In Memoriam of Edward Duba Sr.

December 8 marks the day on which, in 2003, Edward Duba Sr. passed. As a way of observing the day, posted here is the profile of Edward Duba Sr. as it appeared in the Grand Rapids Press on May 12, 1988. The piece is written by Cathie Bloom.

Edward Duba Sr. 2

Seated in a small banquet room with its subdued lighting, snowy white linens and artfully folded large blue napkins, Edward Duba Sr. is the perfect host. Although the running of the family restaurant has largely been turned over to three of his sons and a daughter, Ed Duba is as much an institution as the restaurant which bears his name—Duba’s. Read more

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On Winter: Part Two

Photograph by Mikko Lagerstedt, Used with Permission
www.mikkolagerstedt.com

A few years ago, once the Holidays had past, I began looking for a way to beat back the dreariness of winter. And so I joined a fitness center, thinking that the physical activity would do me good–that it would lift the mood and re-energize. Somewhat surprisingly, there was still the sense that these routine workouts on the elliptical machine weren’t quite doing the trick. It didn’t take long to discover that what was needed was regular time in the outdoors. The following winter, therefore, the fitness club membership was ditched in favor of a pair of cross-country skis. And it made all the difference: Read more

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On Winter: Part One

"The Two Trees", Mary Philpott, Used With Permission.

The Silmarillion is J.R.R. Tolkein’s creative masterpiece and forms the cosmology of The Lord of the Rings. In it, he describes a world–peopled by Elves and Dwarfs, but not, as of yet, men–when it, sunless, derived its light from the Light of the Two Trees of the Valinor. Such a world opens up to the imagination the possibility of a world not permeated by a depressive darkness, but of a darkness enchanted by a mythic source of light. That such a world could exist is encouragement, indeed, for us who endure the cold days and long, dark nights of winter in Western Michigan, when we almost seem engulfed in a perpetual night. Read more

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