All things electronic -- News-Gazette

 "My love-hate relationship with all things electronic"

is my latest published article in the

Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette

www.news-gazette.com

Saturday Voices Guest Commentary, print & online

April 20, 2024.

I welcome your comments.

Plant-based diet? -- Prime Life Times

 "What is a Plant-based Diet?"

is my latest published article 

in the April 2024 PRINT ONLY edition of

Prime Life Times (page A-3).

I welcome your comments.

Fabulous Florida -- Prime Life Times

 "Fabulous Florida"

is my latest published article in the 

APRIL 2024 PRINT ONLY edition

of Prime Life Times.

I welcome your comments.

"Squirrels in Antarctica" -- by Sari Karplus

 Squirrels in Antarctica

is the 4th published article

by children's author Sari Karplus.

It is marketed to ages 4 - 8 and 

is now available on amazon.com & other sources.

Check it out!

Mackinac Island -- Prime Life Times

 "Making Memories on Mackinac Island"

is my latest published article in the

print only March 2024 edition (Page A-15) of 

Prime Life Times.

I welcome your comments.

Wondering about Wheelchairs? -- Prime Life Times

 "Wondering about Wheelchairs?"

is my latest published article in the

PRINT ONLY March 2024 edition of

Prime Life Times

on page A-14.

I welcome your comments.

Superbowl & Dad Essay -- Steven Doppelt

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dad-dying-son-super-bowl_n_65afff07e4b0d65b024e40b3

A beautiful piece!

Debbie Does Date Bars! -- News-Gazette

 "Debbie Does Date Bars:  Adventures in the Kitchen"

is my latest published article in the

Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette

PRINT (Saturday February 10) &

ONLINE (Sunday Voices Guest Commentary) February 11, 2024.

www.news-gazette.com

I welcome your comments.

CU: Best places to live!

 

C-U voted #1 Best Places to Live for 10^th consecutive year!

By Debra L. Karplus

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine’s August 2023 cover article, “Great Places to Retire (for renters)”, caught my eye.  I’d hoped to find Champaign-Urbana somewhere on this list, but nope; Tallassee, Florida was listed first.  Columbus, Ohio was listed, as was Ann Arbor, Michigan but not C-U or any other Illinois city.  Kiplinger writes these lists regularly. USA Today (www.usatoday.com), in their recent list of 150 cities of Best Places to Live in the U.S. listed Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Forbes (www.forbes.com) in their 2022 list named Fort Wayne, Indiana as number 1. AARP in 2021 named Cedar Falls, Iowa.

In 2021, the CBS Sunday Morning show did a feature about scary weather, specifically near the oceans, deducing that Madison, Wisconsin was an ideal place homestead.

Many of these “best cities” I’ve never visited. But, I’ve been to Fort Wayne, Ann Arbor, Madison and Green Bay for short stays.  These Midwestern cities are lovely, scenic with much to do, housing major universities not unlike C-U; Fort Wayne has Purdue, Madison and Green Bay have two University of Wisconsin campuses, Ann Arbor has University of Michigan.

For years, I’ve wondered why Champaign-Urbana never seems to make it onto these best places to live lists! I’ve even discussed with my friends operating the Champaign County Visit Center, currently called Experience Champaign, formerly Visit Champaign County.  We’re all perplexed.

I did some exploring to learn how these best places lists are assembled.  Data from the US Census bureau related to population and demographics is collected.  The FBI provides statistics about crime. The US Department of Labor has numbers about careers and employment.  And other information is thrown into the mix such as happiness scales and air quality numbers.  There are some formulas that combine all this and more and creates best places lists.  This is an oversimplified version of how best places lists evolve.

There are some online quizzes one can take to provide guidance on where one might want to live based on questions related to need for a nearby airport, hospital, mountains, ocean, and so on.  I answered one of these quizzes about a decade ago and learned that San Bernardino, California was my ideal spot.  I visited there once for a very short time, but I’m not at all ready to hire Two Men and a Truck to haul my stuff there!

With the University of Illinois and also Parkland College we have ample spectator sports and culture in addition to all that’s going on in our two vibrant downtowns and outlying towns.  Cost of living here is decent.  I have family in Southern California, Boulder Colorado and the Chicagoland area.  They’re shocked at the relatively low price to buy a comfortable sized house for a family in an upscale neighborhood in C-U.  And though they tout their beautiful scenery and/or culture, ours is typically more affordable and a reasonable drive to get there, to get anywhere!  Our local bus system is phenomenal as are our parks and libraries.

Let’s talk weather.  Champaign-Urbana, like most Illinois cities has four distinct seasons.  For me that’s great.  I’ve vacationed in Santa Barbara, California in December and January, and yes, it’s sure tough to believe it’s winter then while swimming laps in an outdoor pool.  But, frankly, I think I would get bored with twelve months a year like that.  Personally, I enjoy an outdoor walk at Urbana’s Meadowbrook Park on a crisp 35 degree day, but maybe that’s just me.  Worry here about wildfires here in our lovely twin cities are rare, as is the occasional, essentially harmless earthquake.  Overall the air quality here is safe, unless Canada happens to be having wildfires!

I’m happy with the health care system here, too.  Granted, I’m overall in excellent health, though I did acquire a cadre of three new Christie Clinic specialists for relatively minor health problems.

I’m uninformed about local crime statistics, but I try to avoid pop up parties at 2 am in certain parts of town.

What about taxes?  Well, wherever you live, you either pay them either via high real estate taxes, high sales tax, or high state income tax.

So how do we get some of these Best Place collaborators to make notice of Champaign-Urbana?  Could “Champaign-Urbana voted #1 Best Places to Live for 10 consecutive years” become a headline somewhere?  Champaign County residents, let’s brainstorm on this and position our amazing twin cities onto a few best places lists.

 

 

 

Where will you live as you age? -- Prime Life Times

"Where will you live as you age?"

is my latest published article 

in the PRINT February 2024 issue of

Prime Life Times

on page A-13.

I welcome your comments. 

Dear family & friends -- News-Gazette

 "Dear family and friends..."

is my latest published Voices Guest commentary

in the Sunday January 7, 2024

print and online edition of the 

Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette

www.news-gazette.com.

I welcome your comments.

Working with a Personal Trainer -- Prime Life Times

 "Working with a Personal Trainer"

is my latest published article 

in the

January 2024 PRINT edition of

Prime Life Times

on page A-3.

I welcome your comments.

I've Rediscovered Books!

 

I’ve rediscovered books!

By Debra L. Karplus

I see the look of surprise when people ask me “what have you been reading lately”, and I nonchalantly reply, “I’m not much of a reader, I’m more of a writer”; I’ve often heard it said that good writers are good readers.  So what does that imply about me?

As a kid I didn’t read much; admittedly I spent much time in front of television.  TV was relatively new in the 1950s, and then, cowabunga, color TV emerged!  Why read Nancy Drew mysteries when you could watch The Beverly Hillbillies?

During high school, one of my greatest joys was using free period to visit the library and peruse magazines, mostly browsing, though reading some more thoroughly.  With my sometimes short attention span, I find magazine reading in sync with my style. (It would have been beyond my wildest imagination that some forty years later I’d be writing articles for magazines!)

It wasn’t until my children were school-age, c.1981, that I really started reading for pleasure, mostly light reads, such as Erma Bombeck, as there were the many interruptions that busy mothers face. I became a very regular borrower at the nearby Champaign Public Library, often walking there.

My Columbia Avenue neighbors can tell you that I was frequently sprawled out on the swing on my sheltered front porch of my home built in 1907, most any time of year, immersed in a good book, though I’d stop and chat to neighbors passing by when approached.

Then around 2015, it seemed I suddenly just stopped reading. That was around the time my parents began showing their age, with deteriorating health, though they lived near Chicago and not here in Champaign-Urbana.  My focus and priorities changed; frequent Amtrak and Metra trips north followed.

But something else happened around that time also.  I moved to a low-maintenance one-story townhouse built in 2002 in southwest Champaign that really meets my needs as I get older.  But a house of its vintage and design typically lacks an old-fashioned front porch. People in my new neighborhood often sit on their backyard patios overlooking the beautifully landscaped ponds, or sometimes even sit on chairs in their driveways to enjoy the outdoors and get out into the fresh air. 

But, that was just not the right space for me to embrace reading.

I discovered numerous Little Free Libraries around town; they’re “open” 24/7; one can swap out an already read book for an unread one.  I’ve discovered several good reads that way, but it’s a very labor-intensive process. Some Little Free Libraries are more inclined to have the kind of books of interest to me.

Then Covid hit.  My tech skills weren’t up-to-speed, but with assistance, I learned to utilize Libby and other online resources so that I could read on my IPad.  I was able to download and read a huge variety of magazines, even some from other countries such as the Australian version of Prevention Magazine, puzzled at first by their summer edition in December! I could sit comfortably on the living room sofa listening to my favorite classical music while searching through virtually hundreds of titles to find the right e-book.

I’ve heard many people say they’d much rather read a “real book”, and once the Covid risk lifted, I found that, I, too, found minimal pleasure sitting with a small screen and reading a book electronically.

Recently, a Zoom “friend” of mine wrote a memoir, and much out of character, I purchased her book, and read it cover to cover the day Amazon delivered it.

For a time I’d been feeling like something was missing from my life, and though I seem to “have it all”, the nurturing from reading that I’d received in the past was badly needed.

Having a good book around is a little like having a puppy, only you don’t have the responsibility of feeding it, walking it, cleaning up after it or vacuuming a lot of fur off the carpets.

I especially enjoy well-written biographies.  Yes, I just finished Spare by Prince Harry, not exactly “literary”, but interesting to learn about those whacky Royals!

Reading a biography is a great antidote for loneliness; it’s like getting to know a new, low maintenance friend, get inside their head a bit without giving anything back.  Reading about someone’s life is a great way to learn more about yourself. 

I am still searching for the ideal spot at home to devour some good books. Outside or inside, it must be super cozy.