Columns

By Maggie ConklinPlum Tart Yum TartI was chatting with my neighbor Christa Wise about, you guessed it, food. More specifically, about deserts.She said she’d procured ingredients for Margaret McDermott’s plum tart recipe, the finished product’s beauty and intricacies of getting…

By Scott SullivanEditorThe Real WayLate Friday, Oct. 13, was no time to venture far from the Three Rivers Super 8. Carter and I had an early next a.m. video gig for which squalls were announcing themselves already.In asphalt lot cracks…

    “They don’t make Thanksgivings like they used to,” Ol’ Curdlepuss moaned the other day. “Back when I was growing up it was pretty good, but not so much anymore. It isn’t the way it used to be.”      He didn’t wait for…

I’m not able to type on my outdated computer at the Old Folks Hotel, and even if I could, my daughters would sensor 50% of what I wanted to say. (I’m well into my 90s and have no trouble telling…

As we partake in a Thanksgiving feast, watch football, and enjoy time with our relatives, I harken back to these words from Apple founder, Steve Jobs, who died at the age of 56, and lamented about his lack of time…

The first television I remember having was a 17-inch, black and white table model that my parents bought at the Firestone store here in Three Rivers. We got it back in the fifties. Back then, we could get channel three…

There’s a lot of change going on in certain places in Marion, Michigan. Some are eye-catching and others more subtle. When we travel north on Mill Street (M-66) these days, our attention is drawn to the goings on at the…

            I’m not a fan of writing about Satan and the power he can have in our lives and culture.  Whenever we focus too much on evil, it has a way of invading our thinking, sometimes to the point of…

Thanksgiving, for most of you is less than a week away. That never used to work for us. For years we celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday, mostly because of deadlines and putting the paper together. It always seemed easier to wait…

By Scott SullivanEditorThe Hungry IMachine dreams I had, of storytelling gear Carter might bring new when he showed at the Three Rivers Super 8.It was Friday, Oct. 13, inverted digits of Halloween. There for a night at the inn, then…

    Back in the Olden Days, sometimes known as The Good Old Days, even if they were not all that great, there was no such thing as Black Friday that began at the stroke of midnight the day after Thanksgiving.  Back then,…

Not that anyone is asking, but if you want to run into a bunch of veterans, just come visit the Old Folks Hotel at Arbor Springs. More accurately, WE will run into YOU as we are all in wheelchairs and…

Anyone out there in reader land that has had stem cell injections to repair an arthritic knee?I apologize out of the gate. Many of you don’t want to hear about my personal problems. It seems the older we get the…

Being retired usually means you don’t have any time to work, because you are too busy with other things. This reasoning fits me perfectly. I find myself too wrapped up in volunteering and find it difficult to even get out…

Forever and always are two words that we all use often and yet, in the long run, there are few things around us that are either. Our surroundings change all the time. Marion hasn’t always been here. Our families change,…

In the last few weeks, I ran into a few roadblocks when I was in court as a witness. In both cases which focused on custody issues, attorneys questioned me about the character of parents. They focused on behavior that…

By Maggie ConklinLima BeansErin Wilkinson and I were hanging out at my office a couple weeks ago shooting the breeze and enjoying each other’s company. Of course we chatted about The Douglas Halloween Parade, as she is Queen of that…

By Scott SullivanEditorDeerslayerShe died on the creek bank from which she’d risen, leapt the steel rail and appeared before I could stop …Data: Saturday, Oct. 28, 8:38 or so a.m. Ferry Street dip over Wicks Creek culvert, northbound south of…

On every Veterans Day I look around and wonder if anyone under the age of 70 understands the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner. My age group knows to take off our hats, place hands over hearts, and stand at attention.…

We have a weekly column in one of our Michigan newspapers called Faces in the Crowd. Random bystanders are asked a question each week and we publish their answers. This week the question had to do with sending man back…