By CARLA OFFENBURGER OXFORD, Ohio, July 17, 2017 — Connections with our grandkids are made different ways, aren’t they? Lindsay Offenburger, 10, and I share a love for reading and our connection appears to be books. I’ve been filling her book shelves since before she could read, and she has a great collection in her…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER BANCROFT, Iowa, June 16, 2017 — So Carla Offenburger and I, devoted baseball fans that we are, had seriously been considering taking our fold-up touring bicycles out to Cape Cod in Massachusetts. We’d stay for a week, pedaling our bikes into the nearby resort towns, which have teams of college all-stars playing in…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 4, 2017 — Grab your cameras and head out to a farm on this Independence Day in 2017. Rural Iowa — at least what we’re seeing of it around us in west central Iowa — seldom ever looks better than this. Green, lush, full. As our pals the Lawtons…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER STORM LAKE, Iowa, May 24, 2017 — Back to campus. While the Cullens, publishers of the Storm Lake Times, have been in New York City collecting their recently-announced Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, they asked a few old pals from journalism if we’d help fill-up an edition of the Times in their absence. And…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 21, 2017 — In early June I wrote that I had reached the 55-day mark on my oral chemo I started back in April for my adenoid cystic carcinoma cancer. And on July 11, I reached 90 days — the mark that brought on a new CT scan and…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER HAVANA, Cuba, May 2, 2017 — For some, the most important figure in the history of Cuba is Jose Marti, the writer and philosopher who inspired the fight for independence from Spain in the late 19th century. Others would pick the Castro brothers — the late Fidel and today’s President Raul — who…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, June 7, 2017 — I have passed the 55-day mark with oral chemotherapy for my adenoid cystic carcinoma cancer. The daily routine seems almost normal now. At 6:30 a.m., I take four very small pills for a total of two milligrams. Then Chuck and I head out for a walk…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, March 17, 2017 – The University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls simply must find a prominent spot on campus – near the business school or library would be particularly appropriate – and create a landscaped “Waller Plaza” with a life-sized or bigger bronze statue of Robert James Waller. The…
IDA GROVE, Iowa, May 1, 2017 — Photographer Don Poggensee says he loves the arrival of spring “with new birds passing thru,” like the northern flicker pictured here in the crabapple blossoms. Actually he was saying that he loves everything about “the change of season from winter into spring,” as he wrote from his home here…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, April 18, 2017 — Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In her book, “Thanks, Help, Wow,” Anne Lamott says “thank you” can be a prayer. And I’m praying it. I am thankful for a wonderful trip to Cuba and thankful that my cancer sat idle and quiet so I could…
