Back in the day, when I worked the full-service island at the Palmer Service Center in the summer, there were only a couple of rules. I didn’t know the first thing about cars—I still don’t, if I am being completely honest—and I was a terrible window washer.

We appear to be done bombing Iran, and to be back to helping Ukraine repel invaders from Russia. Plus, it looks like the trade war we started is going to raise our cost of buying coffee from Brazil and beer from Mexico.

In case you are curious, I spend a lot of time on the golf course. Oddly though, it has been years since I last touched a club.

Well, it’s that time of year—when the corn is rising in the fields, the calves are fattening on the pastures, and politicians aplenty are announcing their candidacies for elected office. Those announcements seem to come earlier than ever, as do the negative campaign ads.

There’s some good news and plenty of bad news for Nebraska’s rural hospitals. Just recently, state officials cheered the announcement that the federal government had approved the state’s application to join a program, already involving forty-four other states, that would provide an additional one-billion-dollars to the state’s hospitals and nursing facilities.

Just do it. After more than a dozen years in the newspaper business, that has become my motto when I find myself stuck in a situation where I am questioning whether or not I should interview someone at an event I am covering.

These days, besides seeing American bombers attacking Iran, we’re confronted with almost daily news about immigration raids and with court rulings about what ICE can, and cannot, do. We’ve been treated to the arrest of a man whose three sons are United States Marines, and of sobbing mothers wondering who will take care of their kids.

Back in the day, or at least back in my day—that day is getting further and further behind me at a pretty rapid clip—if you recovered a fumble, recorded a tackle, or scored a touchdown for the Palmer Tigers on a Friday night in the fall, your accomplishment was duly noted by Terry Ramold and his sidekicks in the crows’ nest.

Back in the day, I used to shake my head while watching state lawmakers work late into the night—sometimes until midnight— to get legislation passed at the end of a session. “You couldn’t pay me enough to do that kind of work for twelve to fifteen hours,” I’d think to myself.