It seems that this fall’s heavy rains have turned pumpkin patches into quagmires, compounding an already strained supply.

“Last year’s supply was short, so there really wasn’t anything in the pipeline,” explained Leo Darrow, a grocery manager at Dierbergs. “Then they had a late spring, a cool, wet summer, a rainy fall, and things just snowballed.”

While stores aren’t reporting bare shelves, they aren’t offering any incentives.

Dierbergs and other supermarkets haven’t advertised canned pumpkin in the usual preholiday fashion, Darrow said. “Everyone has some pumpkin now....

Yet the federal government tells us that 49 million Americans – about one out of every six of us — does not have enough to eat. That’s a hard number to read for so many of us who stare into full pantries and refrigerators and can’t decide what to make for supper. Or for those of us with kids who open and close cabinets,...

The issue surrounds the Rockwood School District and some parents who are concerned about teachers using the designations of “B.C.E.” and “C.E.” for years, instead of the traditional “B.C.” and “A.D.”

Typically, we designate years either before or after the birth of Christ. Julius Caesar’s assassination was in 44 B.C., for example. Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in 1587 A.D.

But academics and scientists, more...

Thousands of pounds of deer meat will reach food pantries in coming months with new economic incentives from the state. Gov. Jay Nixon announced Thursday that the state will increase its reimbursements to meat processors who accept donated meat from hunters and process it for distribution to the state’s food pantries.

I have never had venison. Always wanted to try it, but have so far never...

Wal-Mart shoppers in 2005

As I was driving to work this morning, I heard a radio report that made me shudder. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that most Wal-Mart stores will stay open Thanksgiving night to ease the crowding that led to a worker’s trampling death a year ago.

Millions of Americans make shopping their day after Thanksgiving ritual. They line up in the wee hours of the morning — or, often, in the late hours of Thursday night — outside malls and big box stores to grab discounted Playstations or TVs or whatever this year’s must-have toy might be.

A few years...

No question, they were serious crimes. Very serious. The AP story says, “Graham, now 22, and Sullivan, now 33, are in Florida prisons, which hold more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for...

See you Monday.

If memory serves, we’ve been talking almost every day in this spot since September 2004. So it’s possible we’ve discussed more than 1,300 topics, subtracting weekends, holidays and the occasional lazy day.

Lately, I have wearied of the way every topic devolves into a partisan screed. Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals — all roads lead to the same tired, boring arguments....

Albert can do something I can’t do. He won’t be able to do it very long — maybe 10, 12, even 15 years if he’s lucky. And what he does is in very high demand by the millions of baseball fans who watch the game. I understand why he...

So weigh in on the time-honored tradition of Halloween, where kids of all ages and costumes will ring your doorbell in search of treats. Is there a tradition behind what you  hand out? Or is it just whatever bags you grabbed as you pushed your shopping cart down the aisles of the local store? At our house, we buy in bulk because we get hundreds of trick-or-treaters.

Do you ask the kids to do...