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"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet." This little statement is probably familiar to most of us because of what it declares. No matter what you call something it is still going to have that certain air. A rose's scent is a dead giveaway that the flower you are smelling is a rose. How's this? "A skunk by any other name will still make you gack." How did that hit you? Good or bad, things are what they are. They are identifiable. They are plain. They are familiar enough that we have no doubt what they are; until it comes to the things of…  ( Click for more )

Tomorrow is coming. That phrase can be filled with hope or it can be filled with dread. What tomorrow holds can be something wonderful or it can be something horrible. Tomorrow can be a day of great joy or it can be a day of great sorrow. During this time of the year, tomorrow is a time to scratch an itch. Here in the Bluegrass the weather is trying to "fair up" and that usually means one thing; GOLF!!! Yep, you're seeing that right. All the games of Zilch, Hands and Feet and, yes, even Texas Hold'em are not quite as satisfying as being on the fairway (hopefully) hitting…  ( Click for more )

When I was a child playing Little League Baseball I can remember our coach at the end of each practice. He would take a ball and throw it as high and straight up in the air as he could for each one of us to catch. He was helping us to practice catching pop-ups. The pop-up is one of the trickiest plays to make in baseball. And now, thanks to the world wide web, it has become one of the trickiest plays to make while online.

Pop-ups are an aggrevation. You do know what a pop-up is? It is one of those advertisements which suddenly intrudes right in the middle of your session…  ( Click for more )

Back in the early 80s my family and I got to be part of a church plant in upstate New York. We were called to the town of Cortland, about forty minutes south of Syracuse, to be the first on site minister and family for the Cortland Valley Church of Christ. The preliminary event to receiving the call to go there was a two week visit in early 1980. During that time I got to stay with a dear friend, Barton Howard, the former minister of my home church and the man who baptized me into Christ. I have a long history with his family as I used to be their babysitter while they were in…  ( Click for more )

My wife, Becky, is an amazing woman. The smartest thing I ever did, aside from accepting Christ as my Savior, was to marry her. My children agree. She recently turned sixty. She doesn't look it. She still has the glow of youth about her; at least that's the way I see her, and, again, my children agree along with the grandchildren. I decided that I wanted to throw her a great big celebration for her birthday and have people come that she wouldn't expect. Parties like that are a lot of work, but my children said they would help so we forged ahead with the plans.

The biggest…  ( Click for more )

Long trips are a mixed bag for me. Some are absolutely refreshing while others are a drain. Trips with my wife are wonderful. We always talk practically the whole way there and back. Trips by myself are the ones that can be a drag. Having to sit in a car for a long trip with just me can be taxing. I don't know how my wife does it.

There is a little mind game I play with myself when I am travelling by my lonesome. I will segment the trip into mileage bytes. For instance, I know how long it takes me to go from my home to Lexington or Cincinnati. I look over the trip I am…  ( Click for more )

Words always fascinate me. They can mean a number of things, all seemingly different, and, yet, oddly the same. One word that has interested me recently is the word, "terminal." While many of the applications refer to boundaries and beginning or end points, one refers to an assemblage of facilities for repair, maintenance and care of trains. As a former model railroader I had a terminal on my layout where I parked my engines and extra cars. It was representative of those units receiving care so they could continue to function as they were intended.

In the past few…  ( Click for more )

"Where did they all come from?" my wife asked as she looked out the back door at the scene in our back yard. I had called her to the door to see a flock of starlings that had landed in our back yard. It was quite amazing. They just suddenly appeared and almost completely turned the ground black with their bodies. I just happened to be near the back door when it happened or it would have come and gone without my wife or I noticing. But, back to my wife's question, "Where did they come from?" I responded, "Little eggs, I think."

Howard Cossell…  ( Click for more )

My oldest son is serving in Christian camp this week just a half hour down the road. He was the one asked to speak last night for the worship time for the campers so my wife and I went over to hear him speak. While there we met Gene and Pat White. They are originally from the North Central Ohio area as well as having served ministries in the Central Kentucky area. We know a lot of the same people.

And they knew Earl Swank. Earl Swank was from North Central Ohio and an Associate Minister at the Southland Christian Church near Lexington, Kentucky. He served there under Wayne…  ( Click for more )

This past Sunday was the 150th Anniversary of the Minorsville Christian Church. The congregation I have the rich privilege to serve is steeped in history and accomplishments which, though not monumental, are important. The ministers in the church's history are a wonderful group of men who have served their Lord with a certain measure of distinction. One of those who has served well has a rather distinct name.

Ivan Odor. The first time I ever read that name or heard it I chuckled. Ivan has not only served his Lord well he has raised sons who are currently serving their Lord…  ( Click for more )

The mirror in our bathroom has an interesting frame. Instead of being framed by something traditional like wood or metal, or not having any frame at all, it is framed by a two inch strip of beveled mirror. It makes for a rather striking appearance adding a nice touch to a room that is traditionally the second most used room in the house.

The other morning while standing near the mirror while dressing, I noticed something rather predictable on my white tee shirt. The narrow strip of beveled mirror frame had refracted the light from the bathroom window and made a rainbow effect…  ( Click for more )

Shingles. We all know what they are, right? They're those pieces of asphalt that are nailed to our roofs to keep the moisture out and protect the house. Shingles are good. They are our friends in that they provide a covering for us. I used to work with a roofer/sider and got a very up close and personal look at shingles. There were many days when my main job was to make sure that my boss did not run out of the shingles he needed to finish roofing the house on which we were working. That meant trips up and down the ladder sometimes for me carrying him his precious cargo. Shingles.…  ( Click for more )

Thursday evening, as I rushed through the house, I turned the TV on to check the action at the Memorial Golf Tournament. The Memorial is one of my favorite tournaments. It was begun by Jack Nicklaus on the Muirfield Village Golf Course in Dublin, Ohio just outside his home town of Columbus. I have had the privilege to not only attend the tournament in years past but also to cover it for a local newspaper in Bellville, Ohio while we were living there.

When the TV came on with the tournament I could here a noisy hum. I thought to myself, "ESPN must be using some of their old…  ( Click for more )

A week ago today my wife and I were walking on the beach at North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We like to hold hands. (As Professor Andy Dale used to say, that's one less free hand they can hit you with) As we walked the beach we held hands and waded in and out of the surf as the waves came in and lapped at the shoreline. Then we saw her.

She was walking rather briskly down the beach towards us. Her eyes were intently fixed on us. She was smiling as she came toward us. She stopped us there on the beach and told us that it was good to see an older couple walking and holding…  ( Click for more )

On December 3 of this year, Caleb Tony was returning home early in the morning. He was cutting across Sebree Road to Long Lick Road and his home in rural Scott County, Kentucky. As he got into a curve he felt his right front wheel catch the side of the pavement and then drop onto the deep shoulder of the road. He tried to steer his Ford pickup back onto the road but could not. He ran into the fence line between Sebree Road and the shallow creek which runs along side of it. His pickup tore out about fifty feet of fence before it started careening toward the creek and the possibility…  ( Click for more )

Yogi Berra is an American treasure. Born to a working class family in St. Louis, Missouri, he was raised right across the street from Joe Garagiola, who became his lifelong friend. At age thirteen he quit school with his parents' consent to start working in a shoe factory. He became an all-star catcher with the New York Yankees and was known as one of the best hitters ever to play the position. However, if you ask people today about Yogi Berra most of them probably would be surprised to know that he played baseball at all. They know him better for his quirky statements which…  ( Click for more )

Golf is a sport of precision. It is one of the few sports which requires the precise placement of a small spheroid slightly smaller than one and three quarters inches onto an area more than one hundred yards away. That is why golf is such an exasperating sport. We can kick a field goal, hit a fastball, shoot a basket, roll a strike and catch a fish just like the professional sportsmen do. However, to place a golf ball inside ten feet of the hole from one hundred yards out eight out of ten times is a therapy session waiting to happen. Add to that the uncertainty of the exact conditions…  ( Click for more )

Back in the late 60s (no, that's not the 1860s) I worked one summer for a local farmer. Jim Paisley owned a lot of acreage in Fayette County in several different locations on both side of I-71 south of my home town of Jeffersonville, Ohio. When I first started working for him was on weekends in the spring. He put me to work cutting ground in preparation for planting. My Saturdays were spent bouncing around on a tractor for about eight hours. It was fun and not exactly the most taxing thing I had ever done. I enjoyed it.

When summer came I was off the tractor and at Mr. Paisley's…  ( Click for more )

What's the biggest problem with taking a vacation? One has to return home to rest adequately. My lovely wife, Becky, and I were in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, over the Memorial Day weekend. We found out the hard way that one never wants to go to a beach resort town over a national holiday weekend. One cannot move about as freely as one would wish to do, due to the overcrowded streets. So much for the "one" stuff.

Who would have thought that, in a place called Myrtle BEACH, that would be the one place we could not easily access? Our first foray to find a beach left us in…  ( Click for more )

Let me just take a few more moments to continue with Jim Brown. Back in the late '90s I took a trip to Florida to see my mom and visit my nephews Todd and Darin and their families. I had promised Dad before he died that I would be sure to get down and see her at least a couple of times a year. I was good to my promise right up to the last month of her life in 2002. I didn't do it because I had promised Dad. I did it because I loved my Mom and because it gave me the chance to visit my nephews and my sister, Peggy, who always called me an only child. More on that some other time. …  ( Click for more )

Long have I been a fan of the Cleveland Browns footbal team. I was first drawn to their play back in 1957 when I was just starting the second grade. I had just been introduced to the sport of football by the guys I knew and asked my dad if I could watch the games with him on TV. He was only too glad to have a football buddy to join him while mom napped on the couch those Sunday afternoons. When it came time to watch the game of the week, we watched CBS, Channel 10, WBNS in Columbus, Ohio. They always showed the regional game. Back then that meant that they showed the Cleveland…  ( Click for more )

It was one of those moments that goes by so quickly. It was shown for just a few brief seconds. Probably most of the people watching did not even notice it if they glanced away from the television to grab the remote. But there it was for all who were watching to see. Karl Malone, the old warrior from basketball battles over the years, grabbed his sweats and stepped over some of the seats in the Los Angeles arena to greet some men wearing Army uniforms.

The Los Angeles Lakers had just beaten the Minnesota Timberwolves in game three of their best of seven series for the Western…  ( Click for more )

I can remember in high school the preparations for our senior class night way back in 1968. One of the categories that night was the "Most Popular" boy and girl. It's been thirty-six years but I believe they were Bobby "Goose" Thornberry and Krista Wagner. (Mike, Rod, Deb, Peggy...a little help here) Earlier in my high school days I had hoped that I would be popular. That disappeared quickly as I continually had to spell my last name. I was that anonymous.

Popularity plays an important part in our lives. We have the most popular TV shows we watch, cars we drive, restaurants…  ( Click for more )

Golf crowned its "No Tiger" champions this past weekend. Vijay Singh of Fiji won the FedEx Cup as the most prolific golfer of the year. However, the Tour Championship went to Sergio Garcia. Confused? Me too. It seems like sports can't just look at the person with the most wins and say that their the best even though they have beaten everybody else. They have to have a tournament; some sort of end-of-season spectacular to heighten the excitement of the sports lovers whom they think salivate for such things. Sadly, in some sports the end-of-year contest is almost laughable…  ( Click for more )