So today I watched my father sign the paperwork that places my mother’s quality of life in the hands of Hospice workers. It was meeting I never wanted to have. No child wants that, no spouse wants that. Yet, no spouse or child wants to see...
My third “date” with Ruth was a long one; four days back in October 2017. We started planning it as soon as it was evident that we had a lot in common and needed some extended together. As it turned out, by the time we actually were...
I love a good barn. My paternal grandfather had a lovely one, perched on a hillside of the farming village of Eglon, W.Va. I recall him telling me that he and his wife, Maud, built the barn in the 1930s, when they married, moved to the land...
Guerino “Reno” Calemine died this year. Feb. 23, to be exact. He was almost 91, but up until a few days before his death, Reno was still working in his shoe repair shop at 25 Armstrong St., Keyser, W.Va. “He was the ‘Mayor of...
Nature totters between summer and winter. The weather between rain and snow. The light between flat and awesome. The parting of the clouds is like that of zipper between heaven and earth briefly rent. Actinic light rushes through the slit, paints...
My new documentary film, “The Story Quilter’s Threads,” ends with this moving story about a 40-year romance between a dairy farmer and Kent State University professional.
The Crescent Farm barn in Rome Township has a beautiful barn quilt that hints at the farm’s clandestine past.
In the fall of 2016 I embarked upon the most ambitious writing project of my life, crafting a history of Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio. Why? For more than two decades, The Harbor was the greatest iron ore receiving port in the world. More iron ore...
Complain we must about the rain, the clouds, the odd weather that tinkers with our plans for a picnic, wedding, campfire and fishing. The fact remains that the clouds are good for sunsets, and sunsets are good for the heart. A sunset well...
All my life I have felt weird, out of place. Like a dust bunny in an operating suite. A vegetarian at a Texas barbeque. A lifetime WCTU member at a distiller’s convention. The rest of the world was having fun, I observing, thinking about...
My friend of many years, Betty Layport Feher, recently dug out some memorabilia from Shady Beach Hotel, one of the many relatively elegant hotels that once operated at Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio’s oldest summer resort. Shady Beach dates back...
I met him about 15 months ago, when I interviewed Elmer Backlund and two other A&B Dock employees for an Ashtabula Wave story. Elmer brought a surprise to that meeting at Norman Millberg’s house: The log he had kept while machine...
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