Opinion

  I Corinthians 6:12-20 Matthew 4:1-11 "I am yours and you are mine" When my father died, it put me into a kind of identity crisis.  My mother had died six years earlier, and at the age of 45, I felt like an orphan.  For 45 years, I was Art and Pauline's girl, and Art and Pauline were my parents.  Whose was I now? My friend, Melissa, who had recently lost her own father, reminded me as she reminded herself, that God is the father, the father, our father, and no matter what our circumstances, we are still God's beloved children.

Everyday we wake up and think, "What are we going to put on the website before the e-mail goes out at 11:45 ..." Usually we don't wonder if the news we put on the site will go further than the folks that know and love Vinton, because those are the only ones we care about serving. Sometimes our chief writer gets a bit irritated when I see something some place else and say, "Hey, did we get this on the website?" I should know by now not to ask such a stupid question.

       ACT 1 was preparing to open its spring show. The Vinton-Shellsburg Jazz Band was celebrating its second place finish at the Jazz Festival, and its invitation to the Iowa High School Jazz Championships in April.     You may have read those stories this week on Vinton Today.     Or you may have read them a year ago today on Vinton Today.

Warning: contains warm sappy thoughts about a dog... Yesterday we put the website to a sort of test, asking for help in locating our dog. Thanks to everyone's help we were able to locate him within a couple hours of the e-mail being sent out! We had comments sent in with information about him and a detailed phone call, thanks to everyone who had spotted him and told us about it! It's amazing how big a dog can look when he's trying to crawl up in your lap, or when he's putting his head on your lap for attention, or he's nudging your elbow while you are trying to type stories on your computer and how annoying he can be when he wants you to just touch him so he can sleep on the floor at your feet.

  By Robert Spangler Iowa Council of the United Blind      Few people think about students' rights - especially those of the disabled.      Parents take it for granted that school officials will do what is best for their child.  However, most parents are not told the full choices their child may have, especially when those choices involve a blind or visually impaired child.

      Water pump (I think) for a tractor.     Fuel pump (I think) from a similar machine.     Lid for a tool box.     The rest of the tool box.     Iron pipe, male thread.     Stove pipe.     Muffler, or part of one, for something.

Gas is going up...not news. Groceries are going up, shouldn't be news. Everything else is following...news I hate. I have to admit, when it comes to saving money, I know how to do it, usually. I remember the good old days when I could go to Aldis, fill up the back of my Suburban, which I could afford to drive, and get back home for under $200.

       Loyal readers of my columns (all three of them) may remember reading some of these words back in January, when gas was "only" $3.09 per gallon....     At $3.09 per gallon, politicians were doing nothing about higher gas prices. They were even saying nothing. The media, too. Nothing. But as we see gas prices rise toward the $3.

I remember the days, a looooong time ago that we had the fun job of picking out baby names. We had always talked about names we'd use, we loved certain ones, and tossed them around before we needed them.  Then they kinda grew on us, and it was a given what names we'd use.  Now, we tried to pick out names that had a good meaning to them.

       "Put your 'John Henry' here."      My dad used to say that.      I used to think he was the only one.      But I have heard that phrase twice in recent weeks from people who never met my dad.     They, of course, were referring to a signature, basing the phrase on a man whose signature is a big part of American history.