On October 16th my wife, Valerie, and I will be celebrating our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Yes, sixteen years ago we were married on Sweetest Day. When we chose that day, we didn’t realize that we were actually picking what many consider a greeting card company’s answer to Valentine’s Day.
Truth be known, Sweetest Day dates back [...]

Hold on to your hats. Better sit down. Gird your loins. Here comes a big one.
News flash from a research team at the University of Alabama: Children who chat on cell phones while crossing the street are more likely to be in an accident than those who are not on cell phones! They recommend we [...]

I recently dedicated an entire hour of my radio show to the topic of spanking children. I wanted to talk about the dangers of using spanking to correct a child’s behavior. I was prepared to provide listeners with a host of alternative discipline strategies. Instead, I spent most of the hour defending my position to [...]

Judgment reveals more about the judge than it does about the object being  judged.
What you say about me, says more about you than it does about me.
Do you believe the statements above? I do. And they help me remember not to take judgment personally.
I presented a full-day seminar recently. Two people used the evaluation form [...]

High-profile examples of rudeness seem to be coming in bunches.
Congressman Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama in the middle of a speech before a joint session of Congress. He apparently didn’t like what the president was saying.
Tennis player Serena Williams recently delivered an obscene comment to a line judge telling her she [...]

It took me forty-eight years to fulfill my father’s dream of fishing in northern Canada with his sons. I remember hearing him say, “I want to go north and fish on a lake where the only access is by plane. I want to see the northern lights with my own eyes. I want to sit [...]

I stopped for lunch the other day at a Big Boy restaurant.  As the young greeter took me to my seat, I notice the florescent writing on a white board that announced the day’s luncheon specials.
“Try are Whitefish,” the sign suggested. I noticed the incorrect use of “are” right away. It’s a lot easier for [...]

This morning I jumped in my car, turned on the radio and there it was.  I was immediately injected into your typical morning radio show with two loud, laughing, radio personalities, talking over each other. You know, the kind that plays a tune and a commercial once in a while, but mainly features loud talking [...]

That is the Question.
There has been a lot of flack recently about President Obama’s plan to address the nation’s school children on Tuesday. Many people oppose the idea. Others see no problem with it and even welcome it. But is this really a good idea?
Let’s start with the basics. The President wants to make a [...]

Wilson Mathews has two young sons, age five and seven. Recently, with the boys helping, he constructed a sandbox for the back yard. Before any sand-play took place in the newly constructed area, Mr. Mathews laid out some structure, which he calls healthy limits.
“My main job as a parent is to keep you safe and [...]