Opinion

The date “April 30, 1975” doesn’t mean much these days despite its historical significance.   April 30, 1975 was the day fifty years ago when the last American soldier in Viet Nam boarded a helicopter on top of the US Embassy in Saigon and we officially exited the country with our tail between our legs,…

By Ken Johnson, Horticulture Educator University of Illinois Extension Columbines are popular garden plants. They can be found in various colors, ranging from red, pink, yellow, white, purple, and blue, and they can help fill the gap between early spring blooming plants like tulips and daffodils and the summer blooming plants that dominate our landscapes.…

From the first time Popeye strode across the boards of a black and white pier, his blimpy forearms and clenched fists gyrating in piston motion, I was hooked. Popeye was a balding man. Short as a shot of whiskey and explosive as a belch. A corncob pipe hung between his lips; he chomped it tight…

I’ve never been much for hiking even though some of my friends love it. And I feel the same way about camping. I’ve often said if I’m camping, there needs to be a hunting or fishing trip involved somewhere. Otherwise, I would prefer a weekend getaway in a condo and breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

On October 17, 2017, astrophysicists at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii discovered an object moving at a very rapid speed in our solar system. It appeared to have come from outer space. The astrophysicists at the Observatory named this object “Oumuamua”, which in the Hawaiian language means “the first to arrive from outer space with…

The motto for many turkey hunters this year is, “So close, and yet so far away.” It really is amazing sometimes how close we can be to a good gobbler and yet be unable to take a shot. More than one person has bemoaned this truth to me. I empathize with them.

I watched my daughter from various windows in the house, trailing her progress as she tried to pick every dandelion that dotted the grass. Her body bent in half over each selection, pudgy legs locked into place, and her curly, wind-tossed hair bounced against her cheeks on the way down.

Two new subspecies of crocodiles were discovered recently in the Caribbean, not all that far from Florida. That bit of news got me researching whether there are, by chance, any crocodiles in Florida. To my surprise, yikes, there are crocodiles in Florida and as it turns out, they are native to Florida, unlike the invasive…

If you follow developments on the James Webb Space Telescope website, you will see that within the past few weeks, astrophysicists have become absolutely “giddy” with the claim that they now have the best evidence yet of alien life in our universe.   Is this just “click bait” or is there some substantive evidence to…

It’s time for spring cleaning. I know this, because I see the neighbors out there, wiping windows, sweeping stoops, and just generally bustling about. The first few days of continuous sunshine and temperatures above 50 trigger this innate urge to clean, and I am trying to get to work on my own winter hovel. We’ve…