Monday, May 11, 2026

The weakly regulated, wild west show that has been the Chicago futures markets is poised to become a wilder, more global show now that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced it was purchasing archrival Chicago Board of Trade for $8 billion.

Baseball, to me, is still the great American pastime. So many of my memories from childhood revolve around playing baseball in the side yard with my sisters and brother or fielding a team with lots of cousins in the wide open grassy area near my Aunt Dee's pond.

We are (too) fast approaching yet another 30-something birthday and let me assure you the new has worn off.

When I think back to my trick-or-treating days as a kid, my memories strike a contrast with the door-to-door invasions we think of today.

Dianne Shoemaker and I have been sharing this Dairy Channel column since 1997, I think. That's a total of about 130 Dairy Channel articles for each of us.

Show me the contents of a person's wallet and I'll outline their life. My skinny wallet, for example, holds just two credit cards (likes convenience, hates consumer debt), a grocery store discount card (cheapskate), a driver's license, voter's registration card and fishing license (name, address, age, dull life) as well as a blood donor card (O Positive).

The next afternoon after this tragedy, a beautiful autumn day, I was pleasantly surprised to come home and find our little Amish neighbor girls, Anna and Lizzie, here in our back yard, picking up walnuts as we had told them they were welcome to do.

In a perfect world, we'd never print another article like Tony Nicoletto's page one story about his miraculous recovery from a farm accident.

When I was a little girl, a common advertising icon was Reddy Kilowatt. He was an electrical sprite of undetermined origin who flittered about representing the magic of electricity.

We settled on a bench across from the pond in Salem's Waterworth Park. Several varieties of ducks and geese floated leisurely across the water.