I mourn the loss of brick and motar bookstores.  Book World in downtown Houghton was my favorite because when we would stop by to browse, I always managed to find the newest issue of Classic Rock Magazine or Mojo to keep me in touch with the music scene.  When the entire Book World franchise […]

       Even if school wasn’t your favorite place to be growing up, I am going to lay odds that you have memories of at least one of your teachers.  While attending school was always one of those things we were mandated to do before we were set free into ‘the real world’, there were always […]

            On one of the occasions when my mother’s father was staying with us for a few days back in the mid-1960s, I had an interesting discussion with him while playing cribbage.  Grandpa was never overly talkative so it took a bit to get him to carry on a conversation.  With the CBS news about […]

       With the results of the Upper Peninsula Track Finals in the books, let us say ‘congratulations’ to all of those who toil in the world of Track and Field.  No other sport I can think of demands as much personal discipline as being a track athlete.  Reading the results a couple of weeks ago […]

     In FTV:  Student Teachers (4-10-24), I recounted some of my experiences with the rite of passage called ‘student teaching’.  The state wants teaching candidates vetted in an actual classroom setting before signing off and giving them a license to teach.  Usually one decides whether or not they want to pursue a career in teaching before […]

       Back in June of 2023, the first part of FTV:  Misplaced (6-21-23) discussed the 25 years we took our Ontonagon Area Schools eighth graders on an annual orienteering hike in the Porcupine Mountains.  In orienteering, we used map and compass skills to travel from point to point without relying on trails, trail markers, or […]

Growing up, we had dogs for more years than we did not. The first one I remember was a purebred Black Lab named Duke. I learned later that ‘Duke’ was a shortened version of his full name that sounded more like a loyal English subject of high ranking, but neither my mother or father could […]

  Once upon a time, not that long ago, I was introduced to the art of selling magazines.  Having never been in love with fundraising (particularly the kind done to fund school projects), I was a little dismayed when a colleague of mine dropped a box of paperwork on my desk and said, “Here, it is […]

     No, I am not thinking about the Wykon or the Hodag.  If you are wondering, the first is the school mascot for the West Iron County (Michigan) school district and the latter is a tourist attraction who roams the forests somewhere in the northern counties of Wisconsin.  No, what I have in mind are the […]