As she puts the finishing touches on a life-size replica of a Holstein sculpted from over 400 pounds of dairy spread, Norma “Duffy” Lyon knows exactly which side her breed is buttered on. “I consider myself a dairy farmer’s wife first,” announces the 61-year-old Toledo, Iowa, housewife as she smoothes…
Mormon missionaries do not roar through neighborhoods astride Harley Davidsons, sporting fade haircuts and M.C. Hammer bloomers. Instead, these earnest young men invariably try to convert you by arriving at your residence atop sensible Schwinns, wearing black pants, white shirts and “Hi, your daughter and your soul are safe with…
If it’s Thursday, this must be Oakland. It’s three in the afternoon. I’m standing on the playing field of the Oakland Coliseum watching the Cincinnati Reds take batting practice. It’s so crowded I feel like I have just stepped on to a New York City subway platform during morning rush…
What to Do When Your Baby Won’t Stop Crying Excerpted from the troubleshooting section of Dr. Dad’s Baby Owner’s Manual ($24.95; Salami Press). 1. Pick up the baby. Maybe he/she just wants to be held. 2. Put down the baby. Maybe he/she just wants to sleep. 3. Okay. Never mind…
The nadir came in 1966, when the first baseball game was played on an artificial surface, in a dome, in Houston. Gone were rainouts, outfielders’ claims to have lost the ball in the sun and the bad hops that separate the great infielders from the merely good ones. Gone, too,…
When Margo Raczo-Miles walks out the front door in the morning, she wonders if she will be gunned down by someone hiding across the street. She checks her car for bombs and watches to make sure she’s not being followed. The 25-year-old mother of two blames Maricopa County Superior Court…
John Meunier still remembers the first time he walked into a baseball park. It was at the Polo Grounds in 1957. He was an undergraduate fresh from his native England, studying architecture in New York City. Some friends took him to see the national pastime of the country that has…
This weekend Nick at Nite’s TV Land Tour rolls into Chris-Town. And given the opportunity, the cable network would probably like to tout the traveling museum as “more fun than a barrel of Monkees.” Unfortunately, The Monkees is one of the few Sixties-era sitcoms that doesn’t air on the five-year-old…
Jeff Stone smoking a cigarette?! During his eight seasons on The Donna Reed Show, he’d have had plenty to answer for. But two weeks ago, waiting to make a personal appearance at a Nick at Nite promotion in a mall outside Dallas, it’s 45-year-old former actor Paul Petersen who’s demanding…
Chris Milke lived life on the edge, but he had no choice. During the child’s first two years, his alcoholic and drug-abusing father, Mark, weaved in and out of jail. His mother, Debbie, partied hard, scraping by and moving the kid around from apartment to apartment, city to city. The…
I saw my son’s still-damp footprint upon the bathroom tile . . . Later, in the twilight, he slept in my arms as I watched the evening news. The broadcaster described the blockade against Saddam Hussein that was gathering itself like a jelling thunderhead; even so, I tried not to…
We were driving south from Shannon Airport, heading for tiny Kenmare, in County Kerry, not far from Ireland’s fabled southwest coast, the land of the Ring of Kerry, Bantry Bay, Valencia Island and the isolated but magnificent Dingle Peninsula. Christina the Lawyer had rented a 150-year-old farmhouse on thirty isolated…
As a child of the Sixties Who was into love and peace, It, like, wow, man, really bummed me To see global strife increase. So I long ago decided, If I ever had some sons, That never would I buy them Any war toys, any guns. That’s a vow I…
Now that the biggest fish in the S&L pond, Charles Keating, is sitting behind bars, a little-noticed state agency thinks it’s time to go after the minnows, too. While Keating’s attorneys file appeals aimed at getting the former millionaire developer out of the hoosegow in L.A., the Arizona Board of…
“I am not a racist,” Nancy Burnett pleads over the phone. She doesn’t see what the big deal is or why other Cottonwood residents are up in arms over her statements. But Nancy Burnett is getting used to being at the center of the fire storm in this community 100…
Except for the pimple-faced neo-Nazis putting together Molotov cocktails, the alley was empty. It was too dark that February evening in east Phoenix to see the shaved head of the youngest, an awkward sixteen-year-old with freckles and tattoos. One tattoo especially would have stood out had there been more light:…
I recently came across the results of a government study which concluded, after years of exhaustive research, that husbands do less housework and family cooking than wives. Obviously, this project was conducted by the kind of freeloading, fed-funded Einsteins who would surmise, after years of exhaustive research, that men are…
A key architect of the Victims’ Rights Initiative has been accused of sexually abusing at least three female employees. Allen Heinze, who resigned unexpectedly Friday as executive director of the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys’ Advisory Council (APAAC), was already under fire in a $3 million sexual-harassment suit brought by Colleen Shallock,…
In the past two years, Arizona’s contingency of young neo-Nazis has doubled from 100 to about 200. This is according to the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a group that monitors extremist hate groups in the United States. The ADL estimates there are some 3,000 skinheads nationwide. “Phoenix is a…
The punishment of Charles Keating has begun. Even before a jury has been chosen, a California judge, eager to increase his voter-approval rating, sets a bond so incredibly high that it be comes nothing less than an indefinite jail sentence. This preposterous ruling by a judge trying to curry public…
A writer of fiction most certainly would enjoy a rare literary feast in sitting down to write a novel based on the rise and fall of Senator John McCain. McCain’s life story has all the elements required for the creation of a complex, even memorable, fictional character. His life is…
I changed planes in Boston last weekend on the way home from my vacation in Ireland. While waiting to catch the plane for Phoenix, I bought both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. I n reading through the two papers, I was astonished at the number of stories discussing…
