Columns

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are holidays that have changed a lot for me over the years. Back in my 20s and early 30s, New Year’s Eve was a time to party - which usually meant I spent most of New Year’s Day not feeling so hot.

Why I Love Nebraska When it’s Christmas time in Nebraska, and the gentle breezes blow, About 70 miles an hour and it’s 52 below. You can tell you’re in Nebraska, ‘cause the snow’s up to your butt, and you take a breath of Christmas air and your nose holes both freeze shut.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my dilemma of Christmas shopping for grown children and grandchildren, and asked for feedback. One reader was kind enough to take the time to offer her advice: “We give ours the gift of meat. We get a hog/steer and get it butchered. Good food for the freezer.

With the next legislative session rapidly approaching, we have been tirelessly working on the agenda for 2026, and my focus includes continued work to keep our communities safe for families and protect individual rights, foundational to our constitutional freedoms.

I have a confession to make. I am a notorious Christmas shopping procrastinator. It is not at all uncommon for me to be searching for someplace open on Christmas Eve to pick up a last-minute stocking stuffer or gift.

On her first day at the senior complex, the new manager addressed all the seniors pointing out some of her rules: “The female sleeping quarters will be out-of bounds for all males, and the male dormitory to the females.” “Anybody caught break ing this rule will be fined $20 the first time.”

Where have all my birds gone? That’s a question that I’ve been asked a number of times. I really didn’t think much about it. I did, however, start to notice my feeder and realized that the same birds that they were concerned about were also absent from my feeder.

I’ve written about the Peyton tradition of planting a tree for a child’s birth. For our youngest son, we planted a red oak. That tree is now 35-years-old, and this year, for only the third time, it produced an abundance of acorns.

Growing Nebraska’s economy, including opportunities for family operations, is essential to sustainable tax relief for all Nebraskans, and that was the foundational purpose for the roundtable held last week in Lincoln.

Like many Americans from my generation, I grew up watching war movies and hearing battle stories at family get-togethers as retold by my uncles and cousins. And also like many, sadly, the atrocities of war have touched my family.