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Honey gets new washer

Technically I don’t think I have to get a Christmas present for my wife since we just bought her a new $600 washing machine. Hmmm. Maybe I’d better think on that. Our old Kenmore washer is only one of the major appliances to go belly-up lately. Just today Honey gave last rites to a small chest freezer that we bought for $30 at a yard sale in May. It arrived just in time to hold massive amounts of homegrown green beans and sweet corn, and many dozens of homemade cookies, all prepared for Worshrag and Busy Bee’s wedding reception. It also held the ice cream I previously was ...

Shop small this holiday season to support heroes of Main Street economics

Small businesses play a critical role in improving our everyday lives – creating jobs, products and services, and serving as launchpads for new industries as they scale – and the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced their importance for our communities and Main Street economies. The pandemic also further illustrated their resilience, ability to be nimble, and ability to adjust to the changing environment. Some had to adapt to online sales and scheduling deliveries. Others had to determine how to alter the work environment so they could continue to manufacture products and keep employees ...

A Working Thanksgiving at Worshrag’s new home

When Honey and I go on vacation we always hit the yard sales and thrift shops. That’s exactly what we did when we visited Worshrag and Busy Bee over Thanksgiving at their new house in a suburb of Fayetteville, N.C., where our son has taken a new job strength-training soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division at the Ft. Bragg Army base. This time, though, we had a special mission: helping the newlyweds fill their new home with furniture and other household needs. If I may say so, we helped quite a lot. “TRUTHFULLY, THEIR HOUSE is nicer than ours or her parents’,” my wife ...

New infrastructure bill could help America’s medical manufacturers

After much debate, Congress recently passed a massive “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.” Despite all the political wrangling, the final package includes something known as the “Make PPE in America Act.” This bipartisan legislation, introduced by U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Gary Peters (D-MI), could prove groundbreaking—since it will help to rebuild America’s domestic production of personal protective equipment (PPE). At the start of the COVID pandemic, Americans saw firsthand the problems that come from the nation’s over-reliance on imports. As the ...

Moving Time

From the moment Worshrag told us he had accepted a job at Ft. Bragg, Honey and I began planning to drive a U-Haul to North Carolina. That’s what we always do when a family member moves. Honey finds the best price on a rental truck, everyone pitches in to help pack and load, and I and another family member take turns driving the truck. Although our son and his bride Busy Bee have been married only a few weeks, they already have acquired enough stuff to require at least a 10-foot rental truck: beds and mattresses, linens, furniture, kitchen table, clothing, TV, kitchen utensils and ...

We said we would never forget: Will we?

For the first time in 20 years, we will celebrate Veterans Day in relative peace. On November 11, 1918, Ralph Lindsey wrote from his hospital bed in France “Armistice signed at 11 o’clock. Grand celebration all over France. War is at last over and I am still alive!” Later in life if you asked him about the scars on his chest he would simply respond with a shrug and say, “I zigged when I should have zagged.” Ralph was my great-grandfather, and now, nearly 103 years after he wrote those words, our nation once again finds ourselves celebrating the contributions of our veterans ...