Persistence, patience can lead to a darn loud whistle
The baseball I lobbed to my 7-year-old grandson thunked against his forehead. Astonished, he screamed at me, "You hit me," dropped his glove and ran crying to his mother. As I held ice cubes against the rising egg above his eyebrow, I said, I'm sorry, Aidan. But I didn't hit you, Bud. You missed.

Literary trucker shares his thoughts on the road
Several months ago someone named Fran Lawless began sending me e-mails such as this one titled: "Lucky Charms."

Over 320,000 words sold, and still counting
Since October 25, 2000, when this column debuted in the Sun, I've written 468 more. To kick off my gala 10th season party (Oprah sent her regrets), I dug up some old column ledes from the morgue.

Local women do all they can to help the Earth
Officials at the Algonquin Public Library refused to schedule a reading by Linda Bartlett and Wen Marcec, co-authors of the children's' book: "Keby, The Earth-Friendly Bear." "They told us we weren't famous enough," said Bartlett.