Several years ago, Clarence Harshaw was recovering from a car accident that broke his back in four places and left him unable to move his neck. He wasn't supposed to swim because of the strain it placed on him. But Harshaw wasn't thinking about his disability when one of his fishing companions, 8-year-old Shawn Copeland, fell into a lake during a fishing outing. He jumped into the lake and rescued Shawn, the son of a friend, and then drowned.

It has become trendy in church circles to gear at least a portion of a church’s ministry and outreach to popular films. The best known film that caused churches to salivate was, perhaps, Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ.”

The Wife asked me yesterday what I’d like for my birthday. Seems I have another one coming up next month. I only had to think for an instant and knew what I wanted more than anything else. Framing her face with my hands, I drew her close, kissing her lightly on her lips, and told her my desire: to have an entire day spent just with her.

From time to time, I try to pay respect to my former beloved literature professors like Nancy Story by reading classic literature.

John Kerry boasts that he volunteered to serve in Vietnam and volunteered for dangerous Swift Boat duty. But, as most things with John Kerry, the truth tells a different story.

The idea for an informal Golden Anniversary reception came from one I attended last May, when the daughters of Etta and Ro Schlobohm put on a really sweet celebration of their parents’ Big 5-0.

Attention, high school seniors! I know that this column is going to sound like an advertisement, but I think if one comes across a good deal that might help a great many people, one should share. Don’t you? So, here’s the pitch:

Like the Energizer Bunny, John Kerry keeps on running for president.

Some of us remember Kerry as responsible, more than any other individual, for the false image of Vietnam veterans as dysfunctional misfits, baby-killers.

I found romance on the Mississippi River. I found the kind of romance that tickles your soul and warms your heart.

I found the kind of spectacular romance that inspires Hallmark cards and movies and women spend years of dreams searching for.

Is it possible to celebrate an anniversary for its own sake? To invite friends and strangers alike to pay tribute to an institution, without giving credit to the two who hung on for the ride?

During Winter break, we ventured to the suburbs of Denver to visit my wife's sister and family. For five years, they have been trying to get us out there, and now that they may be moving back this way, we made a last minute decision to head West.

Arriving early for a breakfast appointment, I was sitting outside a restaurant recently reading a newspaper as I waited for my friend. A white-haired gentleman approached me and said, “I know you. You’re the fellow that writes the columns in the newspaper.”

How old do you have to be to run away from home? It’s been a long time since I’ve had to ask myself that question.

Can you name the war which so far has claimed over 6,000 American lives, more than half that number being innocent civilians?

Maybe now that the 2004 presidential election is far behind us, and the next presidential election is over two years away, maybe at last we can talk rationally and calmly about John Kerry.

Standing in a grocery store line, I smiled at the woman who looked up briefly as she placed her items on the conveyor belt.

When word came that Mama’s Aunt Stella had passed to her heavenly reward, there were no reminisces over her great accomplishments or stories of how her children had gathered tearfully around her death bed.

Cont. from last week: Potter D.X. Gordy -
There seemed to be a perception among students that they would somehow be handicapped by having no “family tradition” like D.X. Gordy and those craftsmen whose fathers had worked in clay. Gordy told them, “What you want and what I want is an American tradition. What the whole country needs is a good American tradition.”

Did you know that a serious attempt to impose a tax on non-profits, churches, and religious schools is underway in Coweta County?

Most every husband out there has one thing in common. No, not that. While the female in our society has evolved into a beautiful, sensitive, thinking human being, able to remember just about everything, her male counterpart has somehow de-evolved. Over the years we have become lumbering, uncouth Neanderthals that have developed the unique ability to forget just about anything at any given time. No matter how important the event - soccer games, birthdays, or anniversaries - you name it, there’s a Neanderthal out there that’s forgotten it.

Every parent’s nightmare is losing a child. I can only imagine the anguish in the two local families who lost teens to suicide recently.

“What is it with men?” Karen was asking on the phone.

I sighed heavily, the kind of expression that denotes aggravation. “Beats me,” I replied.

The man who came out on the porch of the rustic shed smiled tentatively. He was slight and tousled and somehow fragile-looking, and he wore bandages on several fingertips.

I am a people watcher. My wife and I care very deeply about the directions our society takes. This watching is not done from a vacuum or from an unfair critical position but from a perspective of love and the caring for the souls of mankind. It is a perspective that believes deeply in the dignity of man, and the worth of the individual. This perspective is spiritual in nature and formed in the Christian faith in its message here on earth that through Christ, you are loved, forgiven for the past, and somebody special.

What do these people have in common: Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, A. Phillip Randolph, Jackie Robinson, and Sen. Edward Brooke, III?

The Dad was rustled from his sleep by a phone call, one he never thought he’d receive. The call came from a hospital. The son they had dropped off at college alive and well not six months previously was now occupying a bed in the cold room of a hospital somewhere in Alabama. Suffering from a concussion and possibly a collapsed lung, the boy had asked his doctor in the emergency room to make the call right before he lost consciousness.

The simple things in life, I think, are missing. Things that served us well but the moment that technology magically appeared, we discarded them without a second thought and rushed on.

A woman walked into Peachtree City’s wondrous new library last week and went, as the saying goes, ballistic.

If you are a patron of that temple of knowledge you know that nearly everyone involved with its planning, construction, furnishing, and reshelving is proud of the long-awaited results. Its high tech glass and metal design combines well with old-timey comforts like a fireplace (albeit gas-fired), easy chairs, and tables at just the right height.

Sociologists are reporting they see a trend that a number of church goers are regularly attending multiple churches in the course of a week or month. According to the Jan. 16 edition of “Monday Morning Insight” (www.mmiblog.com), an article attributed to The New York Times stated that more Christians are picking and choosing among programs and ministries that satisfy their personal needs. These folks are fine with floating from church to church.

There are two radically contrasting views of ministry. One is articulated by the Apostle Paul: "I want it made clear that I've never gotten anything out of this for myself ... You don't even have to pay my expenses!”