Since I’ve retired, I don’t get Downtown much. But a few weeks ago I did venture there to the Cafe Pony Expresso for a good cup of coffee.

So this is retirement. Some people said I wouldn’t retire until hell froze over. I retired during a global pandemic, which is close.

Hope ya’ll got out and voted Tuesday. We may know who won now or will learn later who won, but if it’s not your choice don’t get angry and tear up progress made.

This Friday I retire. Not just after 31 years here at the St. Joseph News-Press, but from a working life that began at about 12 years old.

Someone on social media the other day wrote that Black Lives Matter is a racist movement not unlike the Ku Klux Klan or Swastika-flag-carrying protesters.

I already knew my mom was a queen before she was dubbed second runner-up in the Ms. Nursing Home Queen of District 2.

The news earns me a living, but I don’t live the news. When not at work I try to limit my news viewing if I want to enjoy living. If I don’t restrict my news consumption, my life will be spent in constant fear.

The St. Joseph News-Press offices have been closed since March and I’ve been working from home since then.

By 2020, books were supposed to be dead, cars would be able to go months without refueling and we’d have anti-gravity belts.

You wouldn’t know it by the sounds of the nightly fireworks in many neighborhoods for the past month, but the Fourth of July is actually this coming Saturday.

In our rush to remove symbols and images deemed racially offensive we must use a little common sense and forethought.

These pandemic-laden days have us nostalgic for a time in the not too distant past. We long to sit in a movie theater, see a live sporting event or just give someone a hug.

Here we go again. Another black man killed at the hands of police followed by public outrage and protest.

As if anxiously awaiting the end of a movie, we all wonder how this pandemic will end. We can’t fast forward to the ending. There’s no reliable prediction.

We went to Red Lobster Saturday afternoon for my wife’s birthday. In earlier times that statement would mean little. But in the context of reopening during the coronavirus pandemic it can be seen as extraordinarily brave (like sticking your head in a lion’s mouth) or just as stupid.