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OP-ED: Over the river and through the woods

Christmas Eve in our house wasn’t complicated, but it was a sacred family tradition. My brother and I were altar boys, and this was the main event of church services for the year. For my brother and me, Dec. 24 meant putting on freshly laundered red cassocks and starched and ironed ...

Navigating home life during college break

Q. I’m coming home for a month for winter break. Will you please print this? My parents read your column regularly. Please tell them that college sophomores (like me) have been on their own for an entire semester for the SECOND year of their lives and they do NOT need to be asked when they ...

OP-ED: The letter: A Christmas gift from 1943

EditorÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ note: This column originally appeared in 2024. "Here it is Christmas Day," my future father-in-law wrote to his family in Uniontown in the middle of World War II. Cpl. Bob Reynolds was stationed "somewhere in India" with the 25th Field Hospital, U.S. Army. "In a couple of hours," ...

Learning to be assertive

Q. This may sound like a trivial problem, and I know it is, in the scheme of things, but I am still stressed about it. I went to get my hair done for the Christmas formal. I had pics of the way I wanted it to look, but when it was finished, it didn’t look anything like what I wanted. I paid ...

OP-ED: Christmas with Mrs. Claus

Back when shopping was an event, my old mentor John Gunter ran the legendary Penn Traffic Department Store in Johnstown. JohnÄ¢¹½ÊÓÆµ motto was simple: Go big or go home. And when it came to Christmas, he went mega-big. That store was a winter wonderland with wreaths the size of a 1968 Chrysler ...

Shapiro’s way: listen and solve problems

By Richard Robbins Our political divisions are deep, but the gaps can be bridged with follow through and a willingness to engage. At least that's what Josh Shapiro thinks. The headlines from Tim Alberta's recent article in The Atlantic about the Pennsylvania governor focused on Shapiro's ...