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.”…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 4, 2020 — As we were taking our traditional measure of the corn crop and the general health of agriculture on the eve of this Independence Day, our friend and neighbor Karen Lawton hit upon what may be the happiest thing you can say about it right now: “The farm…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, April 30, 2020 — When the advance agenda for this week’s Jefferson City Council meeting reported that one of Iowa’s greatest wrestlers, T.J. Sebolt, would present an economic development proposal, I immediately reserved a chair at the media table — although that really turned out to be a spot on…