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As an Ohio State Buckeyes fan, 2002 was a year for the record book. The Buckeyes rode the strong shoulders of freshman sensation, Maurice Clarett, to a perfect season and the National Championship. Clarett was being mentioned for the Heisman Trophy as the best player in the country after just a couple of games. Funny the difference a year makes.

This past season started with a thud. Clarett was ruled ineligible for play due to accepting improper benefits from a family friend and then lying to investigators about it. Ohip State would have to petition the National Collegiate…  ( Click for more )

I spend a lot of time on the road as a preacher. It takes time to make the distance between people's homes and the occasional hospital in which they might be receiving care. As such I am often on the local interstate highway, I-75. I-75 dissects the state in its run from Detroit to the Gulf Coast of Florida. Almost every day a traveler can see cars from Canada (usually Ontario) as well as Florida and many other states in between.

While traveling North on I-75 the other day I was approaching a vehicle that was stalled on the shoulder. It was parked fairly close to the right…  ( Click for more )

Raising children is an exasperating endeavor to say the least. Regardless of Dr. Benjamin Spock's volumes of work, or that of myriad others, there is truly no definitive work on raising children. That is why a pregnant mother-to-be is referred to as "expecting". Andy Griffith, the comedian, once remarked that the first child lurks, indicating that the baby may be ready to sneak up suddenly and be born or just kind of hang around for awhile.

But when the baby comes is when the real challenge starts. What do you do with this little wrinkled package of flesh and still forming…  ( Click for more )

I can remember years ago going to my friend's house and seeing their heating stove sitting in the front room of their house. Clearly seen on the front of the stove were the words, "Warm Morning". Over the years I have come to appreciate those stoves as being dependable and true to their name. My wife and I even had one at one of the homes we have rented over the years. We had a lot of warm mornings from our Warm Morning.

You can imagine the shock we had then this past Saturday morning when we awoke to temperatures outside that were below zero with an indoor temperature of 57…  ( Click for more )

Something happened this past weekend that was barely a blip on most people's radar. I don't remember hearing mentioned on any of television's news magazines or reports. Perhaps I just missed them. The event was the death of Philip Crosby. He was 69 at his death. Died of natural causes unlike his three brothers. Philip Crosby was the last remaining son of Bing Crosby and his first wife, singer/actress Dixie Lee.

Philip was one of a set of twins. His brother, Dennis, preceded him in death in 1991. Dennis, like his brother Lindsay in 1989, committed suicide. Their older brother,…  ( Click for more )

Throughout my fifty-three years plus of life on this planet I have held a lot of jobs. When I was just a little guy about twelve I was mowing lawns in my neighborhood and, at times, was quite prosperous doing it. I can remember one week in 1963 when I actually banked $40. That may not sound like much today but there were a lot of families at that time in which the main bread winner was making about $80 a week and doing well.

My parents had ingrained in me the concept of overkill in doing someone's lawn. I trimmed as well as mowed. That was before the string trimmer…  ( Click for more )

I am a football junkie. That's American football for those of you who are purists and know soccer by its worldwide appellation. I have followed football, more precisely, professional football, since I was barely seven years old. That means that when the 2004 season begins I will begin my forty-eighth season watching the sport. Sundays have been my hallowed days during that time period both for my love of worshiping my heavenly Father and my joy of watching large armored humans run into each other.

The oddest thing has happened during the end of the 2003 season. I have yet…  ( Click for more )

The recent flap over deposed Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has raised some eyebrows concerning the plans of President Bush when he first took office. According to documentation provided by O'Neill, Bush had plans to attack Iraq and remove and capture Saddam Hussein early in the administration. O'Neill's comments, documents and such are the focal point of a new book written by Ron Suskind, The Price Of Loyalty. Other Bush informants are cited in the book concerning their observations and knowledge of the President.

Such things are not new. Practically every administration…  ( Click for more )

An unknown author once wrote, "Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." With the press of an eight to nine hour daily job and the work I do for the good folk of the Minorsville Christian Church I have been unsuccessful in getting into a habit for this column that keeps me going on it. Frustration is an unkind and miserable bedfellow. I am frustrated to the point that I have to make a choice. After all, "choice, not chance, determines one's destiny." Some other anonymous author is responsible for that little quote. (wouldn't it be amazing to find…  ( Click for more )

I have been trying to put this whole grandparent thing in perspective. Right now my wife and I are moving into our late fifties. Our grandchildren are soon to be two years old. I am struggling to remember how my parents enjoyed (or was that endured) the visits of our children. My dad was born in 1921 and my mom in 1923. So when my parents were the same ages my wife and I are now would have been someplace around 1978. Dad would have been fifty-seven and mom fifty-five. That's pretty close to what my wife and I are now.

Our children would have been five (John), two (Sean)…  ( Click for more )

The past several days have seen ample rainfall to the point of flooding here in parts of the Bluegrass. My yard has that wonderful green hue to it but it also is getting a bit long and does need some manicuring. The rain has affected other things as well. At McDonald's it has dampened the spirits of some of the workers as they see no real reason to be excited about getting off work in the early to mid afternoon. When people are disappointed they tend to get a little testy at times. That little bit of edge can spill over into service. Conquering that feeling is a matter of attitude. …  ( Click for more )

Things happen in life that sometimes leave us frustrated and even afraid. Other things bring us a certain measure of anticipation and even excitement. Some have the capacity to do all of the above mentioned things. Back in 1999 I never thought that, following my forty-ninth birthday I would be flipping burgers at McDonald's. Sure enough, there I was working the "backline" as it's called as the grill man. At times it was hectic and at times it was pretty sedate. But it was work. And I was getting paid and making a living to go along with my "weekend" ministry with the Berea…  ( Click for more )

According to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition, a "moron" is a "person having an I. Q. of 50-69 and judged incapable of developing beyond a mental age of 8-12," or, "any stupid person or a person lacking in good judgment." I had not met too many people who possessed both of those attributes until the other day. The odd thing is, I didn't spend all that much time with the person. We met on an elevator headed to the same floor of the building. What happened from there is the stuff of legends.

My wife had a doctor's appointment last…  ( Click for more )

When we first moved to the Georgetown area over two and a half years ago I found a ready golf partner in Donald Clark. Since that time Don and I have played quite a bit of golf together and I have watched him grow as a golfer. Golf has a lot to do with getting through certain barriers. The first is just being able to hit the ball solidly. The second is being able to hit it straight, or at least in the general direction you want it to go whether it fades or draws to get there. The third is getting rid of three putt greens. Most golfers just want to play regularly in the 90s and breaking…  ( Click for more )

Almost every evening my wife and I take a walk. The circuit we walk is completely contained within our subdivision and covers two and one tenth miles in length. We walk this in about thirty-five minutes which is pretty brisk for her considering she isn't quite five feet two inches tall. We have been doing this since the spring of the year and it is truly showing in both our overall health and weight. She hardly ever misses her evening walk while I sometimes fudge and don't go. Some evenings I mow the yard or have had a big day on the golf course and have already walked…  ( Click for more )

Back in the mid to late ‘90s I had a regular group of golfers that I used to play with every Tuesday morning at 7:00 at the Southwind Golf Course in nearby Winchester, KY. We would tee off promptly at 7:00 and be done by around 10:00 most mornings. The fellows that I played with were a joy with which to play. They were all older than me and reasonably good golfers who would venture into the low 70s for a round or two but usually played in the 80s. It was fun because we would enjoy each other’s company and share about our families and our work or, if applicable, retirement. …  ( Click for more )

Late this past Saturday morning I was making my way back to Georgetown from Minorsville where I had been making a few calls. I had decided to squeeze one more in before lunch so I was going the long way into Georgetown so I could go by the bowling alley in hopes of catching up to one of our prospect families which has a son in a Saturday morning bowling league. I left Minorsville at about 11:10 and by 11:15 I was just south of Stamping Ground on State Route 227 when I came upon a procession of cars moving very slowly.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"…  ( Click for more )

2005 may go down as one of “those” years in sports. A major sports figure currently playing may be indicted by a federal grand jury. Barry Bonds is under investigation by a federal grand jury and his former trainer, Greg Williams, refuses to testify to the grand jury. Maurice Clarett, just four years removed from a NCAA national football championship, is now in jail facing multiple charges from robbery to consorting with known gangsters. Hugh Landis has been stripped of his Tour de France title due to doping charges.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"…  ( Click for more )

There was a very quiet birthday last week. A thirty-first birthday. There was no fanfare. There was no celebration. On August 9,1975 the New Orleans Superdome opened to a sellout crowd of 72,000 people. It opened as the most impressive structure of its day. It dwarfed the Astrodome in Houston and quickly became the favored site for such events as Super Bowls and NCAA Basketball Final Fours. In fact, to be part of a live event at the Superdome carried a great deal of weight.

Last year when it turned thirty the Superdome was housing a live event of a different sort. This modern…  ( Click for more )

Rhythm. It’s that funny word made up of six consonants that determines the flow of music. Without rhythm one person might be able to sing a song, but add a couple more people and you would probably have a song more like alley cats yowling from the back fence. Rhythm is what makes a melody come to life and harmony come together. It is the very essence of music for it is that which primitive man could determine just by tapping a foot or slapping his side.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Professional athletes will…  ( Click for more )

Wednesday evening my youngest son, Sean, and I celebrated our birthdays in our own little tradition. We went to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. With his birthday being on August 8 and mine on August 10 we chose August 9 as the logical night for the game. We were both very happy that we did. Not only did we get to see a wonderful game but we also hit one of those special giveaways that the Reds have every so often. We also hit a break as we had driven through a downpour on the way north to the game, but it never rained a drop for the game.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =…  ( Click for more )

Tiger Woods is a golfer of destiny. Now I am going to put something in print that I never thought I would. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time. He is the One. That is a difficult thing for me to do. I was raised in South Central Ohio just down the road from Columbus and the Ohio State University. I was raised marveling at a chubby kid from Columbus, the son of a pharmacist, who stood the world on its ear at OSU as a golfer in the late fifties and early sixties. I was raised idolizing Jack Nicklaus.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"…  ( Click for more )

I don't know who started the standard of the first weekend in August being the best time for a family to have a reunion, but it seems that there are many that do. My wife's family is one of those. Some forty plus years ago the extended family got the idea of returning to the area where all these families used to live. It is a region called Big Ridge and the focal point of the region is the old Antioch Christian Church. All the families that used to populate the area; the Midkiffs, the Smiths, the McDaniels, the Humphries, the Fridleys, the Hiltons (I probably left one…  ( Click for more )

August has been a big month for my family. Years ago, when we had the custom of trading small gifts with relatives, August was the reason we stopped. There were too many birthdays mounting in August so our family quit giving gifts for each extended family member's birthday. That was just my own family. Then I married and August got even more interesting. Counting birthdays and anniversaries August is a definite "avoid-buying-gifts-at-all-costs" type of month. Let me fill you in.

On August 1 there are the birthdays of my nephews Scott Snyder (my side) and Wade Johnson…  ( Click for more )