Street Smarts

By NewsPress Now As 2024 comes to an end, News-Press NOW is saying goodbye to an old friend. Alonzo Weston’s “Street Smarts” column is concluding its run. Weston, a longtime and award-winning journalist with the St. Joseph News-Press, covered a range of topics over his years as a reporter, including education and social services. But

By Alonzo Weston Poet T.S. Eliot said it best perhaps: “And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” That is very fitting as this is my last “Street Smarts” column in the St. Joseph News-Press. Where I go or what I do going forward is anyone’s

By Alonzo Weston This Saturday, Dec. 21, will be the longest night of the year. Astronomically it is the winter solstice when, thanks to the Earth’s tilted axis, half of the planet is pointed away from the sun and the other half is towards it. This Saturday, stand outside at noon and look at your

By Alonzo Weston Friend and former News-Press editorial page editor Mark Sheehan used to allow himself two columns a year about the Kansas City Chiefs. I’ll allow myself only one maybe ever. Here it goes. The Kansas City Chiefs this year give everyone near heart attacks with their last-minute wins over opponents. You can call

By Alonzo Weston The shingle on our nation’s door partly reads “Give me your tired, your poor …” Today, flip the sign over and it reads “Sorry, we’re closed.” Where once we ostensibly welcomed immigrants to our shores, we now work hard to close our borders. President-elect Donald Trump has said one of his first

By Alonzo Weston Most of you know this post-holiday weekend for all the Christmas shopping bargains to be had. It’s ironic to me because all the consumerism comes just after we give thanks for all we have. Yes, Thanksgiving is mostly celebrated with gluttony and football instead of truly giving thanks, but we’re grateful to

By Alonzo Weston When Nov. 22 rolls around on the calendar I can’t say it affects me the same way it does when Sept. 11 comes up. It is in no way a matter of importance but rather due to how I experienced both events. When John Kennedy, our 35th president, was assassinated on Nov.

By Alonzo Weston When I woke up Monday morning, it felt like Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks. The only difference then was I had no idea about the attacks and how the world would change in the aftermath. This time I knew things would change after this election, no matter who

By Alonzo Weston Kmart, one of the first big-box retailers, closed the doors of its last full-scale store in the mainland United States a week ago. Two big Kmart buildings have sat empty on the Belt Highway here for years. That marked the end of an era. At its peak, Kmart had more than 2,000

By Alonzo Weston My favorite month is ending and my top holiday is fast approaching. I love everything October, yes even the pumpkin spice. My granddaughter Asia was born on Oct. 1, and Halloween was my mom and I’s favorite holiday. My family history is steeped in supernatural folklore and tradition. My mother and aunts

By Alonzo Weston A friend the other day asked me about Lake Contrary in its heyday. I told him I’m too young to remember the ballroom and amusement park although there is a sepia-toned photo of a 5-year-old me standing in front of one of the amusement park rides. My memories of the lake are

By Alonzo Weston Driving down the road Wednesday morning, I saw Bag-Head Jheri, the Messanie Street Philosopher, standing in front of the Dollar General store. He flagged me down and I stopped to hear what he had to say. “Wassup Weston?” Bag said by way of greeting. “I was about to ask you the same

By Alonzo Weston As a child of the ‘70s who just turned 70 years old, I see what a long, strange trip it’s been so far. Working as a greeter at a large store for the past few months, I see our voting or non-voting public up close. My job is to check purchase receipts

By Alonzo Weston As the St. Joseph School district searches for a superintendent yet again, I see deja vu. Current superintendent Gabe Edgar has announced his intent to retire after the end of the current school year. I’ve lost count of how many superintendents we’ve been through since the 2015 Fred Czerwonka-Dan Colgan disaster that

By Alonzo Weston Imagine my surprise when I picked up the newspaper last week and saw in the obits that Dennis Marcinko had died. Dennis was one of those people who you felt would always be around. Most of us knew him as the guy who walked all over town. I even once wrote about

By Alonzo Weston Halloween came early this year with the first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s Halloween scary because of our two choices: a narcissistic dictator and wanna-be felon and a platitude-speaking liberal. That the debate took place a day before the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11

By Alonzo Weston With all of its pumpkin spice and the decay of nature, autumn is my favorite season. The weather is crisp and cool, the leaves are beautiful in death and it’s harvest time with the smell of pumpkin spice and bonfires filling the air. My son and grandkids were born in late summer

By Alonzo Weston My first memory of work is of my grandmother’s alarm clock going off at 7 a.m. every morning. Faithfully she rose and went off to wash and get dressed and then catch the bus to go her job as a short-order cook at the old Katz drugstore. My mother and aunts would

By Alonzo Weston I woke up Wednesday morning to the sounds of cars, buses and children’s laughter. It was the first day of school in St. Joseph. We live across the street from a public school with all the playground sounds and parking problems that go along with it. My wife and I know that

By Alonzo Weston Jim Connors was one of those iconic figures who just figured would be around forever. But like most, if not all, of our iconic figures, they leave us too soon. Connors died on Aug. 2 at the age of 79. The dash between his birth on March 30, 1945, and death last

By Alonzo Weston When I drive down by Lake Contrary, or what once was a lake, I remember what it used to be and what it could be again. Signs there heralding what once was historic Lake Contrary now welcome visitors to a lake bed of two-foot-high weeds and debris. I remember on hot days

By Alonzo Weston I read the other day in the St. Joseph News-Press Midweek edition that business is expanding in the southeast part of the city. The article touted the grand opening of the new Reed Chevrolet facilities along Commonwealth Court near Menards. Forgive me for waxing nostalgic, but I remember when the area was

By Alonzo Weston Everybody knows by now that a lone gunman made an assassination attempt on former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump last Saturday while addressing a campaign rally near Buller, Pennsylvania. We also know the shooter was a 20-year-old man described as a loner and bullied oddball who was a registered

By Alonzo Weston The fireworks in my neighborhood began well before the Fourth. The explosions always start around my bedtime. I went to sleep a few nights to the sound of snap, crackle and pop. It seems fireworks shooters decided to celebrate our independence by expressing their own independence to celebrate whenever. For some reason,

By Alonzo Weston I saw Bag-Head Jheri, The Messanie Street Philosopher, coming out of a Downtown restaurant Tuesday afternoon. As usual, he had plenty to say. “Hey Weston, let me bend your ear for a minute, brutha,” Bag shouted loudly to me. “What is it, man? “ I asked distractedly. “Aw man, the world is

By Alonzo Weston The St. Joseph School district is reviewing some library books that community members believe aren’t appropriate for school-age children. Whether connected to nationwide book-banning efforts or not, it’s still part of a growing trend to censor readership. This effort reminds me of the 1963 Ray Bradbury novel “Fahrenheit 451,” where in a

By Alonzo Weston The next few weeks will be an entertaining time to open summer in St. Joseph. For those who constantly whine and moan there’s nothing to do in our town, there are the Coleman Hawkins Jazz and Blues Festival and the Juneteenth parade and celebrations this weekend, and next week an original play

By Alonzo Weston It’s been long enough to pretty much forget Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s much-maligned graduation speech at Benedictine College a few weeks ago but some of what he said still reverberates. Most of Butker’s speech was inspirational. However, when the kicker got to the part about women staying home and having

By Alonzo Weston It’s the time of year again for another heavenly family reunion. When we visit cemeteries on Memorial Day, we have a reunion with family and friends who are deceased. My grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmother, mom, dad, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends will all be there. We’ll eat my mom’s fried chicken and potato

By Alonzo Weston When I think of May, my wife Deanna and brother Alex’s birthdays on May 15 come to mind. This year in May, I’ll attend the funeral of one of my three cousins who died during the past month. Folklore has it that people born in May are more likely to achieve higher