By CHUCK OFFENBURGER SHENANDOAH, Iowa, Aug. 2, 2020 – Well, I’ll be damned. You’re telling me a business operates for 132 years in a solid, people-serving, community-building way in my hometown – including making the best malts on Earth at its classic soda fountain – and it’s now going belly-up? Not on my watch, brothers…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 12, 2020 — Three things happened this past week that put me in a reflective mood: 1) Lindsay Offenburger, oldest granddaughter, turned 13 and I was telling her what I was doing at that age; 2) after too many years of forgetting to re-subscribe, my new subscription started up for…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER BANCROFT, Iowa, Aug. 17, 2019 – In this summer of mass shootings, suspicion of those different from ourselves, and outright hate, thank God for baseball, you know? Almost daily, the grand old game gives us good lessons – prepare well, get out of yourself, sacrifice for others, work together as a team,…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, June 20, 2019 — It was 30 years ago this summer when I decided to get my ear pierced and start wearing an earring. It was 29 years ago when I met Carla Burt during a bicycle ride on a recreational trail. Jim Green inspired both big moments in my life. …
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Dec. 30, 2019 – We were talking politics in the living room of our west central Iowa farmhouse here the other day with our longtime pal Mary Riche, who is a very active Democrat in the Des Moines area. “We are living in very historic times,” Riche said. Indeed we…