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There are a lot of "odd but true" facts that float around. I guess they fit the category of things that make you go, "Huh?" They are those facts that follow the famous and the infamous that just don't seem to be real. They are as varied as can be but some have a common thread that tie them together. In the realm of happenstance they are the nuggets in the bottom of the pan after all the water is sloshed out. They run the gamut from the ridiculous to the unbelievable.

Every now and then political figures are linked in bizarre ways. One such instance involves a man who…  ( Click for more )

It might not necessarily be fun, but it is always interesting to watch something happen that really need not happen, but it happens anyway. I got rear-ended yesterday. Truly. Hit from behind by another motor vehicle. This is the third time I have had this happen to me. All three have been easily seen as they were about to happen. I have watched all three in my rearview mirror. It is a hopeless feeling. You can see it coming and there is not a thing you can do to keep it from happening.

I had some business to take care of in Berea and decided to go a little early and take…  ( Click for more )

Directions. Some people know how to give them, others don't. Some people know how to follow them, others don't. The odd thing is, depending on who raised you, you might be directionally challenged. How people find things and the thought processes they use to do so are as unique as thumbprints. There are those who logically process information and organize it in an orderly manner. Then there are those who simply can't seem to put two-and-two together and come up with anything but five; but they still get places.

In 1970 I had gone to Millersport, Ohio to spend…  ( Click for more )

Yesterday marked the thirtieth anniversary of a milestone for my wife and me. Thirty years ago yesterday we hosted our very first Kelley family Thanksgiving meal. Our oldest son, John, was almost two years old while Sean and Kara had not yet come along. We were ministering to the Church of Christ in Bainbridge, Ohio at that time and had all my family over to the parsonage for turkey dinner with all the trimmings. My Aunt Helen and Uncle Orlyn and their four kids all came as did my grandmother Kelley and, of course, my mom and dad.

That Thanksgiving had a pall cast across it.…  ( Click for more )

The first tee. Often what happens there affects the flow of the entire round. Did you get to the course in enough time to relax and get focused or did you walk into the pro shop and pay and then scurry to the first tee to hit and get going? Did you take time to establish your thinking about the course or is that the farthest thing from your mind? Did you just have an argument with your spouse or your boss or your kids or whoever? Let me share one of the more important things you can do on the first tee to help you have an enjoyable round.

Mark your ball. No, you're not…  ( Click for more )

Easter. Thanksgiving. Christmas. The three "holidays" that are recognized by the federal government and heavily celebrated by the church around the United States. I have given them in their chronological order as they fall in the calendar year. You know what each is for. Easter is the celebration of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The country received this celebration from the simple fact that it was brought with the early settlers who embraced the freedom to remember it in a new land..

Thanksgiving is an observance to celebrate the…  ( Click for more )

It was another thrilling victory for the Scarlet and Gray. Saturday afternoon my boys from Ohio State beat that "team from up north", as Woody Hayes used to put it. The Ohio State University Buckeyes football team won its rivalry match against the University of Michigan Wolverines. They did it despite two turnovers, two fumbled punt returns that resulted in negative yards and a shanked punt which traveled all of about fifteen yards. Michigan capitalized on those turnovers and the bad punt and scored on all three occasions. But the right team won!

Of course that depends on…  ( Click for more )

First things first. I have to correct a glaring mistake which I made yesterday. I wrote in my column yesterday that my wife and I were married on August 21, 1971. Even after what I thought to be a careful proofread I left us getting married on August 21, 1971. I was twenty-one years old plus ten days when Becky and I tied the proverbial wedded knot. My birthday is August 10. Thus, I became the husband of my wife on August 20, 1971, not August 21.

Funny how dates that we are just so sure we know without any problem get away from us. In 1975, Sherwood Smith was addressing…  ( Click for more )

I bought a watch the other day. Found one on sale at a local jewelry store. My old one had gotten to the place where having it on my wrist was an aggravation. The band had become so loose and stretched that it no longer stayed in place. It wobbled around on my wrist and drove me batty. The new one fits very well. Has a nice little double clasp which gives the band a very finished look instead of having one of those big clasps showing. The big thing is I now know what time it is.

What time is it? Just knowing the time isn't really the issue, is it? It's all about…  ( Click for more )

I woke up somewhat early this morning even for me. I got up at 4:00 and went to my dresser and, in the dark, grabbed my underwear and my flannel pants and headed for the shower. It was interesting when I grabbed my underwear for I could tell by the feel of the fabrics that the T-shirt I was grabbing was one of my older ones while the briefs were some of the new ones I had just purchased recently. I knew which article of clothing was new and which one was old just by the way they felt.

New things have that certain sensation to them. Bob Wright, whom I've known for almost…  ( Click for more )

You've been in the situation. You've been invited to someone's home for supper. You arrive just a little early so as not to offend the people who invited you. Then you ask to be excused to use their bathroom. Once you finish in the bathroom you feel it only proper to wash your hands. You now are faced with a dilemma . You have to establish which bar of soap you are supposed to use in washing your hands and then which towel you are to use to dry them. That's right. Which soap and towel are solely for decorations and which are meant to be used?

It's…  ( Click for more )

Sixteen steps. Every morning I face them. Sixteen steps. They are part of my regimen right when I get up. Sixteen steps. That's the number of steps I go up to get to my second floor shower and office every morning en route to doing this column. Sixteen steps. They seem to get steeper each day, especially when the weather turns a little cold and we stop keeping the house at 75 degrees. Sixteen steps. For an arthritis sufferer like me those sixteen steps can seem like an eternity.

Way back when steps were nothing. I can remember after basketball practice running the…  ( Click for more )

It was one of those rounds of golf. I was striking the ball as well as I could. Only had a couple of really glaring mistakes in full shots. My tee shots were big. My irons were crisp. My pitch shots were accurate. Ah, but the flat stick, the deal closer, the putter; it was asleep. I missed nine makeable birdie putts and gacked on a few par putts. The results were an unsatisfying 80 that left me feeling defeated. Granted, the two out-of-bounds shots on the same hole didn't bless my score any, but still…

Yeah, I know. That's just a game, Tom. I know that,…  ( Click for more )

Our congregation had its pig roast Sunday evening. It was a wonderful time. A Number of people from the community came in to share with us and we were able to get acquainted with them. One of our young couples brought their corn hole game with them and set it up in the parking lot. I now have a new name for frustration. Of the five games I played with a partner we won all but five of them. Funny thing was, I went through the first three games without ever getting one in the hole while everybody else, even the kids, had holed one.

Then I took my glasses off. The corn hole…  ( Click for more )

Pot shots. Yeah, pot shots. Those zingers that people fire about other people. Nasty little remarks that are intended to capsulize the very essence of another person in a pithy and neat mini-essay. Most of us have let them go from time to time. Most of us have been on both ends of them as well. Famous people seem prone to let them fly most often. Evidently they think theirs are more worthy of print and, therefore, more worthy of being spoken. As for the verbal abuse which almost has to elicit the phrase, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me," here…  ( Click for more )

Remember Pong? Hmmm. C'mon now, the goofy video game that basically played ping pong with a light square and two little flat light lines? It was produced by a company called Atari. It was the beginning of the video game craze and almost the end. When the video game market collapsed in 1983 Warner Communications sold Atari as did Mattel with its Intellivision line. Enter Nintendo. Ironically, right before the American video game market collapse, Nintendo had offered its Famicon game system to Atari for a licensing agreement. Atari said no go.

In 1985 Nintendo dressed…  ( Click for more )

For the past several weeks I have not been contributing my column. Our congregation has been feverishly working to implement some programs and provide information for those programs. Much of that work has fallen to me. In order to be able to craft the programs, do the information brochures and newsletters, organize some of the efforts related to them and still take care of the regular needs of the ministry while at the same time fulfilling family commitments, the column went on the back burner.

We are now getting closer to putting things to bed and finishing the tasks that we…  ( Click for more )

Brad Lidge. Remember that name. He almost became the goat of the National League Championship Series and is one of the anti-heroes of the now completed World Series. He is a relief pitcher for the Houston Astros and is one of the best in the league at closing. Closing is the ability of a relief pitcher to come into a game with his team ahead in the late innings and preserve the victory by shutting out the other team for the last one or two innings. Lidge is that type of pitcher.

However, in the NLCS, with the Astros ahead by two runs over the St. Louis Cardinals, Lidge failed…  ( Click for more )

Our church celebrated its annual "All-Church Birthday Party" last evening. There were twelve tables, each labeled for one of the months of the year, with a cake and decorations according to a theme for the month. Our people sat at the table of their birth month and ate cake and visited. It was a wonderful time of fellowship made all the sweeter for me by the appearance of one of the young men from the First Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Kentucky.

Clark Mullins showed up right at time for the festivities to begin. He now lives and works in Georgetown and decided to come…  ( Click for more )

Software problems!!! That's what the little blurb read right after I lost contact with American Online, my Internet Service Provider. For the last two days that is what I have been seeing as I have prepared to file my column. Very graciously they also automatically reconnected me. Then I got to go through the whole process of filing my column again, and again, and again, and again. Frustration sets in after the fifth time and on the sixth I finally gave up deciding that the column will wait for another day.

Welcome to another day...I hope. If this doesn't get to…  ( Click for more )

Rules are rules, part two. The U. S. Open Golf Championship is our national championship of golf. To win it is to gain instant credibility as a professional golfer. Golf has its rules. In the final round of the 1940 Open at Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, Ohio, Ed "Porky" Oliver decided to tee off early to beat the threat of rain. His score left him tied for first place with Gene Sarazen and the eventual playoff winner Lawson Little. Trouble is, it is illegal to tee off at a time other than your official tournament tee time so he was disqualified and his score didn't…  ( Click for more )

Whether we like it or not, rules are rules. There are always those who feel like rules were meant for the other person. Kind of a "you-obey-the-rules-so-I-don't-have-to" type of thing. It is like those of us who report the money we make to the government and faithfully pay taxes on it while others make money "under the table" and defraud the government of money in taxes that is rightfully due. Oops. I hope that didn't offend anybody. I mean, if you don't want to pay taxes that is your right; well not your right, but I guess it's okay to do it; well, really…  ( Click for more )

It doesn't take a lot to make a good round of golf go south. The smallest of influences can wreck what had promised to be a fine eighteen holes of golf. Whether you are an amateur or a pro makes no difference. Golf is golf; and what makes a round of golf stand out from another is the finest of lines. It may be the rhythm of play or the predictability of the circumstances of play. If something changes, even the littlest bit, what could have been a solid round of golf can turn to mush.

Several years ago I attended the old Bank One Classic at nearby Kearny Hill Golf Course.…  ( Click for more )

At one time football was my favorite sport to play. Obviously, at fifty-five years old and somewhat arthritic, to still participate in the sport would be somewhat foolish. However, I continue to enjoy watching the game and can still appreciate its nuances and science. Yes, I know it is brutish, but football presents the greatest dichotomy in sport. It combines speed and grace with raw power. It possesses the ability to leave one aghast at its brutality in one moment while bringing us to our feet with its beauty in the next.

When a play is called there are basically two options;…  ( Click for more )