Hopeless and Hopeful in Waitsburg

These past few weeks have been heart-wrenching. The feelings of grief, sadness, anger, and hopelessness are all swirling within me as I watch this dreadful war unfold in Ukraine. My paternal grandfather moved to the United States as a child from a small town in Austria in the late 1800s. That town is now part of Ukraine. I feel connected to this war in a way that I hadn’t imagined.

Hindsight being 20/20, I am now embarrassed by my last column. While the people in Ukraine hear the constant barrage of bombs, guns, explosions, and air-raid sirens, my singing appliances are comparatively a trivial...