If it's early October then we all know that Halloween is just around the proverbial corner. Speaking quite honestly, Halloween was never a big deal holiday celebration when I was a kid. Even as a child, I always thought the whole getting dressed up in a costume thingy was a tad silly but I was enough of a pragmatist to weigh the embarrassment of wearing an outlandish outfit against the windfall of sugary delights that inevitably accompanied the rounds of extortion (aka" "trick or treat") to the

Long ago, the United States shifted from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. We sell products, but for the most part, we no longer make them. However, one thing we continually produce with regularity is veterans. Veterans organizations are almost as old as America itself. The first such groups sprung from the Revolutionary War, when local charities were established to help ex-soldiers with disabling wounds and injuries. But it wasn’t until after the Civil War that vets got organized

My youngest daughter, Vicki, a died-in-the-wool vegan, has been on my case for some time now to become more environmentally conscious regarding my eating habits. Over time, she came to the realization that her attempts to “green” me were going unheeded as they fell upon the ears of someone who is absolutely convinced that a grilled hot dog on a toasted bun slathered in mustard, onions and relish is God’s perfect food!

Of course, never one to give up without a fight, Vicki fell back to her

This past Saturday morning, I was taken somewhat aback upon seeing my father's visage staring back at me in the bathroom mirror while I was shaving. I thought "Oh, hell no, that can't be me," and simply assumed that my eyesight must be failing.

Now granted, my hair had turned completely white by the time I was 30. At the time it was no big deal as most of the comments regarding my mane were complimentary, such as, "Here comes the silver fox," and the like. I mentioned this concern regarding my

All I really need to know I learn each week in The Rockaway Times. Think I'm kidding? Read on!

The always informative RT "Factologist," Sean McVeigh, provided this factoid along with other "Facts You don't Probably Need" in last week's paper—"At one point in history there were four distinct species of humans living at the same time." Think about that for a second. While our Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, Denisovan and other hominins were sharing ranch style cave dwellings doing all that hunting and

When writing an article for any publication, the author has only one goal in mind—to create an inviting entry point into the story that follows. Katie McFadden, our acclaimed local RT writer and editor, always displays a mastery of the written word in her articles with her use of colloquial and everyday language you can really sink your literary fangs into. 

Katie's lead sentence to her most recent article in the July 25, 2019 edition of the RT ("Stop and Shoppers, Meet Marty") was no