How the cycle began, I don’t recall, but over a several-month period, our 9-year-old grandson frequently asked me the same thing. “Tell me a story about Timber, Pa!” In my youth, Timber was our pet German Shepherd, a bona fide descendant of Rin Tin Tin, full name of “Baron Timber…
If at first you don’t succeed, then try and fail again! Well, that’s not how the saying goes, but that’s what Phillip Vasto did. Mr. Vasto hails from Brooklyn, New York, but on a recent trip to Arizona, he decided to climb a mountain near Flagstaff. Most of us think…
On Halloween in 1938, one of the most famous hoaxes was not intended to be a hoax. On the CBS Radio Network’s radio series, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Orson Welles directed and narrated a radio-adapted script of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. Welles intended to…
I rarely get to do spontaneous, early-in-the-week alterations to my routine. My to-do lists for the different days of the week are fairly uniform—at least the basics. I record the Morning Light broadcasts for the following week on Monday mornings. Then I’ll do some preliminary study for the week’s preaching/teaching…
I finally got tired of paying way too much for cable TV (and satellite before that) and cut the cable. After all, we don’t watch TV often, and when we did, only a handful of channels held any interest. That’s when I discovered the far better (for us) variety on…
In the spring and summer of 1984, I was in a pretty low place in many ways. The previous April took me in the opposite direction. The small church in western Illinois (I referred to in last week’s article) had called me to be their pastor, and I dove in…
“The bigger the burger, the better the burger! The burgers are bigger at Burger King!” What could possibly be better than a Whopper of a burger? Bigger is better, after all. Right? Some might argue that a bag full of White Castles is better. I wouldn’t, but someone might. Some…
A little over nine years ago, I added a new hat to wear. In addition to husband, father, pastor (with all of its accompanying hats!), I became a “papa.” A quite different hat from that of “father,” to be sure! But it did get me to reflect on my own…
Maybe I’m getting old, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more it strikes me that life’s simple pleasures really are the best. If you’re over age 55, perhaps you remember this one: I’m not so sure I’d rank a helping of pork and beans as one of life’s…
As one might deduce from the name, Mississippi Palisades—a wonderful state park about an hour from our home—lies on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi River. It’s aptly named “Palisades” on account of several cliffs rising high above the river. We first discovered the park nearly two decades ago and…
