Craig Stauffer does not care a lick about chess.
At least that’s what he’d like people to believe.
But for anyone who knows Stauffer, for anyone who’s ever stepped foot in his home situated a few quiet blocks away from Woodrow Wilson Junior High School, this statement is patently false. After all, chess and jazz and cigars and even fine wines (and all of their respective trappings) are ubiquitous in his home. A few of his favorite albums are artfully displayed on his living room walls, while others are meticulously …

Chrome sparkles in the sunlight, perfect candy colored paint and custom upholstery beckon car show attendees to take a closer look. Signs instruct the uninformed to look, but “please don’t touch.” Their owners have just spent a lot of time polishing and dusting, and those fancy paint jobs cost a lot of money. Oldies music blares from the mobile DJ trailer nearby, and car owners sit in lawn chairs behind their vehicles collecting compliments from admirers. A low slung, deep purple early 1950s vintage Mercury lounges in the sunshine of …

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, a lot of guys are feverishly making plans … for their Super Bowl parties. Indeed, February may not be that far down the road, but Valentine’s Day is likely the furthest thing from the male mind until approximately Feb. 13. Guys, I realize that it’s probably unrealistic to expect you to be planning your Valentine’s Day festivities this far in advance. But what if I told you that by putting just a little forethought into the holiday plan, you could both impress your lady and get more bang for your buck? Sound interesting? Well then, welcome to The Hautean Guy’s Guide to Rockin’ Valentine’s Day Out Loud: 2010 Edition.

When they walked through the then-new Honey Creek Mall, gawky teens with painted faces, they were like nothing Terre Haute had ever seen, a rag-tag coalition of kids whose support for their favorite band became the first draft of the KISS Army.
“We were like Wayne and Garth, from ‘Wayne’s World.’ We were all nerds, and I’m not ashamed to say that,” Bill Starkey laughs, remembering the days before KISS was a household name, let alone inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Now in their 50s, Starkey and …

Forget the pipers piping and drummers drumming. During the 2009 holiday season, music’s top sellers are artists who might make you believe it’s the 1960s all over again, courtesy new technology.
Still, in a tough economy, local musicians hope they don’t get lost in the mix.

“This is the Christmas tree emporium of the entire Midwest,” announces the tree lot proprietor in the movie A Christmas Story. Leading the Parker family around his collection of pre-cut trees, he grabs a nearby pine, “Now you ain’t gonna find no better tree, than this here tree. This here tree is built to last. Ain’t no needles fallin’ off this tree” he proclaims as the tree leaves a wreath’s worth of needles on the ground. Discarding that one, he moves on to another, exclaiming, “Now, this here is a …

The toy rat with glowing red eyes and mean plastic fangs reminds Thomas Ready of the year Christmas came early.

Ready, who’s played Santa for more than two decades, once went dressed for the part, clad in red sweatshirt and pants, to a Halloween party. The revelers, lacking a proper award for his costume as St. Nick’s surrogate, awarded him the rat as a trophy.

The man was as inconspicuous as a tall, broad-shouldered fellow wearing a zebra-striped shirt and black short pants could be walking across the Valle Field parking lot. He had the earnest look of a Boy Scout troop leader preparing to take youngsters on a long hike, but he was on his way to the football field complex’s east gridiron to referee Sunday afternoon Vigo County Youth Football League third- and fourth-grade games.
Even after the big fellow took the field with his refereeing partner and began tossing his yellow flag and …