Robin Swoboda

In my mind, I am still in my early 40s. My kids are still in grade school and I can still turn a head or two at a stoplight. In reality, I am now in my 60s, my oldest son is approaching the age of 30 and the only thing I turn at a stoplight is a middle finger that turns up in the car behind me when I don’t punch the gas pedal the minute the light turns green.

A song my children learned in Sunday School years ago popped into my head the other day. It’s called “Be Careful,” and each chorus speaks to different parts of our body and mind about being careful in what we see, hear, think, say and even where we go. I started...

In the words of Britney Spears, “Oops I did it again.”. In her hit song, released 20 years ago, the then teenager was singing about breaking someone’s heart again. Mine is much more insidious. Well, in my life anyway. I swore I would never do it again, never as in...

The shoe was on the other foot and it was feeling a little tight. After agreeing to be interviewed recently for a statewide magazine article on baby boomers, I didn’t give much thought to the fact that I would be the one answering the questions, not asking them. Bill Eichenberger...

He would have loved it. The barking, the chaos, the all-too-frequent nose-to-tail greeting, and that was just from the people. All kidding aside, from Schnauzers to shepherds, they came from near and far to celebrate the renaming of the dog park in Green to the Dick Goddard Dog Park. On...

Happy anniversary, everyone! It’s been a year since we have been flattening the curve, and what a year it’s been. Many have holed up in their homes and parked outside stores while their groceries were carried out by the newest breed of “essential worker.”. Those who are able have been...

What is it about the combination of a 3-year-old granddaughter and a borrowed German shepherd that can wreak more havoc on a house than any other force of nature?. As I sit here, in a rare moment of silence, I wonder how I made it through the toddler stages in my parenting years. When my daughter was Layla’s age, I had a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old. Or, to garner more even more sympathy, let me put it this way. When my youngest was a baby, the other two were under 1 and 3. I was also working part-time, anchoring the 6 p.m. news on WJW.

“Go big or go home.” Anyone who knows me, knows that’s my motto. At least it used to be. You know, back in the day. Back in the day when I worked at Channel 8 and between newscasts on the Fourth of July, I would get my buddies Tim Taylor and Dick Goddard to sneak up onto the roof with me to set off firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Well, for those of you who have lost sleep since my last column wondering if I stopped at the crazy motel on my way back from Missouri, to check out their Christmas decorations, I did not. It wasn’t lack of desire but the fact that on the trip there I...