The goal of the Wilderness Act, now celebrating its 60th birthday, was to set aside a small proportion of public land in America from human intrusion. Some places, the founders said, deserved to be free from motorized, mechanized and other intrusions to protect wildlife and wild lands.

All during the time I was growing up and continuing into adulthood, I’ve enjoyed reading a newspaper. Even in High School I would spend my lunch hour reading two of the larger papers in the state instead of eating lunch.

It's hard to believe but the summer is half over for most of us, and more so, I guess, for those who have kids in school.

The sun flashed through the rustling aspens as we quietly hiked a short downhill section of the trail. Reaching the bottom, the sky appeared a dazzling blue above the ridgeline on the short uphill slope in front of us. We anticipated an amazing view as a little spring in our step pushed us up the last 50 feet of the slope.

This month finds Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie still in Texas building on the house, going to grandkids’ ball games, selling cattle and yes, you guessed it, seeing the total eclipse of the Sun.

It appears that Spring has sprung at least in Texas where Miss Trixie and Ol’ Dutch have taken to spending their winters of late. You always can tell when it's close as the Big Box Stores load up on flowers and vegetables by the pallet load. It must be lucrative as the dickens as those same box doors often catch a late frost which kills every plant they have in stock. Regardless of the risks, the stores all rush and hurry to be the first with tomato and pepper plants on the shelves.

Anyone that has ever been involved with sports has had a coach yell “get the lead out” usually paired with an anatomical part of your body that is synonymous with your neighbor’s donkey. That phrase has been used “since Hector was a pup” and generally means to get moving faster.

Having grown up around a lot of older people, I got to experience life from their perspectives, some of which pre-dated 1900. My grandfather Kirk was born in 1889 in Dodge City, Kan., and so was probably about 65 by the time I was born, which was quite old in those days when people just did not live too long

It was 2 p.m. on a recent Sunday in the western Colorado town of Paonia, population 1,500, not an ideal time to gather a crowd to meet the famous Rosa Parks, the woman who kicked off the modern civil rights movement.

Living near a metroplex during the winter brings about all sorts of challenges not found during my summer sojourn in Colorado’s smalltown living. Some of these are to be expected like masses of people, traffic jams...

KEVIN KIRKPATRICK It has long been thought that a lot of what goes on in the world is manipulated by those in charge. They are thought to use a technique called smoke and mirrors to draw attention away from what is really going on behind the scenes and keep us focused on something really unrelated and often mundane.

It looks like the weather is on a rampage once again across the U.S.A. as the week opens up with rains on the West Coast setting records for amounts received plus snow in the Northeast piling up like leftovers at the church pot-luck dinner which, even though good at the time, begin to smell if allowed to accumulate for too long.

For those of you that follow along on the “great adventure” also known as cohabiting with Ol’ Dutch, you know we have had some experience with “the great tribulation”. Which is also related to living without heat and hot water.

This past week has definitely been a trial of my faith and all things holy.

This past week has definitely been a trial of my faith and all things holy.

This week has dawned frigid with a biting wind and those conditions usually drive even Ol’ Dutch inside for a while. And this time was no different as an Arctic blast of super cold air has seen fit to invade the heartland of America bringing a lot of snow and ice and wind

The New Year dawned on Miss Trixie and me in Texas with its usual fanfare for us to be healthy and safe.

The New Year dawned on Miss Trixie and me in Texas with its usual fanfare for us to be healthy and safe.

You don’t have to watch much television before you come across the advertisements for emergency devices for the elderly in case they fall. We have all seen those ads and generally feature an old lady falling down her basement stairs trying to get to her washing machine.

Just this past weekend Ol’ Dutch decided to make the long journey up to Kansas and some of my past digs to see family.