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Before Christmas I remember watching a commercial on television about a company that offered something wireless. I can't remember right off hand what the product was but I do remember that one of the key figures in the advertisement was a marionette. A marionette is a puppet that is controlled by a gaggle of strings held aloft of the puppet and manipulated so as to make the puppet's extremities move like those of a human. The gist of the ad was that the puppet was impressed by the concept of being wireless and imagined himself as such.

It is from the marionette that…  ( Click for more )

We have reached a time in our society where old is not so much an age issue as it is a technology issue. Granted people still celebrate birthdays which means that each year a person is getting older. However, their aging factor is compared against that of the technology around them. Let me use myself to illustrate. This year I will be fifty-six years old. In some places I am considered a Senior Citizen. In others I am still almost a decade away from being able to merit "the breaks" of advancing age. I rub elbows with people twenty and even thirty years my senior who wish they…  ( Click for more )

I love football. No, not soccer. And not rugby or that stuff they play with Australian rules that is a combination of rugby and football without the pads. I love football, American style. Good old rock 'em, sock 'em, smash mouth football. Especially when the games are as important as they are now where the National Football League is playing its Super Bowl tournament to find who will compete in Super Bowl XL. However, my enjoyment of the games this past weekend was marred. Let me explain.

Because of the physical aspect and timing of football there are abundant…  ( Click for more )

Sidekicks. Maybe you remember them. They used to be fairly common sights. From prime time to Saturday mornings they were readily seen. Even the comics had their fair share of them. Sidekicks. That team of two that worked like one, thought like one and acted like one. Not sure just exactly what I'm talking about? Then take this quick little quiz. Complete the phrase: Laurel and ___________; Rocky and ___________; Batman and ___________. Now do you remember sidekicks?

Funnymen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy brought physical comedy to new levels. You always got the…  ( Click for more )

Price. What something costs to have it. A local business here in the Bluegrass uses the word price in all its advertising claiming that, "Price sells cars." Of course it does. All things being equal who wouldn't want the product with the lower price? Ah, but there's the rub. There are those who would. There are those who are so product name conscious that price means nothing in choosing the right article for use. It's the name of the brand on the object that means everything.

I have played a lot of golf with guys who buy high-priced golf equipment. Many…  ( Click for more )

This past Monday morning as I was heading up to the local coffee house, the Lock 'N Key, I took my usual route. I headed toward the downtown area of Georgetown by turning left onto Champion Way and then out to U. S. 62. Something odd happened as I got to the junction of Champion Way and 62. I was following a school bus which stopped at the light and let a car go by before turning right. As I was approaching the traffic signal I noticed that the light was still red and that nothing at all was coming from the left on 62. I happened to glance in my rearview mirror and saw a…  ( Click for more )

Back in professional golf's fledgling years there were no big money tournaments. Instead there were exhibitions in which a small purse was offered to try to entice the elite of golf to come and participate. In fact, the practice was to invite (from which the term "invitational tournament" arises) those golfers that were felt to be the best players of the day. Such was the subject of the movie, "Bagger Vance," which pit Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen and the fictional Rannulph Junah against each other for ten thousand dollars.

However, as such exhibitions grew in popularity tournaments…  ( Click for more )

New Years are all about resolutions. That's what a friend of mine concluded as we were talking the other day. His succinct statement was something along the lines of, "Yep, everybody makes their resolutions and then nobody follows them." I guess the appropriate question to raise here is to ask how many of you have ever made a resolution and not kept it? Raise your hands. C'mon, Frank, you know you blew last year's resolution in the first day. For some reason, resolutions are a lot like promises for many people; they just simply aren't kept.

Ever wonder…  ( Click for more )

The Heisman Trophy Award was handed out recently with the naming of Reggie Bush of the University of Southern California as the recipient. This was one of the more hotly contested trophies in years with three players running neck and neck. Bush's play in the last few games of the year kicked him over the top in most sports writers' minds. Odd thing is that winning the Heisman doesn't always mean superstardom in the pro ranks. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that advises the pro football teams to look elsewhere for their stars of tomorrow.

True, recently…  ( Click for more )

Christmas draws ever the closer to us. I try not to show too much excitement about Christmas but I can't help it. I love the holidays, but I especially love Christmas. I think anyone who has been through the rigors of having children, or even just one child, can somehow understand the wonder of that very special night. My oldest child is a male. He was born at 5:59 P.M. on December 13. It was dark out at that time. I remember going to the lobby to call my parents and seeing all the lights outside the hospital there in Huntington, West Virginia.

Our doctor told us that…  ( Click for more )

As I was sitting on the floor last night watching my little one year old granddaughter examining the lights on the Christmas tree I couldn't help but be amazed at the world of wonder that is hers and her brother now. They've been through the struggling infant "feed me, change me, hold me" routine. Now they are beginning to awaken to the many things that surround them in their world. Instead of basic instincts of comfort they now have questions of discovery.

My wife and I got to have the kids for two evenings this week. Tuesday night was especially important to me…  ( Click for more )

When I was a kid growing up I remember watching the cartoons on Saturday mornings. Of course, being older I remember such antiquated heroes as Crusader Rabbit. Popeye and his gang were there in their older drawn versions as well as others such as Bugs Bunny before Mel Blanc got a hold of his voice. They were all pretty consistent with the fare of the day. Then there were those two little breaths of fresh air. Those two little cute chipmunks with the excuse me air to them. Then there was Chip 'n Dale.

They would do their thing and get caught in all sort of difficult scrapes,…  ( Click for more )

With only three weeks left in the season the National Football League is moving closer to Super Bowl Forty. A that time they will crown the champion football team of the NFL. The NFL Champion. There's an odd quirk that goes with not just professional football but collegiate football as well. And it all centers around two states; Wisconsin and Ohio. The quirk deals with the first teams to do some rather important things. It deals with being champions.

The NFL crowned its first ever champion football team in 1929. The Green Bay Packers from Green Bay Wisconsin won the…  ( Click for more )

In thirty-five years of ministry I cannot recall more than a few times that I was ever really sick enough to not be able to preach or at least function in the office. I imagine that I could count them on one hand. However, I have had some rather freakish occurrences that have left me immobilized for brief periods of time; things like a ruptured esophagus, severe nose bleeds and the threat of osteomyelitis (not sure of that spelling) from a softball shin bruise. So imagine my displeasure when I awoke yesterday morning with the "bug."

I had a virus. You know what viruses are,…  ( Click for more )

I try to be a nice guy. When my kids were growing up I would play the nice guy for them a lot of times. But I am also a fairly competitive guy, too. The problem is balancing competitive and nice. Sometimes you get to be both. The biggest thing is to not let the competitive side get in the way of the being nice side. Confused? Let me be blunt then. If you're going to win at the games you play, don't be obnoxious. Let's face it; obnoxious is not nice.

A few weeks ago a friend and I had planned a round of golf when we found out we would be joined by my friend's…  ( Click for more )

If you ever get the chance to make it to Stamping Ground, Kentucky, be sure to take in one of Central Kentucky's finest little establishments. Melissa's Country Cooking, as far as I know, is the only restaurant in Stamping Ground, but, as Andy Griffith would say, "It's a good'n." It's located on Main Street in the first floor of the Ruritan Building on the right as you head north out of town. If you're fortunate you may get to meet the same cherubic presence I did just recently. You may get to meet Jordan Hopkins.

When I entered the restaurant the…  ( Click for more )

It was all cackles and sputters and tweets and hums and beeps. It's fascinating to listen to a dial up for the internet squawk at you incessantly for five minutes until you finally get the picture and hit cancel. Such is life in Dial Up City. It's tough; it's brutal; it's where I live. And it can be frustrating. It's a good thing that the monitor is located where it is on my desk. At my age and condition it is too much effort to lift a leg high enough to put a foot through the thing. Hopefully today will be different.

This is day three of "Dial Up…  ( Click for more )

The lights went down. Spotlights began to circle the area. Music started to swell. Then the announcer came on the P. A. system and said, "Time now for your University of Kentucky WILDCATS!!!" Welcome to college basketball at its finest. Welcome to Rupp Arena, home of the University of Kentucky Wildcats. There are not too many places on earth that you can watch a basketball game in any better a setting or with any more enthusiastic fans. Rupp has been home to the Wildcats now for thirty years.

Opposing teams that come in to play UK have consistently remarked that playing…  ( Click for more )

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 )