Have you ever hiked across an Alpine cow pasture in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland? Then, you may have noticed that the air is filled with the sound of bells. Each and every cow in a more loosely connected herd carries one around on its heavy leather collar. It is a very peaceful sound, for sure. […]
To Ponder
Letter: The Heart of the Matter is the Heart
Three months ago, today I lost the dearest treasure on all the earth to me. My precious wife of 50 years married succumbed to her long, long battle with cancer. On the occasion of our Golden Anniversary, our dear sweet children presented us with a 1974 green – ‘it had to be green’ – Volkswagen […]
Letter: The Most Important Hour of the Day
Two days before she died – the end approaching following her long, long battle with cancer – I was reading to her from our favorite author who wrote a fictional, whimsical series of romance novels we’d come across early in our marriage, some 50 years before. She was asleep, I think, so I gently lifted […]
Celebrating Juneteenth: Ida B. Wells
Written by Diedri Webb. Ida B. Wells was born a slave on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, MS. Her parents were enslaved and could not legally wed. Six months later, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within rebel states “are, and henceforward […]
Letter: At a Loss
At a loss for words. At a loss for purpose. At a loss to understand. The Greek word διηπόρει (diēporei) means “to be in trouble, doubt, difficulty.” To be disquieted in mind and heart. No sense can be made of the present circumstance. Tormented. Distressed. Unsettled. Apropos is the word for today as I reflect this […]
Susanne Bacon’s 9th Wycliff Novel Takes You Traveling
It sometimes just takes a tiny spark that gets kindled to become a fire. What do you come up with when you think of filming locations in Western Washington, for example? Even in far-away Germany, we had heard about “Sleepless in Seattle” and about Forks in the “Twilight Saga” back in the day. Just for […]
Letter: It’s About Time
Is this what a baseball looks like – the stuffing knocked out of it – after the slugger gets ahold of an opposing team’s fastball left hanging over the center of the plate? Or, more likely, is this a baseball that a dog got ahold of, or a lawnmower chewed up as a result of […]
In the Book Nook with … Marshall Miller
Author Marshall Miller from Port Orchard, WA, is a retired senior special agent/federal investigator. He started out to be an investigative reporter many years ago, but he says, “Fate put me into Law Enforcement”. He published a book locally in 2014. Marshall belongs to and is the director of the Kitsap Literary Artists and Writers, […]
Across the Fence: Kaput
Many are the Germanisms in the English language. Germans are among the biggest groups who ever immigrated to the U.S., after all. Therefore, the influence on the language. One of these words that you probably know very well is the term “kaput”. Almost exactly the same pronunciation as in German, just with a little spelling […]