The school year was coming to an end and we freshmen had mastered the art of all tasks set before us. Mr. Jackson, our mentor, teacher, hero, and sometimes friend, had taught us well the arts of wood work, lawnmower repair, welding, and a thing or two about electricity. It was just another day to […]

There is nothing like a good road trip. The thrill of hitting the highway with no destination in mind is something like a rite of passage in America. Recently I met two young ladies who took a senior road trip to Tennessee. That sounds pretty tame, and that is exactly what they wanted their parents […]

Tomorrow, we will turn the page on the calendar and begin a new year. Funny, the year is new but I just don’t feel it. It may be a new year but my body reminds me that no matter how new the year, the equipment is still a 1960 model. Time seems to be accelerating […]

We cut our Christmas tree today.  Denise, my bride of 41 years, and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Springfields’ Christmas Tree farm. Even when we lived in Atlanta, we always made the trip back to Springfield’s to cut our tree. I always let our two children ride in the back of my old […]

I finished my master’s degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1987. In 2003, I finished my doctorate in education from the same. Along the way I earned all the hours for an Ed,S, at the University of Alabama and a doctorate in ministry as well. All that just means that I am a […]

My grandfather had a dug well beside his home with a concrete pipe fitted vertically atop.  On top of the concrete pipe, that was about three feet in diameter and stood about as high, rested a wooden lid.  Some of my earliest memories are of being warned about that well. Rightfully, my parents and grandparents […]

High atop Lookout Mountain, above Fort Payne, cradled in hardwoods, hides Camp Comer. Most of her alumni just call her “Comer.” She isn’t visible from the main road that travels along the ridgeline of Lookout Mountain. However, if you turn off the county road and pass beneath the silver archway to good camping, after driving […]

Several years ago, my organization was in search of a key leader. We appointed a search team and commissioned them to find the right person for t he job. After several months of searching, they reported they had found what we were looking for. Before taking another step, I made an appointment to meet him […]

Every small town had one. In my hometown of Boaz, it was the Dipsy Dip. In Albertville, it was Frank’s Variety store. In Sardis, it was the Lion’s Den. You know the place; the one with the best burger on Earth. Since the Dipsy Dip closed in about 1980, I have been on a global […]

While in college, I took a Psychology course called “Experimental Methods.”  As I recall it was a senior level course and required for my degree.  The course was dedicated to teaching the student how to develop a technique for conducting scientific inquiry.  The goal was to produce data that was reliable, not corrupted by variables. […]

Today Denise and I drove to Kennesaw, Ga., for a band concert. I’m not a big fan of any specific genre of music. The idea of a band concert really has about as much appeal to me as a Yugo. That begs the question, why? Why would we drive 250 miles, round trip, to hear […]

Lagniappe is word used often in and around New Orleans. The simple definition is, “something a little extra.” In other words when you get a dessert added to your meal at no additional charge, that is lagniappe. When we get a little value added to the agreement, we get a little lagniappe. A friend who […]

This morning I stopped at a local McDonald’s for breakfast. As usual I take a table near the back of the dining room to have breakfast and read. In front of my table was an exit and two trash receptacles logically located. As I read, I noticed a young man, no older than early 20s […]

“Those People.” We all walk with a limp. The limp may be physical. Worse yet, the limp may not be detectable to others. Your limp may be from a broken heart, a loss so deep you can’t express it, or just the collection of scars that life sometimes inflicts. Time and again I hear church […]

For many years I was a runner. That was before the knee replacement surgery, the fifth on the same knee. During those years I made a practice of calmly calling out to the person in front of me before I passed them. “Comin’ ‘Round” was usually what I said. That warns the walker in front […]

Back to school season is upon us.  For some reason this season is special to me. School days were some of the best times during my growing up years. I never attended school for an academic pursuit. My sole purpose in school was what I choose to call “social enrichment.” But even those of us […]

In 1868, a small group of Methodists met beside a spring, not far from Rome, Ga. They gathered from several local churches and cleared the brush and made a “Brush Arbor.” That term is largely lost to history and understood by only the oldest of us. It is simply a place where the brush is […]

The past couple of years have been hard on a lot of people. During this time of pandemic, I lost an uncle, and a brother-in-law to COVID and I did 22 funerals for friends who lost their lives due to COVID. This season in our lives also saw businesses have challenges that this generation had […]

Wells is a dot on the map, located in the northeast corner of the state of Nevada. Wells is one of those towns that was bypassed when the new interstate system was build. That bypass left mom and pop cafes and motels mostly without customers. At the exit were a couple of chain hotels; those […]

This morning I am writing from a picnic table, sheltered by towering Ponderosa pines, from one of my favorite towns, Flagstaff, Ariz. You might want to know that it is 46 degrees and the last day of June. That is why I love this place. It is about 7,000 feet above sea level. The day […]

The summer of 1963 was pivotal in the development of my psyche. That summer my grandfather, Henry, purchased a new Ford station wagon. It was white with red interior. His sister and her family lived in San Diego and for reasons that still evade me, they thought it would be a good idea to load […]

The building is about 15 feet wide and maybe twice as long. Mirrors line the side walls almost from front to back, with a dozen chairs on the right side and four on the left. The front wall is a full window beside an aging door made of a wooden frame and a single large […]

Vacation Bible School will kick off in churches across the nation this week. This annual event has become so engrained in the psyche of many churchgoers that it needs only to be referred to by the initials, VBS. VBS is special to me for many reasons. One of them is my shoe shine kit. There […]

July of 2002 was an amazing month for the Johnson family. We spent that entire month in Koln, Germany. I had the opportunity to serve an International Baptist Church in Koln while their pastor returned home to Australia. At the time I was pastor of First Baptist Church in Athens, Ala. The congregation was supportive […]