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For a couple that doesn’t get out much, a 9,000-mile trip to India to take part in our daughter’s wedding proved to be just the ticket to open geriatric eyes, hearts and minds and instill a sense of adventure.

When it comes to wokeness, West Virginia takes a measure of pride in being asleep at the wheel.

A separate time zone for the moon?

Congratulations are in order for our neighbor to the northwest, which observed its statehood anniversary last Wednesday.

For those whose New Year’s resolutions have fallen by the wayside in 2.5 months or less, Lent provides a second chance to put self-improvement goals to the test in a more realistic 40-day format.

A household organization project that involved sorting through stored items to decide what to purge and what to keep put me in contact with a forgotten scrapbook of childhood photos, newspaper clippings, letters and other mementos my mom had assembled for me a number of years ago.

Since the body of the average adult male is 40% water, it seems likely that the fluid portion of mine is at least 60% cola.

I’ll have a hard time looking for the bright side to the return of Standard Time when it arrives in the pre-dawn darkness of Sunday morning.

It has been several years since the forces that be here at the Gazette-Mail finally updated our office’s expense reimbursement forms by deleting a box in which to list Pullman sleeper car fees.

When voter fraud becomes an issue in a fat bear contest, you know American democracy is in trouble.

A frenzy of boisterous barking shortly after nightfall one day last week marked the first and only occasion that the Steelhammer Compound’s Great Mongrel Horde had managed to detect and subdue an intruder.

While my career never advanced beyond the bush leagues of professional journalism and I have yet to earn a master’s degree or even master a foreign language, there are a number of other life experiences I take pride in having passed on over the years.

With war in the Ukraine, polarization on the home front and a seemingly never-ending pandemic to deal with, there is no shortage of things to be upset with as 2022 approaches its fourth and final quarter.

Last month, NASA began releasing images from the new James Webb Space Telescope, providing those of us on Earth with the deepest view of the universe yet recorded.

The closest encounter most West Virginians can expect to have with an emu is an occasional sighting of LiMu Emu, the long-legged, shades-wearing sidekick of Doug on televised Liberty Mutual Insurance commercials.

Among recent items of interest slipping through the gaping pores of the newsroom spam filter and into my email inbox was a pitch to create a national holiday honoring the life of a legendary West Virginia-born cult figure: Bat Boy.

Competition to attract students and their tuition dollars is fierce among the nation’s institutions of higher learning, prompting a number of universities to trademark their high-minded marketing taglines.

While driving to work Friday, I listened to a radio interview in which an economic pundit suggested that in order to rein in inflation, the time had come to “put the brakes� on employee pay raises.

Last week, when not busy torpedoing selected items on the Democratic agenda, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin took time to introduce legislation that would create a national guard component for the U.S. Space Force, the military branch created during the Trump administration.

Anna Marie Jarvis likely would be pleased to know the holiday she created still is being celebrated 114 years after its first observance in Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Grafton.

Having lived in the wooded outer limits of the suburban enclave of Cross Lanes for more than 30 years, I have grown accustomed to hearing odd noises in the dead of night.

For some reason, a story about the theft of 3,500 pounds of Gouda from a family-run dairy and craft cheese-making operation near the town of Fijnaart in the Netherlands received major international media attention last week.

As part of its bid to become No. 1 in the fast food industry, Burger King has turned to No. 2.

Last week, by unanimous consent, the U.S. Senate voted to make daylight saving time America’s permanent, year-round time standard.

After scanning the mystery section of the paperback book display at my friendly neighborhood Kroger outlet one day last week, I turned to cross the aisle and had a close encounter with a giant maroon display of Coca-Cola’s new Starlight drink.

News outlets around the world on Friday were speculating on what motivated the pilot of a passenger-free Air Moldova Airbus to spend two hours on Thursday spelling out the word “relax� over an 80-mile swath of airspace near Moldova’s border with Ukraine.

The last time I attached an emoji to an email was months ago, when I mistook the “Chipmunk� emoji for the “Pile of Poo� image I had intended to send, confusing the addressee and proving only that I needed an eye exam as well as a planned hearing test.

For West Virginia’s media outlets, having the most powerful national political figure in recent memory serving as the state’s senior U.S. Senator has its advantages.

Here in the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Newspapers building, a shopworn, semi-vacant edifice that manages to enshrine print journalism’s glory days in West Virginia’s capital city while reminding those who still toil here of its uncertain future, any new capital improvement draws notice.

The Transportation Security Administration, an agency not known for issuing laugh-out-loud public announcements, released a pun-filled three-minute video clip on its Facebook page last week to reveal its “Top 10 Catches of 2021� at airport screening stations across the nation.

When Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer asked the pastry chef at the hotel owned by her husband to create a small, cake-like dessert to include in box lunches for ladies attending the 1893 World’s Fair, the brownie was created.

While surfing the Web in an effort to identify the germ of an idea with which to fill this space, I idly typed in my name and punched “enter� to see what the world thought of me.

When did an invitation become an invite?

With West Virginia being ranked the most depressed state in the nation for the 12th consecutive year last month, I am happy to report a study released earlier this month rated drivers in West Virginia among the nation’s best.

Following a trail blazed in 2018 when Dunkin’ Donuts abbreviated its name to Dunkin’, the 2020 U.S. presidential candidate formerly known as Kanye West had his name legally changed to Ye, while severing all ties to his former first, last and middle names.

Last week, North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party organized a “Self-Defense Exhibition� attended by President Kim Jong Un, his sister Kim Yo Jong and four or five dozen of their closest, high-ranking, synchronized, hand-clapping friends from the Korean People’s Army.

A state park in Arkansas offers a facet of outdoor recreation that draws visitors from around the world but would be difficult to duplicate elsewhere.

After providing me with more than 180,000 miles of highway travel and surviving two collisions with less durable deer in back-to-back rutting seasons, an aging Toyota Camry I once owned began to leak oil.

Could the quickest path to becoming fully vaccinated against COVID-19 be the drive-thru lanes of fast food restaurants?

I have no problem with ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä’s minor league baseball team getting a new name as it winds down its first year with the Atlantic League.

On a Tuesday morning 20 years ago, I began what was shaping up to be another ho-hum workday. It turned out to be anything but.

Five years ago, Ohio Tourism officials decided it was time to upgrade the official slogan used to draw visitors to the state.

Bass boats, riding lawn mowers, $150,000 “dream weddings� and a decade’s worth of free gasoline are among federally funded prizes to be offered during a second vaccination incentive sweepstakes announced Friday by Gov. Jim Justice.

While Facebook has drawn considerable fire recently for not adequately monitoring users’ posts for hate speech or inoculation misinformation, it is also being criticized for deleting harmless posts an overzealous artificial intelligence-driven monitoring system misinterprets.

The gypsy moth might be one of West Virginia’s better-known insects — but not in a good way.

The selection last month of a Republican political operative to help “diversify� and “balance� the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority is being viewed with alarm by those of us who keep radios tuned to the left end of the dial.

Little did I know when I started surfing the web Friday morning for information about a deadly new disease affecting birds in West Virginia and neighboring states that I would end the day learning that area birds had nothing to worry about.

Though more than half the size of Earth, Mars is apparently not big enough to prevent friction from arising between the two robotic exploration vehicles that successfully landed on the red planet this year.

I can understand how writing something less than flattering about a political figure, athletic team, region of the country or hot dog condiment preference can raise the ire of readers. It is widely known that people have strong feelings about such topics — even stronger, I have learned, if t…

Appealing to a population’s higher nature may not be the most efficient way to win a war against a global pandemic.

It was bad enough when panic buying and hoarding made toilet paper temporarily disappear soon after the coronavirus arrived last year. It didn’t take long for consumers and sewer plant operators alike to realize that no suitable backup option for the product existed.

Bob Evans Restaurants, known regionally as a purveyor of hearty breakfasts and comfort food since its founder opened his first eatery across the Ohio River from Point Pleasant in 1948, has come up with a plan that could make a relaxing dinner out downright sleepy.