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Columns

  • Old friends - the best friends

    We span the decades; these old friends of mine.
    “We’re planning to go to the Kentucky Derby. Got any suggestions?” they called and asked me several months ago.
    I didn’t have any, really, other than my sage advice for them to avoid the crowds as much as possible.
    “You haven’t changed,” Cindy laughed. “On the way back, we’ll be there for Sunday worship with you.”
    Which they did, much to my delight.

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  • Shining a light on opioid issue

    As I stood there in the sanctuary of First Cumberland Presbyterian Church Sunday night, with the lights completely out and the only light in the room illuminating from several candles burning, I thought about the significance of what was happening in the moment.

    This was not any ordinary church service that I attended on a random Sunday evening in April. This was a service dedicated to providing prayer and support for those struggling in the chains of addiction and those who have loved ones struggling.

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  • All the youthfulness you need

    “Hume Cronyn,” she said, squinting her eyes in my direction.
    I was standing in the grocery store aisle.
    “Excuse me?” I responded, clueless about what she meant. “Hugh?”
    “Hume, Hume,” she emphasized, “Hume Cronyn, the actor. You look like him.”
    This was a bit unusual, at least for me. I’m not used to being stopped by a complete stranger in the grocery store and learning that I look like someone I’ve never heard of.

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  • Remembering 'The Champ'

     

    Muhammad Ali was not only a boxing legend, he was a legendary Kentuckian, and perhaps the most famous and recognizable American of his time.

    Sadly, the man known by people around the world as “The Greatest” lost his final fight last week, the one he had been waging against Parkinson’s Disease for years.

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  • Having an attitude of gratitude

    When the waiter first told us someone had picked up our check, I didn’t understand him.

    “You mean our check is at the counter?”

    “No sir, someone paid for it,” he repeated.

    “Someone paid for it,” Lori echoed his words to me, slowly enunciating each syllable like she was talking to someone who had difficulty hearing.

    The waiter pointed to the booth next to us, as if I needed further clarification: “They did it,” he said.

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  • Who stole my Cracker Jack prize?

    Remember as a kid, when you’d open a box of Cracker Jacks? Sure, the popcorn and peanuts in the box are delicious, but that’s probably not why you wanted them when you were 6 or 7 years old.

    At least that was the case for me. Nope, it was all about the prize.

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  • If there's a rock and roll heaven...

    “If there’s a rock and roll heaven, well you know they’ve got a hell of a band.” — The Righteous Brothers

    In their 1974 song titled “Rock and Roll Heaven,” The Righteous Brothers sang about musicians the world had recently lost. The song named artists who died in the early 1970s, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Croce and Jim Morrison, just to name a few.

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  • A Mary and Joseph kind of Christmas

    Stepping outside onto our back patio, the frigid early morning air startles me, smacking my cheeks like a trainer popping the face of a prizefighter, making sure the boxer is fully conscious.

    Moments before, I had been inside listening to the news reports: the murders in San Bernardino, Calif., were likely the result of a terrorist attack, the newscaster reports, and this on the heels of the murders in Colorado, Springs, Col., at a Planned Parenthood Clinic, and just a few days before that, the terrorist attack in Paris, France.

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  • Cook says he wants best for all residents

    In order to set the record straight concerning Mike Deaton’s comments (CKNJ, Dec. 17 issue) about it being more important to give Taylor County Schools money to “take down a building that no one is going to occupy,” and Campbellsville Independent Schools being denied money from the emergency School Facility Construction Commission fund, I submit the following statement.

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  • Venturing into Advent

    I know the three most often repeated words in a marriage should be, “I love you,” but I’m afraid I’ve displaced those with “Where’s the clicker?”

    Perhaps even worse, once the clicker is in my hands, I frequently follow that question with a plea to my wife: “Can you get this thing to work?”

    Now, before you judge me as the stereotypical couch potato, that neglectful slob who bellows to “the wife” from the “man cave,” “Hey, babe, bring me another beer,” let me explain myself.

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