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One of the things that I enjoy about Myrtle Beach is, of course, the beach. Each morning while there I took the opportunity to go down to the beach with a couple of those mornings giving me the chance to take a walk. Even though the temperatures were in the thirties most mornings it was still pleasant and enjoyable. How can a walk in that beautiful a setting not be enjoyable with the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean?

As I would take these walks I would also notice the various footprints. There were a number of different shoe tread designs along with several sizes of dog prints.…  ( Click for more )

It is good to be back. Bet you didn't even miss me. Vacation time or retreat time that takes me away from the house also takes me away from the computer. That's right, I don't have a laptop or notebook or portable or whatever you would call it. I am stuck with one computer at one location and it stayed home while I was gone. I guess I'm just not up-to-date.

Speaking of up-to-date, while on the Hikes Point (Louisville, KY) Christian Church Golf Retreat with eleven of the nicest guys you would want to meet, one of the men was having some tire problems. Ed…  ( Click for more )

The last year we lived in Bellville, Ohio I had the privilege to write a sports column under the nom de plume of Da Wiffer. It gave me the opportunity to look into some sports matters a bit more deeply and ask questions that most sports aficionados don't ask. The year was 1991. One column that I wrote stood out that year because it made the natives angry.

The Cincinnati Reds were the reigning champions of baseball having swept the vaunted Oakland A's of "Bash Brothers" fame in four games. The Cleveland Indians had played possibly the best baseball of their careers…  ( Click for more )

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in God." Psalm 84:5 That little verse speaks volumes to me. As a golfer I have had to learn certain things which have, in turn, taught me about God. You might think that a tad strange that a sport can teach you about the heavenly Father, but it can. Living life for the Lord seems to be very difficult. Hitting a golf ball where you want it to go is the most difficult thing for me to do in sports. Let me explain.

Like most golfers I started playing golf having no training whatsoever. No one else in my immediate family ever played the…  ( Click for more )

Golf has produced some rather interesting swings over the years. Some are so buttery smooth as to invoke poetry. Others, well, let's just say that someone sneezing and chopping wood at the same time looks more coordinated. That little bit of commentary helps to explain why many golfers are referred to as "hackers." They literally look like they are hacking away at something rather than making what one would call a stroke.

Of all the ugly swings that worked Arnold Palmer has to be at the top of the list. When viewing Palmer's slashing jab at the ball one gets the feeling that…  ( Click for more )

In Cooperstown, New York, stands professional baseball's Hall of Fame. Enshrined within those hallowed halls are the immortals of the game of baseball; the best of the best. The all-time home run hitters, runs batted in men, stolen bases champions, strike out champions, most pitching wins all-time; you get the picture. There is something sadly missing. The all-time hits leader is absent.

Pete Rose is not a part of baseball's Hall of Fame. He has more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, yet, there is no place for him in the Hall of Fame. He won multiple batting titles…  ( Click for more )

Sibling spats are nothing new. They have been going on since the dawn of time. Recently, a mother of three was talking with me about her difficulty in controlling her children's internal wars. After talking with her I began to remember the skirmishes that my late sister, Peggy, and I used to get into. We had some doozies, but one in particular stands out.

I was all of ten years of age. My family and I were heavily involved in the church life of the Jeffersonville Church of Christ in Jeffersonville, Ohio. As it usually happened, Sundays were a chore for my parents as it was…  ( Click for more )

Amazingly, one of the farthest points east in the continental United States is the small town of Lubec, Maine. Lubec has a few hundred residents and yet is well known in a number of circles. Lubec is home to one of the most famous lighthouses in the United States. The name of that light is what seems so odd considering the location of Lubec. The light is called the West Quoddy Head Light.

The current lighthouse was not erected until 1858. A rubblestone lighthouse existed there from 1808 until that time. It was authorized by President Thomas Jefferson as a need was expressed…  ( Click for more )

When I first took up the sport of golf I was given an old set of clubs by one of the elders of the Bainbridge (OH) Church of Christ. The parsonage for the church bordered on an open field which ultimately became my driving range. However, I didn't have enough golf balls to be able to stand there and hit them for any length of time before having to go looking for them.

It wasn't until we moved to the Wilmington, Ohio area that I had the opportunity really hit golf balls. I played a round of golf at a local golf course and, during that round, found close to fifty balls that golfers…  ( Click for more )

When Eldrick "Tiger" Woods came along people said there would never be another one like him. Power, precision and a certain youthful zest made him appealing. Then came William Tryon. Tryon was a precocious teenager who took the golf world by storm as he was seemingly being another Tiger. Everyone thought that he would be the next Tiger and were predicting great things.

If you don't recognize William Tryon you may recognize Ty Tryon. Ty is William's nickname hung on him by a doting father in recognition of the otherworldy character made famous in Caddyshack by Chevy Chase.…  ( Click for more )

Saturday evening, February 12, was the annual Valentine's Day Banquet for our church on the campus of Georgetown College. This fine event is run every year by Shari Coleman who does an outstanding job of pulling everything together. Right before the banquet I was talking with her when she said, "By the way, Dad said to tell Tom if he asks how I am doing, tell him, 'very well,' for me. And tell him I do tell a lie from time to time."

"Dad" is Archie Burchfield. He and his lovely wife Betty were unable to be at the banquet. Archie was battling cancer at the time. Yesterday…  ( Click for more )

Golf is a fickle mistress. She doesn't always allow you to do the same thing twice in the same month let alone in the same round. Beautiful high arching shots that land on the green, as Sam Snead once said, "as soft as a butterfly with sore feet" can suddenly become low, twisting line drives that rocket into the fields of bushes that the butterflies inhabit.

That sure putting stroke which canned putt after putt to save par after a not-so-brilliant chip suddenly leaves you eight feet short on a five foot putt. It's called the "yips," but no one says, "Yippee," when they get them.…  ( Click for more )

I recently took over our dining room table. It is now covered with a thousand pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle, a rather beautiful montage of lighthouse illustrations and facts, was given me by a family at the Berea Christian Church across from the Kentucky Horsepark here in the heart of the Bluegrass. I have just now gotten it out to assemble it as a result of some cleaning my wife did. She found it.

I have been collecting lighthouses for some time now and the puzzle has a number of the lighthouses I have in my collection illustrated within it. The border is a row of…  ( Click for more )

This past week has been a difficult one for me. An upper respiratory infection moved in and took over. It sapped my strength leaving me so weak that I was constantly falling asleep. I couldn't concentrate enough to write this column nor stay awake long enough to do so. Fits of incessant coughing also got the best of me making me exhausted from sometimes fifteen minutes of continual coughing.

I was not able to get into a doctor's office until Friday so, for three days, I bore the brunt of the infection and struggled to make a go of it. My wife's birthday was Thursday evening…  ( Click for more )

We use them on an almost daily basis. They power many infrequently used items and also some that are constanly used. They are batteries. Yeah, the good ole A, AA, AAA, B, C, D and 9 volt. We have them in games, pda's, phones; you name it, batteries power it. Batteries were, for the longest time acredited to the work of Alessandro Volta. Hence the term, "volt", to describe their power.

However, less than fifty years ago a clay jar some five inches high and three inches across began to change our previously held historical view of the battery. A group of clay jars made by…  ( Click for more )

The envelope is old and brown. It is nothing more than a regular number 10 (I think that's right) envelope. My Great Grandmother Swiss had it first, then my Grandmother Kelly (her daughter), then my Dad and now me. I received it when we moved Mom and Dad to Florida in January, 1998. I did not expect to be using the envelope's contents as quickly as I did when Dad passed it on to me.

Dad gave it to me one day in December of 1997. The postmark on the envelope is December 6, 1948. The address, which will seem strange in this day of exact addresses and even nine digit zip codes,…  ( Click for more )

There are professional golfers and then there are those rare men who play golf for a living. The professional golfers are those for whom the game is not a job. It is their identity. Some years ago I talked with Hubert Green in an airport in Columbus, Ohio as he was coming in for the Memorial Tournament at Jack's place in Dublin. (for those who do not watch golf, that's Muirfield Village Golf Club designed by Jack Nicklaus)

Hubert Green told me that many golfers would not be able to do much of anything else if there were not golf in their lives. Some dabble in course design,…  ( Click for more )

"How hard can it be?" I heard a young man ask that of three comrades one afternoon in Upstate New York as they were preparing to go off the high dive at a local swimming pool. How hard indeed? I remember asking the same thing on a number of occasions. One of them involved water. For some reason hard and water just never seem to go together.

I watched as the one young man climbed the tower to the high dive some twelve feet above the level of the decking for the pool. "You have to do a dive," shouted one of his buddies. Again came the reply, "No problem. How hard can it be?"…  ( Click for more )

Nestled in the bowels of the state of Pennsylvania, Northeast of Pittsburgh, is a quiet little town of some six thousand or so residents. When you enter the town you are greeted by an enormous billboard that describes the town's most famous resident. When you read this billboard you realize that you are in that place where he lives. The name of the town is Punxsutawney. The celebrety of note? None other than Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog.

Today is Groundhog Day, one of my favorite days. Each year I anxiously await this day to see if Phil is going to come out of his hole…  ( Click for more )

"Size matters." We hear that quite often. Also, "dynamite comes in small packages." In the world of animals the size adage seems to hold true. A small cat can scratch you very badly. But a big cat can literally eat you. The small lizards that scamper all over the houses in the south are totally harmless. The big boys that occupy the streams, ponds and swamps of the south; well, let's just say people can disappear if they choose the wrong swimming hole.

From the plodding elephant to the tank-like rhinoceros to the snow white polar bear, size does carry its own benefits in…  ( Click for more )

"The proof is in the pudding." That old saying has been around for a long time. I'm told it originated with someone who was getting ready to make some pudding and had some rather interesting ingredients which, by themselves, were not too delectible. The cook told the worry warts not to be concerned because, well, you get the picture.

How often have we set out to do something and tried to do it with materials that just don't seem suited for the task? Naysayers come out of the woodwork and, even though we are sure what we are doing is being done right with the necessary materials,…  ( Click for more )

We have the Sumerians to thank for being the first to record their language for writing purposes. The nod goes to Johann Gutenberg for the first movable type printing press. The first mechanical copier, known as a book press, was invented by none other than James Watt of modern steam engine fame. However, the name you need to know is Chester Carlson.

For every one of you who crank out a newsletter, do a family Christmas letter or have to make multiple copies of handouts, you would be at a loss to do so without Chester Carlson. He is the father of xerography. Photocopying.…  ( Click for more )

I started following professional sports before I started public school. I have personally witnessed a number of amazing feats and fascinating happenings. I saw the Russian defeat of the American Olympic basketball team when it took three clock resets to accomplish it. I saw Mark McGwire hit number 62, Cal Ripken Jr. play in number 2,131.

I have also seen some things that just baffle the mind and make one ask oneself, "Did I just see that?" Jim Marshall's return of a fumble for the Minnesota Vikings against the San Francisco 49ers the wrong way stands out. As does the infamous…  ( Click for more )

I can hardly believe it has been twenty years. This date has long been etched in my memory banks as one of the more frustrating ones in my life. Some days do that. They burn deeply into our memories and do not allow us to forget them. Some are bad memories while others are good ones. This one is neither. This one is just frustrating.

I was working with the Empire State Evangelizing Association, Syracuse, New York in one of their church plants in Cortland. We had been there for almost five years and financially my family and I were struggling. Our quick remark to each other…  ( Click for more )