Grace Notes As I typed “October 28” at the top of this editorial, my stomach did a flip and my heart went a-flutter. How is it possible that we are just a few days away from November? Which can only mean that December will soon be upon us, along with winter and cold and ice and cold hands and feet.

This amazing story comes from our neighbors to the west where Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers finally got the opportunity to help a bull elk get rid of an unwanted heavy burden. In July 2019, while conducting a population survey for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the Mount Evans Wilderness, wildlife officer Jared Lamb spotted a bull elk with a tire around its neck.

“For the first time in the United States, there are more older adults than young children.” That was the lead-in sentence of a story put out by K-State Research and Extension recently, and it kind of caught me by surprise. First of all, that it is a true statistic, and secondly, that it hasn’t happened before.

Tie one on I can clearly picture both of my grandmothers, even though they’ve been absent from my life for many years. And when I picture them, they would be wearing a dress with an apron tied around the waist.

What two-letter word is the most frequently spoken or typed word on the planet? Let me give you a tiny hint: It was the first word spoken on the moon. Go ahead...

Every once in a great while, as we’re traveling through an area that’s unfamiliar to us, it is fun to see a sign that just tickles the funny bone. I need to take a picture to remember them. Here’s someone else’s collection of silly signs that would either make you laugh or go “huh?”

Surely I’ve mentioned this before, but I love to travel by Google Air, navigating with one finger as I “fly over” any place in the world. Recently I learned that there is another Webster Lake that has a very interesting story. The lake is right next to the town of Webster, Massachusetts; and when I say “right next to the town,” I seriously mean that. Since I’m flying, I don’t really need to know highway numbers, but this one is important because I-395 basically runs right smack dab between the town of Webster and the lake they call Webster. People there could go to the lake over their lunch hour— it’s that close!

On September 11, 2001, America was forever changed. It has been 20 years since the attacks, but that tragic day, which served as a true test of the American spirit, will be remembered always. Now on this day, we observe Patriot Day and all that it represents—we honor the value of life, those we loved and lost, our country’s resilience, and the strength of the American spirit.

If you were along for the ride last week, you may have cringed your way through my story about fairy tales and nursery rhymes. I had way too much fodder for the inches that I get to fill each week, so I saved some for a “Part 2.” If you haven’t slept since you read the first course—because you just couldn’t wait for the second helping—well, you’ll sleep good tonight.

I remember when our sons were small and loved to have us read to them. We had several volumes of books that contained some of the familiar stories we had learned as children. I remember the books as being filled with beautiful pictures and the typical “happily ever after” endings. They’re called fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and even when I was a parent of young children, I never thought about how dark and violent these tales really are. We had grown up with them and seen the cartoon movies over and over. We’ve watched the beautiful Disney-fied stories all our lives... how could they possibly be anything other than delightful?