Your source for news in Hot Springs County
Your source for news in Hot Springs County
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An interesting question came up recently about the weather in Thermopolis. “Did we have more snow when you were a kid than we have now?” I would have to say yes, even taking into consideration that I’m taller than I was as a kid (OK, not by much), I remember huge amounts of snow. For us, snow generally started at Halloween requiring us to have costumes several sizes larger in order to fit over our snow suits. It stayed, sometimes until Easter. I even remember a snow storm in June during Wildc...
We’re a couple weeks into 2018, a time where I’ve typically reneged on a couple of those resolutions I made in the late hours of Dec. 31. This year, I decided to try a new tactic. Rather than just give up after the first couple failures, I’m looking at the bigger picture and reminding myself that there’s still 354 days to make my goals. While that seems like a long time, I also know those days are already passing quickly and I’ve got to keep my eye on that end goal. But, in looking ahead to...
We’ve been seeing some frigid temperatures each morning and of course, no one wants to get into a cold car, but starting it up and letting it idle may not be the best idea. According to Popular Mechanics, starting your vehicle in the cold and letting it idle may actually be damaging your engine. Internal combustion engines use pistons to compress a mixture of air and vaporized fuel within a cylinder. That mixture is then ignited to create a little controlled explosion that powers your engine. W...
If you’re anything like me, for the last few weeks you’ve been going at full speed, wedging in everything you can, between shopping and concerts to family gatherings and parties with friends. It kind of reminds me of those nights when Cookie and Cupcake decide they’re going to fly through the house at full speed at 3 a.m., sounding more like a herd of elephants than the delicate kitties they are. It usually starts with a little boxing match at the top of the cat tree, then one of them leaps...
The final weeks of the year are finally here. If you’re on the ball, you’ve got those holiday presents all ready to go and under the tree, any travel plans set out, the halls decked and the menu planned. Or, if you’re more like me, you’re still scrambling to find those final perfect gifts, and wondering why you just didn’t decide to send gift cards and family pictures to everyone instead. And don’t even get me started on wrapping. It’ll be a Christmas miracle if I can locate all the spots I’v...
I am perpetually amazed at the talent that abounds in the children of Thermopolis. Not just amazed, but incredibly proud, too. All you have to do is attend a concert or a play or dance performance and you’ll know what I mean. Take our Drama Club, for example. These kids went to the state competition in Casper last weekend and rocked the boards. Not only did they present the best proscenium performance in the state, they brought home a majority of the All State titles, too. Reminds me of the i...
With the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having recently, it’s left plenty of opportunity for me to take the kiddos out and about. This past weekend, of course, we had to hit the downtown for their visit with Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The Clauses arrived in a spectacular fashion aboard a vehicle from the Hot Springs Volunteer Fire Department, lights flashing and an eager crowd waiting on the sidewalk to welcome them. Of course, the figure of Santa can be a bit overwhelming. My own kids shied beh...
Occasionally thoughts more profound than, “What’s for dinner?” and , “Are you washing clothes tomorrow?” cross my mind. I visualize happenings such as running into an acquaintance who asks, “What do you think about eternity?” or, “What are we going to do about the at-risk dams around the country?” It’s at times like these that I remove my glasses, making sure I point at least one bow at the person who would dare ask such a question on a nice fall day, and reply, “Now there’s a question for one to ponder.” I do that in hopes that by the time I w...
The other day while working out, my attention was suddenly focused on an oldie/goldie, “Donna”, that brought into my memory the picture of a lowly junior boy falling in love for the first time with a popular senior girl who miraculously made a place in her heart for him - me - if only temporarily. It’s strange how things were going on in the world that were even more important than that cataclysmic event. For example, at the same time there was a leader coming to the fore that was in the process of beginning the battle to overthrow an autho...
There are certain times of the year when one reflects on the past, and for me, Thanksgiving is one of those times. I remember, as a kid growing up in Thermopolis, that our house was where the whole family gathered for dinner. Aunts, uncles and cousins, my grandparents and my mother and I, all sitting together in the dining room, spilling over into the living room. Grandma was always up at the crack of dawn making her homemade dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls and getting the big bird in the oven....
“Yippy-ki-yay!” is currently my five-year-old favorite phrase to shout as we head out the door and load up to head to the school. I’m not sure if I was ever that excited to go to classes, but it makes me thankful that he has that enthusiasm. We’re currently in the season of Thanksgiving, though in recent years “Turkey Day” has taken somewhat of a backseat to its holiday neighbors Halloween and Christmas. Of course, there isn’t as much widespread production around Thanksgiving. Halloween has...
For as long as I can remember, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. Yes, even more than Christmas when I was growing up. It was mainly due to the amount of festivity that came with it. Sure, Christmas had presents, Thanksgiving had plenty of food — and both meant visits and mischief with a multitude of cousins. Even Independence Day provided me with liberty to experiment with small, and sometimes not so legal in Nebraska or elsewhere, pyrotechnics. But, Halloween bested them all. I think it w...
I absolutely love fall. Its like suddenly, you walk outside and there is a completely different scent in the air -- the scent of leaves getting ready to fall. Of course, that means pulling out the sweaters, but by three o'clock, you're so hot you wish you'd worn a t shirt instead. Folks are starting to fire up their wood stoves and fireplaces in the evenings, adding the scent of burning wood to air, too. Don't forget about pumpkin patches and the fun that can be had running through the field...
A friend of mine writing for the state paper concluded a litany of experiences growing up in the early days of the 20th century including the outhouse, lack of running water, coal burning stoves etc. He concluded with a comment that idealistic progressives would certainly eventually do us in as a civilization. Because that probably describes me, I got to thinking about whether those idealistic progressives have really had that much to do with the current condition of our beloved country, and I concluded that he was absolutely correct. Some...
The time has finally come when the temperature drops enough to make me think about stepping outside with a jacket, and once again I’ll be stubborn enough to keep it hanging on the rack for just a few days more. I like the fall because it gives a nice reprieve between the heat of summer and the chill of winter, a time where the weather is just perfect in my opinion. I also remember fondly waiting for my folks and older brothers to rake up the leaves in the yard. As I was still a bit small to b...
As we celebrate National School Lunch week, I got to thinking back on growing up in Thermopolis and the wonderful lunch ladies we had and the delicious meals they used to make for us. You see, in those days, no one left campus to pop into a fast food joint for lunch, you ate in the lunchroom with everyone else. The lunch ladies were awesome. In my young mind they were all “grandmothers” who knew what they were doing in the kitchen. Everything we had was made from scratch, from the giant pan...
It can take a significant event for us to remember where we were and exactly what we were doing at a given time. For those born in the early 2000's and before, that came in the form of planes crashed into the World Trade Center. For myself, I remember going about my normal routine in college until I passed by the television in the cafeteria and wondered at what I was seeing. It was a sentiment expressed by my classmates, friends, family who called, and personally the reality of it didn't really...
It starts with that nip in the morning air – we turn on the heater in the car to go to work and the AC when we come home. The water bill goes down and the heating bill starts going up. Then there’s that different smell in the air as the leaves turn red and yellow, cheering football fans, Oktobrewfest, bugling elk and then State Football and State Volleyball. Next thing you know the little goblins are running from house to house getting treats, grandma is roasting that perfect turkey for Tha...
I know the importance of the Hot Springs County Senior Citizens Center and its role in our community. We are in essence a retirement community and it’s because of resources like the Hot Springs County Senior Citizens Center that we are able to keep promoting healthy living and lifestyles for our much-respected aging population. Currently the senior citizens center provides many different activities including billiards, card games, Bingo, a library and even touring trips. In my humble opinion, even if all the center offered was an opportunity to...
We have been very fortunate this summer (knock wood) to have missed any kind of major fire in Hot Springs County. As we watch the devastation of Hurricane Harvey and wait for landfall of Hurricane Irma, let us not forget there are 44 fires burning in our neighboring Montana. Add to that fires burning across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California and its no wonder our skies are smoky. As of last Friday, there were 106 new fires, including four new large fires. Fifty of those are nowhere close...
Rarely in life are we blessed with truly “tingly” moments. Not those hair raising moments, but the ones that are breathtaking. I know some folks around here couldn’t understand what all the “hub-bub” was about, why people were coming across vast oceans to our little town to see an eclipse. For some, it was going to be an inconvenience they didn’t want to deal with. We’re pretty set in our ways and having that many people coming to town was a bit scary for some. I can’t tell you how many times...
People who study cultures have often written and maintained the “territoriality” of groups they study. That seems to me to be a very elitist way of saying there’s no place like home. That was brought “home” to me by a recent visit by my sister-in-law and my niece. They were very pleased with themselves for having driven nearly the width of the country from their home in Georgia to California to Oregon to here from whence they would continue their travels on the way to Minnesota and home again. While I admired the energy of my eighty-ye...
The final planning meetings are being held, hotels and campgrounds continue to fill their empty spaces and specially tinted glasses that are ISO 12312-2 certified have quickly become the latest “must have, sell out” items. With less than a week to go before the big event, there’s still a few questions out there, which nobody can really answer until Monday has come and gone, such as “Will we actually get the influx of people everyone is predicting?” “Will there be enough gas, food and other s...
Last weekend I took the opportunity to do something I haven’t in . . . I can’t remember when. I fished. At a small lake about 10 miles from my in-laws I was re-acquainted with that age-old pass time that comes with the cycle of casting, untangling, getting frustrated, occasionally taking a poke from the hook and, yes, even catching a small crappie, bluegill or bass every so often. While I seem to remember drinking was a part of that process the last time with a rod and reel in my hand, I tho...
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it repeatedly; words count. As a retired English and writing teacher, I’ve lost track of the times I’ve used that phrase or one that was similar in meaning. I emphasized making the words convey as accurately as possible content when you wanted the hearer or reader to understand your meaning or feeling. In a public setting, there were ways of conveying your emotions that were not acceptable, and those that were. People were scandalized by the recorded words of a former president copied from tapes made that wer...
