After Wild Card weekend, we are on the verge of the second round of the NFL playoffs. It’s an occasion I greet with enthusiasm. That comes from growing up watching the greatest running back of all time—Jim Brown—play for the Cleveland Browns. Yet, no matter who your favorite team, this year we can all have…
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It’s been a long time since I became a John Grisham fan, thanks to a friend loaning me two of his early novels. Having since caught up with all his releases, I grab the latest once a year, usually as a vacation read. Though Grisham has written many, it’s one of those earlier novels that…
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Just when you blinked your eyes to open 2019, it’s almost time to close out the year. Although it is fading into history, I learned a lesson in recent weeks that will stay with me for a long time. It happened during a nail-biting week when two worry-fests proved to be a waste of time.…
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The University of Minnesota’s dreams of an undefeated football season came crashing to earth with its pre-Thanksgiving loss to Iowa (followed by another loss to Wisconsin). Still, I know my father—a 1947 Minnesota grad—would have enjoyed the media attention generated this fall by the Golden Gophers. But with Christmas less than a week away, more…
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With Christmas just two weeks away, you may be searching for a new holiday viewing favorite—a supplement to the omnipresent and always popular It’s A Wonderful Life. I nominate Signed, Sealed & Delivered for Christmas. (You can see the trailer here.) Released in 2014, we’ve already watched it three times and are likely to do…
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It isn’t very often that you walk out of a funeral feeling happy. That my wife and I did so, along with many others, is remarkable. Had I not been there, I might not have believed what a good time attendees had. The service (or celebration, as several family members put it) commemorated the passing…
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With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, I pause to give thanks for several reasons. For one, the week of Thanksgiving is traditionally quiet. That means there are rarely assignments to be finished or deadlines to be met. Two years ago, that proved to be a blessing when a pre-holiday tumble down the stairs left me with…
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This month marks a rather quiet election season, with only Kentucky and Mississippi choosing governors on Nov. 5. Louisiana’s balloting follows Nov. 16. Judging by the ongoing brouhaha leading into the pending Democratic primaries, it is only the calm before the storm. As evidence, for three years I have hung on to the link to…
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As the impeachment circus rages in Washington, D.C., it’s easy to get discouraged about the state of modern political affairs. That is, until we consider the presidential-style leadership shown by former President Jimmy Carter. His example is especially relevant in an era when Americans seem determined to tear each other apart without regard for the…
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I never wrote about the September 1999 tragedy at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, when a gunman killed seven people and wounded seven others before turning the weapon on himself. However, three months earlier I had visited Denver to talk with survivors of the Columbine shootings. In January of 2018, I went to Paducah,…
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