Opinions

Like the displaced persons who have fled from war, floods, forest fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters, animals whose homes and food sources were devastated first seek food and shelter. Often they occupy temporary “refugee camps” and are usually driven out in short order by the established residents of the area.

For the past 46 years, I’ve been trying extra hard to live peacefully with Mother Nature and all her children. Like the old woman in the shoe, it seems she sometimes has too many children and doesn’t know what to do with them. Recently, I’ve begun to suspect she commandeered me to be babysitter, whether I’m willing or not.

This year’s annual summer bicycle ride will be into Dubuque and back on June 17 to 18.
We’ll leave from our house in Iowa City about 8 a.m.
We’ll ride the Heritage Trail. It’s a 26-mile multi-use recreational trail comprised of compacted crushed limestone that follows an abandoned railroad right-of-way connecting the Mississippi River town of Dubuque on the west end and to Dyersville on the east.

“Samples!” I said out loud, to no one in particular, as I rolled my cart through the grocery store.
Getting excited and going for a free sample is something I always do, and it’s one of those times I always think of Dad.
The old man could never pass up something offered at no charge, sometimes to the point of being weird. As a kid, for example, I remember purposely parking the car on the far side of the Woodfield Mall so we would walk through Marshall Fields on our way to Sears.

A snake resided in Grandma Sickler’s garden.
We’d visit her at the farm at least twice a year. Even though Wittenberg was only a five-hour drive it was a world apart from our life in the suburbs of Chicago. There was a real barn complete with a hayloft, an outhouse, farm animals, live trout in the watering tank (Grandpa put them there) and cousins galore more than willing to show their “city slicker” relatives the ropes of the rural life.
Grandma said she liked the snake because it kept out rodents and birds. She also noted that if you didn’t mess with it, it wouldn’t mess with you.