TOPEKA, Kan. - I have a thing about my eyebrows. The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but, eyebrows definitely let you know what decade that soul was hanging out in. As a girl in the early 70's my look was totally natural. By the end of August, my eyebrows were bleached white, sometimes with a green tint from all the chlorine in the public pools where I spent my summer days.

By the mid-70's I had been introduced to woman's greatest friend... and, enemy, the tweezers. I spent many a Saturday during my 9th grade year sitting on the sink in our upstairs bathroom gazing at my eyebrows and plucking. And plucking. I plucked so much that summer that I had that perpetually surprised look as if I had just seen the neighbor boy naked in his back yard.

Which I swear never happened.

MANHATTAN, Kan. - Early last week the First Lady, Michelle Obama launched her Let's Move campaign to take on the serious issue of childhood obesity and improve youth's quality of life for the future. In her interview with Larry King, Michelle Obama told about her own wakeup call to the problem. A doctor told her that her children's BMI (body mass index) had slightly increased while they were campaigning due to too much fast food and an unstable schedule. She claimed that small changes such as smaller portions, more home cooked meals, and choosing milk and water over sugary drinks and soda made a big difference in her family, and encourages the families of America to follow suit.

GREAT BEND, Kan. - I'm the Janis Ian of "Urban Legends." You see, I learned the truth at seventeen - that all the scary stories I heard growing up in Great Bend were phony. It took me a while to face reality that all these things -- the "bloody hook", the "solid cement Cadillac", the "spider in the hairdo" -- did not happen in Great Bend or environs.

I was born in 1960, so when I went off to KU in 1978, well, things were very local. There was no internet, no email. For most of my childhood we only got one channel on the TV. So there was no one to debunk the fantastically scary stories I heard growing up or to debunk the belief that they all happened here.

GREAT BEND, Kan. - When I wished a Facebook friend a "Happy Birthday" on February 1, I saw that both she and her physician husband shared the same birthday, February 1, 1980. What are the odds that two people with the exact same birthday - same year, same date - would get married?

This incident reminded me of a topic I find fascinating: coincidences. Everybody loves a good coincidence. Sometimes they have an epic feel. What are the odds that our second and third U.S. Presidents not only both died on the same day and same year, but that the date was our Nation's Birthday, July 4? Yes, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826.

Sometimes coincidences involve celebrities but seem to have a personal rather than an epic feel.

LAWRENCE, Kan. - I could talk about a lot of very sad and tragic things going on in the world right now.

Haiti would be number one. The continuing polarization of the United States government may be number two. This would make the lack of progress our country has made in the past year number three (I'm still an Obama believer, though). The list goes on and includes everything from substantial funding cuts to vital programs, to the low employment rate, and yes, I have to say it, to Conan being off the air. But something which is of crucial global importance is hardly being mentioned at all in the sh** list of today's world.

And yes, my friends, I'm talking about the environment.

But before I go on, I have some questions I want YOU (yes, YOU) to answer about it at the end of the article. No right or wrong answers. No personal judgments. All I'm looking for is an open dialogue.

GREAT BEND, Kan. - I have come to the realization that I come from a long line of hillbillies, rednecks, hicks, whatever you want to call them. That is a fact I cannot ignore, and wouldn't want to if I could. Often, when people think of Michigan, they conjure up an image of Detroit. The big city.

Granted, Michigan is a much more urban place than Kansas, but there are still quiet tucked back areas in the unruly shadow of the cities. The town where I come from has grown exponentially in the last thirty years. My mother's family lived in the area for generations, before the timber boom. Back when Kalkaska (the town I am from) had dirt roads running through Main Street.

My grandmother's family populates the majority of a town known as Fife Lake. We have a lot to learn, and live up to from that generation of hillbillies, the generation of my grandparents, and great grandparents.

May this new year sustain
Our collective, consuming desire for truth,
Anchored first by honesty,
And for justice, tempered with mercy.

May it bring us minds always awed
By the simple things, yet questioning,
Curious and still unafraid of change.

DODGE CITY, Kan. - Christmas has come and gone, so I'd planned to write a few of my thoughts concerning the world situation when I received a phone call from my elderly friend, Maisie.

She's a character, and since she and her husband, Herb, were getting ready to drive into town, I suggested they stop by my house for a cup of coffee before starting their Saturday shopping. They come in from the farm every Saturday and buy what they need to last them until the next Saturday. As Herb says, "After sixty-plus years, we mostly just do what we always did; that way we don't have to waste no time thinkin' up what to do next."

GREAT BEND, Kan. - On November 1, 1967, I waited in line with hundreds of Great Bend kids to meet an astronaut. As a scrub-faced seven-year-old, I was awed when I saw him arrive at J.C. Penney Toyland in his silver space suit and space helmet.

He wasn't a real astronaut, I now know. But as a seven-year-old, you suspend disbelief. The "astronaut" was "Major Astro," a guy named Tom Leahy who had an afternoon children's program on KARD-TV, the NBC affiliate in Wichita. Each afternoon "Major Astro" would delight youngsters in Wichita and Western Kansas with his program, in which he played an astronaut on the moon showing cartoons from a space station. We only got one channel in Great Bend - KARD-TV, so "Major Astro" was the only game in town.

A few days ago, I posted something on Facebook about "Major Astro," and I got a huge response from baby-boomers, all favorable, and way beyond what I expected. And I have thought a lot about why people in their fifties still light up at the mention of "Major Astro."

COLBY, Kan. - In these tough economic times, even when cash is low, many Kansas parents I've talked with feel bad that they can't do the holidays up in a big way. Most seem to think that they are letting their kids down if they don't come up with a big Christmas or Hanukkah.

It's tough. Parents hard hit by the recession may wonder how to explain to their children why there aren't as many presents under the tree this year.