By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Dec. 27, 2013 – Football, the way we’re doing it now at my alma mater Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., is just more fun than at many other schools. There were a lot of years when we couldn’t say that — actually there were decades — but we can truthfully…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Dec. 16, 2013 — I have finally accepted that I am in Iowa and I left my granddaughters in New Haven, Connecticut. Every time we visit them or they visit us, it takes days, sometimes weeks, to realize the distance between us. That’s because when we are together they are…
JEFFERSON, Iowa, Dec. 24, 2013 — It seems like one of those Christmases when we’ve seen nearly everyone we know, at one holiday gathering or another. (You’ll see that in the gallery here of 25 of our favorite photos from this season.) That’s the way it usually is when you live in or near a small…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER SHENANDOAH, Iowa, Nov. 13, 2013 – When my old hometown here had the annual autumn celebration “Shenfest” in late September, one focus of it was a tribute to George Jay Drug Company, a pharmacy that is celebrating 125 years in business and happens to have a very famous soda fountain. There are…
COOPER, Iowa, Dec. 13, 2013 — So we were at Deal’s Orchard and Tree Farm, just west of Jefferson, where Carla Offenburger and I were cutting down our own Christmas tree for this season. Co-owner Jerald Deal and his assistant Camron Roath were waiting to shake out the loose needles, drill the trunk, put it in our…