One month from now, we will celebrate the graduation of our middle kid, Catelyn, from high school. I posted her announcement on Facebook in case we forgot someone, which we probably did. Several people commented on the post, including my classmate, Becky. Her comment was, “send her on a road trip with her best friend, I’ll donate to that.” I replied, “can you even believe we did that?” Her reply, “what were our parents thinking?!!!”

By Bob Simmons, CEO, Simmons Multimedia To recap last week’s column - it’s the early 1980s. I was a wacky radio morning man debuting my ‘adult’ standup comedy act as Ernie the Three-Legged Clown at a strip club, car broken, borrowed dad’s Volkswagen Beetle to get to the gig. There’s more context in last week’s issue.

It’s 78 degrees as I write today’s short column. The white sandy beaches lured me to Clearwater, Florida, for a week of relaxation and shenanigans.

So how about that little taste of summer we got over the weekend?! That was lovely, and I can’t wait for more of it in the near future. I even turned the heat off at my house for the weekend and didn’t freeze. On Saturday I got a jump start on my spring cleaning with the windows open! It was so refreshing!

By Sara Goodman Easter is this weekend, and instead of going to my mom and dad’s, we have decided to stay home. The days don’t seem to be slowing down, and the schedule is busier than ever. After Easter and looming ever-larger on the horizon is graduation for our middle kid, Catelyn. We’ve had a mile long project list that is still at least half a mile long at this point, and with a four-day weekend over Easter and a strong, helpful college kid coming home, we’ve decided that’s when we’ll tackle the remaining projects. I’m also in spring cleaning mode, and with the annual spring cancer rummage sale coming up, I don’t need to watch any episodes of “Hoarders” for inspiration. At least I don’t have to wait until the kids are out of the house to sneak garbage bags full of toys and stuffed animals into my vehicle or the trash bin like when they were younger. Now, I simply tell them that if it’s in the storage room and they want to keep it, they better let me know or put a “don’t throw!” sticky note on it.

Shrek The Musical, Jr. was presented at the Performing Arts Center at Grafton Century last weekend.

It’s been another beautiful and brisk week here in the Borderland region. I’m happy to report that plenty of my flowers are sprouting (indoors, of course), and I’m proud of the assortment I should have ready for my front yard.

“We often had psychiatric patients for whom there was no information or medical history available. There was the hostile, combative, schizophrenic patient; the paranoid and hallucinating methamphetamine user; or alcoholics found wandering around outside with nowhere to go because their families wouldn’t allow them back in the house. All were brought to the hospital, and we would admit them. These situations kept things very challenging. Was I frightened in these situations? Of course I was, but I, like many others, learned early on how to effectively manage those fears. I grew up in the fifties and sixties, when Nikita Khrushchev threatened to annihilate the United States with an atomic bomb. In school we were shown movies about how to survive in a fallout shelter. There were three designated shelters in our town.” Excerpt from “I Know How I Got Here” by Vonnie Johnson, Family Nurse Practitioner.

The older one gets, the more the years seem to blur and run together. I think it was maybe 1981 or 1982 when I was hosting the morning show on radio station WARE, which was located in central Massachusetts.

Welcome to April! I hope it’s treating you well so far. I’m writing a little early this week in the comfort of one of many comfy waiting rooms at First Care Health Center in sunny Park River, N.D.