Laura Stebbins
“They are having a celebration there tomorrow, so they have to be okay,” said the woman who answered the phone at the Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department.
Hmmm.
My first reaction was to laugh at her, but I decided to...
“You’re asking me if I miss my children?” said landscape painter Gary Bowling.
"No."
Bowling was answering an audience question about selling his paintings -- his "children." By the time I’ve finished a painting, he said, “I’ve nailed it down. I’ve...
“We have to slow down and listen. We have to slow down, or we miss too much,” said George Minot as he began the discussion at the Hotel Pattee Tuesday night of the 2016 All Iowa Reads book, “Lila,”...
It seems to me that the entire point of trends is to get us to spend more money. I don’t know what happened in Milan, Paris, London or New York City this season, but Younkers at the Valley West...
One of my favorite things to do — and I do this less than you might suppose — is to plan to attend an event and then spontaneously go off on a small adventure. When this happens with friends,...
We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive.
--Aldo Leopold
The woman next to me cried...
Lots of things are relative. When I lived in Richmond, Va., I came home for a visit one winter, and it was about 34 degrees when I left. You would have thought it was Mt. Everest weather from the...
Oh, those awkward moments! I experienced one Thursday night at the ISU Extension Partner Banquet in Adel.
It happened when Caitlyn Lamm, marketing and communications coordinator for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, announced the winner of one of the...
“Our family didn’t have a lot of money, and it was just a joy to be at Riverview even if we could only ride one ride.”
A woman shared this childhood memory while enjoying a presentation on Riverview Park at...
In December Donald Trump called for the U.S. to ban all Muslim immigrants. The reactions his idea provoked are interesting.
For instance, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said, “This whole notion that somehow we can just say, ‘No more...