It’s damp and grey outside. My kid doesn’t want to go outside and my feet are freezing even when I’m indoors. We’re in the pits of this Michigan winter, an annual predicament I should come to expect around the end of January and beginning of February. It’s always coming, and it’s always awful, and every […]
I’m going home. By the time you read this, I’ll already be home. It will be a normal Saturday filled with cartoons and, with luck, waffles and strong coffee. The only difference will be the Monday that follows, which will not see me return to my desk in the Pioneer’s downtown office. This was my […]
Time begins to warp when you become a parent, or at least, your personal concept of time. In the carefree, unencumbered days of my early 20s, time was infinite. I believed I had even more time tomorrow than I did today, and I’d certainly be guaranteed many more years in which to accomplish whatever I […]
BIG RAPIDS — Thursday was a day of firsts for Special Olympics athlete Nick Borders and the Law Enforcement Torch Run, one of many annual fundraisers for Special Olympics. For Borders, 30, of Big Rapids, Thursday was the first time he ever completed a 5k run. This course, which he ran alongside the local officers and […]
BIG RAPIDS — Coach Herman Boone, made famous when his life story became the movie “Remember the Titans,” will visit Big Rapids on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Ferris State University’s Social Work Association, with the help of the Diversity and Inclusion Office, Entertainment Unlimited and the Office of Multicultural Student Services, will host Boone as he gives […]
I owe the inspiration for this dish to Lonnie. Each week when we pick up our community-supported agriculture basket, Lonnie gives me an expert’s rundown of what he did with certain ingredients last week and what he wants to do with them this week. Before he became a reporter, Lonnie spent a lot of years […]
He held up a little chalkboard and posed beneath the maple in his front yard. “Charlie’s first day of school!” the sign declared, along with the name of his school and who his teacher would be. And after Charlie trotted off to his first day of preschool, his mom — an old friend of mine […]
How do we help a child in their time of need? That was the question I received in my email after writing about suicide two weeks ago. The writer described a situation in which one teenager confides a serious problem to another. “As her best friend, and at a similar age, what would you tell […]
Let’s get French today. I’m talking about mise en place and ratatouille. You need one to make the other, especially if you’re busy and trying to throw together a meal on a weeknight. Mise en place is a French phrase that means “putting in place.” Professional chefs use the term to refer to their set […]
Thank you, Big Rapids, for bringing your puppies into our office this week. We needed it. Two days in a row, lovely people walked weeks-old puppies into the office — a little tiny Jack Russel terrier and a “bug,” otherwise known as the combination of a Boston terrier and a pug — and productivity came to a […]
BIG RAPIDS — Decked out in their biggest hats and Sunday finest, nine women met for lunch and laughs Wednesday at a home formerly owned by a Big Rapids socialite. Ardith Smith, of Mecosta, invited the women of the Big Rapids High School Class of 1946 to have lunch at the home of her daughter, Kathy Miller. […]
BIG RAPIDS — A 16-year-old Canton boy has died, three days after being pulled from the Muskegon River after a tubing accident. Abid Mailick was taken off life support at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, according to Big Rapids Department of Public Safety Officer Erik Little. Monday night, Muslim Community of Western Suburbs help a prayer service for […]
