these 39 days since, a little fuzzy. I know it was a Friday night. A rare evening out together, just the two of us. I wore a Ca......
2009-03-30 12:42:00
AD CRABLE, Voices
We love our 1937 home, all except for the upstairs bathroom, stuck as it is in 1970s yellow. Besides the icky color, the bathtub is so shallow that when you draw a bath and slide down you can't even cover your navel. What's the use? The linoleum floor is so horrid we rarely even bo......
2009-03-23 10:40:00
STEVE BRODY, Voices
"Come here quick!" my wife called from the kitchen on a recent afternoon. Alarmed, I dashed in from the living room. After all, she was due to give birth at any time. I expected to have to start boiling water, a sudden midwife. A great blue heron had glided over our backyard and alighte......
2009-03-16 13:58:00
JANE HOLAHAN, Voices
A few weeks ago, my colleague Ad Crable wrote a story about stink bugs and how they are invading the county, which got me thinking about all the different bugs I've met up with in my life. Did you ever notice how certain species of creepy crawlers inundate your life for a while and then re......
2009-03-09 11:03:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
I'm going to the batting cage at the Lanco Fieldhouse in East Petersburg for the first time. My 7-year-old son became a Little Leaguer last year, and I figure it is time for Wyatt to shake the winter rust from his swing. Not a single parking space is available in the expansive lot. I s......
2009-03-02 14:18:00
MARGARET GATES, Voices
Maybe it's from watching too many episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger," but I've always wanted to learn a martial art. So when my sister-in-law invited me to take a tai chi class at her church, I jumped at the chance. This is tai chi for arthritis, so there's no flipping people to the ground......
2009-02-23 11:42:00
CINDY STAUFFER, Voices
I can't help it. I try. But girlfriend is just too fly. So yeah. Once in a while, something strange pops out of my mouth. My latest problem involves an expression that I have been using. I blurted it out the other day when I was interviewing someone on the phone, and agr......
2009-02-16 12:08:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
I could get rid of my cell phone. Easily. Nobody — not even my own wife — ever calls that number. In fact, I forget what the ringtone sounds like. I keep the thing only because we might eventually ditch the land line to save a few bucks. Cable? I could do without that, too. The......
2009-02-09 14:48:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
Amazing how quickly our economic Titanic has sunk, leaving us floating in leaking lifeboats. We bail water out, but it just splashes into the boat next to us. Hard to see any silver lining when 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and some must choose between buying medicine and groc......
2009-02-02 12:17:00
STEVE BRODY, Voices
It could happen any day now. Any day, baby No. 2 could luge into our lives — headlong, we hope — turning our little world upside down (for the better). Although it has been nine months in coming, it still feels as if we've been caught off guard by this, despite all the outw......
2009-01-26 09:19:00
JANE HOLAHAN, Voices
Pardon me for sounding peeved, but I just got my two mutual fund statements in the mail last week. Do you still even open yours? I made that mistake, steeling myself for the bad news. And both times, it felt like someone just punched me in the gut. Sucker punched, that is. ...
2009-01-19 12:10:00
AD CRABLE, Voices
If they could have, many readers of this newspaper would have smote local weather forecasters with great vengeance after their recent predictions about a snowstorm that never arrived. "Stay out of the weather-forecasting business," one irate subscriber advised us in an e-mail. An......
2009-01-12 12:51:00
MARGARET GATES, Voices
Our fifth-grader rolled a 69 at his best friend's bowling birthday party two days before Christmas. But less than three short weeks later, he has turned pro. He even has a nifty new bowling ball. How did he do it? The Wii, of course. We got the interactive video game console ......
2009-01-05 08:49:00
CINDY STAUFFER, Voices
It's just a mailbox, OK? That's what I kept telling myself when I first saw the sign on the sturdy blue mailbox that sat on the corner, across the street from our house. That mailbox was one was of the things I loved immediately when we moved into our neighborhood of compact,......
2008-12-29 14:35:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
Congratulations! Your rebate's worth a wry laugh Congratulations and thank you for selecting the Acme Inc. Brand Widget! We know you will enjoy many years of satisfaction. To earn your $100 rebate, please follow the step-by-step instructions in the 125-page Rebate I......
2008-12-22 14:22:00
AD CRABLE, Voices
It's long been a Christmas staple. Under the tree will be power tools, wrapped in weighty cardboard boxes, for my two brothers and our dad. I half expect Tim Allen to pop through a door to hand them out while grunting.I view tools as useful to have around the house, but certainly not somethin......
2008-12-15 13:25:00
STEVE BRODY, Voices
The genie is out of the lamp, and we can't wish it back in. We can't mash it back in, either, as if we were in a Looney Tunes cartoon. The genie is television, and my wife and I have made the error of letting it out for our 2-year-old daughter. One day we were in need of a distraction, ......
2008-12-08 11:26:00
JANE HOLAHAN, Voices
Christmas is fast approaching. I really do love the holiday and the light and joy it brings to the darkness of winter. I love having a pine tree in my house and getting the chance to watch "Miracle on 34th Street" one more time and hear Johnny Mathis sing "O Holy Night."...
2008-12-01 12:54:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
Subj. "Forward e-mails" 12/1/08 I am responsible for wrecking the economy. Not President George W. Bush, before or after his duck went lame. So to you, your child or friend who lost a job or home during these difficult times, let me say, "I'm sorry." And w......
2008-11-24 12:39:00
MARGARET GATES, Voices
Just call us Retro Family. Sure, we have a few technological gadgets: cell phone, video games, computer, digital camera. But we haven't graduated to iPods, MP3 players, BlackBerrys (we do like blueberries!) or Blu-ray Disc players. A few years back, we discovered the clothes dryer we ......
2008-11-17 12:30:00
TOM MURSE, Voices
Thank you so, so much. Seriously. No, I mean it. They're great. Perfect. Just what I always wanted. But you shouldn't have. Really. I'm just a simple guy. Simple tastes. I'm flattered that you thought of me this holiday-shopping season, but you know......
2008-11-10 11:52:00
AD CRABLE, Voices
This is a Thanksgiving story. Our paths crossed recently as I was walking our daughters to the car after school. I looked up to see a woman struggling to drag another woman up the concrete steps into a city rowhouse. I ran over and helped 70-year-old Rosalie Gross hoist her 100-year-old au......
2008-11-07 01:37:00
JEFF HAWKES
Half of all Latino students at McCaskey High School drop out.That stark fact is in a report Frances Rodriguez keeps on her desk.Every day when Rodriguez, 45, comes to work as chief of staff at state Rep. Mike Sturla's office, she can't miss seeing that report.It's......
2008-11-03 13:14:00
STEVE BRODY, Voices
The e-mails come in with variations on "News from the front!" in the subject line. Sometimes I can't believe I'm receiving them and can't believe they're about or from my cousin Don, an airman at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, north of Baghdad. In my mind's eye, m......
2008-10-27 10:37:00
JANE HOLAHAN, Voices
When I was growing up, the Great Depression of the 1930s still existed at my house. Both of my parents had grown up in the midst of it, and they remembered the hard times, especially my dad. I can still hear him: What, you own stock in the electric company? Turn off the lights when yo......
2008-10-24 01:17:00
MADELYN PENNINO
For Fran Rodriguez, "Latinos in Lancaster County" was a harsh dose of reality.The report, released in December by the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board, examined the social, economic and academic challenges confronting the county's Latino community.To Rodrigu......
2008-10-20 10:14:00
RYAN ROBINSON, Voices
Fifteen wait-'til-next years of bit-off fingernails, yelling at blind umpires, Tomahawk Chops and grinding teeth in my sleep — are over. Finally, it IS next year. The Phillies are in the World Series. Trust me. I flipped through sports channels all weekend to confirm it....
2008-10-13 11:53:00
MARGARET GATES, Voices
At a recent soccer game, a parent came up to me and said, "I thought you might get a kick out of what your son just said to me." That depends on which son. The oldest is pretty low key, kind and considerate. But he was on the soccer field, so I knew it wasn't him. The......
2008-10-06 11:58:00
TOM MURSE
I served as a pallbearer at a great-aunt's funeral on Saturday. At a small brunch of cold cuts, veggie platters and pot after pot of black coffee afterward, my grandmother, who is in her 80s, briefly glanced over at my wife, who is nine months pregnant and due for a scheduled delivery on Tuesda......
2008-09-29 12:24:00
AD CRABLE
At what point are you old? At 55, I'm constantly raising the bar. Hey, I turned a double play in a charity softball tournament the other day. And I can still hop onto my daughters' top bunk bed without using the ladder. But there are signs that I can no longer deny that I'm now......
2008-09-22 14:30:00
STEVE BRODY
Reading the raves about the Ephrata Performing Arts Center production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," I got to thinking about another Tennessee Williams masterpiece. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" might be more apt to these political times. The tortured hero, Brick, rants about &......
2008-09-08 12:15:00
RYAN ROBINSON
OK, I admit it was my fault — me, who's supposed to know how to present news since I do it for a living. I told my nearly 7-year-old son, Wyatt, and 4-year-old daughter, Olivia, that Mommy and Daddy had a great surprise for them. "Are we getting a dog?" Wyatt guessed right away. "A c......
2008-08-31 20:30:00
MARGARET GATES
OK. So maybe my first mistake was thinking I could remove a toilet tank with nothing but a wrench, some Internet instructions and a 5-year-old assistant wearing a child-size Lowe's work apron.I've never claimed to be Bob Vila. I was shooting for maybe Bob the Builder. Truth be told......
2008-08-25 10:38:00
TOM MURSE
Stay home or travel? It's neither here nor there "So. What do you want to do this week?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" With those 18 words we kicked off The Great Murse Family Staycation of 2008. A pyrotechnics-studded, Beijing-like opening cer......
2008-08-18 10:29:00
AD CRABLE
Maybe you've heard. Maybe you've taken satisfaction in it. The newspaper industry as we know it is on the ropes. Neighbors and friends I talk to say they can't imagine not holding a newspaper in their hands each day. But few people under 30 tell me this. The hard, cold tru......
2008-08-11 13:17:00
STEVE BRODY
I'm a little bit disappointed with China. No, not the Chinese people, all 1.3 billion of them. No, I'm disappointed with the organizers (and governing bodies) behind the Beijing Olympics. For those of us who crave novelty as pregnant women crave pickles and ice cream, the officials......
2008-08-04 13:50:00
JANE HOLAHAN
Ah, here it is August. Dog days. The locusts are buzzing, the fireflies are glowing in the heat and humidity. Maybe you spent the day at the pool trying to cool off... Oh, would you excuse me a minute. Typing is getting difficult with the icicles starting to form on my fingers. I'll be......
