Columns

As the college football season came to an end this year, two stories grabbed lots of headlines.

There’s no Chewing Gum Hall of Fame. However, you can visit the next best thing: Joanne’s Gum Museum, in a little building in Quartzsite, Ariz., featuring a collection of 4,000 pieces amassed since the 1940s.

It’s still in the box, hidden from the triggered gaze. The only ones who know what lies inside the wooden slabs painted in the Italian flag colors are indigenous to Philadelphia, pun intended. It is the statue of an Italian icon, Christopher Columbus, a piece of public art that sat undisturbed for more than 40 years in its current location at the southern end of Broad Street on Marconi Plaza.

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema declared herself a Marxist on Friday. Not Karl; Groucho. As in, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” She felt compelled to leave the Democrats, she explained, because of the “broken partisan system” and said that she had “joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics.”

Since I am in the holiday spirit (and, having just consumed a mug of hot toddy, a glass of eggnog and a nip of cheer, the holiday spirits are in me), I have decided to follow in that great tradition of boring everyone silly by writing a Christmas letter.

Today’s topic: “How to be a Black man.”

Any business can put up a sign on the building. If you’re the Ohio Theatre in Lima, though, a sign isn’t enough. The renovated entertainment venue needed a marquee.

Too bad Paul Whelan is not Black or gay or someone who openly hates America.

Ohio has long been a state that sees — and seizes — opportunity and innovation. From the Wright Brothers exploring flight to the evolution of the automobile and the invention of the traffic light, Ohio has been a place for new ideas that shape our society. Today, Ohio is home to 200 corporate headquarters and 55 Fortune 1000 companies, and Intel’s recent decision to invest in Ohio points to a future as the Silicon Heartland.

Sometimes life simply gets ahead of you. By a few minutes, a few hours, maybe even a day. Or let’s say your entire fall has been action-packed and life has gotten ahead of you by weeks.