Columns

I may be an inky wretch by day, but more than that I’m a family man. My greatest role model, my father, was a family man; my mother a dedicated homemaker. And while they are gone from this earth now, I remember them as the best parents anyone could ever hope for.

Still with me are my five brothers, all with families of their own, an ex-wife and two daughters, and a passel of cousins and others in our extended family. Every year about this time, we all get together at a retreat center in the Ozark Mountains, in my native state of Arkansas.

By Beth Urech

One year ago, my first Beth Speaks for Herself column was published in The Las Vegas Optic. I was over the moon. By the way, did you see the Supermoon (officially the perigee-syzgy)? I watched it rising at the Highlands Observatory with my husband Mark, Joe McCaffrey, Ryan Rudolph, Elena Adali Jimenez, Henry R. Sanchez and other ardent moon gazers.

By Rick Kraft

It was almost 400 years ago on Nov. 19, 1620, when a group from England called Pilgrims, after a long journey across the Atlantic Ocean, first sighted land in what was later to become Cape Cod, Mass. They were traveling on a ship called the Mayflower. The ship’s captain, Christopher Jones, had been sailing west right off the map for over two months after leaving Plymouth, England on Sept. 16.

Let’s talk about the kids in the aftermath of this presidential election.

Little pictures have big ears, and a lot of children, according to a range of reports from all over the nation, have been frightened by Donald Trump. In Albuquerque, there are reports of kids — a lot of them children of color — coming to school afraid their parents are going to be deported. Their fears, borne out of the Trump’s aggressive rhetoric, have school officials urging parents to talk with them about it.