John Woodcock

First Posted: 4/18/12 09:34 AM EDT Updated: 4/18/12 02:15 PM EDT
Originally published December 2011/January 2012

BY LEE ANN SANDWEISS Ruth and Ralph Young’s love story started with a glance 78 years ago, and today they still only have eyes for each other. Ralph, 98, remembers seeing Ruth, 99, for the first time as if it were yesterday, instead of the summer of 1933. “I was walking around the Bedford town square with a friend, and he introduced me to this girl who happened to be Ruth,” he recalls. “As I was walking away, I stopped and looked back at her and she was looking back at me. I went to visit her the next day.” Love at first sight? You betcha. On the couple’s first date, Ralph, a Bloomington boy, helped Ruth milk a cow [...]

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A Story About a Man, a Motorcycle, And His Best Friend (Photo Gallery)

First Posted: 4/4/12 01:37 PM EDT Updated: 4/16/12 03:06 PM EDT
Originally published December 2011/January 2012

BY JEREMY SHERE When local mechanic and construction worker Mark Apple and his best friend, Buster, ride around town on Apple’s sidecar-equipped BMW motorcycle, it’s hard to not stare. Not so much because of the bike, which is painted an unremarkable black, or because they’re going particularly fast or doing wheelies. It’s because Buster is a dog. And when’s the last time you saw an 85-pound, fluffy-haired, half-chow, half-akita-and-Alaskan-malamute mix—or any dog, for that matter—riding shotgun in a motorcycle sidecar? “Buster loves the attention,” says Apple, 57, who picked Buster out of a puppy pile in 2004 and within a year had trained him to enjoy the open-air thrills of motorcycle riding. “People seem to think it’s pretty cool—everyone points [...]

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