The story of Stanley Dural Jr. is the story of a kid who hated his father's music. His dad was an accordion player, and he would play the instrument in their Louisiana home before and after his job as an auto mechanic.

• Last year my greatest musical joy came from "discovering" a magical lost band - one whose psychedelic folkie bliss I'd somehow missed in my 30 years on either side of the record-store counter. Under the warm, old-school glow of a handful of the group's original LPs rescued from a garage sale, I found myself physically melted under the spell of The Incredible String Band as I did the high-fidelity dance and faced the frantic reshuffling of all my passionate lists - top 10 albums of all time, top five bands, top 10 perfect songs, etc.

Once again, residents of Davenport demonstrated their disgraceful lack of patriotism with a pathetic 18-percent voter turnout for the November 8 city-council election. For those who did not bother to vote this time, keep your complaints to yourself from here on out.

Now that the enrollment period for the new private Part D drug plans is upon us, Medicare recipients have clear evidence that "D" stands for "disaster." Reliance on private drug plans and other measures contained in the 2003 Medicare amendments is a disaster for Medicare recipients.