Columnists

I like fishing big reservoirs in March. Fifty-five years ago, I fished Beaver Lake with an uncle on a cold windy day using a lure called a spider, just a big spinner bait of that time. For three hours I didn’t catch a single bass, but about ten in the morning, only a hundred yards…

March is National Nutrition Month, prompting me to wonder how often this column focuses on the links between what we eat and our health and well-being. The short answer is: a lot. Over the years, it’s been fairly rare that we don’t address eating in one way or another. What we eat may play a…

The two most common times I typically compose this column are Monday evenings and Saturday mornings. In a given week, it is nearly always at one of those two times when I sit down to have a one-sided conversation with each of you. The Monday evening columns generally reflect my fatigue – my frustrations with…

The deer slaughter is over! It goes from mid-January to mid-March. Last years extermination project killed more than 37,000 thousand deer. That number may reach 50 thousand this year. I don’t know how a “conservation” department could be a part of such meaningless killing of a wild creature of any kind. Conservation is not what…

We’ve released new resources to help you better understand Social Security benefits. We’ve designed easy-to-use toolkits to provide education about our programs for children and our benefits for families after the death of a loved one. Our toolkits (School Professional and Survivor Benefits) are downloadable PDFs that include ready-to-go communications, such as sample email blasts,…

I was a kid in the 1970s who grew up watching some of the best sitcoms on television. From old reruns of “Gilligan’s Island” and “Bewitched” to hanging out with “The Jeffersons” and the kids from “Welcome Back Kotter” These 30-minute shows helped me navigate my life and brought me happiness at times when my…

I have a friend who fairly frequently suggests a book for me to read. He and I share several common interests related to health and self-improvement, so most generally if he enjoys a book, I’ll enjoy it, too. I really enjoy this exchange (it’s not really an exchange: he finds the books and I read…

There may be no better fishing to be found in the Ozarks in March than the brown trout fishing on the White River, for many miles below Bull Shoals Dam. Brown trout actually spawn in the White in December into February, and there are some fish there in those waters well over 20 pounds. In…

Social Security imposter scams continue to be widespread across the United States. Scammers use tactics to deceive you into providing sensitive information or money. If you receive a suspicious letter, text, email, or call, do not respond. We will NEVER: – Text or email images of an employee’s official government identification. – Suspend your Social…

Journalists, I know, see the world a little differently. The first thing I noticed, for example, on my very first day at The Forum, was the detail in the Maryville City Council meeting packet. Each item on the agenda had a brief description saying what the council was doing, what had been done before and…