Tag: Life & Tradition

Purposeful Parenting: It Starts With a Plan

Strategic planning sessions. Company retreats. Visions and goal setting. Most of us who have worked in any kind of administrative environment have sat in brainstorming meetings with someone facilitating the event probably with a flip chart or computer screen. We know the drill. You have a vision, a mission statement, you arrive at “the why”…


Let’s Make It Happen: Saving Thanksgiving From the Grinch

Dr. Seuss wrote “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” the story of a sour, solitary creature who despises the joy that Christmas brings to others. This year, the Grinch has widened his ambitions and is taking aim at Thanksgiving. Our country is in a mess. Gas prices are soaring. The cost of groceries, including turkeys, is…


2021 Ford Escape PHEV first drive

Ford has been a part of the electrification wave long before the technology became trendy, manufacturing a production Escape Hybrid way back in 2005. Fast forward to 2021 and a PHEV version of the popular compact SUV is now available for consumers, providing another option to go green minus the range anxiety of a pure…


Beaujolais Nouveau: Much Ado About Nothing

Today’s younger wine buyers are more interested in drinkability, different styles, and simply having fun—and seemingly aren’t interested in expensive, iconic wines. With their current interest in craft beer, cider, and even hard seltzer, younger buyers of alcoholic beverages should be perfectly set up to get excited about a wine that isn’t legal to sell…


Forget Pumpkin, Make Your Pies With Kabocha—and Chocolate

Kabocha, also known as Japanese pumpkin, is a versatile and delicious winter squash. The flavor is starchy and sweet, with a firm body that can handle being cooked many ways, from tempura-fried to roasted to steamed to sweet purees. The seeds are plump. The hard skin is edible. The squash experience is complete. Once upon…


How Alexander the Great Became Great, Part 2

Whether fictional or factual, there are many splendid flourishes in the tapestry of the history of Alexander the Great. However, they don’t coherently or reliably tell us how Alexander earned this attribute. On their own, they take us down that path of bizarre and pointless triviality, such that all a student today may remember is…


Theater Review: ‘Autumn Royal’: The Caretakers’ Dilemma

NEW YORK—In a very modest dwelling in Cork City, Ireland, two 30-somethng siblings wrestle with a long-standing problem: The problem lumbers noisily about upstairs. It is their old codger of a dad, getting more and more difficult by the day to care for. This is the gist of Kevin Barry’s “Autumn Royal,” the Irish Repertory…


What I Discovered From My Father’s Recovery From COVID

Commentary In early September, I wrote an article entitled “Faith and Love in the Time of COVID” about my father’s bout with COVID pneumonia. When I wrote that article, my father was being moved from the ICU to a non-ICU room. In all, he was in the hospital for two months and had been at…


The Making of Thanksgiving

What does the Thanksgiving holiday bring to mind? If you said family, roast turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie, that would likely strike a chord in the minds of most Americans. If asked about the true origin of Thanksgiving, however, the answer might be a matter of greater debate, mixed, mashed, and buttered-up with inaccurate…


Considering a Career Change? Tips for Taking a Big Leap

One of the many unexpected consequences of the pandemic and resulting public health measures is a reevaluation of one’s work. Many are realigning their careers, goals, and lives and are taking a big leap in a different direction. Just in time for what some are dubbing “The Great Resignation,” career coach Ken Coleman is releasing…