An Arkies Musings

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 28, 2022, issue of The Polk County Pulse. It's Christmas Eve, and the house is a bustle of activity. The kitchen has been busy all day as my wife and daughter have been preparing our Christmas Eve feast. The tradition in our family is to have Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve, followed by a special Christmas breakfast the next morning. Flour covers the kitchen table as homemade rolls, pumpkin pie, and apple pie are prepared. Even though it is a cold day, it is hot in the kitchen as both ovens, and the stovetop are in use.  When we sat down to eat, there was so much food that it would not fit on the table. On the sideboard were roast beef, dressing, creamed corn, mounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, rolls, and pies. Because I lack even a tiny amount of self-control when it comes to food, I ate until I was stuffed. I had been eating way too much all week. It is a Christmas hazard. I baked cookies and made almond ...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 21, 2022, issue of The Polk County Pulse. As I sit at the computer this evening writing, the lights on the Christmas tree are sparkling in the window, and Christmas music is playing. We have just returned home after a day of Christmas shopping. During the Christmas season, we focus on giving good gifts. We spend a lot of money and time finding the right gifts for people who are essential in our lives. Did you have any great gift ideas this year? Was there a gift that you are particularly excited to give? Sometimes we fail in our gift-giving. Have you had any gift-giving disasters? One Christmas, when my son was a young boy, we nearly ruined his Christmas with one of his gifts. One of his jobs was sweeping the kitchen floor. That Christmas, we bought a stick vacuum cleaner and thought it would be funny to give it to him as a gift. The vacuum, wrapped in beautiful paper, was the biggest present under the tree. When my son saw that the bigg...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 14, 2022, issue of The Polk County Pulse. The audience filed into the spacious auditorium and quickly found seats. As I sat down and looked around, I noticed life-size marble statues that looked like they were from ancient Greece and Rome surrounding the auditorium. The ceiling, high overhead, was inky black with tiny points of light, mimicking a starry, moonless night sky. It was as if I had been transported to a 15th-century Italian courtyard. I am in the historic Saenger Theatre on Canal Street in New Orleans. The theatre was built in the 1920s and opened in 1927. The opulent theater was exceptionally ornate with marble, crystal chandeliers, oil paintings, and sumptuous seating for 4,000. A magnificent organ accompanied silent films, and vaudeville acts drew large crowds. In the 30s, the theatre was updated to show talking movies. After closing in the 70s and reopening in the 80s, the theatre housed a variety of events, from live perf...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 7, 2022, issue of The Polk County Pulse. Growing up in Colorado, I remember occasionally seeing shepherds with their flocks of sheep when we traveled in the mountains. I thought that being a shepherd looked like fun. You got to spend your time outdoors in the beautiful Colorado mountains. The shepherd's tiny little trailers looked so homey and quaint. When I got older and became an avid newspaper reader, I read some stories that showed the darker side of being a shepherd in Colorado. Most of the shepherds are foreigners who can seldom talk to family back home. They live without any human company for months at a time. The shepherds have no water, toilet, shower, or place to wash clothes. Most live in small, 6x10-foot trailers with just enough room to sleep, a small wood-burning stove, and little else. Some have an outhouse nearby, but many do not. Before World War II, most of Colorado's shepherds were Americans. But by the early 1...