Opinions

I find myself watching more television lately than I have in the past. Not that I’ve become addicted to certain programs and hate to miss them, but because I’m getting older and find I need to just sit and relax once in a while during the day. The TV set is there, so I grab the remote and flip through the channels to see if there’s anything interesting going on. I’ve never been good at remembering on which channel or at what time certain programs appear, so it’s always a hit or miss matter when it comes to what I end up watching.

Harold and Vernabelle (nee Sickler) Fleck marked their 70th anniversary this April in their longtime home in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
Harold is the son of a butcher and grocery store keeper on Chicago’s north side. After WWII ended, Harold got out of the army and took a job as a deliveryman for the Marshall Fields Department Store. Vern was a farm girl from Wisconsin who came to the big city with her twin sister Isabelle to take jobs at the War Bond Department, housed in the Merchandise Mart.
They met by chance through a roommate.

My mother used to remind us, if we couldn’t say something nice about someone or about a situation, then we shouldn’t say anything at all. That little warning had a dual effect. We usually searched our minds for some relatively benign trait we could point out without too much guilt, and it kept us from tattling or otherwise airing our silly childhood squabbles in public. It also had the side-benefit of giving Mother the reputation of having raised four “nice” daughters.

My mother used to remind us, if we couldn’t say something nice about someone or about a situation, then we shouldn’t say anything at all. That little warning had a dual effect. We usually searched our minds for some relatively benign trait we could point out without too much guilt, and it kept us from tattling or otherwise airing our silly childhood squabbles in public. It also had the side-benefit of giving Mother the reputation of having raised four “nice” daughters.

About this time of year, Iowa seems to be overtaken by a race of little green men– well, maybe they’re not so little, but they seem to have a definite affinity for the color green. They dress in green clothing and seek out green food and beverages. Green beer seems to be particularly appealing to them, though no one can find any documentation that supports its importance.