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5/25/2003 ONE MAN'S TRASH... I like to do projects around the house in my spare time. Paint a wall, refinish a table, replace an old light fixture or some such thing. I suppose it's a carryover from my days in the house-building business, but more likely it's to keep me from spending too much time in front of the television at night. ... 5/18/2003 NOT A GAMBLING MAN Let me say right up front, I don't gamble. Ever since I sat down for a poker game with some firemen buddies 30 years ago and left the table 25 minutes later $300 poorer, I've sworn off gambling as a no-win situation. ... |
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5/11/2003 ANOTHER TASK CROSSED OFF OF THE 'TO DO' LIST One of the things on my "to-do" list this spring was to fix the screen door on the front porch. The hinge had broken in November and I had taken the door down to fix it. ... |
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5/4/2003 KICKING THE HABIT Now that spring has finally arrived I thought it would be a perfect chance to try a more Spartan lifestyle for a change. After being snowed in all winter with nothing to do but watch television until my IQ dropped 10 points, I figured the change in weather might be a good time for a change in lifestyle too. ... |
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4/27/2003 ONE OF LIFE'S LESSONS When Kathy got a midnight call from her sister she knew it wasn't good news. Good news only comes during the day. ... |
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4/20/2003 TREASURE HUNTING One of the reasons I bought an old house to renovate was because of the "Antiques Roadshow." This is the hit show on Public Broadcasting - hard to believe that PBS could have a hit show, isn't it?- where people bring in whatever junk they find in their attic or garage and some highbrow appraiser will tell them it's an enormously rare antique worth $400,000. ... |
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4/13/2003 OBITUARIES ONLY TELL PART OF THE STORY Below the surface there is much more to the life ... |
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4/6/2003 SOMETIMES A HUG IS ALL IT TAKES Men's conferences are all the rage now. Ever since Promise Keepers made it okay for men to be in church and God forbid, even be emotional, it seems every weekend there is some sort of conference being offered just for men. ... |
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3/30/2003 IRAQ IS 'JUST' WAR Like most Americans, I have been glued to the television set ever since President Bush announced he had ordered our troops into Iraq. ... |
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3/23/2003 A ROMANTIC GETAWAY When I canceled my romantic getaway with Kathy last week so I could spend the time cutting wood, I thought she would never speak to me again. But I'm out of the dog house now thanks to President Bush. That's right George W. Bush himself. ... |
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3/16/2003 CHOOSING BETWEEN WIFE AND FREE WOOD I thought this winter would never end. Every time the temperature got above freezing and we dared hope spring was coming, sure enough, another arctic blast would come rolling in and I'd spend the next three days in the backyard with the log splitter to keep my house warm. ... |
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3/9/2003 HELPING NEIGHBORS IN THEIR TIMES OF NEED It's been one tough winter. According to the National Weather Service, the average temperature has been below freezing nearly every day since November. But on the bright side I haven't had to worry about paying outrageous heating bills like most people. That's because I have been heating our house totally with wood this year. ... |
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3/2/2003 TOO OLD FOR COMPUTERS? Remember three years ago when everyone was worried about Y2K? On New Year's day, 2000, every computer in the country was going to crash because they were all programmed with two-digit dates. ... |
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2/23/2003 PICKING AN EXCUSE FOR FORGETTING VALENTINE'S DAY I knew something was wrong Saturday morning when I heard Kathy banging dishes and cabinet doors well before daybreak. ... |
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2/16/2003 TO GAMBLE....OR NOT GAMBLE It looks like the folks in the Shelby County village of Botkins have got themselves into a bit of a moral dilemma. ... |
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2/9/2003 LOTTERY MONEY SHOULD BE REJECTED BY CHURCHES Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? After all, He made kangaroos, didn't He? ... |
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2/2/2003 'REALITY' TELEVISION GOOD NETWORKS NOT VIEWERS Several years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a movie called "Running Man." It was a typical action movie with a simplistic plot, wooden acting and far too much violence, but it had one quality that made it an unforgettable movie. It rightly predicted the direction that entertainment would take. ... |
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1/19/2003 RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHAT? This week is the thirtieth anniversary of the legalization of abortion. Rather than getting into a discussion of the morality of the issue - which the past 30 years have shown does little to convince either side to reconsider their views, I would like to talk about the logic of abortion. ... |
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1/12/2003 FAST FOOD GENERATION Maybe it's the weather this time of year, but I've been thinking a lot about my years growing up. Some of my best memories were those Saturday trips to the Northville Cider Mill in October. ... |
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1/5/2003 FINANCIAL ADVICE Now that Christmas is past and all we have to do is worry about how we are going to pay for everything we bought last month, I thought it was a good time to give some practical financial advice. ... |
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12/29/2002 SOMETIMES IT REALLY IS THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS Some people are really good at buying just what people want for Christmas. Maybe it's because they listen to the hints people drop all year, like "that colors looks good on me," or "I've always liked that sweater," or even something so obvious as "be sure to buy this for me at Christmas." ... |
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12/22/2002 SMALL PROBLEMS ARE JUST THAT.....SMALL I hate this time of year. It's too cold, too cloudy and too depressing. Of course, living in a construction site doesn't help my mood much either. ... |
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12/15/2002 PHONE SOLICITORS Like most people, I hate getting calls from phone solicitors. ... |
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12/8/2002 IN MY DAY..... Now that the temperature has gotten colder than a kiss from my old maid aunt Mary, where are all those scientists who were warning us about global warming? My guess is they're all on vacation in Florida. ... |
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12/1/2002 REALITY V/S REALITY TV Well, Americans can finally sleep at night. The Bachelor picked his bride. ... |
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11/24/2002 CATHOLICISM CONTINUES TO DRAW CONVERTS Now that the Catholic bishops have overwhelmingly approved a policy for handling sexual abuse by priests - a policy I might add that has the approval of Rome - one fact has become clear. In spite of pressure from all sorts of reform groups, the church is not about to make any radical changes. ... |
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11/17/2002 CATHOLIC CHURCH TALKS ABOUT POSSIBLE REFORM The Catholic Church is back in the news this past week. Bishops met in Washington to finalize their policy on sexual abuse by priests. As heinous as these crimes were, from what I can tell, the overriding concern of Rome is the future of the church - or at least the power structure in the church. ... |
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11/10/2002 GOOD SAMARITAN BRINGS SOME WARMTH TO WINTER We've got heat! Just over a week ago we fired up our wood furnace. Now for the first time since we moved into our remodeling project 18 months ago, we actually have real heat in every room in the house. And I owe it all to Don. ... |
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11/3/2002 A DIET IS ABOUT FORGIVENESS Most people call Kathy a saint for living through our construction project these past 18 months. And I agree with them. I can't think of another woman who would use a shovel and shop vacuum to clean the living room and never once complain. ... |
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10/27/2002 MISS AMERICA PAGEANT GETS SMART I've been called a lot of things in my life, but being a feminist was never one of them. Feminists believe women have been oppressed by men for centuries, but most of the women I know can pretty well humiliate any man in town with just a look. Feminists, especially in the church, want women to have more authority, but most all the churches I know are already run by women. And feminists talk about how men need to be in touch with their feminine side. But I don't even know what it is, ... |
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10/20/2002 CAN TECHNOLOGY GO TOO FAR? I remember when my college roommate showed up for the freshman term with what was then cutting-edge technology for the information age - an electric typewriter. I knew right then that I wouldn't like him. Anyone who would spend the ungodly sum of $79 just to do to homework was just showing off for the professor. ... |
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10/13/2002 YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD TO TRY SOMETHING NEW I turned 54 last summer. Time to retire, put out to pasture, over-the-hill. Until recently I used to think that, and rightly so. Most of the people my age spend the majority of their time planning for retirement. ... |
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10/6/2002 I'M THE ARTIST IN OUR RELATIONSHIP When I started remodeling our 123-year-old house last year Kathy and I had an agreement - an unspoken understanding actually. I would do the designing of the house. ... |
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9/29/2002 HE TOOK A LIFE, NOW HE FEELS LIKE HE OWES A LIFE BACK "I took a life. Now I feel I owe my life back." That's what John Beason says today, but that wasn't always his attitude. ... |
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9/22/2002 TO SUCCEED THE CHANGE MUST BE RADICAL By now most readers are aware that Kathy and I are planning to open our home to Christian men coming out of prison. But you may not know why. Well, one of the reasons was because of what we saw at Marion Correctional Institution. ...
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