Phew. We are through another crisis. The state budget has passed with the House and Senate votes on Wednesday to override the governor’s veto. We have avoided shutdown of state government.

In the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy and his “You might be a redneck if …” jokes, I’ve compiled a list of traits with which many of us in central Maine can identify.

On Jan. 17, 2001, the Maine Association of Charter Schools met in Bangor to discuss the possibility of creating charter schools here.

Six days after my father killed himself on Main Street in Hallowell, my siblings and I found the note he’d left us in an envelope addressed “To the children I love so dearly.”

It’s easy to get frustrated with things in Augusta at this time of year as shortfalls and budget battles fill up the newspapers, but this year we’ve got at least one thing there to celebrate.

This understanding is critically important for a lot of reasons. Let’s start with Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Sportsmen have been completely unsuccessful in winning public funding for this agency, which struggles to perform its mission of protecting and enhancing our wildlife and fisheries and the habitat they depend upon — a mission that certainly serves all of the people of this state.

WASHINGTON — It is reassuring that in the midst of so much government dysfunction, the IRS has resolved the question of when and whether to tax tanning beds under the Affordable Care Act.

WASHINGTON — Where have all the liberals gone?

The last time I saw Sylvester “Cobby” Cobbs was on his birthday. It was in the food court of Cony, and the middle-school students were eating lunch. They had just serenaded their beloved substitute teacher with a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.”