The Pickens County Courier gladly accepts letters to the Editor. Letters must be no longer than 500 words. All letters must be signed, including first and last name, address and phone number in order to be considered for publication. Only the name and city where you reside will be printed. Submission does not guarantee publication. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. No slanderous or obscene material will be accepted. Letters to the Editor and columns do not necessarily the Courier’s opinion. Send letters to  news@thepccourier.com

The Pickens County Courier gladly accepts letters to the Editor. Letters must be no longer than 500 words. All letters must be signed, including first and last name, address and phone number in order to be considered for publication. Only the name and city where you reside will be printed. Submission does not guarantee publication. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. No slanderous or obscene material will be accepted. Letters to the Editor and columns do not necessarily the Courier’s opinion. Send letters to  news@thepccourier.com

When is the last time you looked at the bottom of your shoes? If it’s been more than a year, you might be surprised. You could discover uneven wear or spots that are nearly worn through. Both of those can cause balance problems and lead to slips or falls.

The fix, however, isn’t as simple as going out to buy another pair of whatever you’re currently wearing. If, like some of us, you haven’t bought new shoes in many years, you’ll be surprised at how your feet have changed and what’s available now.

If you have any problems with your feet or don’t know what type of shoe to buy, your first step should be to ask your doctor for a referral to a podiatrist. There, you’ll be examined and have a shoe type suggested.

If you have your doctor or podiatrist recommend a shoe type, you’ll know that you’re getting something that will help, as opposed to hurt you. At the same time, there are shoes that Medicare may pay for if you have diabetes. If it turns out that you need a little arch support, a podiatrist will be able to advise you on what will work best.

One walking shoe that comes to mind is the New Balance 577. It comes in all sizes and three widths. Not only are they a popular walking shoe for all ages, but they come with both laces and tab closures.

When you go to buy shoes, shop at a regular shoe store where trained clerks will know how to measure and fit you for the right shoe. This is not the time to try to grab a bargain at a big-box store.

(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a weekly podcast titled “This Week at VA” that includes benefit information and interviews with veterans. So far it’s pretty good.

One episode features a blind Navy vet who’s a Paralympic Gold Medalist. Bradley Snyder is currently the world record holder for the 100-meter freestyle swim event. His description of  how he’s adapted to his blind life (he lost his vision in an IED explosion) is inspirational. He’s also written a book, “Fire in My Eyes.” While a podcast is speech and sound only (no video), check out the picture of this veteran’s most excellent dog. What a beauty.

Another podcast is about Haley Carter, a female Marine veteran and graduate of the Naval Academy. She is a former goalkeeper for the Houston women’s soccer team and currently is the assistant coach for the Afghanistan women’s national soccer team. (Try to wrap your mind around that: Afghan women playing soccer?) Carter also talks about claiming the VA benefits she’s entitled to — education, buying a house, health — and what it was like to transition out of the Marine Corps.

Yet another podcast is an interview with the Massachusetts secretary of veterans’ services, Francisco Urena. He talks about VA benefits, why he joined the military, serving in Syria and Kyrgyzstan, and more.

Granted, you’re not going to hear from veterans who’ve been waiting years for disability benefits or who’ve had their paperwork lost five times, but chances are you’ll get something good out of listening to the stories of these other veterans.

To access the podcasts on your computer, go to www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/ and scroll down the list on the right to This Week at VA Podcast. Click that. You also can sign up on iTunes and get weekly updates when a new one is put up.

(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

The Thanksgiving weekend goes by quickly. The preparations for it take longer than the day itself, but it’s worth it. Although the meal is a meaningful ritual, there are other things about the day I love.

Having our scattered family together for a few days is wonderful. One of my favorite things is cooking together. Now that Fowler deep fries the turkey, the oven is available for heavy-duty baking. Each year is a little different from the last.

For the first time ever, I had too much broth for the gravy and dressing. That’s never happened in my lifetime, but it wasn’t wasted. We just used more bread crumbs for the dressing to soak it up.

I’m thankful I had enough sense when I was much younger to write down the recipe for the Bethea dressing that my Uncle Walther used to make. It came down from his mother, who was a Bethea and learned it from her mother.

And so the dressing goes on. Yes, it is a lot of trouble, but nowadays we have a food processor to chop the onion and celery, and there should be no reason for complaints. Of course, that doesn’t stop anybody from complaining about how hard it is. That’s part of it.

We couldn’t get Atlantic oysters this year, and that’s the only kind I’ll use. They probably had them somewhere, but when it got down to the wire there just wasn’t time to look for them.

So, for the first time in many years, we had no scalloped oysters on the table. But it really didn’t matter.

We had the turkey, rice and gravy, sweet potato casserole, English peas, green beans, cranberry sauce, dressing, carrot cake, heavenly hash and five kinds of homemade cookies. The cookies were a gift from my sister-in-law who is an outstanding baker.

No matter how many people show up for the meal, we always prepare for a crowd. Although it doesn’t all get eaten up on the day itself, it always gets eaten before the weekend ends.

The day after Thanksgiving, I was able to lie out in the yard in my gravity chair, and it was wonderful. This was a well-deserved break. No shopping for any of us.

The men were busy in the tractor shed. I don’t know what they were doing. Man stuff, probably. The ladies lounged in the yard talking, drowsing and leafing through pages of Southern Living looking at the pictures.

Frankly, that was about all we were fit for. The calves of my legs ached from standing at the stove all day, and my feet don’t bear discussing. Even my sous chefs were exhausted. They worked just as hard as anyone else.

It’s amazing how many times the kitchen has to be cleaned up during food preparation.

Some say to just wait till you finish, but we can’t do that because there aren’t enough bowls and pans available to make that possible.

All in all, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and we enjoyed all of it. It’s hard to see those dear faces leave at the end, but they all have other lives now far away from here. I hope we gave them roots and wings for the lives they have now.

At our house on occasion we make homemade French fries. I’ve heard lots of people say, “Oh no. I’d never do that when you can just pick up a bag of frozen fries at the grocery store.” Well all I can say to that is, “I’m sorry.” And I really am.

The Pickens County Courier gladly accepts letters to the Editor. Letters must be no longer than 500 words. All letters must be signed, including first and last name, address and phone number in order to be considered for publication. Only the name and city where you reside will be printed. Submission does not guarantee publication. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. No slanderous or obscene material will be accepted. Letters to the Editor and columns do not necessarily the Courier’s opinion. Send letters to  news@thepccourier.com

The Pickens County Courier gladly accepts letters to the Editor. Letters must be no longer than 500 words. All letters must be signed, including first and last name, address and phone number in order to be considered for publication. Only the name and city where you reside will be printed. Submission does not guarantee publication. We reserve the right to edit for content and length. No slanderous or obscene material will be accepted. Letters to the Editor and columns do not necessarily the Courier’s opinion. Send letters to  news@thepccourier.com

For a brief period each fall, we see the leaves. On the drive to work, school and town, we pass hundreds of trees wearing their most colorful clothes. The range of colors and varieties is infinite.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to collect the leaves before they turn brown and spread them about the house on walls and in vases to light the long, dark winter months?

Yes, winter is coming. This year it has felt like summer would never end. Summer weather went well into early November.

On Sunday when we saw a light sprinkle of rain outside, it puzzled me as to why I felt cold. I’d come outside as usual without a sweater or jacket. So accustomed have I become to sunny, warm weather that I didn’t realize the need for any kind of wrap. “What is wrong?,” I thought.

Well, nothing is wrong. It’s almost Thanksgiving, and we are experiencing our first cool weather in more than six months.

And some people say there’s no such thing as global warming. I’ve thought about this and decided, with no data to support this theory, that all the people who deny the existence of global warming spend their lives indoors with central air conditioning. They leave their cool and comfortable homes and offices and travel in their air-conditioned cars to other air-conditioned places.

There can be no other explanation, at least in my mind. I have to ask if they’ve ever been in a hayfield in summer, loading bales of hay onto a truck bed.

Have they ever walked the rows of a field of corn and pulled ears from the stalk? Have they ever plowed? Have they ever stood outside in the rain and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving when the parched earth soaks up the life-sustaining water?

I think not. For whatever reason, some people insist on denying as truth anything that disturbs their view of the world.

Even if you don’t think global warming is real, it would be difficult to deny that we had an extremely hot, dry summer that lasted for about six months. We’re all ready for the heat to end.

This year’s summer season bore a striking resemblance to the presidential campaign. Hot, dry with no relief in sight. Finally, it has ended. We may not be happy with the outcome, but we can feel enormous relief that it is over.

Winter is approaching. There are good things about winter, and other things that make us shake in our boots.

On the plus side, we can stay warm, and it isn’t nearly as much work as it used to be.

There aren’t many of us left who rely solely on wood to heat our homes.

Now we take so for granted every convenience that adds to our physical comfort we don’t often pause to notice.

One of the best things about winter is coming into the house after being outside in the cold and sitting beside the gas logs to warm my bones.

Every season that comes our way has its own special qualities. Eventually the rain will come. And when it does, I’ll listen to it fall upon the roof and imagine the azaleas sucking it up through their roots, getting ready for the spring.

I was driving into town on a familiar route and came upon a tree on the side of the road I’ve passed maybe a thousand times. But this time I saw it.

Why? Because on each limb on both sides were perched a flock of buzzards with their backs turned to the road. They are large birds, but seldom seen in such numbers. It looked like a picture from a horror story or maybe a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”