Category Archives: Opinion

I had an unusual weekend again. I guess unusual is usual for me. I drove my old ’54 Ford to the winery Friday night. I was with a group of people sitting on the deck listening to the grandson of Denamae Maasdam playing fantastic saxophone music. I imagine a lot of people noticed the 60-year-old car was...

35 years ago (1979) Marty Vander Molen became the new operator of Sully Stockyards.  Russ Vande Krol had operated the business for the past six years. Earlier, Vande Krol was part-time with Arie Van Weelden when it was operated as a branch of Sully Co-op. The co-op kept ownership of the property and leased it to...

To our credit, we Americans are still doing our own thing to re-declare our independence each Fourth of July, in part by spending it largely as we please. We don’t hold forth, over our potato salad and grilled burgers, about what this day signifies. Like those truths our forefathers held, it seems self-evident to us. Fireworks...

I’ve been fortunate enough to go to The National Drag Races in Pomona, CA, for the last several years. I have a long-haired nephew out there. He and I go to the races together. We make quite a pair. He is 53 years old. We look like the aging hippie and the redneck. Some of his...

The older I get, the more I hear talk about changes. You know the talk with roots in the then and the now. To make it seem like things are not costing more, reality is that package contents are less. In the grocery store a few weeks ago, I overheard some guys stocking the bread shelves...

I am such a creature of habit. Most of the habits are stupid and embarrassing. I have had habits my whole life, and now that I’m a geezer, it’s even worse. I got up and got ready for work for decades at 4 a.m. Even though I’ve been “so-called retired” for three years, I still wake...

35 years ago (1979) Vander Linden Construction and JaCo Construction of Lynnville replaced the flat roof on the Lynnville Post Office with a new structure. Reporters for local 4-H clubs were: Bonita Brand, Lynn Grove Hustlers; Bev Vos, Sugar Creek Mountaineers; Greg Melsa, Sugar Creek Mountaineers; and Julie Dunsbergen, Richland Go-Getters. In the want ads section, Ken Hackert...