Two Gents' Worth
April 5, 2025
I want to talk about someone we all know – a guy by the name of Disney. When I was a kid growing up in the San Joaquin Valley – and, yes, that was a long, long time ago – I loved Walt Disney. He was always on TV, always in black-and-white – and he…
Read More about Walt’s Wonderful WorldBud Elliott and I got together for pastries and hot drinks this Wednesday morning at that fancy French pastry shop at Fig Garden Village in Fresno. It was early (yes, 9 a.m. is early for retirees), and there was only a small crowd, so we were able to easily get a table by ourselves. I…
Read More about Two Gents, Palavering
It’s no secret that when it comes to New Year’s Eve, I’d rather Just Say No. When that ball starts to drop at Times Square, I’m not thinking as much about “Auld Lang Syne” as about the sad fact that I’m about to throw away yet another calendar because, yes, another year has passed and…
Read More about That New Year’s Feeling
Getting closer and closer to Christmas, and the chilly days and deep-freeze nights that come with it. We come to Christmas with a merry spirit, and we always have. Man and boy, boy and man, my family tried very hard to have Christmas trees. In Fresno, where I grew up, we had precious little money….
Read More about The Spirit of Christmas
Autumn has come to us in this great heart of the American heartland, and not just on the calendar. Daytimes here in Ames are now delightfully sunny and cool, with crystal-clear blue skies. Evenings have turned chilly, and there’s a rumor promulgated by the weather bureau (and by KCCI-TV’s ace weather guy, Kurtis Gertz) that…
Read More about So Long, Heartland
You might have heard about that little college football game they played right here in Ames today. It was the contest pitting our own Iowa State University against the University of Iowa. The Big 12 against the Big 10. Cy against Hawk. The biggest game of the year here. The most “in-demand” game ticket in…
Read More about ‘GameDay’ in Ames
This past Labor Day weekend, we took a brief time-out from our Summer of Love in the Heart of the Great American Heartland to visit Bradley and Nicole in their new home in our nation’s capital. They’re spending at least the next year there while Bradley works in the office of our favorite California congressman,…
Read More about Side Trip to D.C.Pity all those pugnacious political pundits — the ones who recently have been wailing, even louder and more obnoxiously than usual, about Iowa’s outsized-role in the presidential nominating process. They keep complaining that this state is far too small (only 3 million inhabitants) — and far too unrepresentative (they mean it’s too “white”) to have…
Read More about Politics, Iowa-StyleThere were roughly 750,000 weddings in America on that July evening, each special in its own way, but none finer than the one near Sedalia. On the rolling piedmont beneath the Rampart Range a few clicks south of Denver, where Cheyenne and Arapaho once married in much the same way, two souls became one as…
Read More about A Cowboy Wedding
As just about everyone around this part of the Midwest will tell you, the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is a one-of-its-kind event. It’s been held for nearly 145 years, and these days, about one million Iowans attend each year. If that figure isn’t impressive enough, consider this: The state of Iowa’s population is…
Read More about Iowa’s State Fair