Big horses and beer both can be fun, although as a general rule I don’t recommend combining the two. (I still don’t know how the horse ended up wearing the hat and I ended up wearing the halter.) The exception to the rule, of course, is the Budweiser Clydesdales, and Lawrence soon will have a chance to see them. The Clydesdales will be in downtown Lawrence from about 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. You’ll ...
Passersby soon will see a “for lease” sign in front of the historic Castle Tea Room building on south Massachusetts Street. Yes, it also is a sign that the future of one of Lawrence’s more distinctive buildings is uncertain. The nonprofit foundation that owns the Castle Tea Room, 1307 Massachusetts St., has fallen into disarray. A Douglas County Court judge has appointed a custodian — a position ...
About 20 years ago, one of the great hand-wringing fears was that homebuilding was going to grow so quickly that all the good farmland in Douglas County was going to be built over. And there was some reason to worry. From 1997 to 2002, the number of farms in Douglas County fell by about 4 percent, the number of acres in production dropped by about 13,000, and the value of all agricultural products grown or ...
If you are old enough, there was a time when a trip to the bank was at least a weekly event. As a tag-along kid, I got discs of gum wrapped to look like silver dollars from the tellers. (That’s the No. 1 reason I never became a coin collector. I chipped too many teeth hoping to find gum.) Well, a downtown bank branch that evoked memories of that era has closed. The old Capitol Federal branch at 11th and ...
One of the things I hope to do more of over the next year or so is have face-to-face conversations with more community leaders. While sitting across from my face is a lot to ask of someone, I’m hopeful to do such interviews with community leaders on a semi-regular basis. I’ll call it a "Conversation With ..." and it will become a new addition to the Town Talk lineup. So, first up, a Conversation With ...
Maybe I'll do a melon-grab when I'm on the half-pipe. All right, I confess, I don't know what any of that means — and probably shouldn't guess — because I can't speak skater lingo. Whenever I get on a skateboard it's not words, but numbers — like the type on my insurance card — that take precedence. But there are plenty who do speak the language, and they once again have their own store in ...