Opinions

Crime stories have a way of being hotter than the headband in a fireman’s helmet, and then become cold cases when the suspects get away.

Mark Warde

The lights were moody and the exhibits were intricate for the featured display on Archimedes. Although I’m a curious person, I would never be classified as an “intellectual.” I knew, however, I was in the presence of intellectuals so I was doing my best to chameleon myself under the heading, “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”

This past week we attended the memorial for my husband Peter’s oldest sister, Shelley. Shelley went through a long battle with cancer, and Peter lost his second sister in two years. The pandemic had just started, her husband had just died, and Shelley moved 900 miles across the country to live near her kids. Then, almost immediately, she discovered she was gravely ill. She moved in with her son, Joel, and daughter-in-law, Dani, and never left.

Hindsight being 20-20, the decision by city leaders to purchase the property of the former Safeway grocery store and parking lot looks wiser each passing year.

“We have a 7:45 opening,” she said in our phone conversation, and all I could think about was how cold that machine would be at 7:45 a.m.

Amazing, isn’t it. While many of the best things in life are free, one very popular feature in downtown Ennis, the Hay Maze at the North Plaza, made a visual change and it quickly prompted thoughts the City had slapped an entry fee on the autumn fun.

My husband, Peter, and I are spending time “up north” with my parents at their cabin by the lake. Fall is late this year. I mentioned this to Peter on the drive north. “Aren’t the leaves supposed to change color at the same time every year?” I asked. “I thought they changed when the days were shorter.”

If you live long enough, you will become a burden to your children. I think I have crossed that threshold. Recently, I fretted over a doctor’s appointment at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville—not so much the appointment, but the trip there and back. The husband was always my driver and we usually made the trip an event.

The answer to the occasional faulty toilet is not to replace them all with outhouses. Similarly, anytime a bad cop rears his head should not launch a national disbanding of all law enforcement personnel.