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By the light of a single firefly

By Robert McCool

I have been so fortunate in my life so far that I have had opportunities to share my love of books and the written word with the readers of this column on a semi-regular basis.

I began to write for the Icon when founder Fred Steiner asked me to review books that I liked, and I chose those contemporary popular fiction ones that I believed had a quality or message that meant something important to our current time and circumstances. I was lucky to find those books on the new books shelf of my local library, and sometimes I took the suggestions of my fellow book lovers. It was a joy to bring the book alive with my reviews, and I actually managed to read and write about each book in a week's time. That was how much I enjoyed the task.

When the new owner of the Icon took over, she allowed me to keep this column and even encouraged my writing. And the Icon flourishes under her management. I believe that I had more interested readers that followed me then. The support that I received made me want to write better and more relevant reviews than I had ever done before.

Memories of Iwo Jima, memories of music

This is the second installment in a series by Icon columnist Bill Herr, who previously wrote about local sports history.

By Bill Herr
Icon columnist

An ancient (1994) tome with 2024 relevance

By Robert McCool

As you may know, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease recently. With the proper medications most of my symptoms have gone into remission, with a few exceptions. I still find it hard to swallow without choking, I sometimes have a tipsy way of walking that requires a cane, and my hands don't always do what I want them to, so I drop things.

But the worst symptom is the one which refuses to go away without some strong additional medication that I'd rather not use. That is my persistent insomnia.

Back in the misty, shrouded past of 1994 Stephen King published a weighty novel of 787 pages titled “Insomnia” (A Viking book published by the Penguin Group, ISBN 0-670-85503-0). That book means something to me and my condition that it didn't before.

Nursing home chaplain: John’s story before dementia

Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes. In this series of articles, he writes about his experiences with elderly residents. He does not use the residents’ real names.

By Bill Herr

In this series of articles, most of the experiences I relate involved nursing home residents experiencing some degree of dementia. The purpose is to show others ways to make their visits with such individuals as pleasant as possible.

There are about 15,000 nursing homes and 29,000 assisted living facilities in the United States, housing 2.1 million residents. One third of all Americans who die in a given year spend all or part their last six months in a senior care home. Nearly 80% of nursing home residents receive fewer than one outside visitor per month. Loneliness, hopelessness, loss of dignity and a lack of real purpose in living at an advanced age are among the primary emotional and spiritual issues that residents feel.  

Nursing home residents are blessed when they receive visitors. I met a new resident, John, who was outgoing, friendly and liked to talk.  He had a plaque on the wall of his room that was given to honor him when he retired as fire chief in his local community.

Have you heard about the 1938 Lafayette grave robbery?

Grave robbers were apparently seeking a valuable ring

By Fred Steiner
www.BlufftonForever.com

Grave robbers in LaFayette?

It occurred in October of 1938 and became headlines in many Ohio newspapers. This tale involves the grave in the LaFayette Cemetery of Tully Rumbaugh, a pioneer in the village who was born Aug. 6, 1875, and died Jan. 17, 1896.

One LaFayette story claimed that Rumbaugh, only 21 when he died, was buried with an expensive diamond ring. No one knows when or how that story took its roots. But, even in 1938, 42 years following his death, the story continued to spread.

The appraisal of the ring was simply described as “valuable.” Apparently, three young boys, or young men, overheard the Rumbaugh ring story being told in a LaFayette pool hall. Soon after hearing the story, but not knowing the exact location of the grave, the three took digging tools and matches and headed for the cemetery.

There they found the Rumbaugh grave. The story continues that they dug at the gravesite and after a few hours reached the top of the decayed coffin. In their exciting and no doubt frightening search of the corpse, they found a ring and took it.

Click HERE for the rest of the story.

The Wizard

By Robert McCool

If this was a novel it would be titled “The Wizard.”

But this isn’t a work of fiction. It’s about a real man that I have known all my life, and I’d like you to know him too, as I wanted to be him or like him my whole life, but could not measure up to his natural abilities.

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