If thoughts of Independence Day ring a little hollow now at the gas pump, that’s understandable. For the outrageous gasoline prices reflect our outrageous dependence on foreign oil. And it’s of our own design. 

News about flooding or potential flooding along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, just as the vacation season is in full swing, reminds me of a great vacation my family and I took many years ago to that precise location.

Once in a while in Fredericksburg we have an opportunity to see a world-class performing act. The Kingston Trio, that famous folk group, performed in April at the University of Mary Washington, and it was such a fabulous performance that two months later my foot is still tapping and I’m still listening to the CD and watching the DVD that I purchased that evening.

The American Gray Squirrel, is, as anyone who reads this column knows, is my favorite of the woodland animals that live with us in the suburbs. 

Maybe it’s because local politics has become so dysfunctional, with our county board of supervisors now dominated by those hock-tooey Democrats.

Say there, Barack and John, “Will you love me in December as you do in May?” — and June?

Conditions converged to create some extreme turbulence in the skies last week, bringing home the importance of preparedness.

There is hardly anyone who watched TV as a kid in the 1960s who can’t sing the theme song of the “Beverly Hillbillies.”

Obama and Clinton should be on the Democratic Party ticket together this fall. They both lasted through the June primaries; they both won many victories and garnered many votes.

So it’s time for another crop of youngsters to be hurled out into the cold, cold world. 

There is probably no other society in human history, save perhaps the Japanese and the Germans, that worries so much about time as we do.

Many people, no doubt, have spent their tax rebate checks. Sorry to say, I already have, and also my wife’s, way back in February, long before they ever arrived.

Stafford County is going too far in trying to limit the number of unrelated persons living in a home. What is being considered is an affront to civil rights, and it’s simply illogical.

Even as our nation was mobilizing to fight World War II, we were thinking about the future of our veterans when the fighting would end, generating an unusual and forward-looking discussion. 

Bipartisanship can go a long way in coping with transportation nightmares. We need leaders who spend less time grandstanding and more time working together to come up with viable answers. Our state legislators could learn a lesson from a recent bipartisan success here in Stafford.

Nature gave trees and grasses a problem to solve. Just like any other species, plants and trees need to share genetic information with one another to reproduce, but at the same time, unless we’re talking about a plant from a science fiction movie, they have a problem. They can’t move from place to place. 

I’m worried about George Bush. Granted, his administration has prevented any further terrorist attacks since 9/11. That’s good, and may we never really know just how good.

There’s a movement afoot to discredit members of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors who voted to raise their salaries last year and who aren’t willing to eliminate that pay increase in this tough budget year. 

What’s new? Well, for one thing it’s springtime. And despite a long drought last year, my flowering plants have survived and flourished so far. Some do look battered but unbowed

“Green” is the word of the month. While some talk green as in ecologically sustainable living for Earth Day, others talk green as in dollar bills.

Normally the Republicans don’t ask me for advice.  I can understand, and what’s more, most of the time they seem to get along just fine without my help. However, Virginia’s Republican Party is in trouble and if it doesn’t do something, and soon, it’s going to be, politically at least, on the outside looking in. 

Be honest now. Did you ever read all the fine print when you signed up for a home mortgage?

America is often called a litigious society. In other words, we sue one another over just about anything. 

He hit a home run. That was my first reaction to that memorable speech by Barack Obama. That was before all the pundits hailed its greatness, its deficiencies and his gall.

Freedom of the press is an integral part of our democracy, but from
what I’ve been seeing lately, for a better America our mass media
should spend more time reporting fact and far less time distorting and
sensationalizing the news.

If I were writing this with a pencil, you probably couldn’t read it. 

Members of Stafford’s board of supervisors considered a difficult question recently: Should the county allow businesses that would generate substantial truck traffic to locate in the courthouse area?

Most families have a little something, a trinket or a token perhaps, that connects them to a generation before them. It can be anything. A tea service that belonged to a special aunt, a pen your grandfather used to carry, or in the case of a friend of mine, a St. Christopher’s medal that his dad wore during the Korean War. The possessions can be surprisingly commonplace, but for various reasons, they become a representation of the person who once owned them.

When I made the decision to leave as editor of this fine paper and return to my home state of Minnesota in November 2005, it was for three reasons.