vertrees
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Carrol Vertrees: College gives kids a nice start
Maybe it was something in the water. Or in the wild and crazy social life, like skating parties in the old gym. There was something special about that little church college on the south edge of Indianapolis, an unsophisticated place for unsophisticated kids away from …Read More
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Carrol Vertrees: Memory of life ‘back home’ comfort medicine
Its welcome lights went out years ago, but that little barbershop in the middle of my hometown’s mostly comatose business district still leads pilgrims like me home to places we remember so well. It was run by a remarkable fellow named Sheldon Eubanks, probably Elnora’s …Read More
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Carrol Vertrees: Executing our right to the First Amendment
I like to quote people who are brighter than I. Their number is infinite. Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I thought of Pogo after the horrendous killings in that Connecticut school. That may be a harsh judgment, but there …Read More
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‘In God I trust’ may be a better license plate
I am not an eminent historian, so I don’t know if Chris Columbus actually discovered our place or if some folks got here first. One account said he and his men saw some people running around without any clothes on, but they didn’t stop. I …
Moms: We owe them, and not just this day
They hold and comfort us when we are sad. They love us when we are bad. They are there when we need them, with a cookie or a hug. Even when they hurt or are weary, they have time for us. It is a thing …
In search for truth, many trials
‘You have some really neat vibrations,” the fortune teller woman said, as she caressed my left hand. I thought “Wow.” Then she whispered “You should be a boss. You should lead people.” This exciting news hit me decades ago in a booth at the Lake …
Puff piece: Don’t get burned by smoking
If the street signs in my next world say “Parallel Parking Only,” I will have to come back or just drive around. Forever. Maybe longer. If signs in their next world say “No Smoking Anywhere,” what will habitual smokers do? Can they quit? Being addicted …
Ice cream cranking proves no chore for top paddle-licker
When I was a farm kid in the days of FDR, I often heard someone described as a crank or cranky, meaning out of sorts, irritable, peevish, in a state of fretful fussiness. But I did not pay much attention because I was too busy …
Vertrees: Onset of spring brings back memories of youth
My thoughts are not as lofty as Tennyson’s — he wrote that in the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love — he didn’t say much about old men. But in the diaries of my heart, my fancy turns eagerly to …
On Easter, all around us, a fresh day dawns
Wearing earmuffs with a spring bonnet would look funny, but in some areas, that might be wise. No matter — it’s how warm we are inside on this special day that counts — deep in our beings, feeling the touch of something special. I read …
We make a difference in the lives around us
Finding samples of deathless prose in an obituary sounds contradictory and unlikely. But I am dead sure I found some in the final sendoff of a fellow named Larry Vincent down in Fort Myers, Fla. I knew it was a winner when the first paragraph …
Listen up or miss out
In my reveries, I often drift back home to the rural haven that nurtured me. Like, I sorely miss the sounds from my childhood. I am thinking how much fun it would be to have a loudspeaker bring the early morning sounds of a crowing …
Men try to carve out a role in the kitchen, usually just get burned
Some years back, I began a column like this: “In the autumn of my life … ” Where has my autumn gone, I wonder, here in the chill winter of my life? Where do the seasons go, when it is their time? They just wait, …
Two left turns don’t make a right
It is not as much of a life changer as indoor plumbing, but the turn signal invention rates high as a life saver. Some of us don’t know much about the turn signal, even how to use it. One of the pillars of American independence …
Vertrees: Being biased isn’t necessarily a bad thing
Anyone who does not have a serious bias is missing a lot of fun. I don’t mean like a Gary councilman from many years back who said solemnly: “I am against gambling, vice and everything.” Bias is not a bad word. If we have opinions …
He hungers for the good ol’ days
There may be a caloric conspiracy out there. I can taste and smell it. The conspirators are sly, clever and smug. Some of the evidence is in our crowded pantry — those boxes of many sizes and shapes that hold “take-home” food that is shoveled …
Carrol Vertrees: 2012 was a year for God, guns and wackos
Whew! It was a wacky world in 2012, but it didn’t end as some people predicted. So we are in for more wacky stuff in 2013. One of these years, maybe an evangelist, or a talk show guy who is in direct touch with the …
Carrol Vertrees: Thermostats crank up the heat on memories
I have this thing about thermostats — the first room thermostat was invented in 1883, shortly before I was. I never saw one until well past the age of puberty. In our farmhouse we could not have used one anyway, a memory that hits me …
Carrol Vertrees: So many breakfast cereals, so little time
Grover Phillips was a little fellow, but in the Elnora of my childhood he was a big man — his grocery store was on the corner near our downtown stop sign. The store was little, but big enough. I think of it as I shop …
Carrol Vertrees: Hatching the perfect childhood memory
In my farm kid days, when Herbert Hoover was commander-in-chief and Jack Dempsey was a famous pugilist, we treated our chickens with appreciation, if not outright respect. We have sinned and gone astray. We are not fair to chickendom. No wonder they would like to …
