Watch your tongue

It’s an old youth pastor illustration but it is true and it’s good. What you do is you take a tube of toothpaste and you squirt some toothpaste on a plate and then you ask people to put the toothpaste back into the tube. You really can’t do it is the point, and so it is with our words, right?

Beautiful psalms for a worried spirit

As Christians, we are called to trust in God every day, but putting your total trust in Him can be hard some days. We are continually battling our fears, worries, and anxieties. The more we worry, the more it can hurt our physical, mental and emotional health.

Brilliant, loyal editor and friend: God speed

We grew old together, Mike Brown and I. Of course, I was 15 years his senior when I hired him in 1974, so I grew really old. I’ve seen his full head of dark, curly hair gradually add salt and finally turn white. My eternal flattop just sheds a lot, taking root in my ears. So it goes.

The last one: Till we meet again

Well, here it is, the last column after 46 years working at The Reporter. I’ve always known this day was coming and, amazingly, I’ve always known what I was going to say.

Top 10 things I like about the pandemic

I’m trying to find a silver lining in all this pandemic business, and I think I’ve succeeded. It started with a shift in my attitude about small things like hand washing. I must admit that before the coronavirus I sometimes shirked my responsibilities in the hand-washing department.

Looking back...

100 YEARS AGO... Probably the most disastrous fire in the history of Cameron occurred when the Cameron compress was completely destroyed by fire, thought to have been of incendiary origin.

God is with you

I’ve got a friend who I love a lot and he told me the other day that most of his life he has felt like the third monkey trying to get on the Ark. I relate to that struggle. No matter who you are, life is full of “stuff” and stuff happens. Job 5:7 tells us, “man is born for trouble.

2020 does it again

What else would you expect? It’s 2020 and this year just has to be the burr under our saddle in everything. Early voting for the 2020 general election starts Tuesday and about the only way this year’s ballots could be any more confusing would be if they were printed in bitcoin.

A nice getaway melted away my stress

Last weekend I took a trip to Austin because the walls were starting to close in on me. I highly recommend getting out of town when you can. I feel so relaxed and recharged. I think I can count on two fingers the number of times I’ve stayed in Austin since I moved to Houston in 1989.

Are we dumber? No, just multiple choice

One of those surveys came out recently, the kind that’s supposed to induce “what have we come to?” tsk-tsking. You know the kind. “Forty percent of respondents can’t find their own front door without an app.