One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
Sorted by date Results 35 - 59 of 194
We will see how long this lasts. Believe it or not, when I lived in Florida, I tried my hand at jogging. I would huff and puff up and down the street for a two-mile outing while my band was not touring. I would jog to the gym, work out for an hour and a half and then jog back home. Fast forward to today and the only things that I want to do outside is smoke meat or take care of my lawn. Susan and I used to walk around town, but it did not last for me. The reason; mosquitoes. These mosquitoes in...
Back to my quest for Taco Bell fries. So, my first attempt at eating Taco Bell in Billings was mired in what I call “bell lust,” where I lost sight of the mission to eat Taco Bell’s French fry appetizer and ordered a Triple Melt Burri-to, Cheesy Gordita Crunch, and a soft shelled taco. I had already planned on going back to the restaurant the following day, but little did I know that night and following day would be one of the worst that I had in a long time. My allergies had been getting the be...
Several months ago I found out that Taco Bell was going to serve french fries. As many locals know, the closest Taco Bell from Malta is 200 miles away. I have loved Taco Bell since I was in utero. How do I know this? My mother always tells me that when she was pregnant with me, she would crave Taco Bell. The one thing I would change about the Hi-Line would be adding Taco Bell franchises to every town. Instead, I have to wait until I get to Great Falls or Billings to feast on a XXL Grilled Stuft...
Well. It happened. It was a couple of months ago but it happened. I did something that my mother and father did to my brothers and me when I was younger but what I did was so much worse. Around the sixth month of Susan’s pregnancy, we came up with the name Lincoln. It was a name we had been sitting on for a couple of years. Little did I know that I would be working alongside a pup named Langston at the PCN. So naturally, when rubbing Susan’s baby-belly I said to my then unborn son,” How are you doing Langston?” Oh no. Susan let me have it and...
CHANGE A game of catch almost ended in a hospital visit for me. I am kidding but I was in pain for a day or two afterwards. Getting older at the ripe age of thirty is tougher than I thought. I remember when I was younger working at a Walgreen’s close to my childhood home that I first heard of Epsom Salt. I had no idea what that even was, so I asked a customer about it and he explained that it helps with muscle pain. I was a teenager and didn’t understand why this 30-something man needed to soak in salt. I get it now. Last week, I was mee...
Normally when you are a “veteran,” it means that you have experience with a particular career or event and you should know what you are doing. On Friday, March 30, Susan and I welcomed our second child, named Lincoln Dion into the world at 8:35 a.m. He weighed eight pounds, two ounces, and was 19.25 inches long. He cried for about 20 minutes before he calmed down. As I looked down at his hand grabbing my finger for the first time, I had forgotten that the initial crying is good for C-s...
News does travel fast in a small town. Sometimes that news is definitely fake. As of Monday, March 13, I have had no intentions of quitting my job here at the PCN or mov-ing, or anything like that. But twice last week and once the week before citizens of our fine County have approached me about leaving the PCN. Unless I hit the lotto, I think it’s safe to say I am sticking around. I never thought I would be the center of a rumor. Truth is this wasn’t the first time I have been the subject of a rumor here. On more than one occasion, someone has...
This has been a brutal winter and I am glad I have experienced it with you. Going around town last week, I have talked to quite a few people who have told me that this was the roughest winter Montana has had in a long time. Many of those people have told me this has been the roughest winter that they have ever experienced here. Having only lived here for six winters, the winters that I have experienced in Phillips County have been really mild, and this is the first rough winter. This is also...
I was supposed to start my New Year’s Resolution today. Of course, at the time I am writing this, it is the first day of March. I wasn’t in a good spot to start working out again on the first of the year, so I sat on it. Yes, I sat on my keister. The sad thing is that sometime over a year ago I lost my drive to lift weights. I had been work-ing out in a weight room since high school and gradually, I just stopped. Never saw it coming. I guess I liked the prospect of sleeping in as opposed to vol...
I have been getting a kick out of how much PJ enjoys animals. The little guy has been sick for about a week now and that has been really sad to see. We went to the clinic twice last week, because when your three-year-old has thrown up a couple of times without food in his belly, it is concerning. Since he has had to stay home, Susan’s mother has been gracious enough to take care of him. I think he likes his Nana better than us anyways. But every once in a while I would take off from work early to spend time with him, and even though he is s...
I am snobbish about my coffee. My love for the dark, heart pounding drink started when I was young and Starbucks was not yet a household name. In those days, I had no idea how to make a cup of coffee. It was like hot water with a hint of coffee flavoring. Then college came and of course, I found a coffee shop in St. Louis that made a cup of coffee that changed my life. It was at a Starbucks around the same time that I learned about the French press or push down coffee. It is something that I...
My wife and I were on our way to Glasgow to have a look at our unborn child and somehow emergency room situations came up. We were out of town this past fall and a medical emergency came up where a family member had to be rushed to the hospital. Susan and I stayed behind with the family’s children and we noticed that it took the healthcare provider a while to get to the patient. I thought back to times that I had to go to the emergency room in my hometown, a town of about 70,000, and I r...
INFO I cleaned out our medicine cabinet the other day. I remember when Susan and I first became home owners many people saying that you accumulate a lot of stuff over the years. In cleaning out old stuff in a 24-inch cabinet, I found that to be true. In the front were our most recent purchases, being children’s cough and cold medicines as well as my allergy meds. But further back was another story. In the back, I had my various vitamins and minerals, alongside dieting aides and pre-workout c...
PJ has never been a cuddler. Maybe I had been holding him wrong. When you think of a baby, you think of a small human that wants to be held every day. Or at least that has been my interpretation. That was until my wife Susan and I had PJ. I remember trying to hold my newly born son a few years ago and it always seemed like he liked his crib or his blanket more than he liked snuggling with his father. I remember I used to say, “aw, isn’t that nice?,” thinking that I had him in a comfortable spot....
I appreciate the patience. As you all know our editor was out for a few weeks, so I had the chance to gain valuable experience as a short term newspaper editor. I am proud of how our short-handed staff handled things over the weeks. I do realize in being short-handed, there were things that I couldn’t cover as well as normal. I definitely appreciate your patience as readers. That being said, being the editor for a month was a pretty cool experience. It gave me a closer look into the h...
We had a reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving. I have to admit I am not completely a fan of sonograms as far as checking in on developing babies, but we had one the day before Thanksgiving. I get that they like to make sure that the baby is developing, but poking the baby seems invasive. This time I was thankful, regardless of the $400 bill that will hit my bank account. For those that don’t know, we had a miscarriage earlier this year. So for our peace of mind, it was good to see that everything is developing right. This was also the f...
It’s like I blinked and then all of a sudden winter happened. I found out very quickly upon moving here in 2012 that Montana Weather doesn’t play by the same rules as other states that I have lived in. I look outside today and think, there is no way winter starts on Thursday, December 21, when it is already here. When the second snow this fall hit last week and I had to uncover my car, I went from sneakers and a t-shirt to Muck Boots and an insulated hoodie. The roads at times can be tre...
One of the most outspoken characters in sports lately has been Lavar Ball, the father of Los Angeles Lakers’ point Guard Lonzo Ball. Lavar, a former college basketball player has been a pivotal figure in the basketball world for the past couple of seasons because his three sons Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo were three of the top basketball players in the country during their high school years and throughout Lonzo’s freshman season at UCLA. The father Lavar has been seen on many sports channels and on social media saying outrageous things inc...
Every once in a while I run out of things to write about. When that happens, divine intervention can come through at times. This time intervention came from a flick of the finger, as I cleanly removed a Box Elder Bug from the outside of my water cup. These Box Elder bugs have been pretty annoying. I admit they aren’t as terrible as cockroaches or some of the other bugs I have experienced but man are they creepy. When you see swarms of them outside, it’s gross but when you can’t even get away...
So, my wife left me. That sounded bad. I just meant she went on a two-day seminar to Billings. This means I was left alone with my three-year-old, which I have to admit was a little bit of a daunting task. My wife is my everything. She is my alarm some mornings. She is way more decisive about what we should eat (Whether I cook it or she does.) She is my emotional support. She is my best friend. And if something is lost, generally she knows where to find it. My wife is a miracle worker. Luckily f...
I don’t claim to be a rocket scientist. But every once in a while, you gotta use what the good Lord gives you. As many know by now on Monday, October 2, our county and Hill County got blasted by a snowstorm. In the opening hours of that snowstorm we lost satellite reception. We had never lost a signal prior to that day. I wanted to complain more than I had ever complained about anything. Then I immediately thought of how bad other people in our country and other countries are having it. Due to the storm, Havre was still without power on our r...
If you have a Facebook page, there is a good chance that you have been bumming me out. No, not because I am a liberal snowflake, but because people, many of which I know from here or anywhere else I have lived are being really ugly to each other. I am not “liberal” and I for sure can’t support the direction of the “conservative.” I’m a pacifist, who understands that we need to listen to one another rather than jump to a political agenda. I have said it once before and I will say it once again;... Full story
I think we could all learn something from kids. I don’t claim to represent all of African Americans but a couple of weeks ago I had the chance to share what I thought about current events at a local high school. The opportunity came thanks in part to a responsive column I wrote about confederate monuments about a month or so ago. The kids and teacher of that class were interested in why I wrote what I wrote and also presented me with several other questions. When I first received an email statin...
I had the honor to discuss a column I wrote a few weeks ago with some students at a local high school. It was a privilege and an honor to field the many questions that were thrown my way. One of those questions was about how I became a writer. The question triggered a response I am not sure many saw coming. I am an uneducated writer, meaning I did not go to school to become a writer or journalist. My disdain for writing started in grade school and didn’t really leave until I started working f...
When my wife wanted to squeeze in a drive to Tennessee and then Missouri to our vacation I reverted back to being a two-year-old. To me there was nothing appealing about spending 60 hours of precious vacation time on the road. To make matters worse, before the vacation I had to give myself an early deadline for our Fall Sports Preview and knew that I would be exhausted before we would head to Chicago. I’m not a road warrior. I get antsy and bored when I have to drive anywhere over an hour a...
