By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
My mother said she believed Gabriel Heater, a radio newscaster in the 1940s was partially responsible for my father’s death at age 59 during World War II.
My father had six sons, all within the age of military service. Nightly, he would be glued to the radio for news of the war [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
If today, my feet were not planted on this earth, I’d like to just have a peek on heaven’s scenes to witness Liz Carpenter greeting Viola Jane Wilborn Lewis for a rousing howl at the moon. Liz Carpenter is the godmother of the Bay-at-the-Moon Clubs of America. Liz an earthy, tart-tongued [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
I have to eat crow. Ever since I lost my favorite writing tool – the Underwood #5 typewriter – I have cursed computers and every attached electronic marvel that has made my life miserable. But, on this occasion, I have to eat crow. Saturday as I was about to write [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
The child’s play in Washington over the debt ceiling has brought silence to another great debate – the immigration law. It has been over a year since any solution has been on the lips of lawmakers. Yet America’s porous southern border is still an issue. Only recently, The Associated Press had [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstatesman
You just never know what you will find in the library discard pile. Actually, I didn’t, but Dorothy Lamoureaux did. She is a colleague as a Hospice volunteer at the Roseburg VA Health Care System and knowing my newspaper background figured I would be interested in the editorial sketches and essays compiled [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
Recently I reviewed a book for Currents using a Kindle reader. I may be an electronic dinosaur, but reading with finger swipes rather than physically turning a page is not my cup of tea. I want to hold, fondle and savor the words on a printed page. Over the years I [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
My son, Barry, died on Friday, July 1 from malignant melanoma, the same cancer I survived more than 30 years ago after being told it was terminal. Why this vital, young father of five lost the battle and an old wretch like me lives on is one of life’s imponderables.
At age [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
I think it started in 1982 when seven people died of cyanide poisoning after containers of the pain reliever Tylenol were tamper and the poison injected while on the store shelf. Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Co immediately recalled all its products at a cost of $100 million dollars.
This product tampering danger, [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
As of Tuesday, my calendar says it is summer. It’s true we’ve had several days in the 80s. I always marvel at Oregonians. After a long hard winter and a rainy, wet spring Oregonians come out of their caves to soak up every ray of sunshine.
They seem to want that sun [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
Have you ever read those scare sheets that come with prescription medications? Or tuned an ear to those glowing wonder drugs that come on by the dozen day after day in TV commercials, only to get a fast talking voice at the end telling you the gloomy side effects?
Honestly, I just [...]
