Karen and I were meeting up on a secret beauty mission. En route to the appointment, I talked to two other friends on my cell phone.

It will surprise no one who knows me that I seldom like change. It scares me. I feel so much more comfortable when things stay the same (not to be mistaken for “staying the course.”)

I believe in free speech. I practice it, encourage it, and attempt to enable others in enjoying it. I greatly desire the members of my council to be honest and to be frank — especially if they believe I am missing the mark. I hope that the members of my congregation always feel free to share any insight or criticism they may need to offer.

As a kid of 6, I thought Thanksgiving to be an odd little holiday. No one got any presents. No one got a cake with candles. There were no trees, no multi-colored lights, no Easter egg hunts, bunny rabbits, fireworks, reindeers, or even Santa.

In all my autumns on this little planet, I don’t remember one as pretty as this.

It began for us in early October when we drove through western North Carolina and Virginia, noting that the color had just begun in the higher reaches. When we returned home, this time through part of Tennessee, the sourwoods and dogwood proclaimed their importance in shades of burgundy.

The 1960s was nirvana for American liberalism. From the day John F. Kennedy inspired a new generation of Americans to the time that newest of the new generations, my generation, now entering our sixties, rebelled against the war in Vietnam, it was both the best and worst of times.

Years ago, when my friend’s Aunt Belle quit her husband, the news spread through their small Alabama town like kudzu growing on a hot summer day.

I have already voted in next Tuesday’s election. I will be in Illinois on Monday and Tuesday so I cast an absentee ballot.

All right, all you politicians out there, listen up. My vote counts – unless of course it’s in Florida. If you want it, you’ll have to earn it.

You never know when you accept an invitation to tell people about your hometown just what kind of questions they’ll lob your way.

No sooner had the ink dried on the column about my friend, Stevie, who rescues possums than I found myself joining her posse of possum preservers.

Dateline: Peachtree City — This morning, Tuesday, Oct. 24, armed gunmen robbed a bank in Peachtree City, Ga., during the noon hour. The men were armed with a shotgun and, possibly, a rifle. In the days ahead, all will become clear. There are certain facts, however, that are not in dispute.

There is a fine movie playing in local theaters, “Flags of Our Fathers,” based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley about the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in WWII. I wish all of you who can stand the realistic gruesome scenes of battle would see this movie about how a war has to be packaged and marketed to the American public. There is a priceless underlying message about heroes.

My friends, I will admit, are vain. That’s because chicks of a feather flock together.

Since you tend to group with similar personalities, I run with a pretty high maintenance bunch.

Now and then I catch myself writing such long, winding sentences that by the time I’ve stopped it with a period, I have to look at the beginning to see if both ends are relevant to each other. If not, I start hacking into them mercilessly. Few are the paragraphs that would not benefit from a thorough pruning. My best guide is how it sounds when read aloud.

When a leader falls, fails, or defects, it nearly always has a devastating effect on those who have served with them or under them.

Some things are predictable in this world. Each year you will have a birthday, unless you’re over 30. But, at the end of this month, a special event which only happens once every year will occur.

Isaac says he doesn’t remember anything at all about his mother. He was only 4 when she died. His older sisters, Abigail and Esther, were well aware of the worry surrounding their mom’s illness.

Five years ago 19 Islamist Jihadists murdered nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. In carrying out their “martyrdom missions,” the Jihadists joyously embraced death, confident that, obedient to Allah, paradise awaited them.

Just when you may have thought that you had heard everything possible, you haven’t heard about my blue-blooded-raised-in-society friend who rescues possums.

It’s been less than two weeks since Charles Roberts invaded a one-room Amish school house and shot 10 innocent little girls. The senseless brutality and violence has shocked and disgusted an entire nation.

Halloween is a special time for girls and boys everywhere. It’s a time for dressing up in your favorite costume to troll the neighbor in search of the one house that will have the best candy selection of all.

Just when I thought that Mama’s star had peaked and was beginning to fall, Reader’s Digest called.

“Is your mother really like what you write or do you embellish it?” asked a Hollywood screenwriter.

A Grandma’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. It had been too long, since July, since I had seen the grandbabies.

Found a couple of weeks without too many obligations in them, cleared out what were there, then got online to see which airline had the best sale.

I thought when my last of three sons left home for the U. S. Air Force several years ago that my involvement with schools, candy sales, and athletics was over. I would now be an “empty nester” with free time galore on my hands to read, or to fish, or just to putter about.

Retirement — even the word sounds relaxing. Most folks have definite ideas of what they’ll do when they reach those golden years. Some will retire just so they can open their own businesses, working harder and longer hours than before they retired – nope, not me.

Reasoning by historical analogy is dangerous. Georges Santayana notwithstanding, history does not repeat itself. Rather, the value of history is in what we learn from the past. Failures are as instructive as successes, if not more so.

Lately, I’ve found myself in mourning over the escalating loss of something that clearly distinguished the South from the rest of America’s regions for over 200 years.

Samuel, born a bit premature in 2003, recently turned 3. Along the way to that illustrious age he caught on to nearly every ability appropriate to his age. He crawled, although in a lopsided way, pulled himself up, took his first steps, learned his first words - mostly in what child development experts consider “normal” progression.