Columns

“Iris, don’t be surprised if Daddy doesn’t remember you. And I can’t promise he’ll be awake for a visit,” my cousin said on the phone. “Thanks for the warning. It’s been two years since we last saw him, so we’ll take the risk. Besides, Mel and I plan to visit Mom’s...

I love coffee. I like a bit of ice in my coffee just to keep from getting burned. I do, however, also like cold coffee. I enjoy really strong coffee, but I cannot handle having my coffee too hot! A burned tongue is an indignity that lasts for several days preventing...

Months ago, I drove my dirty 2010 blue Prius to Mister C’s Car Wash in Rochester. Thanks to my husband, personal grocery shopper and chauffeur to church, restaurants, and Cook’s Farm Dairy in Ortonville, I hadn’t driven in weeks. I waited in Mister C’s long, hairpin...

In honor of Independence Day, I’d like to reflect on the words of “My Name is Old Glory” written by Howard Schnauber in 1994 with credit to the Fort Collins Public Library. “I am the flag of the United States of America. My name is Old Glory. I fly atop the world’s...

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Matthew 7:7 A fine day last May, I swiveled my writing chair to the window in search of the right word. Again. A hummingbird flew under the blooming arc of a Solomon Seal...

Evelyn Cornell Hallock Dabney was born June 9, 1895 in Almont, Lapeer, Michigan to Roy P. Hallock (1872-1942) and Winifred Elinor Cornell Hallock (1873-1948). She lived almost her entire life in Almont except for about a five year period in the early 1930s when she...

What follows are winning entries from the Sixth Annual Yule Love It Lavender Farm Poetry Contest. The theme for the 2021 contest was “The color of summer.” • • • First Place: Jack D. Ferguson of Auburn Hills “To Draw a Rainbow” Pink florescence unfurls. The tight...

When I was a teenager, I wanted to learn karate but didn’t have a teacher at first, so I tried to learn from a book. The results were pitiful and tragically comedic. Later, when I found a teacher and began to learn kung fu from him, I realized why I couldn’t train...

My earliest memory of watchful love goes back to my adolescence sixty years ago. A dark December evening, I returned home from babysitting the Zablocki children five doors down on Wagner Street. I opened the front door to find my mother and granny sitting on the...

Editor’s note: The following is the first in a multi-part series about Imlay City Civil War veteran Owen Nolin and the Holt Guard. Flint resident David Norris was searching online for information on his great-grandfather Talmon Owen’s service in the Civil War when he...