Some game day favorites

The Super Bowl kind of snuck up on me this year. I was thinking it was in March for some reason, but it's this Sunday. So what are we going to eat? Snacks are my favorite part of Super Bowl Sunday. Here's an easy one for tacos.

Love is mostly easy

When our oldest son played basketball in seventh grade we went to Walmart like all good parents and bought a basketball goal so he could practice at home - you know the ones you put in the driveway and you fill up the base with water.

Worshiping a God who carries us

Monsignor Charles Pope, who has led Bible studies in the U.S. Congress and at the White House in past years, shares: “We live in the age of the designer God, when many claim the right to imagine and craft their own version of god. Some of them refer to it as ‘the god within.

LOOKING BACK

10-20-40-100 YEARS AGO 100 YEARS AGO Old residents of Rockdale and vicinity are practically unanimous in expressing the belief that the sow which visited this section last Saturday and Sunday was the heaviest in the history of the town. Beginning about 8 a.m. on Saturday the snow fell until 4 p.m.

Cold weather recipe favorites

I’m writing this food column on Friday, January 23 just before the cold front hits. I am dreading the temperatures over the next week or so but also thinking about some good cold weather food. I’m hoping mom makes a big pot of pinto beans and cornbread.

Two low carb recipes, one side

These first two recipes are low carb, but you could add carbs to the meal if you're not eating low carb. This first one would be good with rice.

A time to cast away

In the summer of 1986, municipal workers of Philadelphia went on strike. During that hot summer, the trash got higher and higher. Orange rinds, drink bottles, old newspapers. Junk mail, aluminum foil, chicken bones. Old shoes, dead batteries. Coffee grinds, half-eaten hot dogs, tin cans.

How I’m doing 2026

“You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.” (Psalm 65:11) James 1:22 is one of my favorite verses. It tells us we can’t just read the Bible, we must do what it says (hear and do).

Living with your loss: finding comfort, hope in 2026

A new workshop series coming to Rockdale helps mourners transform grief into joyful living. Walking the Mourners Path workshops runs February-March 2026. Attendees share their personal grief stories in a series of eight 90-minute small group sessions shepherded by commissioned facilitators.

LOOKING BACK

100 YEARS AGO The Rockdale Gun Club members re-set the club trap at Fair Park and a few of the “bugs” went out and tried a few rounds. The long layoff from shooting causes very poor scores—so poor, in fact, that the shooters decided they were “not fit for publication.