Nick & Rupert_Simple Gifts_She did not like me_Game show host_Gold mine of history_Tecklenburg_Top shelf Gentle readers , it all started when I saw an ad flyer in the Boone Country Connection. It was the December 2025 issue, in which I learned of an event in Femme Osage at the old stone schoolhouse. Here, let me show it to you…   How could I resist ? I love stone buildings (but not stone facades ☹) …and once upon a time I was hired to repair the bell tower you see atop the schoolhouse…so I...

Augusta Branch Library_Diane Jasper Kessler_Sherman tank_St. Francis Borgia_Carol Jasper Riegel_International and Deb_Roseland Ballroom   Gentle readers , sometimes things just fall into place. On the Thursday after Veterans Day (Nov. 13, 2025), I stopped at the Augusta Branch Library and noticed that the coffee clutch was still going on, so I asked the ladies what they were chatting about. Immediately, Diane Jasper   Kessler  handed me her cellphone which was playing a video of a Channel 4...

Us-and-them_Anita Mallinckrodt_Walter Kamphoefner_swung from trees_met in the Peace Corps_kiss your ring?_Eden Seminary_Janet and Don Fuhr_ye olde towne painter   Gentle readers , I was born in the early 1950s in Jefferson City, MO, a plenty German American town, and I was immediately baptized and raised Catholic. From my young perspective, it was always us-and-them  when it came to considering the religious environment around me. Notice, I didn’t say , us-against-them . I think my family and...