Message Forum

Yesterday, I attended a service at my church to commemeorate the retirement of our pastor after 30 years. Our previuos and present Bishops were there (both of whom have become personal friends) and our other four (Angican) priests - yes, with wives and crying babies, and teenagers, and grandkids - all of whom have also become friiends. Also a packed house of many good friends in the the congregation.

They sang three of my favorite hymns "Shout To the Lord" "Give Me Jesus", and "He Will Hold Me Fast". But when they closed with this song the tears began to flow - including yours truly.

Many great versions on YouTube but I love this one. Anthony Evans Rocks!

10/13/26 05:30 PM

#17546

John Maxwell

Hope you all enjoyed celebrating Indiginous People's Day on Monday. Since it was changed from Columbus Day. The historic change occurred while I was practicing my moritorium on listening, reading, or watching NEWS! It was originally named for Columbus, Indiana, where, I was told by an old sailor there is no ocean therefore could never have been discovered. Hence, it's overwhelming popularity.

10/16/26 05:21 AM

#17547

whoa. Billy Joel has a medical condition, a brain inflammation of sorts, and doctors have told him to avoid performing. He's a longtime fave and i've seen him perform many times. Hang in there old friend.

And Jack, let's get a campaign going to stir up the ol' home town and have them change its name from Columbus, Ohio to Indigenous, Ohio. It's got a ring to it.

10/21/26 09:41 AM

#17548

Recently I finally fully retired after 50 odd years as a journalist at the Middletown Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, and most recently the Orlando Sentinel. I don't think I have talked much about my day job here over the years because chatting with y'all and writing stuff for fun was my relief from sweating out deadline workadays..Apart from the journalism gig I also served as part time writing and literature professor at the University of Central Florida and Rollins College, a lovely and quite well thought of private school in nearby Winter Park.

I was the proberbial mann fur alles as a journalist, doing time on the city government beat, then as a police reporter - we called it the cop shop . Over the years my favorite beat was as a movie and theater reviewer. I was also a men's issues columnist at one point, which I was perfect for given that I was a man who sure had issues.

I lived a life of loving what I did for a living. It was hard, hard work. Writing is the hardest thing I have ever done, and if it weren't for deadlines I never would have done it..I needed the whip. I was no angel. I was lazy sometimes. Writing is HARD!. My personal life suffered, two time divorcee here, but I blame it on me, not my profession.

Now I can turn my attention to tuning up work on my home of 20-odd years. It's a powder blue, single story, four bedroom, two bath, two kitchen bungalow with porch, pool and patio out back. Nice garden behind the pool and a few blessed trees around. I laugh at how I took trees for granted when I lived in Ohio. You never take the shade of trees for granted again if you live in Florida! My son lives in what amounts to an adjacent apartment with its own bath and kichen. That gives me security.I am single but keep company with a lovely grade school teacher who keeps me in line.

Fortunately for me and everyone involved in this story, she knows how to handle a dude at my level of maturity.

If you are ever in Orlando my email is MCLEOD.MICHAEL1@GMAIL.COM

10/21/26 09:42 AM

#17549

Mosquitos

As I retrieved the trash and recycle bins this morning it was in the 40's with blue sky and sunshine. But what I appreciated most was a welcome paucity of mosquitos.

I am no entomologist but the mosquitos around here are some of the largest and numerous that I have encountered. Granted, coming from a drier state after so many years away from here, I may not be very familiar with the local bio environment anymore, but some of these critters seem enormous to me. And they have been numerous to say the least.

I suspect that the ponds around Hilliard can be good breeding grounds for these insects, but I wonder if any of you have encountered an increase of these insects this year, or is this just the normal cycle.

What we need is a few good frosts to break the cycle and the sooner the better.

Jim

10/21/26 12:03 PM

#17550

Michael Boulware

Jim, I work at Rolling Meadows Golf Course. We don't go out without applying insect repellant. The insect that is really scary is the tic. They have been abundant and are around 12 months of the year. Mosquitoes are a real pain as well. Apply that repellant.

10/21/26 05:18 PM

#17551

I see in today's news that the King of England and son William and both wives visited the site of the famous Aberfan mining disaster back in October of 1966.

A rain soaked coal “tip” ( think that means tailings mound - the ground-up and deposited diggings) became rain soaked and collapsed and flowed down into the town of Aberfan, killing about 140 people, mostly students in the local school. I think I once read somewhere that the flow filled the first two floors and part of the third story of the brick school house. A few school children escaped but most had no chance.

Aberfan is just down the road from the town of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, where we had relatives. It’s where my, great grandma Liza Jones came from before she immigrated to America at age 14.

My mom’s aunt (my great Aunt) Laura - who lived on Abbington Road (near Tremont shopping center in Arlington) still kept up a regular mail correspondence with her cousins in Myrther Tydfil.

She was informed that we lost 7 cousins in that disaster - all school children I believe.

After the accident many voices questioned why they would let those huge piles of loose mining dirt be allowed to pile up on top of hills right above the town instead of being carried or sluiced off off to somewhere away from right above the town.

10/22/26 08:07 AM

#17552

Joseph Gentilini

Hi David, what a sad story you shared. Thanks for sharing this personal story. joe

10/22/26 08:19 AM

#17553

Joseph Gentilini

Michael McL - CONGRATULATIONS on your retirement. I am fascinated by the career that your chose or that chose you. What a wonderful career. Now, take some time for yourself and your companion and enjoy it all. You did good! Joe

10/22/26 08:24 AM

#17554

Joseph Gentilini

Hi Jim H -- welcome back to Ohio with all the misquitoes! I am sorry to tell you that Ohio gets plenty of them during the raining seasons and the city of Columbus ends up spraying to kill them. Wear protection. Good thing to think about: Columbus will probably be having a warmer and drier winter. Unfortunately, we will probably be having a green Thanksgiving and Christmas. I miss the little snow for Christmas and we don't get as much as we all did when we were younger. Last year was an exception as one time we got 11 inches of snow at one time. joe

10/22/26 09:51 AM

#17555

Mike B. and Joe G.

Thanks for the mosquito report and advice. Use of repellants is definitely a good idea, especially if I wander about areas that I like to photograph. I hope the city sprays these ponds around Hilliard and other places so as to at least "thin out the numbers".

Mosquito bites are bothersome but what microbes they can transmit are worrisome. Ticks are, of course, another problem and the diseases some species of them can carry and transmit are another good reason for protection.

It seems like every few years a new infectious agent is discovered which is carried by an insect vector and can be transmitted to humans.

We live in a microbial world!

Jim

10/22/26 01:22 PM

#17556

Michael Boulware

Thanks to everyone who showed up for Larry Foster's get together. Larry sure is a talented artist with a great sense of humor. We had a wonderful time.

10/22/26 05:40 PM

#17557

Nina: so sorry. My heart goes out to you.

10/27/26 02:09 PM

#17558

Different Flora But Some Fauna Remains The Same

The fall colors here in Hilliard seem to be at peak now even though a few trees seem to have lagged behind and some others are past their prime. Unlike Colorado where various altitudes are a big factor in such transitions, I think the variety of species here in Ohio are more of a determanit.

As for the fauna around here, I have been a bit surprised. I have seen a lot of migratory birds, including hummingbirds, and some bats. What surprised me was an email, from our housing complex's office, warning us about the presence of coyotes in the area and what to do if a resident happened upon one.

Of course Colorado has its share of these canivours and their presence in our old neighborhood was not that rare. I guess that I just never thought that this area of Ohio was an area for that species.

Have any of you encountered these canines?

Jim

10/27/26 10:05 PM

#17559

Mash Memories

I just watched a sort of documentary on the making of the film "M.A.S.H". Full of interviews with the cast and writers (looking much older than back in the day). It was very nosatlgic in a wonderful way. Probably one of the best things we ever saw on TV. It made me recall what a unique and wonderful cast it had.

I was late to the TV series. I never watched it during it's original prime time run. I never started to follow the series until it came back on late night TV - I don't recall why.

But I did expereince the original Hollywood Movie film when it came out on the big screen - but not right away. Some of you may recall that it was banned on military base theaters at first.

Just when the ban was lifted, I happpened to be traveling through a large base where it was showing. It was Tan Sa Nhut ("tawh suh noot") air base near Saigon, and I was wasting hours waiting for my flight to Sydney, Australia (my first of three R&Rs - in about July of 1970). Tan Sa Nhut was huge at the time and contained not only the world's busiest airport (both civilian and military) but also, housing, a shopping center, and the theater complex.

I was seated next to an Army staff sergeant and we laughed so hard he kept poking his elbow into my arm. He must have said "Excuse me sir" a dozen times and I kept saying "it's okay".

This documentary (currently on You Tube) made me realize how much that show touched my heart - for both it's comedy and it's serious episodes.

I miss Radar. I miss them all.

------------

p.s.

I was going to Australia in July to go skiing (their winter "down under"). I spent 3 of the 6 days at Australia's largest ski resort, a place called Thredbo, with about 2,000 foot vertical and maybe 6 chairlifts - a respectible sized mountain by any measure. I met an "older" Australian couple (in their 30's or 40's) who sort of took me under their wings - Australians loved American soldiers. We skiied together two of those threee days and they took me to dinner the last two nights.

The first night in Sydney I went to a "Pig Party" at the invitation of a local military hostess and met a really cute girl. After my trip to Thredbo I spent the last three nights back in Sydney and called that girl - Kate - and we spent all three nights together - out almost all night long. I fell hard and gave serious thougth to going back for her after I returned home from Vietnam. I still have a Christmas card she sent me at my home address after my return.

July 1970 - Thredbo, in New South Wales (Niew South Wiles as they pronounce it).

10/28/26 09:31 AM

#17560

John Jackson

Jim, we have coyotes here in New Jersey (yes, New Jersey) and I've seen a few in and around my town. One of my neighbors, who is not prone to exaggeration, got nightime footage of a coyote on his backyard wildlife cam and he said it was the size of a German shepherd (our yards border a very large wooded area).

I'm not a hunter, but NJ's black bear hunting season has started - about 450 were killed last year. Most bears are in the upper northwest corner of the state and I've never seen one here (I'm in the center of the state), but every year or so we get reports of a bear wandering through our area.

And boy do we have deer - so many they are a real nuisance. I see deer several times a week in my backyard - typically in groups of 3 or 4 but once I saw a group of 12. Occasionally you see them wandering the streets in our small town and when we drive at night we choose routes that are less deer-infested. There are many types of plants that can't be grown because the deer devastate them. Just about every one in this area has hit a deer at one point or another and it doesn't always turn out well for the drivers - over the years there have been a few fatalities (but not people I know) when deer have been hit and have been thrown up onto the hood of the car and have come through the windshield.

Living close to nature in New Jersey...

10/29/26 09:18 PM

#17561

While I was typing my post the other night about the TV show of MASH, I got to thinking about what a huge impresion TV had made on our lives - the sons and daughters of a generation who had grown up entirely without it.

I recall the day they delivered our first TV, bougth from "Grenners" - friends of my parents - who had a combination car repair service and appliance store, just near the northeast corner of Arcadia and North High Street - (with a White Castle located conveniently accross the street.

The unit was large enought to be a major piece of furiture in our living room. It was dark polished mahogany about 3 feeet wide and tall. It had four equaly divided sections - a speaker, a radio tuner, a record player, and the huge 12 inch TV set.

I think it was about 1953, so I was five, and I fell instantly in love with this new addition to our living room. (to my dad's consternation - I was glued to it all the time)

Her are some memories of what I got to watch.

Do you remember Sally Flowers and her variety show? or Ruth Lyons and her "50/50 Club? I remeber Jerry Razor but for what I don't know?

What about the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, or my favorite, The King of the Cowboys - Roy Rogers (and of course, Dale Evans)

Or Davy Crockett, or Zorro?

Terry and the Pirates? Amos and Andy?

Of course, who could forget "It's a Bird. It's a Plane. No It's Superman!

How about Ed Sullivan, or Garry Moore?

Maybe Dinah Shore - "See the USA in your Chevrolet" ?

I loved Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob - and Clarabell.

And Soupy Sales with Whie Fang and Black Tooth

And of course, Columbus' own Flippo the Clown

Of course I am missing many others. Feel free to add to the list.

10/29/26 09:20 PM

#17562

What an idiot!

How could I forget Gunsmoke, Pinky Lee, or Victory at Sea?

10/29/26 09:32 PM

#17563

Autumn Color Behind Our Cottage

Traded those golden aspen leaves in the mountains and the Ponderosa pines of Colorado Springs for these firey red maples here in Hilliard.

The good news is that I no longer have to rake up those sharp pine needles - or anything else for that matter!

Jim

10/31/26 01:45 PM

#17564

Joseph D. McCarthy

One of my favorite statements, from a magazine, while I was in school.

Accountants' Report

March 15, 19xx

To the direectors and stockholders:

We have examined the Consolidted Balance Sheet of the company and consolidate subsidiaries as of December 31, 19xx and 19x2. In our opinion, these financial statements present fairly the financial position of the companies, in conformity with generally accepted accouning principles consistently applied.

On the other hand, there is a growing body of opinion that hold that our opinion is not worth a damn.

Hoskins, Anderman & Waterson

Cartified Public Accountants

Good for a laugh

11/01/26 07:44 AM

#17565

....and the poor get poorer.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-k-shaped-economy-project-47

11/01/26 07:48 AM

#17566

Jim: thanks for the photo.

one of the things i have missed, living in florida, is the fragrant showcase of leaves as they turn and fall.

11/01/26 10:06 AM

#17567