By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 4, 2021 — I can’t recall seeing a better stand of corn just before Independence Day than I did Friday evening, July 2, in the fields of our neighbors and pals, Doug and Karen Lawton, just outside our tiny western Iowa town. Tall, straight, lush and the prettiest green you’ve…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, June 29, 2021 – I’m history. And so are a lot of you out there – my fellow Baby Boomers, hep cats, hippies, yippies, yuppies and others. We are people who were born or came of age in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, three decades that changed the world, most…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, April 21, 2021 – Happy 30th wedding anniversary, dear Carla! We really celebrated it this year, didn’t we? Fresh flowers, lots of cards, peach ice cream and a surprise serenade last evening in our farmhouse living room from 10 members of the Chancel Choir at our Plymouth Congregational United Church…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Feb. 16, 2021 — My wife Carla Offenburger, after six months of hospice care here at home for her cancer, glanced at her reflection in a mirror when she finished showering on a recent day and said to me, “In our wedding vows, when we said ‘in sickness and in…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Nov. 3, 2020 – I slid into bed the other night next to my wife Carla Offenburger, kissed her goodnight and, like I always do, told her I love her. She grabbed my hand, like she always does, then said something real different: “I’m afraid I’m slipping away from you.”…