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Growth begins where comfort zone ends

My son was furious when I picked him up from day camp, slamming the door when he got in the car. He had been downgraded from a “yellow” swimmer to a “red” swimmer. He hadn’t forgotten how to swim. The YMCA had simply changed its policy. My son loves to swim. He likes donning goggles and swimming underwater, not to mention perfecting his handstand. But the YMCA had changed its safety rules, and rightfully so. The shallow end reaches 5 feet deep, and campers now have to be at least 5 feet tall to swim there without a life jacket unless they pass the swim test. My son is 4 feet, ...

Boys of Summer: Baseball to the rescue, again

At my age, I shouldn’t care so much whether the Boston Red Sox win or lose, let alone permit my daily mood to rise or fall accordingly. It’s only a game. It’s supposed to be a pastime (according to AI, something that “helps make the hours pass pleasantly when you are not working”), not an obsession. There are 162 games a year and letting your emotional state hinge on whether your favorite team scores more runs than the other team is obviously senseless. And yet. Generations of Americans have been swept up by the game. Children never forget their first trip to the ...

Bands, ASO concert: Oh, what a night

For weeks, ads were on TV and social and print media touting the free joint appearance by members of the combined Altoona and Hollidaysburg community bands and the Altoona Symphony Orchestra at PNG Field on Saturday, June 20. But as the time drew nearer and nearer, so did black rain clouds. We arrived at the ballpark along with others looking forward to the musical evening. All the while we were watching the dark clouds approaching from the north. Just a passing cloud or two, we hoped. No, they stalled right over PNG Field. The idea was that the community bands would play behind ...

Principles lost could stymie US

Two hundred and 50 years ago, self-evident truths meant something. Today, for some, things appear far less self-evident and truth has become subjective. Freedom from tyranny was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Today, freedom has been transformed into license, the right to do whatever one pleases and to pressure the wider culture to accept it. The Founders could define right from wrong, just as the ancients did. John Adams wrote about the Constitution, upon which the Declaration of Independence was the foundation: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and ...

Debate heats up over air conditioning

Europe is now the fastest heating continent, and Paris is suffering greatly under 100-plus Fahrenheit temperatures. That has inspired some conservative Americans to politicize the French aversion to air conditioning. In return, many in France are blaming Americans’ burning of planet-warming fossil fuels to power their ACs. Whose voice hits the high note? Both, really. The Wall Street Journal holds that the easy answer for France is to install air conditioners. It got all huffy when Paris Deputy Mayor Audrey Pulvar remarked, “As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in ...

US should join ‘country club’ of nations

My fellow Americans: This weekend, we celebrate our country’s independence and pay homage to the founders. As we glory in America, however, we tend to overlook the second part of the equation: Great Britain. In declaring independence, we broke from British rule while inventing a nation inspired by British ideas. It was Thomas Paine, an antimonarchical Englishman, who urged the Americans to sever ties with Britain in his 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense.” Just seven months before the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, Thomas ...