A decade after the Korean War, orphanages on the Korean peninsula continued to overflow with abandoned and orphaned children.
Someone recently reminded me that, as men, we tend to be forgetful if not neglectful when it comes to doing something to celebrate Valentine’s Day. He suggested an evening including dinner and a show at Carter Caves on Friday and Saturday.
Made a trip to the post office recently?
Although I have a special love for Kentucky, I am a mountaineer.
I think of West Virginia and Kentucky as a package deal.
Another $5 insult on my windshield this week reminds me I’ve been too quiet about Ashland’s practice of writing parking tickets.
You may not have been aware of it, but Monday marked a rather significant product anniversary.
Every day, the vast differences between my age people and young people grow more apparent.
Lately, I’ve noticed those differences in the area of food.
The staff at Callihan’s American Pub & Grill at the Kyova Mall is set for a “soft opening” this week. Many people have been waiting for this one since the sign went up announcing the restaurant would be open by early fall of 2009, and there is tremendous expectation regarding the atmosphere, service and menu choices.
If you’ve purchased cold pills with pseudoephedrine in them at any time over the past several years, you’re no doubt aware that it’s a more difficult process than it used to be.
Anticipating more bad weather, I prepared to be snowed in for the weekend.
I quit making New Year’s resolutions long ago, but I still feel the need to reform my life with the beginning of a new year.
My wife Wanda and I were driving down Winchester Avenue the other day when she commented on the physical changes Ashland has undergone — and continues to undergo — in the 50-plus years since we came here.
For some time now we’ve known that ’80s fashion was roaring back. First it was the tights. Then the neon shoes. Both of which I’d rolled my eyes at when I spotted them in store windows.
The images that emerged from Haiti following last week’s 7.0 earthquake have been shocking and heartbreaking.
Matt Perkins and the gang at Second Hand Rose are looking for your worst dishware, cookware or other household items as part of their “Desperate Housewares” campaign.
I wasn’t even hungry when I started talking to Beth Bond, the executive chef at The Lunch Box and Custom Catering, after the family operation at 1503 Argillite Road (across from Faith Christian Assembly) had wrapped up its first day of business last week.
The other day I wrote my first check of 2010.
No wonder people don’t know how to have relationships.
During a drive to Augusta several weeks before Christmas, my wife and I listened to the presentation of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes on National Public Radio. I found it to be both entertaining and even a bit enlightening.
I’ve had an iPhone since September.
A few weeks ago I revealed the embarrassing details of my recent memory loss, which included things like forgetting where I parked my car, telling friends the same stories over and over and forgetting to tell people semi-important stuff.
A terrible tragedy befell me the other day. I was forced to defrost my frost-free refrigerator — more accurately, the frosted-over freezer of my frost-free refrigerator.
The holiday shopping rush is almost over. The children are preparing to play with the goodies Santa will leave during his annual visit.
I’ve been craving barbecue, specifically Carolina-style barbecue, for several weeks, and found it kind of amusing when I started making notes for this week’s column and discovered everything on the list is meat related.
My youngest grandchild is too young to believe,
Or remember a thing about this Christmas eve.
Three more days until Christmas!
Saturday’s news that vandals had caused more than $10,000 in damages to the Winter Wonderland of Lights displays in Central Park was heartbreaking.
The Christmas tree tradition used to be I’d put up the tree on Thanksgiving.
I happened to be going through old photo albums the other day, looking for an old picture of me. It took a while to find one. See, I’m the photographer for the family, not the photographee.
When someone in the family has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s OK to find humor in the situation. It might seem cruel to laugh at times, but it’s the only way to cope with it.
I didn’t receive a lot of suggestions about local places to buy Christmas gifts, although I was impressed and surprised by the number of suggestions from people suggesting donations to local animal shelters, particularly for those who qualify as “impossible to shop for,” or “already has everything.”
OK, if you read last week’s column (and I certainly hope you did), you already know what my least-favorite Christmas song of all time is.
Pass the fudge on past me, please, and hide the pecan pie. I’ve chosen the month of December to kick off my renewed — and seemingly perpetual — campaign to skinny down like the folks on “Biggest Loser.”
So there I was the other day, in the lobby of the Ashland City Building, plowing my way through several days’ worth of police reports and jotting down pertinent info for one of the newspaper’s twice-weekly “Police Beat” articles.
I always like it when local business owners try to do something in appreciation of the community that has supported their operation, so I was pleased to hear that Rafael Rodriquez, owner of La Finca on Greenup Avenue beneath the big bridges in Ashland, has adopted $.99 Sundays for the restaurant’s customers.
For a couple of months, my memory has been terrible.
I have wanted to write about that, but I kept forgetting.
One of my favorite cartoon series is celebrating a golden anniversary.
The remote control may be the worst thing that ever happened to my ability to focus, or it may be the best.
You never know how a dog is going to act when you give her a bath. She could be the sweetest, most docile creature the rest of the time, but when she hears the water in the bathtub running and you’re trying to dump her into it, she can turn into a mule.
In rare cases, a dog will like a bath.
When I recently wrote a news story about free memory tests being offered locally, I actually thought about taking the test, but, of course, when the time came, I forgot all about it until it was too late.
If anyone is considering giving pets for Christmas, I may have two on the market.
Next Thursday I’ll host Thanksgiving dinner in my home.
I was walking down Carter Avenue in Ashland last week and noticed Chef Paul Runnels at Chimney Corner Cafe is planning a big buffet to feed some of the thousands of people who will be flocking to downtown Ashland for Tuesday evening’s annual Christmas Parade.
I’ve been following the kerfuffle over a proposed substance abuse addiction recovery center in Louisa with a high degree of interest.
Today would be my 13th wedding anniversary if my husband were still alive.
Kentucky did what it needed to do on Saturday against Vanderbilt: It won to become bowl eligible.
Now comes the hard part.
A friend recently told me his cousin ate a cow’s heart. It wasn’t a dare; he just considers organ meat healthy.
Back in the days before I lived in Ashland, I always enjoyed making trips here for shopping, work-related matters or whatever.
We ended up in Grayson on a misguided mission Monday evening and decided to take advantage of the situation and have dinner at a place I’ve been hearing good things about for a couple of years. We were not disappointed.
There’s a fundamental rule in my business about freebies: journalists don’t take them.
One great thing about this job is the chance encounters we have with the celebrity world.
I spoke to Larry Pennington, owner of the new Zanzi’s Pizza To Go at 3301 13th St. in Ashland, and he reported excellent business during the restaurant’s first days in business.
Well, it was about time, don’t you think?
I thought my dogs were trouble. Well, they are. But I’m thinking they’re not as much trouble as my mom’s dog.
Magnesium is one of Earth’s most precious and rare minerals.
To me, it is, anyway.
A correspondent on The Independent’s editorial page Tuesday posed an interesting question. He was critical of a presentation made last week at an educational conference at Ashland Community and Technical College.