I was on a flight several years ago and my neighbor was one of the flight attendants. For whatever reason we ended up talking about plane crashes. There was one that came to mind in particular because it was a tragic crash off the coast of Nova Scotia back in the '90s. Since the passengers and the crew knew about the plane's critical situation for a while, we talked about how it must have felt to be anticipating that crash for half an hour. And I couldn't help but reflect on two occasions...

They tell me that a dog is man's best friend. I hope so, because if you have one of those best friends you get to go for a walk with him very, very often, right? I mean, it's nice to have a walk with your best friend. Of course, you often see folks in our neighborhood walking their dog, and occasionally you see a humorous variation on the old theme of a man walking his dog. There's this very big dog and this not so big person, and you see the owner desperately trying to control and keep up...

One August night every member of our family got a new name. It was the night our daughter gave birth to her first child - a little boy. And that tiny eight-pound bundle made our daughter "Mommy," and our son-in-law "Daddy," and our boys were suddenly uncles, and my wife became "Grandma." And I became "Husband of Grandma." It was quite a night - and my wife and I were privileged to be able to be with our little grandson right in the birthing room only minutes after he was born. Those are...

The old wisdom is that the way to a man's heart is, yeah, through his stomach. Actually I think that's true, but I believe that the way to a parent's heart is through their children. And I have to admit that I'm one of those who feels that way. I mean, you really have a warm feeling toward people who are kind to your children and grandchildren. You know, when our kids were young, that was especially true. It was important to me when people remembered my child's name or maybe their birthday....

I know voicemail can be efficient, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Sometimes they're entertaining. I have friends who have major productions or comedy monologues that greet people. But, you know, voice mail doesn't respond. It records, but doesn't respond. One friend captured how I feel in what he recorded tongue-in-cheek. You call, then you know, you get the little click and you hear the friend's voice saying, "In a world of cold and uncaring humans, isn't it refreshing to be...

The driver pulled up and dumped it in my driveway, but I was very happy to see it. It was my cord of wood - a winter of warm fires in our fireplace! See, we had ordered it during a special sale, which others apparently took advantage of big time. The driver told me some people had ordered five cords of wood. When I asked why, he said, "It's for their wood stoves. They're depending on it to keep their house warm this winter!" No wonder they ordered a lot of wood for the winter. And when they...

It was when the Star Wars movie "The Force Awakens" came out. It was a great story, I'm sure, in that great record crushing movie. I wasn't expecting to find a mirror reflecting the lives of so many people I've known. In the story, it's Rey's story. She's a young woman on a desolate planet, surviving by scavenging parts from a space junkyard. When she's asked, "Who are you?" she just zero-sums her life this way: "I am no one" until she discovers the truth that changes her life forever. She's...

Now, if I said I was going to give you the great secrets of hitting a baseball, I don't think you're going to go right out and try them. You're going to be skeptical, and you should be. But if one of the game's greatest hitters were to tell you the secret of hitting a baseball, well now you should pay attention. Pete Rose actually was one of those, and he was once interviewed for an article in Sports Illustrated, and I like the title. It was called Good Wood. And he said that he liked a...

Kissimmee, Florida is right in the middle of some of Florida's most exciting tourist attractions. So, it's usually associated with happy times. But in February of 1998 the headlines were about tragedy in Kissimmee; 38 people killed in the deadliest tornado outbreak in the state's history up to that time. In its lead front page story, USA Today told about one couple who cowered in horror. And it said, "The wind sucked like a vacuum cleaner, pulling their five-year-old daughter, Elissa, away....

It's amazing how quickly you can get 300 college men to change their plans on a moment's notice. It happened several times when I was in school. Oh, it's late at night; we're all up in our rooms studying, sleeping, or goofing off, and we're certainly not planning to go out. Yet, within a matter of minutes all three hundred men are out of their rooms and out of the dorm. It's amazing what one fire bell can do, huh? Oh, there was no fire, just an occasional fire drill. But the call summoned us...

My farm girl had a high tolerance for pain. "I know," you say, "she married you." No, I mean physical pain. She seldom complained and I often didn't know she was hurting. There was a season in her life when she was in constant pain for about eight years. A lot of remedies and treatments took their turn trying to help her but actually nothing worked; the flare-ups continued...until something happened. With a big smile on her face, she said, "I am pain-free for the first time in eight years."...

Oh, when the auditor leaves from our annual audit, man, our administrative team is high-fivin'. Partly because, well, we've been blessed to get a clean audit year after year, and partly it's just because it's over! They work pretty hard to be ready for all the things the auditor wants to check out. In the business world, and sometimes even in the Christian world, audits aren't always happy. Auditors can find things that get you in trouble with your boss, with the government, even with the...

Over the years our son-in-law's made no secret of his basketball loyalties. Even when he was living in the heart of New York Knicks, he was boldly and passionately a Chicago Bulls fan. Like many Bulls fans, my son-in-law was wrapped up in Michael Jordan when he was at the top of his career in the 1990s. He read his biography, he taped his championship games, and of course he had to go see him play, and he bought the sports memorabilia associated with a superstar player. At Christmas, we would...

America runs on coffee! Yeah, let's face it! Now, you might object to that, but I don't know on what grounds. You know, there are people who drink coffee, and then there are some who mainline coffee. I have friends who do that, and it keeps people like the makers of those little quickie coffee units very busy. In fact, those little units are a good example of the importance of something called the filter. Now, when you pour into those filters, the hot water goes straight through and enough...

As I sit at my desk, I'm looking at this framed, century-old newspaper on the wall. It's there because I never want to forget the story it tells or the choice it represents. I guess, in short, I'd call it the tale of the three ships. Everybody knows one of them - the Titanic. The one that 2,200 passengers thought was unsinkable. But that fateful night in the ice fields of the North Atlantic, the Titanic went down and over 1,500 passengers died. Only about 700 survived. Their only hope was a...

Blindfolds have usually been a hindrance in my life. I mean, I think the first blindfold I ever remember having on was when I was little. I was at a birthday party and we were playing, you know, like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Now, I've never been real coordinated, so you put a blindfold on me and spin me around a few times, I usually end up pinning it on the hostess. Anyway, it's great to be the laughing stock at the birthday party. Now, as a teenager, they put me in this trust walk where...

When it comes to the Olympics, it seems as if there are always certain athletes that give the Games this personal touch for us. Let's go back to the 1994 Winter Olympics. I remember we all wanted to see the women's skating showdown between Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding. In 1998, it was two teenagers named Michelle and Tara. Michelle Kwan was heavily favored to leave Japan and the Olympics with that gold medal; 15-year old Tara Lipinski was expected to bring home the silver maybe. But in a...

If you're up late enough - I'm saying really late - you might catch an episode of the old TV series "The Twilight Zone." Rod Serling, the host, wrote some very imaginative and actually sometimes strange stories that ended up on that series. And it's funny after all these years; I still remember one, even though it's been a long time. This bank teller suddenly develops the ability to know what people are thinking, and he thinks he has a great gift. The amusing part was that while people were...

When I was growing up and when our children were growing up, basically when generations of children were growing up, mommies and daddies read stories to their children. And most of them had a predictable ending: "and they lived happily ever after." Except for this one nursery rhyme - the one about the uncoordinated egg. You know? I wasn't sure what I was supposed to learn from that one. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall - all the king's horses and all the king's men...

I saw one of those bumper frames for your license plate. It said, "Happiness is being a grandparent." Oh, that's the truth! I mean, I remember when I was a little kid. Happiness was having a grandparent with you, especially my grandmother. Because it always meant surprises; it meant going out to eat, and it almost always meant money! That's what grandparents are for, of course, to spoil kids. Any time I knew that I would be seeing Grandma I was excited to see what surprises she would bring....

It was another one of our marathon drives. It was a 20-hour trip and my wife and I were alternating at the wheel, and I was doing the night shift. And since it was an early winter trip, the night was a long night. I did my behind-the-wheel calisthenics, I sampled different radio stations, I played stimulating music, kept the temperature at a refreshing level - all those fun things you do when it's you against the night. Frankly, by 6:00 A.M., I was tired of the darkness. Then, in my rear view...

My wife hit her 40th birthday without the trauma you're supposed to have - very well-adjusted lady. No big deal - 40th birthday. And then a couple of months later our oldest son, who was then 12 said, "Hey, Mom, you know you've been alive for 14,662 days?" Well, that's a different matter. Actually, life really isn't years; it is days. All the little choices, experiences, hurts, happiness's of each 24-hour period, isn't that what makes the years? That's really true when it comes to parenting...

I've really got to think of a better response when people tell me they have a headache and I say, "You know, pain always attacks at the weakest point." They really don't find that helpful. Actually, we all have our favorite headache remedy - one or two of this pill or that and we wait for the relief as those pills race through our system. I know they do. I saw it on a commercial once. There was this twisted act of individual terrorism that happened back in 1982 when relief was turned into...

So what do you do when Murphy's Law hits all in one day? You know, Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong"? Well, we've all had plenty of those at our house. I remember one right now that hit my family. We were trying to get ready to go on vacation; we were leaving the next morning. The first thing that happened was that the freezer had gone on the blink and all of our food had spoiled. Oh, that was nice. And then we developed a little car trouble. Well, that was two hits; we...