Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
Published in the Interest of the Staunton Community for Over 143 Years
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It was usually in the evening hours, as the heat of the day had subsided and touches of a night gave an air of mystery to the tiny fireflies as they took flight from their hiding places to ignite my world with sweet shadows, when from the corner of the kitchen I would hear the churning begin. It is such a tender memory as I see her soft graying hair, neatly locked into a bun at the back of her small head, slightly bent now, while her arms move up and down, up and down, with the lifting and lowering of the wooden paddle. Rich pure cream could...
February is here already. There are so many things happening this time of year: Ground Hog Day, Black History Month, Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day and the big football game, just to name a few. Most of these events last just one day, but Black History Month has time to shine for 29 days this year. Staunton Public Library updated much of its collection last year to feature famous works of art from important and iconic authors and historical figures. For example, updates involve the additions of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, F...
By: Jill Pertler I was sick last week. It felt like a long and miserable 12 days – and that was just Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m not good at being sick. Thankfully, I don’t get much practice. I’m one of those robust and healthy types. I like to joke that I’m too crabby to get sick; germs know it’s best to steer clear of me. So, when illness pounces, it catches me off guard. My biggest problem (aside from the obvious one of being sick) is I have no patience for being a patient. I lie on the couch and convince myself I’m feeling better – b...
Upon A Saturday evening in returning home from Ark., via 255, we approached the exit ramp for Interstate 55. It was around 6 p.m. as the setting sun reflected the light behind us while the on-coming route ahead of us was mysteriously dark. In the combined light and darkness there was a eerie demeanor around us. "Strange sky", I said to my sister-in-law Mary. "There should be a rainbow", she answered. And we found it. Soft purple rose, pastel yellow, and baby blue colored the sky in an arch of glory. When we veered in a different direction the...
By: Jill Pertler I started this column thinking I might write about some of the things I’ve never yet done, like take an Alaskan cruise, drink ouzo in Greece, taste French bread in France or parent a dachshund. But I missed out on the most important never ever of all: Never, have I ever… played pickleball. There it is. I said it out loud. Please don’t unfriend me on Facebook. I’m truly still cool. Or I’m trying to be, despite the vast pickleball oversight. I’ve made pickles - from scratch. I’ve played ball - as in tennis, croquet, ping...
By: Jill Pertler You know how themes somtimes repeat themselves throughout your day, week, year or life? It happens to me a lot. At least recently. Or maybe such synchronistic occurrences have always been there and I’ve just recently learned to pay attention to them. I guess that detail doesn’t matter. What does, is that I’m paying attention now. And lately, a common theme has been darkness. Or more specifically the goodness that darkness can portend. It seems counterintuitive. To be extremely succinct, the message I’ve been getting is, “Do...
Cub Scouts thank supporters On behalf of Staunton Cub Scout Pack 8034, I am writing to express gratitude for recent help we received from Mr. Danny Russell, Mayor Neuhaus and the City of Staunton, and Travis and everyone at Avid Towing. The Cub Scouts have been a staple of our community for years. The Pack works diligently to engage our scouts and provide them with quality programming while also providing services to our community. As a not-for-profit, we rely heavily on donations. Recently, we have received tremendous support from Mr....
Morrison Hotel is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Doors, released on Feb. 9, 1970, by Elektra Records. After the use of brass and string arrangements recommended by producer Paul A. Rothchild on their previous album, The Soft Parade (1969), the Doors returned to their blues rock style and this album was largely seen as a return to form for the band. The group entered Elektra Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in Nov. 1969 to record the album which is divided into two separately...
The Staunton Public Library wishes everyone a wonderful and exciting new year. We are now back in the office once again after all those holidays spent with family and friends. Library Hours are as follows: Monday thru Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Sunday closed. Saturday 9 a.m. to noon. The library was closed on Monday, January 15 for Martin Luther King's Birthday. Last year was a whirlwind year of interesting new books published and blockbuster movies released. Although I am not a huge movie buff, I did see Barbie and the new Indiana J...
By AUSTIN GRABOW/ STAR-TIMES Nazareth's album: Hair of the Dog, is the sixth studio album by the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, released on 3 April 1975. The album was recorded at Escape Studios, Kent, with additional recording and mixing at AIR Studios, London, and is the group’s best known and highest selling release, with over two million copies sold worldwide. This hard rock and blues rock album is one that many vinyl listeners to cut their teeth on. Meaning, for those that graduated high school in the late 70's, and listened to rock m...
Soft and gentle as the dancing kisses of a child, the snowflakes fell. They arrived in the middle of the night, dropping like fairy dust on the city. Once at the mid-night hour I went out to clean some of the snowfall from my car and all around me the loveliness of such pure white light had diminished the darkness. Humanity lay covered with the whiteness of a fresh city; the broken edges of the landscape gone and the little piece of earth I call home lay bathed in wonder. It all happened like an act of grace, where whatsoever was ugly and dark...
Last Sunday, St. Paul UCC honored Rev. Debbie Jo Atkins as she retires from her 17 years of ministry here. In addition to performing her regular pastoral duties at St. Paul, she also devoted a lot of time and energy to community outreach projects such as organizing the monthly Community Café for anyone to share a meal and conversation or the Halloween family fun event of Trunk-or-Treat. Probably the two most significant of these programs are her work with HIS Service Station board and her organizing and directing the Pack-A-Sack program....
We always welcome – even encourage – letters to the editor. A community newspaper is dependant on interaction with the community and its residents. However, in order to be published, there are procedures that must be followed. Rule #1 - It must be signed! No letter - no matter what it contains, will be considered for publication without your written signature. If you choose to e-mail a letter to the editor, it must contain a phone number for verification. Also, if the letter is mailed and not signed in our presence, please include your pho...
Participate in the monthly opportunity and begin 2024 alcohol free Now that the holidays are nearly over and overindulging is behind us, it's time for a reset. January has been coined, "Dry January." Dry January is a one-month sobriety challenge where people stop drinking alcohol for 31-days. The idea behind it is to start the new year on a healthy note, detoxify the body, and potentially reassess one's relationship with alcohol. “Dry January is an opportunity for individuals to re-evaluate their relationship with alcohol and make better c...
By: Jill Pertler “You don’t really appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.” These wise words came out of the mouth of my 16-year-old son; surprisingly, he wasn’t referring to a Snicker’s bar. I’ve always known he is an old soul, but this particular insight was unexpected. Typically teenage boys are consumed by thoughts of driver’s licenses, (girls), the Friday night football game, (girls) and food. Lots and lots of food. Time for reflection and philosophical epiphanies are best left to old people – you know, those 30 and above. People like...
Merry Christmas! I want to thank you for printing the letters to Santa from the past. It brings some good memories to some of us. Life was so much simpler back in those days. Kids asked for so little by today's standards. Some of these letters were from the early 1900s nearly 50 years before my time. And yet, I remember some of the names of the youngsters. Reno, who employed my late husband in his bowling alley, Dorrell Kilduff, Fred McBrian (I wonder if he was our dentist), and so many other names of the past come to mind. The children asked...
By: Jill Pertler We all experience tough times. And you know what? It’s okay. Not the tough times, but the way we deal with them. However we deal with them. It’s okay. However it looks; however it is. Our response, our fortitude (or lack thereof). Our strengths. Our weaknesses. The good days. The bad. Finding happiness. Accepting sorrow. Sometimes (oftentimes) living a life you never would have or could have or wanted to imagine. It’s okay. It has to be. Sometimes we don’t have a choice. In my darkest days, I found myself trying to self-co...
At a gathering of “church folks”, I found myself embraced with a strange and awesome feeling. It all happening so plain and ordinary as the singing moved along. At one point I saw a tall, shorthaired woman in blue jeans wipe tears from her eyes as something from the moment touched her soul. It all felt down beat, until the announcement came. “0ne of the women, the pastor said, will play for us a song on the old an ornate organ.” I hadn’t really noticed it for the lighting was dim, but there i lay in the shadows at the far side of the sanctuary...
Life can be, and often is, hectic. The simplest things can become the biggest obstacles which turn an ordinarily calm event into something incomprehensibly frustrating. Everyone has those moments. They are the Achilles Heel to the mood and positivity of our days. But regardless of the hardships, irritations, and “downers” that surround daily life, there is joy. But what is joy? Webster defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” Essentially, it is a state t...
Once more the simplicity of the story of Christ rules the world. There are sideshow festivities hocking their wares near the footlights of the wide stage, but only one story lends its birthing cry to the heart of man, aching and longing for union with the God it can't really forget. Thus, it begins as softly and sweetly as a child's whimper in the darkness, the music opens, laying out its vision of "dreamless street" as the wonder, crying within the darkness of man's cold night troubles, overtakes the mind. The star shines anew through...
By: Jill Pertler I live in a neighborhood where we are all part of an association. An association of what, you might ask. It’s an association of rules and regulations and bylaws and committees and a board of directors. It’s a mighty association, to be sure. But it’s all good. If I’ve learned one thing during my adult life, it’s that when other adults try to live together in a neighborhood they need rules, regulations and committees. I’ve lived here for 23 years and I’ve never held a post worth posting. That always fell to my husband. He s...
By: Jill Pertler I love my wardrobe. Heck, I love clothes. A lot. But for years (for decades, people) I put that all on the back burner. It was due to the kids. It’s always due to the kids, isn’t it? They always bear the brunt of our angst. We sacrifice for them. Gladly. Because that is what you do. It is what you want to do, as a parent. You wouldn't have it any other way. I sacrificed for Nike tennis shoes. I sacrificed for American Eagle, Abercrombe, and Lulu Lemon, depending on the kids and the decade. And I sacrificed for my hus...
At Wal-Mart, one can hear the bells of Christmas ringing at the doorway of the soul. Bells say so many things that words fail to tell. Many years ago in the days of the prophet Zechariah, he caught the secret of the bells and in such an unusual way he wrote of the day when the bells on the horses shall be as holiness unto the Lord. I am not sure just how this fit into the whole picture he was describing, but it did take him into a time of praise and wonder. Bells are such tiny objects and still there is no word to create the same feelings that...
The Thanksgiving As Thanksgiving comes, I run away to yesterday, where everything was so simple and so free. Thanksgiving was just one more day for chicken, because chicken was what roosted in the hen house. Country cooking left the fragrance of soft spices permeating in the nostrils and the best of the rest, my Aunt Eva's mincemeat pies. She made them out of the real stuff where nothing else came close to making the day any better than that. Our family was small, compared to the lot I've gathered in along the way, still it was a good family,...
By: Jill Pertler For much of my life, I’ve been the inviter. I enjoyed planning and inviting people to those plans. But in the last few years I haven’t invited much of anyone anywhere. I didn’t have the heart for it. I lacked momentum and (to be honest) felt broken so I took on a rather new role. I found myself waiting to be invited. Not at first. At first I didn’t want to be invited anywhere. I couldn’t plan or commit from today to tomorrow. I couldn’t plan or commit from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m....