Denny Pekny was a friend of mine. We used to sneak away from Sunday school at our old Midwestern church to buy penny candy across the street. Denny died in battle in Vietnam years ago, while I was stationed in Germany.

My wife, Susan, was in the old Methodist church across from ours. We later married in my same church and lived together for 41 years until she passed away from lung cancer.

As we place flowers on her grave today, I remember Denny, Susan and the many great soldiers who gave their lives for the blessings and true liberties we still have in this great country. 

May we never forget how each path we take has been forged by our loved ones, friends and valiant soldiers who have given their lives so that we all may be free.

After having gotten sick after eating at a couple of our local restaurants I am having a tough time recommending some of the same places listed in the "Seven Days of Lunch" article (May 2014). I spent a few years working for a large restaurant supply house in the area and got to know some of these places on a business level too. 

One thing we would do when researching a potential customer was to look up their history on the Spokane Health Department web site located at http://www.srhd.org. Any restaurant's history is well documented by the Health Department, and frankly it's amazing to me that many of them are allowed to continue to do business. There are several of them in our area that fail to recognize simple things like how to teach their employees to wash their hands or how to store fresh chicken or beef at the right temperature.

Companies like Taco Bell and McDonalds seem to get it. But several of our locally owned restaurants clearly don't. I hope people will get on the Health Department website and look at the history of their favorite places. And encourage those places to clean up or stop patronizing them.