I was running late for church on Saturday afternoon, later than I would like anyway, but before I got cleaned up and headed back for town—I had worked in the office earlier that morning and the day had slipped away from me—there were a couple of chores that I had to check off my list.

Years ago, I had the pleasure of covering the dedication of a new, seventeen-million-dollar bridge spanning the Missouri River east of Niobrara. The bridge was named after Chief Standing Bear, whose people, the Poncas, once ruled over that area of northeast Nebraska.

Now that Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen appears to be on the road to recovery after a wild ride aboard a bucking bronco, his next rodeo act will be roping up enough votes to lower property taxes, cut government spending, and return Nebraska to a “winner-take-all” system of doling out the state’s electoral college votes.

Like a lot of people, for me, the goal was that the holiday season be both merry and bright. However, what I instead discovered in the run-up to the holidays was a period that was dark and smokey.

This week, world events have emphasized the importance of American readiness to keep our country safe and stand with our allies across the globe. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is another reminder many regions of the world do not enjoy the freedom and stability we do in the United States. It also underscores the need for decisive U.S. leadership as Assad’s rogue allies, such as Russia and Iran, may grow increasingly desperate.

On Thanksgiving of all days, I stepped on my scale, and nothing happened. No numbers flashed, and I was left standing there wondering just exactly how much turkey I could get away with eating later that day before I tipped the thing past an acceptable point.

One afternoon this summer, after getting home from work, I got a phone call. On that afternoon, in my corner of the county, a local landowner was going to release some quail into the wild, and they wanted to know if I would be interested in getting some photographs of the event.

My family has always loved to travel. Whether it was camping trips, a road trip to the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, or a drive to the Black Hills to see relatives, we could put some miles on the family car.

Years ago, on the back page of the Omaha World Herald’s living section—once a daily mainstay of the state’s largest newspaper—there was an article about a growing trend in the news media. The story chronicled how, more and more—and this was around ten years ago—news organizations were leaning on weather-related stories to fill their airtime and column inches.