Kids need to spend more time at the kitchen table

Among the points historian David McCullough made while he was being interviewed on “60 Minutes” was that young people are for the most part historical illiterates.

I propose that it would be rare to find a teen-ager today who off the top of his or her head could pinpoint the decades of the Civil War, the Great War and World War II.

Nor could he or she define the importance of D-Day, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the Battle of the Bulge.

I think this is what he was talking about. Part of the problem, he reasoned, is that kids don’t sit at the dinner table with their parents anymore. It was there that a lot of knowledge passed between the generations.

I’m simplifying his thoughts somewhat, but McCullough is right. In my home, my dad was the ultimate purveyor of knowledge.

“Read this,” he’d tell me while pushing the Plain Dealer or Press in my direction.

I guess you might call that an unreasonable parental command today, but it worked. I grew to enjoy learning about current events, which, by the way, become historical events the next week.

Oh, yeah, and I ended up working for a newspaper. Who would have figured?

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Some 1,800 provisional ballots in Tuscarawas County are holding up results in two races – the commissioner’s race and the state representative’s race – and the vote over a new fire truck for Dennison.

Seven different circumstances will force the Board of Elections to hand a provisional ballot to a voter, not the least of which is because he/she hasn’t voted in four years.

Running elections would be far easier if everyone would just follow the rules. Or vote in every election.

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I’m working on a Twinkies recipe in my test kitchen. If you people are really serious about giving me thousands of dollars for a couple of Twinkies, I am your man.

Check back with me in about a week.

Aside to the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union: Yes, companies who threaten to pack it in, or shut down a facility, because of a work stoppage have been known to actually follow through.

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I saw on the TV this week the faces of children who are currently enduring bombs bursting overhead in their little corner of the world.

I am really thankful my boys, now 3½, don’t have to hide from war in their basement.

I think this is still a pretty good country despite what the naysayers and the sore losers say. After the election, some were even talking about leaving the union. That’s not a real creative way to deal with problems. You think?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Read more of Dick Farrell at TuscBargainHunter.com.