by Wayne Jensen

I often wonder about wondering. Little snippets of information that challenge the idea, take from me the concept of our world being explainable to the certainty that it cannot be. The best conclusion I have come to: distrust anyone or anything that is provided to me as definitive, conclusive or unassailable. (Full story)

by Erin Eddins

I am a country girl. Though most often in business attire, my Wild West childhood runs deep through me. I have a quiet appreciation for all things rustic. And nothing emphasizes this better than a true cowboy hat. A cowboy’s hat tells what kind of man he is, how hard he works and where he’s been. Chris Ledoux made this point in the very unassuming song “This Cowboy’s Hat.”

(Full story)

by Vennis A. Vennable

I was talking to a guy in a bar recently(go figure), who told me St. Joseph, Missouri was the number two city per capita in the U.S. when it comes to unwed mothers. I challenged him on his facts, but he said he worked for a state agency and swore it was true. He continued to tell me that we were only behind Harlem, New York, and that the gap was closing! This sounded like typical bar B.S. to me but it got me thinking. (Full story)

Dear Joe

I may be prejudice BUT . . . you could not have a better candidate for Joe of the Year than my husband, Bob Orf.  Bob has worked tirelessly for the community of St. Joseph, and represents the best of our town.   The day that the recent ice storm hit St. Joe, Bob was taking a vacation day.  When the power outage turned into more than the expected brief inconvenience, Bob reported for work, and provided much needed information to his listeners for an 11 hour stint.  Since the other local radio stations had been knocked off the air, he continued to work long hours into the night during the next week keeping St. Joe informed.  I’m very proud of the humility with which Bob serves his community, even though it often means that he has to leave his family during any crisis (severe weather, power outages, tornado warnings, floods, etc.). (Full story)

by Quinten Aames

I had always considered myself a lucky person. It was only later in life that I realized it has a lot more to do with decision making than luck. I’ll use the example of smoking. It’s not accurate to say somebody is lucky because they don’t smoke. That person made a judgment; they didn’t roll a dice and hope for the best. These decisions add up in your favor or they don’t. You won’t know the whole score of some of these choices until it’s said and done. Even then you’re not around to enjoy it. With that said, I’m glad that I’ve made music and the decision to form/join the WayStation a part of my life.

(Full story)

by Eavin Moore

So I was looking in my wife’s car for a CD she stole from my car. (She does that; and inevitably when I get them back they are in the wrong cases.)  Anyway, while I was looking I found a garbage bag full of old vintage neck-ties, like from the 30’s and 40’s. I figured either she’s got some craft project in mind, or she’s fooling around with some old guy in a nursing home on the side.

I confronted her with the evidence, and she said she is taking her deceased father’s old neckties Downtown to Casey Wallerstedt so she can turn them into a skirt. (Full story)

by Jay Kerner

This week is the 2nd anniversary of the day my wife and I died.

She had been having headaches for a week or so in the evenings, but they would go away through the day at work. Our room upstairs was always the warmest in the house so we kept a window open an inch or two most of the time. The night it got us, the temperature had dropped to single digits, and I shut the window before bed.

Around 3 am I was awakened by my wife’s snoring. She’s usually a fairly quiet sleeper so I gave her a nudge to get her to roll over. Nothing. Little harder nudge, still nothing. Something’s wrong! I shook her. Still nothing. (Full story)

by Jay Kerner

There you are! We knew you were out there!

Our hope was that our readers would take ownership of the paper, react to the content and bombard us with letters, phone calls and emails. The website was getting some hits and we’d get a voicemail here and there, but frankly less than we anticipated, based on the number of papers we were putting out. Our “Joe of the Year” contest took care of all that. (Man, did it ever!) (Full story)

by James Jerold, Independent Writer

Ok, I admit it: I’m a fantasy football geek. I fought it as long as I could. When people rambled on and on about this stupid, moronic hobby I just rolled my eyes, but as the number of participants exploded exponentially year after year I had to take another look.

I discovered a whole new fantasy world, based on the simple premise that idiots everywhere think they know more than all the other idiots. Human nature being what it is their potential market is…..well … almost everybody! (Full story)