The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News - Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties

Recently our writer’s group worked on our own obituaries. It may sound strange, but we determined that some printed obituaries don’t necessarily match the person they’re written about. Who knows...

It has been said that grand parenting is the reward for putting up with your children all those years. Some have said they wished they could have gone to grand parenting right away, and skipped...

Christmas is over for another year, but the memories still remain. This year, for example, it rained on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I don’t recall that ever happening, though my memory isn’t tha...

It is said that you are as young as you feel. I have yet another birthday coming in a couple months, and I don’t feel young at all. As a matter of fact, if someone were to sneak another 20 candles o...

There are moments in my life that stay with me for no apparent reason. Some are national events that everyone seems to know about, and some are personal events no one knows about. There are also...

Some things in life just seem to run their course. I don’t know why that happens, but it does. I’ve noticed I have a lot more aches and pains as I age, and things just aren’t as important to me as the... Full story

Recently my wife, Rita, and I decided to start looking for a new car. It isn’t that anything is wrong with our old car, but we think we want an SUV instead of the sedan we are driving. Our Toyota c...

My parents both were savers. My dad always said, "I might be able to use that someday." If my mom would throw something away that she didn't need anymore, my dad would sometimes take it out of the...

I have taken a lot of road trips in my life, and some of them were even enjoyable. I was watching TV the other night and saw a movie advertised that starred Chevy Chase. He has some interesting and fu...

My earliest memories of the farm always involve livestock. There were always chores to do, no matter what time of the day or what day of the week. The earliest chore I remember was washing disks for...

Everyone who owns an automobile knows that regular maintenance is required. You need to keep the tank full of gas, the tires full of air and the engine full of oil. People also need regular maintenanc...

Every Christmas movie on television has a perfect Christmas tree. Usually the tree is live, rather than artificial, and it comes from a tree farm or a downtown tree lot. The trees are somehow...

My kids and grandkids, and even my wife, shake their heads at my choice of electronic entertainment. I have a Zenith radio that I got in 1967 as a graduation gift and it is perfectly usable. I’ll h...

attended a Parochial school located about a mile away from our farm. I graduated from eighth grade in 1963, and had not yet adjusted to high school when President John F. Kennedy was shot. The world...

We live in an age of digital cameras and smart phones. It has become easier to record history, both with pictures and videos. Gone are the days of clipping articles from the newspaper, photo albums...

The use of fences around cemeteries has changed over the years. I’m not sure what the trend is for cemeteries these days, but if you look around, you will see a lot of different kinds of fences. A...

A triple play in baseball or softball is a very rare occurrence. Though I don’t have the statistics to prove it, I believe it is more likely for a punt to be returned 90 yards for a touchdown in a f...

The only real trouble I had in school happened when I wasn't paying attention. This might occur in the spring of the year, when a young boy's fancy turns to anything but the three R's. Sometimes the...

I have never been obese, at least in my own estimation. There have been times, however, when I put on extra weight, often showing up on my stomach and thighs. This usually happens in the winter when...