Rural Roots and American Rainbows

We’re a disposable culture, especially when it comes to clothes. It used to be that our clothing collections expanded due to incredible offerings in department stores. The selection was a little more limited, but you could regularly come home with multiple items and set your bank account back a few hundred items. Then came online…

One of the things I love about living in a rural area is being able to be swept away by the sights, but Sunday proved to stand out a little bit among any other day. I was driving to church, and the usual things I see are houses, corn fields, folks out mowing their lawn…

There’s an old idiom that getting there is half the fun, meaning the process of getting to the end of something is just as rewarding as arriving at your destination. It’s something that carries a certain significance to everyone, but I think it’s become especially poignant after a recent weekend with my sweetheart. We finally…

Mother’s Day—a day where the women who serve as cooks, taxi driver, seamstresses, personal shoppers and overall paragons of virtue for their children suddenly turn to their ungrateful brats and say in a dark, ominous voice: “Time to pay the check.” Interestingly, a May Mother’s Day is more of an American thing, although many other…

Once upon a time, there was a concept known as customer service. The idea was that if you treated customers nicely, they would show their gratitude through repeat business, because they’d know they were welcome in the establishment. Customer service used to be the standard for businesses everywhere. I remember during my brief forays working…

One of my favorite movies to watch when I want to mix up mystery and humor is “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” a 1986 film starring Whoopi Goldberg as a bank worker named Terry Doolittle who uses a computer to help international clients with their transactions. She finds herself in a bit of trouble when she connects…

The children of the 1980s most likely remember the synthetic, musical sounds from video games. Whether it’s the dungeon theme from “The Legend of Zelda” or the overworld theme from “Super Mario Brothers,” the jingles stay with you. More than 40 years later, video games have evolved considerably since then, and so has the music…

Dinner can be an event when you have it somewhere besides your dining room. When you go to a familiar restaurant, you tend to take comfort in the fact that the food will (almost) always be excellent. When you go to a restaurant you’ve never patronized, it can be an adventure as you try the…

Recently, the Jim Henson film “Labyrinth” returned to movie theaters for a limited run. Originally, I thought it was for a milestone anniversary, probably the 40th, but I was surprised when I realized the movie had come out in 1986. Instead, Columbia Pictures, which produced the film, was celebrating 100 years. “Labyrinth” was a departure…

I must have missed the memo that Pride month meant we had to stay as far away from the police as possible and that we had to party like it’s 1969. Singer Sam Smith apparently missed the memo, as well, as they posted a photo on June 26 on Instagram page being flirty with a…