My Word of the Year

As much as I love the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, I rarely make them.

Many folks choose a word of the year, and I’m one of those people. I choose a word rather than making a goal that I know, at a cellular level, that I can’t reach. Behind me, I leave a trail of unrealized New Year’s resolutions.

One year, I made the resolution to exercise. Cliché, I know. I got a gym membership, exercised a few months, then skipped the gym and kept paying the monthly fee because “I might go back.”

Trouble with that whole “free will” kerfuffle

In the Beginning, I am told, God created man from a lump of clay — which may explain why men are prone to dirty thoughts.

Then, as an afterthought, He yanked out a rib from the man and created woman. I have no idea how that in any way explains the way that women are, but then who understands women anyway? Many have tried, but every time men think deeply about women, they get dirty thoughts. I blame God.

As a further afterthought — or maybe as a way to escape blame — God gave man and woman free will.

Imposter syndrome

Ever feel like a phony?

I have been feeling like an imposter for the last few days. I pride myself in being a minimalist, talk about simplifying life, and blog about wanting less…yet, if you were to come to my house today, you’d see that a corner of my bedroom has overflowing stash-and-dash boxes filled with who-knows-what miscellany, and I have laundry in various stages of dirty, clean, sorted, unsorted, folded, and yet-to-be folded throughout my house. There’s a suspicious-looking potato lurking in the very back of my fridge.

Time’s fun when you’re having flies

Thanksgiving morning, as the turkey breast roasted outside on the barbecue grill, I picked up my cell phone and sent a few “Happy Thanksgiving” texts to people who make me thankful that they are in my life.

My son and daughter, of course, and old friends like Bill and Mike with whom I worked for more than 30 years. And Alejandra and Margaret, loving stroke caregivers I haven’t seen since my wife died almost four years ago.

With each “Happy Thanksgiving” I attached an emoji of a fat Thanksgiving turkey — until I got to my friend Hans, who is vegan.

Singing My Hallelujahs

On a whim, I signed up for a community choir audition. My voice trembled for the entire audition. I struggled to reign in my voice, which doesn’t respond the way it did in my younger days. My voice now is weaker, and sometimes even raspy. To make matters worse, I had to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Unless you have a multi-octave range with a penchant for belting, the Star Spangled Banner is very difficult to sing. Our national anthem is, in my humble opinion, one of the most unsingable songs ever written.

Huntley Speaks Out

QUESTION: What is your favorite holiday tradition?
(Want to share your thoughts? Leave them in the comments below.)

Rita Patel, Huntley: “We all wear matching pajamas. All of us, my kids, my husband, in-laws and siblings. And the best part is the men are responsible for the making dinner. My husband and brothers all get together and cook dinner for all of us.”

Anna Alagna, Huntley: “It’s about family and food. We’re Italian so it’s always about food. We always have fish on Christmas Eve.”

In the Mood for Food

Is there anything better than eating? It doesn’t matter if I’m eating with my best pals, or eating alone by the light of the refrigerator, or just testing a bit of something off the wooden spoon as I lean over the stove burner. The sensory cornucopia that is cooking and eating is often the highlight of my day: it’s one of those few activities that employs all five of the senses at once: seeing the vibrant colors mix as you chop red peppers, orange carrots, white onion, and green broccoli for a stir-fry; the warmth of something coming out of the oven; and smell of vanilla or cinnamon or maybe even chocolate; the sound of oil crackling when it hits the hot cast iron skillet.

A lesson in breathing, rather than bait-taking

I’m sure you’ve felt it as I have — that feeling that maybe, just maybe, we can begin to breathe again.

Sure, it has something to do with ripping off that smothering facemask, but it has to do with way more than that. It has to do with watching more and more of our friends, family and neighbors get life-saving vaccines, and then boosters. It has to do with watching covid infections, hospitalizations and death rate rates plummet as a result.

A heartwarming — and heartbreaking — memory of Ricky

It can be heartwarming when nostalgic memories pop to mind, especially when they involve people in your life that you love.

It can also be heartbreaking.

That’s the way I have felt recently when memories of my nephew, Ricky, pop to mind. Ricky died in late September of an opioid overdose—just one of more than 40,000 Americans in the past year to meet that fate. He was 40 years old.

Opioid medications boomed twenty years ago, as pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients were unlikely to become addicted to the drugs to alleviate pain.

Throw Out Your Microwave

I want you to throw out your microwave. I know that's not a popular opinion. It’s the beginning of soup season, for pete’s sake. The Bureau of U.S. Labor and Statistics reports that more than 90% of American households have a microwave oven. But when I wrote a blog post titled Three Things I Don't Need (Since I Bought a Small House), I explained why I got rid of mine shortly after we moved into a home of less than 1,000 sq.

Finding My 15 Minutes of Sunday

Early in the morning, I wrapped an oversized fleece plaid blanket around my shoulders just as the light of dawn was taking hold. I was in my favorite chair on my screen porch, looking out to my backyard.

That’s when I saw him: a grey-and-rust colored coyote, walking slowly through my backyard! He stopped for long pauses to sniff the air and look around. He didn't seem to notice me. He was in no hurry. He looked to be out on a Lazy Sunday stroll.

Let’s taco bout my small house

Last week, my daughter, a high school freshman, invited five of her friends over to our house to get together before their first homecoming dance. Each friend brought something to share: drinks, chips, fruit, and cookies. So. Many. Cookies!

As each high schooler arrived, the voices went up a few decibels. The energy and excitement before the dance seemed to become more palpable by the minute.

A few parents stopped in. Before long, our living room was filled up with kids and parents.

Some “holy cow!” facts about the Great Chicago Fire

For the record, it wasn’t a cow that caused the Great Chicago Fire a century and a half ago. That fact was settled a long time ago, and you probably already knew that if you’ve read the stories that abound every October retelling the tale — and none more than this year, the 150th anniversary of the Great Fire.

But while most of those stories fall short in pinpointing the exact cause, look no further. I’ll tell you how it happened.

Balancing the scales of ethics in social media

Recently My Huntley News’ ethics were called into question by a couple Facebook users who took issue with how we sourced quotes for a recent story. Their grievances generated some Facebook chatter, and as I watched the opinions roll in, I thought how opposite our critics’ actions were to how professional journalists pass information to the public.

In this instance, MHN Lead Reporter Michelle Moreno, with permission, used a friend’s profile to post a question to a Facebook group for a recent story.

A crusty reporter’s firsthand crustacean report

After nearly two years of pandemic lockdown, it’s easy to let your world shrink to the little you can see outside the window, just this side of the trees at the back of the yard. TV is no help, stuck in an endless loop of fake news fighting real news, conspiracies battling confirmation, tucked in between messy hurricanes and war evacuations.

That’s why it’s important for principled columnists—like me—to go that extra mile to keep your world expanded beyond the narrow bounds of your lockdown life, to keep you up-to-date firsthand on things that don’t sit just outside your window in Huntley.

The ironic joys — and jolts — of letting the world pass you by

In early July my friend Carol and I headed down to Wilmington, Illinois, for the annual Catfish Festival held there. The Festival was scrapped last year (like everything else) because of the pandemic, but this summer it was back in full force, thanks to effective vaccines that most sensible Illinoisans have taken advantage of.

It was fun to see the Festival back in fine form — deep fried catfish and country-blues bands in the beer garden of the Rustic Inn, mud volleyball out behind the Route 66 Bar and Grill, carnival rides and booths in the North Island Park surrounded by the Kankakee River, flea market on Water Street, and more.

Ticking off ways to stop the pests that tick you off

My favorite spot to sit and think — or sometimes just to sit — is in a lawn chair on the berm at the back of my yard, where the ridge rolls down through the oak trees to the meadow below. Because the ridge is shaped like an airplane wing, a gentle breeze always flows up through the shady oaks. The nearest homes are a half mile distant, past the meadow, which is home to deer, coyotes, pheasants, and other wild-welcome neighbors.

And So It Begins

The smell of school supplies intoxicates me.

Not the old school supplies I find at the bottom of my kids’ backpacks in June. Those are just sad-looking pencils with their eraser heads worn down to gummy shadows of their former selves, old dried-up glue sticks, and crayons that are pitifully short and stubby.

August school supplies are the ones I like. Fresh notebooks, folders with all four corners intact. Glue sticks banded together in shrink wrap, ready for sticky battle.

This year, school supply shopping for my two high school-age teenagers was pretty low-key.

Still time for derring-do for me and you

Hey, you! It’s August!

It’s not that I think you lack the ability to glance at the date on top of the newspaper you’re holding right now. So please don’t be offended that I brought it up. Judging by letters to the editor, some folks get their knickers in a twist over pretty much anything lately.

I only mention the month because July slipped past me somehow. June, too. Maybe it slipped past you as well. So consider this a “heads up.”

Proof Required: Who Are You, Anyway?

I still remember the news story from 2013, when Reese Witherspoon and her husband, Jim Toth, were pulled over by a police officer in Atlanta. Toth was ultimately arrested for driving under the influence. As the officer questioned her husband and gave him a breathalyzer test, Witherspoon was livid. Despite repeated warnings, she refused to stay inside the car, saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” The officer either didn’t know who she was, or didn’t care.

The police report from that night states, “Mrs.

The saga of a star-steered morning

While skimming through the newspaper this morning, I happened to glance at my horoscope, which read: “Focus on practicalities. Chop wood and carry water. Maintain positive cash flow. Minimize waste. Conserve resources and energy.”

“Hm-m-m,” I said, because as luck would have it, I had chopped wood and carried water just a few minutes earlier on my way out to get the paper off the drive. (Well, I carried a watering can and sprinkled that pumpkin vine at the back of the yard, and I broke up a fallen branch lying on the lawn, so… yeah, close enough.)