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Fair week farmers

ESCANABA — Fair week brings out the farmer in all of us! Corn fields, country roads, and cotton candy are all in vogue right now. Sunflowers stand tall, tomatoes ripen and cucumbers are kings on everyone’s kitchen cupboards. The annual U.P. State Fair creeps up on us like a barn cat on a mouse. Summer slips into the harvest season faster than a flash of lightening on the horizon. Fair week (August 17-23) is full of fantastic smells and sentiments. Food trucks, French fries, elephant ears, and roasting chickens, mixed with the smell of hay and a hint of manure are the hallmarks ...

Almanac for Aug. 14, 2026

Today is Friday, Aug. 14, the 226th day of 2026. There are 139 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, ensuring income for elderly Americans and creating a federal unemployment insurance program. Also on this date: In 1936, in front of an estimated 20,000 spectators, Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, in the last public execution in the United States. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which ...

A much needed recharge

“Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong,” – John Denver I had just pulled out of the drive-through line and grabbed my container of French fries out of the paper bag. I hit the highway like a man possessed, and by that, I mean I felt like I was breaking down inside, ...

From Drone to Door

There's a new delivery system in town. Well ... maybe not in your town. In some places, drones are now allowed to deliver small packages, groceries and takeout. Companies like Wing and Zipline bring people hot meals in under 10 minutes. I had to watch it to believe it. You can see it in my ...

Almanac for Aug. 13, 2026

Today is Thursday, Aug. 13, the 225th day of 2026. There are 140 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 13, 1961, on what would become known as Barbed Wire Sunday, East Germany sealed the border between Berlin's eastern and western sectors before building a wall that would divide the city for the next 28 years. Also on this date: In 1521, Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez captured Tenochtitlan (teh-natch-teet-LAHN'), present-day Mexico City, from the Aztecs. In 1792, French revolutionaries arrested and imprisoned King Louis XVI; he would be executed by guillotine the ...

Don’t malign the U.S. economy

The United States of America may be the greatest place for functionally illiterate people to live in all of human history. An eye-popping column in the Financial Times the other day noted how people in the U.S. with very low literacy make about as much per hour as the average worker in the ...