By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
So on Thursday night we plugged the television back in to watch the vice presidential debate. Our TV had been standing mutely in a corner of the living room — sort of like me at parties — since we shoved it aside to put up the Christmas tree last November. We hardly […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
Medina General Hospital is like the Cleveland Indians. They are the home team. They have some great players. We cheer for them. We want them to do well.
But lately, what we mostly seem to get … is disappointment.
Medina City Council’s vote on a zoning change for a proposed emergency room expansion at […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
“Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.”
— Oscar Wilde
Let’s try to keep this discreet, OK? Which is worse? Brushing your teeth after eating a big chocolate brownie, or drinking a big glass of orange juice right after brushing your teeth?
What do you mean I’m strange? So what do YOU think about […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
The national pep rallies … er, conventions … are past, and the pieces of the 2008 presidential race are spread out on the kitchen table like a jigsaw puzzle. Sit down, pour a cup of coffee, and let’s see what kind of a picture we can begin to piece together.
Unconventional
It was […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
Like Cocoa Puffs falling through the kitchen floor register, so are the days of our summer.
Where did the summer go? And why do we ask ourselves this question every August? It’s like winter, when I walk in the door at 6 p.m. and say to my wife: “I can’t believe it’s dark […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
LAFAYETTE TWP. — If only Dorothy Sayer’s tree could talk, what tales it would tell.
The massive ash tree and winner of the 2008 Medina County Big Tree Contest has been watching the world pass by her Westfield Road home since long before the invention of the automobile. Heck, this tree may have […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
Today is the birthday of perhaps the most famous Medina County native most of us never heard of.
On this date in 1854, poet Edith Thomas was born in Chatham Township, likely in the small south wing of what was known as the Ralph Rickard House. The home still stands, facing state Route […]

[Read more →]

The other day, while stopped at a railroad crossing, I looked through the open window of the locomotive as it passed and I could clearly see the train operator was texting while driving. That’s right: A man sitting at the controls of a vehicle weighing thousands of tons, typing with his thumb on his telephone […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon on Spring Street in Delaware, Ohio, about 1975. My dad and Grandpa Frank are in the backyard of a long and narrow city lot, pitching horseshoes. Grandma Lily and Mom are in the house, cleaning up after Sunday dinner.
Each time, after Dad and Grandpa make their pitches, […]

[Read more →]

By JOHN GLADDEN
Staff Columnist
A community newspaper should be a conversation-starter. Judging by feedback from readers, The Gazette’s recent series on local “movers and shakers” sparked quite a few discussions around dinner tables and water coolers.
Starting in late winter, Staff Writer Maria Kacik began phoning dozens of community leaders representing businesses, school districts and all levels […]

[Read more →]