Recently I made a new friend in California, I’ll call her Mary. She was looking for the answer to a question and one of my articles in the News and Sentinel on the topic showed up. That led to an email dialog and ultimately a Zoom call. I don’t believe in labels when it comes to people. ...

In October 15 years ago, my daughter, Dannielle who lives in Maryland called, “Dad, I signed you up for the half at Virginia Beach on St. Patrick’s Day. Half what Dannielle? I asked. “Half Marathon. It’s only 13.1 miles. I can’t run that far.” I protested. “Sure, you can.” Then ...

It’s time for “Round 3.” That’s right — those crazy, love struck doves are back in my potted plant incubating their third set of two eggs right there on our front porch. I must admit that I’m quite surprised that they have decided my spider plant is the best place in Belmont to ...

Those of you who read this column on a regular basis likely have noticed that tales of my garden have been conspicuously absent from this space this spring and summer. There’s a good reason for that — actually, it’s more like eight or 10 reasons. Everything got off to a great start ...

As a young engineer, one of the engineers I worked under occasionally was Allen, a senior engineer in the Chicago area. Allen was from Alabama. He said what he thought. We hadn’t seen each other for months. As soon as Allen saw me he said, “I declare. Greg, I believe you’re getting fat ...

If we learn from history we can avoid the mistakes of others. Our pastor is from India. He was telling me about the history of India and British colonial rule. India is a large and highly populated country. It’s remarkable the British could take control. From 1757 the British East India ...