As with nearly every business, the horse business has its ups and downs. If you are in the business of raising and/or selling them, awhile back we were in one of the industry’s little...

Everyone would like a clearer picture of what is happening these days in the social, medical and cultural arenas of our lives. We all have our lists of things that we prefer not to see, or just as...

Safety during fair It's almost fair time! Although this year has been unpredictable and frustrating, we in Phillips County are fortunate that we get to participate in county fair! This is the event...

When I was eight years old, the favorite game neighbor kids, my sister and I use to play was “Cowboys and Indians.” Because I had black hair and mostly because I was younger than everyone except...

Set aside grandstanding, bickering, politicizing and anger. Send them packing in short order along with impatience, intolerance, ungratefulness and wont. Unguarded emotions and irritable...

Sometimes I wish I had become a football coach instead of a cowboy. I admire football coaches because their lives seem so simple compared to the rest of us. If we pass a coach on the street or meet...

Hard as it is to hear, the business of the church is sometimes no business of God. Given enough time, every church and every congregation will experience the corporate side of church that sometimes...

We had just gotten home last Saturday night around 8 p.m. and by 8:30 p.m., our two massive trees had blown over, barely missing our house. It was a whirlwind, to say the least (see what I did...

Coming up with a funny story every week can begin to wear a writer down, even one who has now composed close to 2,000 of them. In order to give the old brain a rest, I decided to switch to a history...

Sometimes the Jesus we expect is nothing like the one that shows up. It’s not a matter of blame as much as it is acknowledgement that what we think we know is not always congruent with contemporary...

Across the country, the calendars that hang in every home are full of events that are now crossed out. Weddings, birthdays and graduations all struggle to be celebrated and the overall feeling of...

I’m rapidly becoming a grumpy old man. OK, so that’s only partly true. I’m not rapidly getting old. That takes time. I am, however, rapidly getting grouchier. Normally, I am a very happy, easy...

We human beings are not very good at change. It is far easier to stand pat with what we know than it is to adapt to or embrace the realities of who we are and what we face. For example, one would...

I try to keep three or four frozen pizzas on hand. I buy them at the beginning of the month and limit myself to cooking up one a week; only on those days when things are crazy or if I just don’t...

Since the weather has gotten nicer, we’ve been spending a ton of time outside. My boys could be out there from sunrise to sunset just digging in the dirt, playing on their playground or roaming the...

Creating personal space and time away from everyday life has always been an important self-care concept, one that is also recognized scripturally. Nevertheless, the world-wide pandemic is now fully pr...

Think you’ve got a bad job? Join the club. Nearly everybody, at one time or another, decides they must have the world’s worst job. Heck, I have those thoughts from time to time ... and I don’t e...

“Hello. May I speak to Mr. Gary Hodgson?” the pleasant lady’s voice asked when I answered the telephone. Guardedly, I replied, “This is Gary Hodgson,” bracing myself to repel another sales...

One of the early tasks assigned to woodshop class decades ago was a weekly hour devoted to mechanical drawing using draftsmen’s tools. It was purportedly the bane of many a student, especially when...

A good friend of mine owns a western store. One entire corner is devoted to books and about half of the space contains cook books. All are titled some variation of “cowboy cookbook” and all...

Given the times that we are experiencing, it would be interesting to know how history will treat our exploits in years to come. Will we be seen as rising to the occasion with the best qualities of...

I was gassing up my pickup a while back when a beat up pickup pulling an equally well used trailer full of saddled horses pulled to the pump beside mine. The driver stepped out to start his pump and...