Columns

Dear Santa Claus, Yes, I know you’re a very busy man in December and probably wondering why a woman my age would be writing you a letter. Sentimentality for one reason and a genuine fondness for the season is another. You charmingly represent that which is good in society. You’re for all ages, just watch...
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Here it is the last column of the year and it seems like I just wrote the first one last month. It has been an eventful, exhausting and draining spiritually in so many ways. Both Jason and I have been in and out of the hospital with nothing very serious fortunately until last month...
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Pam Adams has written a couple of recent articles in the Journal about changes at Methodist Medical Center. I’m not sure where she’s getting her information, but too many of her statements are false and some are just plainly offensive. Factually, Methodist started as the Deaconess Home and Hospital Association in 1898 thanks to three Methodist...
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Greater Peoria is a medical Mecca, and it also has a significant presence of insurance companies, so one wonders whether there’ll come a time when central Illinois will be Ground Zero for a battle between health providers and health insurers. Patients already seem like financial collateral damage in an archaic health-care system that puts profits...
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My brother in law, John, described a collision with a wild turkey as “cartoon like.” It was an explosion of feathers. The car concealing cloud of plumage may have looked like something from Loony Tunes, but it was far from funny. At highway speed it’s a potentially deadly impact. One turkey can be 4...
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I had a little bit of a confrontation. Call it a discussion, if you like. For the past four weeks or so, I’ve been collecting information from daily police reports from the Peoria Police Department and including them in blotter reports I’ve been running on Blogger News Net. This online-only news organization operates at tellpeoria.com/news. No big...
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Rachel lingers on the bench outside the Afterglow Journey Center. She pulls Mrs. Stone’s book of poetry out of her briefcase and reads the next poem. It’s 10:20 AM. We sit on the couch an inch apart, a sea between us. He grips my hand as a line thrown to a drowning man ~ The weight of...
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Interest in travel was introduced to me by my mother. My father was supportive, but not keen on seeing the world and didn’t understand the appeal. My mother was more of an armchair traveler although she did visit my sister in Germany and visited other European cities. For high school graduation, my parents gifted me...
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Another month and more trauma. I believe sometimes that I operate from one to another, but maybe that’s just because I don’t have a lot of adventure in my life, so everything takes on such significance. It really wasn’t so much for me, but rather second hand, because it happened to my son, Jason....
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In last month’s column I wondered why no law enforcement agency showed any interest in the questionable behavior of Peoria County Board member Brian Elsasser. Elsasser had attempted to block the board’s vote on awarding a contract to the low bidder for structural steel at the new Bel-Wood Nursing Home....
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