On most days, Howard “Waterdog” Patterson is an 84-year-old plumber from Erin, Tenn. But on Dec. 2 at Ben “Bengie” Hall’s farm, it’s time to be a butcher, a teacher and a part of something that takes place every year when the ground gets cold and the air snaps with winter – it’s hog killin’ time.

Did you know that David Livingston just got two dogs? Yeah. He calls them Rolex and Timex. They’re his watchdogs. Go ahead. Call up the retired music professor from Western and ask him how he’s doing. “Doin’ pretty good,” he’ll say. “Mostly good, not too pretty.

“Think about the ordinary things that you do exceedingly well,” Rev. Darrell Venters said during Mass on a Sunday morning in early September. Nurturing a garden and mowing the lawn may be ordinary tasks, but Venters does these exceedingly well. And when his hands are not raised in exhortation, they are tending to the brilliant flowers outside his home at the St.

A Western student walks past the fountain in the fine arts center courtyard yesterday, the first day students could enjoy the sunshine this week. Hurricane Katrina’s rains have affected areas as far north as the Ohio Valley. And with 80 percent of New Orleans underwater, the estimated cost in damages from Hurricane Katrina has risen above $25 billion.