Mike Lunsford
- Mike Lunsford
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- The Off Season: Writer wishes he could be gone fishin’ more often When my friend Joe called last Sunday with an offer to go fishing, I jumped at the chance like a bluegill going after spinner bait in clear shallow water.
- The Off Season: Having faith restored for free at mini-mart Not everything you read in this newspaper is about human nature at its worst, but I know that on any given day most of the news is pretty ghastly stuff: suicide bombings, raging wildfires, gas price hikes, church shootings…
- The Off Season: It’s been a dragonfly kind of summer When I was a boy I used to explore a swampy marsh not far from my house. It all reminds me today of the place where Tom Walker meets up with the devil in Washington Irving’s classic tale of soul-selling. It was low and wet, and the water there was black and covered in a foreboding carpet of green scum.
- The Off Season: Cy Young made the long journey home Denton True Young came home to stay in 1912; I know that because I found him a few weeks ago near a tiny red brick church in the Ohio countryside.
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The Off Season: Decline of newspapers a hopeful exaggeration
For years now, folks who know a lot more about it than I do keep telling us that newspapers are going to die off soon. They say that the rise of the Internet, like Chicxulub, the meteor that helped wipe the dinosaurs off the planet millions of years ago, eventually will kill the desire for the newsprint that many of us still crave.
- The Off Season: You shall be reading this, ages and ages hence … I realize that on a scale of 1 to 10 my concern over a line of Robert Frost’s poetry rates in negative numbers, but, to paraphrase the wise New England poet, I am taking the road “less traveled by.”
- The Off Season: Reading the collected letters of Jim Eslinger In each of the last few years, I’ve gotten a letter or two in the mail from Jim Eslinger, my high school economics and psychology teacher. Mr. Eslinger — I just can’t call him “Jim” — was one of my favorite high school instructors, but I’ve come to respect him even more now for another reason altogether.
- THE OFF SEASON: A handful of reasons to take note of our hands I’ve been working in my garden and yard these past few cool, wet weeks, and along with the progress I’ve made with the tilling and raking and mulching has been the satisfaction of seeing my hands toughen, not unlike an old catcher’s mitt that’s been neglected of oil and sweat and spit.
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THE OFF SEASON: It’s time to go to war … in the backyard
My wife, God bless her, is always finding ways to make my family happy.
- THE OFF SEASON: Yearbooks offer captivating glimpse into past With weekend yard work and house cleaning and reasonable household budgeting all considered, my wife and I don’t have nearly as much time and money as we’d like to wander the aisles of local antique stores and second-hand shops.
- The Off Season: ‘Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore?’ I have a long list of favorite places to be, and ranked just below being at home on a Saturday morning — where I can wear an old T-shirt and blue jeans and not shave until Sunday — is the dollar aisle of an Indianapolis discount bookstore that I visit as often as I can.
- The Off Season: Winter has passed, but at a price Despite the windy and wooly winter we’ve just had, the brown leaves of a scarlet pin oak I planted in my front yard years ago stubbornly hang in defiance of a spring that is now on our doorstep.
- The Off Season: Skinny little kid does all right for himself When John Olsen called me late last spring, I politely tried to end our conversation.
- The Off Season: Believe it — there’s still good to be found A few weeks ago I sat in a metal folding chair at a table across from Pat Manley, who lives about a mile from my place as the crow flies.
- The Off Season: A lesson well learned — in a restaurant Unless you’re reading The Off Season for the first time today, you probably already know that writing isn’t how I make the house payment; my day job is teaching school.
- The Off Season: Standing on the shoulders of hard workers Part of my routine each workday morning includes a stop in town for a big mug of coffee before heading on to work.
- The Off Season: The Big Read: ‘You’re either in or out, for keeps!’ The next time you hear someone complaining that there’s nothing to do around here, you need not slap their face and tell ’em to “take it and like it.” Leave that to private eye Sam Spade. Instead, throw a book at them. Make it a copy of “The Maltese Falcon” while you’re at it.
- The Off Season: Making a resolution about New Year’s resolutions We’ve never made a big, big deal in our family about celebrating on New Year’s Eve.
- The Off Season: Feeling a little blue? Read the ‘Cheer-up News’ I met Dean Kendall seven years ago, and I think I’ve been a little bit happier ever since.
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The Off Season: Sitting and listening to the ‘speech of the angels’
I sat in the comforting darkness of the Tilson Auditorium balcony a few weeks ago, my wife and daughter to my left and the soft glow of the stage lights below me.
- Sidelines: Winners in every sense of the word Clyde Lovellette, Greg Bell and Terry Dischinger have a lot in common. They were born in Terre Haute, attended Garfield High School within a few years of one another, and shared the thrill of their lives by bringing home gold medals from three different Olympic Games.
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The Off Season: Getting ready to play in the biggest game of all
In many ways, Justin McLaughlin was one of the most frustrating students I’ve ever had.
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The Off Season: Going once, going twice, sold … on the idea of finding a bargain
I went to an auction a few Saturdays ago, something I haven’t done in years. I came away with an old wooden box of muddy canning jars, an even older iron coffee grinder, and a 1928 Montezuma High School yearbook, the latter an object of desire that I simply couldn’t pass up from the moment my wife and I read of it in the sale bill that ran in our county newspaper.
- The Off Season: A gift to others proved to be one to myself After my mom died a few years ago, my sister and brother and I were forced to hastily clean her things from the apartment in which she lived after illness had moved her into town from her country home.
- The Off Season: Duty done, soldiers came home to build communities As I sat back to watch a little of Ken Burns’ epic documentary about World War II last week, I couldn’t help but think of a great uncle I never met.
- The Off Season: Walking the extra mile for simple beauty Just a few weeks ago I read Ed Breen’s “A Country Walk” for the third time in just a matter of months.
- The Off Season: After 17 years, there’s no more sweatin’ with the oldies Every workday morning for most of the past 17 years, I’ve quietly pulled on my clothes, gulped down a little orange juice, and slipped out of my house before the sun was up to drive seven miles to Clinton in solitary darkness.
- The Off Season: Making one final cut in the field before fall gets here I stationed myself last weekend at the corner of a tiny garden plot that we keep near the north side of our barn, a spewing green garden hose in my hand giving my tomatoes a badly needed gulp of water while the brown grass on which I stood crunched under my feet.
- The Off Season: Soldier’s letters prove there is no place like home When Joyce Kemp wrote to me in late June, I hardly think she realized that at one time we were practically next-door neighbors.
- The Off Season: The difference between having nothing to do and doing nothing After my yard was mowed, my weeds pulled and my tiny garden hoed, I sat on our back step listening to the birds, staring off into the woods and soaking in the sun. It’s not that I didn’t have other chores to do; instead, I chose to do nothing. There’s a difference between the two.
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
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Raw: Costa Rica Volcano Roars to Life
Today in History May 22
Raw: Japan's WWII Atrocities Under Fire in Seoul
First Person: Baby Falcons on a New York Bridge
Raw: Students Clash With Police in Chile
Oklahoma: Images of Devastation, Reunion
Crews Race to Find Survivors of Okla. Twister
Police Ram House to End Hostage Standoff
Reunited Dad, Son: 'We Just Praise God'
Tim Cook Defends Apple's Tax Accounting
Raw: Aussie Zoo Shows Off White Rhino Calf
Slow Pokes: Acupuncture Helps Sick Turtles
Protests Outside Cincinnati IRS Office
Moore, Okla. City of Reunions, Tears After Storm
Families Begin Returning to Their Homes in Moore
Lawyer: Feds Investigating Susan Powell Case
Raw: Aerial View of Moore Tornado Damage
Former Rep. Weiner Running for New York Mayor
Raw: New Video of Deadly Oklahoma Tornado
Morgan Freeman falls asleep on air
GRAPHIC: Blood-Soaked Machete Killer Caught on Tape
Camera Captures Climber As He Loses Grip And Falls
Helen Mirren Meets with Dying Boy in Queen Elizabeth's Place
Crowd Chants '¡Si, Se Puede!' After Passage of Immigration Bill
DWTS Crowns a Winner
Demi Moore a Rocks Bikini at Harry Morton's Family House
Anthony Weiner: I'm running for New York City mayor
Kate Middleton's Dress Flies Up
VIRAL: Baby makes epic soccer goal
The Hangover Baby All Grown Up
Olivia Munn Flaunts Her Bikini Bod
Britney Spears Under Fire Once Again For Being A Bad Mom
Arias Tells Jury What She'd Do if She Gets Life
The all-new Xbox One
RAW: Massive tornado strikes Oklahoma
Nidal Hasan paid $278K while awaiting trial
VIDEO: Teacher reunites mother and son after tornado levels elementary school in Oklahoma City
