In 1965, my sister enrolled in a Foods and Nutrition college class, where she learned trendy techniques, along with old school tips. Her instructor continued to reuse tin foil from the World War II era. Might have been a generational thing---my dad had the philosophy of "use it up; wear it out; make it do; or do without."

Keeping up with the news and weather is one of my consuming interests which got its start during my childhood. My maternal grandfather, who was the patriarchal head of household I grew up with, had great interest in politics and he made sure to listen to daily radio news programs. Since Granddaddy was hard of hearing, the volume on his radio was turned up very high, which meant that everyone in our house heard whatever he listened to. In fact we had a couple of neighbors down the road who said they didn't need to own a radio in order to be well informed.

Marwan Barghouti was born near Ramallah in 1959, eight years before Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war. Omar Barghouti was born in Qatar in 1964, moved to Egypt, and in 1993 moved to Israel and married a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel.

Entertaining grandkids is nothing like it was when I was a youngster. My grandmother could keep me busy for hours by letting me string buttons with a needle and thread. I play hide and seek with my grandkids and tell them not to look for me.

It's summer time and the bugs are out in abundance. (I started to write "abugndance," but that's too much, even for me.) Bugs--the good, the bad, and the scary--are the subject of this short essay.

Mark Twain has long been one of my favorite authors, and I grew up reading his novels, from Tom Sawyer to Huck Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson. I knew he was a popular lecturer, but it was only recently that I learned of his skill in writing advertisements for his own lectures.

When I was growing up, I had the mind of a computer. I could tell you the exact day and hour my sister got her first watch and when she was allowed to stay out until midnight. Later in my life I forgot little things---like where I left the kids and when to pay our insurance premiums so they wouldn't lapse---but that is because I was on overload.

Last week this space played word detective concerning the definition of "Honor Bright." (Ok, I know the proper name for this pursuit is etymology, but that’s hard to spell, and I confuse it with entomology, which is about bugs.) This week, the word detective looks at an expression from a Nancy Drew movie of the late 1930s.

Jerusalem has been the center of controversy 118 times since 1350 BCE! In relation to the three Abrahamic faiths, tradition has Abraham about to sacrifice his son (at God’s command) on the very spot where (the golden) Dome of the Rock was completed in 691 CE under the Umayyad Caliphate. The "rock" is visible through a glass window on the floor.

By the year 2000, domestic chickens outnumbered humans by about four to one on this planet. Not only are they the most abundant bird species on earth. Chickens are the world’s most numerous reptile, amphibian, mammal, or bird, period (make that an exclamation point)!

For my family, July means a long weekend at Oklahoma’s Beavers Bend State Park. Ages might range from a few weeks to three-quarters of a century. And our days are spent on Mountain Fork River or Broken Bow Lake, while evenings find us treating sunburn, life preserver rash, or shark bites.

I watch a lot of old movies, and every now and again a word or phrase pops up that every one recognized at the time, but is lost to most viewers today. That sends me on the hunt for a meaning as this column recalls.