Columns

Before I turned in last night, I called my Michigan daughter for peace of mind. Considering the contrast between her dog’s energy level and her parents’, she opted to leave her pet in their house with a friend while on a business trip. “Hi, Mom.” Our youngest child is...

“We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our community as members of the same body.” —John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630 Building...

On December 6, 1838 a group of nine individuals gathered at the log schoolhouse near the corner of General Squier (then West Road) and Shoemaker Roads to form the Almont Congregational Church Society. At that meeting were– Mary Sherman Bishop, the wife of Truman...

A sunny January morning calls me outside. I take a ski pole and navigate our icy driveway. There, in my perennial island, a poor Hellebore whimpers for help. I inspect the damage. “Deer,” she says. “I’ll be back,” I promise. The sun’s melted the ice from our graded...

My father once did a colored sketch of a landscape with red grass that I recall seeing when I was four. The first thing that struck me was that the grass was not green like my experience told me it should be. The more I thought about that red grass, the more puzzled I...

Field trip: a visit to a place (such as a museum) made by students to learn about something. Webster Dictionary Just when I thought life couldn’t be any better than Hobo Pies and S’mores, Mrs. Bradley took my Brownie troop to a ballet. We followed her inside Ford...

My husband woke with pancakes on his mind this morning. “You thinking of Gram again?” I asked. He grinned like a boy. “She fed us grandkids pancakes with bottles of Log Cabin syrup every summer.” Bessie and Milton Underwood owned and operated the Presque Isle Lodge...

The Almont Community Historical Society (ACHS) homecoming book, “Remembrances of Almont 2020” is the eighth in a series of books written for the Homecoming celebrations. Hildamae Waltz Bowman wrote the first four books for the 1970, 1976, 1985 and 1990 “Community”...

I didn’t know what to do when Christmas Day first found me alone with my husband. As empty nesters, it wasn’t the least humorous like Hollywood’s Home Alone. My mother and mother-in law had modeled ideal parents with a houseful of children and grandchildren on...

I sat down to write a story about the First Congregational Church but my thoughts kept drifting to my father who died one year ago on December 1, 2019. So I decided to write down one of the stories he told me about his time in the Army during World War II. Dad was...