Over a third of Americans, myself included, plan to travel during this year’s Thanksgiving holiday, and small wonder. It’s difficult to find any civilization without a ritual gratitude gathering when the harvest is in. They called it “Thesmophoria” in ancient Greece and “Cerealia” in Rome. Assyrians, Persians and pre-Columbian Americans all had their versions. “Thank […]
Ron Kokish
Posted inColumns
Mature Content: Dear Mandy,
Mandy and I chatted after a concert last week. She told me that she usually likes this column, but she wasn’t so sure about the last one. Kind of a downer, she thought. The column was about death becoming an ever more present companion when we are old. It was about losing loved ones and […]
Posted inColumns
Mature Content: Living the end stage
A medical team stopped and restarted my heart a few weeks ago, trying to stop its atrium from fibrillating. I considered this a drastic measure, but it didn’t work. It rarely does, with people my age. Consequently, I’ve scheduled even more drastic measures.My cardiac reboot took place two days after a close friend’s memorial service. […]
Posted inOpinion
Mature Content: The rest of the story
Remember my marijuana farm from last month’s column? I used that story to make a point about conditions along Highway 133 but probably left you wondering, “How did Kokish resolve the job thing? After burning the plants, wasn’t he still stuck in a soul-crushing bureaucracy?” I want to tell you how that turned out, but […]
Posted inOpinion
Mature Content: Kenny Rogers serenades Carbondale
In May of 1985, my job was troubleshooting the most difficult cases for my county’s child protection program, which I’d helped found a few years earlier. A respected expert in my field, I lunched with attorneys, probation officers, and judges. Both of my teenage children were about to enter college and I owned a marijuana […]
Posted inOpinion
Keeping it local — do we?
There’s a plethora of local Facebook posts denigrating Donald Trump. Posts critical of the Supreme Court are also popular, as are posts about a certain congresswoman’s intelligence and passions. There are complaints about our local government too. Carbondale Marketplace and other developments are favorite targets. Unfortunately, relevant decisions about those developments were made 10 or […]
Posted inColumns
Mature Content: Carbondale makes room at the inn
About 21,000 people live on Martha’s Vineyard, and median home prices are almost identical to Carbondale. In September of 2022, when 50 refugees suddenly arrived courtesy of Ron DeSantis, the island’s population increased by 0.002%. Volunteers cared for them at a temporary church shelter for 44 hours, at which point Massachusetts’ governor helped move the […]