As Time Goes By With Rich O'Brian

For years, this space belonged to Rich O’Brian.

To be accorded the honor of serving this part of Colorado by way of a column such as this one, gives to me an opportunity to attempt to write creatively.

Growing older places, most of us are in an uncomfortable position, memory-wise, I mean. Of course, we would like to live as long as feasible.

They were the days of black and white television, and I was a bit unusual among kids my age. Okay, I admit it.

I think I’m a sentimentalist. That is when the names or photographs of people I have known in a positive way suddenly appear.

There’s a well-known saying that is based on the famous racetrack call, “Off and running.” I have adapted the expression to fit my thinking of the week, “Off and Trying.”

Beginning Sunday, July 28th, only a few days from the publication of today’s Independent, there will be a Sunday Morning Community Worship Service at the Plains Theater in Eads.

I just stepped out of a shop on Gary Avenue in my hometown of Fairfield and, much to my surprise, there he stood looking in a store window, a baseball player. I could tell he was a baseball player because he was dressed in his Birmingham Black Baron’s baseball uniform.

Money! There, did I get your attention?

It was a beautiful fall day as I stopped at our post office here in Eads, Colorado. As I inserted my key in our mailbox, a lady nearby reached into her box to retrieve her mail.

This week’s column marks my return to the pages of this publication with a grateful heart. I am thankful to Publisher Betsy Barnett who gave me a hiatus of several weeks to recover from an illness that brought me down temporarily.

I’m certainly not a philosopher. I think one can earn a doctorate from a prestigious university if he or she earns the title.

We’re off and running in this new year dubbed twenty-twenty four or two thousand twenty-four. Where is this new year going to take me? Or should I say, “Where am I going to take this new year?” I am responsible for how I use these next three hundred sixty-five days, isn’t that correct?

I believe one of the more helpful gifts one can provide for him or herself at the outset of a new year is a good deep breath. I came to realize that when I went to see my health provider recently.

Christmas is here. Are these words that might have been spoken by you when you were a child? I remember that as a youngster Christmas could never arrive soon enough.

Our Odyssey is over. That is to say the travel portion is over.