Foodlust in February
an open letter to food lovers on a very COVID Valentine’s Day
“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” W.C. Fields
Quarantine has reignited the romance . . . with cooking. It all began cir...
The Magic of Tradition at E. Black & Son Nursery
Originally posted 11-30-19. Updated 12-8-20 with new content for the holiday season.
The holidays are all about traditions, and I have one that is very special. It started when I was a child and continues to...
The First Time I Was Called the N-Word
A few years ago, my students did a research project on emotional memory. They explained to me what emotional memory was.
Ask a person: “Do you remember what you were doing on February 10, 2017?” They probabl...
Ron Scott: I Knew I Had to Go — It Was Too Important Not To
Editor’s note: Protesters in cities across the country came out last week to make their feelings known in regard to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Here, Ron Scott, YWCA cultural diversity and commun...
We Wish You a ’70s Christmas
Editor’s note: This week, Weelunk will pause our normally scheduled programming to highlight stories that feature Black narratives. We have chosen to take this time to amplify those voices that are so often sil...
AS I SEE IT: Things to Remember — COVID-19 Edition
Back in 1970-71 in Miss Sharon Miller’s third-grade classroom at Valley Grove School, we budding writers were asked to hone our skills by completing a weekly journal of sorts that Miss Miller dubbed “Things to ...
A Letter to My Daughters in the Time of COVID-19 — (That They Should Probably Never Read)
Everything moved so fast in March. On a Monday we were saying, “You know, this has the potential to get really bad.” By the end of the week, we were all working from home and preparing to home school indefinite...
Not Her First Quarantine
This is not my first quarantine.
In the sweltering August heat of 1979, my family and I, along with our entire trailer park neighborhood in Moundsville, were on lockdown for two weeks. Although 14 days...
THRIVING IN PLACE: How to Stay Healthy When the World Is Bananas!
A few months ago, we all made big plans. Resolutions for the New Year. We bought planners and booked vacations. We made vision boards. This was finally going to be the year that we saved money, lost weight, got...
ROBERTS RUMINATES: Boxed In
Author’s note: These are unprecedented and anxious times. We feel alone and isolated. It’s important to take the spread of Covid-19 seriously. It’s imperative that we do our part by staying home. It’s also impo...
PHYLosophy: Tips for Working From Home
No, I don’t work in my pajamas.
But, when I started working from home on Feb. 1, 2018, everyone said to me, “Wow, you can work in your jammies now!”
I could. But I don’t.
Yoga pants, yes. PJs, no.
S...
AS I SEE IT: Empty Shelters, Full Hearts
Ohio, Brooke and Marshall County Animal Shelters recently shocked the community by announcing that they were “out of dogs.” Wait — what??! If you’re in the market for a puppy, this is terrible news. However, if...
AS I SEE IT: Along Party Lines
There were two types of girls in the ’70s — those who had their very own telephones in their bedrooms, and those who did not. Some incredibly fortunate girls even had a private “children’s line” with a separate...
Success: What Does It Mean to You?
What does “success” mean to you?
Success looks different to everyone, and what it looks like to me has changed a lot over the years.
Looking back at my past in Wheeling, I had a wonderful childhood. There...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: The Alpha and the Omega
Share your memories of Ye Olde Alpha with Weelunk.
Held Together by Stories: A Special Lunch With Books Remembers OVMC
I was born there. I graduated from there. My children were born there.
These statements were heard more than once at Tuesday's Lunch with Books — “OVGH & OVMC Memories” — at the Ohio County Library.
...
ECHOES … Of Love, Loss and Belly Rubs
This is a tribute to the very first pet I ever had — a black and brown dachshund named Gretel.
If you are a cat lover, you may leave now.
I have never had one, and it’s not that I don’t like them, I simpl...
ROBERTS RUMINATES: Traditions, Toilets and Trickery
No matter what holiday we celebrate, our yearly traditions anchor us. They keep us grounded in times of joy and chaos, both of which flow abundantly in December.
Christmas traditions in my family never varie...
Live, Work, Give: Generation Wheeling Committed to Connecting
Regardless of how much you love our city, I’m sure at one time or another you’ve either heard about or had a discussion with someone about our area’s declining and aging population.
From a statewide perspect...
Surprise Symphony (and a Conundrum or Two)
No, it’s not Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 (popularly known as the Surprise Symphony). It’s what the Wheeling Symphony is delivering this season. Surprises. And exceptional music-making, of course.
Driscoll
M...
Adolescent Mental Illness (Part 2): One Ohio Valley Family’s Struggle
What follows is an Ohio Valley family’s story about their child’s struggle with mental illness. To protect the anonymity of their underage child, I have written it in my own words, using gender-neutral pronouns...
SleepOut Proves How Homelessness Can Hit Home
Iam a total wimp.
When it came down to it, I lasted about an hour at last week’s Wheeling SleepOut for Youth Services System Inc. Thankfully, my participation was limited to that of spectator, but the experi...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Peace Corps in East Wheeling?
This is a tough one to get started. There are so many people involved from not only different backgrounds but different continents.
ONE: PEACE CORPS
When we arrived in Cove, Benin, West Africa, starting our ...
ROBERTS RUMINATES: Buzz Off
It’s time for school pictures again. That means haircuts, which means considerable whining and negotiation. It’s a necessary chore, but the barber always makes it look easy.
“I could teach you how to do it y...
Discriminating Tastes: A Ghostly Tale
Note: This is a fictional tale. Rich Knoblich, WV storyteller and a regular winner of the Liar Contest at the annual Vandalia Gathering hosted by the WV Dept. of Arts and Culture, likes to add some dr...
Echoes … Of Life on Top of Violet Hill
Editor's note: Last week, Anne Hazlett Foreman shared Echoes ... Of Life Below Violet Hill. Today, we read about life on top of Violet Hill.
We moved to the big brown stucco house on top of Violet Hill whe...
ECHOES … Of Life Below Violet Hill
Long before my family moved to the brown stucco house at the top of Chicken Neck Hill overlooking Elm Run, I was a resident of Birch Lynn and spent most of the summers on the gently sloping hillside below it.
...
AS I SEE IT: Cat Tales and Tupperware
I pull the ancient yellow Tupperware container from the drawer. The sight of my mom’s writing that spells out “CATNIP” on the lid makes me smile. That old container is one of my favorite things remaining from ...
From Bored to Blissful: A Thank-You Letter to Wheeling
That first sip of coffee, more bitter than I would like, hits my mouth, and I think, that’s all right — I have catching up to do anyway.
I take a seat outside of Wheeling Coffee and Spice, just across from t...
AS I SEE IT: Reading — Soul Food for the Heart and Mind
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected ...
ECHOES … Of That First Day at the Mount — and Beyond
It is said that moments of trauma or great joy are etched in our minds forever and, like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), can come back as vivid memories unexpected and unwelcome in their timing and inten...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: Poppa’s One, Two, Three
Driving through Wheeling Park, I noticed a sign — “Bandstand” — and followed it to the top of the hill. I haven’t been up there in decades. The last time was for a party we had there when the rails around the b...
PHYLosophy: Taking Stock of a Great Man
I usually heard his friendly, booming voice before I saw him. He’d stop by the front two desks in the newsroom at The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register, first to visit with Linda Comins and Betsy Bethel-...
THE GRIFFITH FILES: Growing Up on Big Wheeling Creek in Elm Grove
"Stay away from the creek.” ... In the Elm Grove neighborhoods along Big Wheeling Creek in the early 1960s, no parental directive was ignored more often.
The wide, often-muddy tributary with its rocks, crawd...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: A Binge and a Spree
I have lived in two universes; they overlap or maybe coincide. It's a paradoxical thing I don’t understand and don’t try. The first was a straight line sort of thing — a loving family, schools, university, Mili...
THE GRIFFITH FILES: How Mom, Zane Gray, the Beverly Hillbillies and the Revolutionary War Inspired a Lifetime of Reading
I was a child television junky in 1963, well-versed in the classics like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Car 54: Where Are You?, Ben Casey, The Red Skelton Show, Hawaiian Eye, Wagon Train, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Route 66, th...
ECHOES … Of Guns and Rose — Tales of Summer Vacations Long Ago
There is no place hotter in August than Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was just one of many of our destinations during most summers when I was young. My father ’s spin on summer fun was narrow and pointed. Pointed ...
We Need a Mouse-Ke-Do-Over: Surviving the Worst Vacation Ever
I don’t know what came over me, but I really wanted to hug that mouse.
In the fall of 2013, my family took what can easily be described as the worst vacation of all time. I’m sure there are worse stories, bu...
IN SEARCH OF THIRD PLACES: The Ohio County Public Library
Author’s note: In his work, The Great Good Place, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to define public social settings where locals regularly gather in safety for conversation, connect...
Roberts Ruminates: Horrible Creatures
I’ve got a lot of critters in my house. They’re all rescues. Our collie mix came from Marshall County Animal Shelter. We found the tortie cat at Ohio County and the tabby under a bush. Our German shepherd was f...
IN SEARCH OF THIRD PLACES: An Introduction
Author’s note: In his work, The Great Good Place, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” to define public social settings where locals regularly gather in safety for conversation, connect...
AN ESSAY FOR THE DAY: A Gathering of Heroes
It was about as poignant a moment as one could imagine.
The National World War II Memorial. On the National Mall. On the Saturday before this Memorial Day weekend in 2011.
The site is perfectly framed at ...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: The Flicks
I was fortunate to attend a noon talk at our library recently, about the old movie theaters in West Virginia. It brought back so many memories of when I was a kid in the 1930s and ’40s when going to a movie on ...
POSTSCRIPTS FROM THE EDGE(WOOD): The 21st Century Marriage Saver
When Hazlett and Irene (Miller) Cochran built what would later become my Edgwood home in 1926, marriage looked quite a bit different than it does today.
By this time, Margaret Sanger had won her lawsuit in N...
AS I SEE IT: Animal Instincts
Work responsibilities, aging parents, motherhood, menopause — I don't know about you, but for me, midlife can be stressful at times. When my world gets overwhelming, and I need to stop and take a moment to rela...
A VIEW FROM THE MOON: SMART-Center Turns 25 — 50 Years Ago (Part 1)
In elementary school, I labored under the common misconception that persists with most youngsters unabated to this day. I thought that “Science” is the accumulation of random facts and figures about a field of ...
The Adventures of a First-Time 5K Runner (She Did It for the Kids)
“Sometimes it isn’t about doing it well, it is simply about doing it." — Jennifer Kellner-Muscar
Two years ago, at the age of 39, I ran my first 5K. I came in dead last.
Here’s how it happened.
Je...
What We Lost at Wheeling Jesuit University
Author’s note: It was impossible for me to write a piece on WJU objectively, so I did a deep dive into my personal experience. I believe the courses of study left at WJU for the upcoming year are no less import...
A VIEW FROM THE MOON: Practice Makes Perfect — 50th Anniversary of Apollo 9
As the rocket blurred into the clouds, I watched the joyful exuberance of the hundreds of kids around me all still spellbound by the launch of Apollo 9. As I kept turning, this view was quickly replaced as th...
BILL HOGAN’S MUSINGS: On Being Irish
I am Irish, I guess, because I don’t know what else to be. I am half German, but being German never came easy to me.
We are a melancholy lot; I am. That is why we sing and laugh so much, because we are so ve...