Skip to main content

Posts

Sometimes Sports are Just Sports

 This may or may not make the final cut of my book. I was writing about some events this weekend and what had started as a joyous Friday night at my home school district became a weekend of heartbreak in the area after what happened at another school. Sometimes We Need to Realize That Sports are Just Games   Friday nights in late summer and early fall are sometimes a big deal for high school students and their families. As the long-time band announcer for my local high school, it is a time of year I always look forward to. This past Friday night was originally supposed to be the homecoming game for the local high school. The schedule had to be changed a bit because of the uncertainty of the opponents being able to field a team. There was talk around the league that they may have had to forfeit this game, so homecoming for the local school was rescheduled. The opponents, which are rivals of my local school district, were able to field a team and the game was played. The game was
Recent posts

We Serve

 As I was working on my upcoming book, The Daily Uplift, I decided to give some impressions of a meeting of the Lions Club which I attended last night. If you wish to make a difference in your community, a service organization is something you should consider. We Serve   Last night I attended a Lions Club meeting. The Lions Club is a service organization, known for their work in battling blindness. They have been known to provide optometry services to those in the communities they serve to those that can’t afford to get glasses. This is just one of many service the local clubs provide their towns. The Lions Club provides great outreach. In our town, they have funded projects such as park improvements and needs for others, such as ramps for homes. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, many service organizations have taken a hit. Other organizations, such as the Kiwanis, are dying of old age. If you are one that may be civic minded, you will see the need for these fine groups. Peopl

You Become What You Think About

 Here is another selection from my upcoming book, The Daily Uplift .  I selected the title, as this month, I am listening to the classic recording by Earl Nightingale, The Strangest Secret . I dedicated this passage to my hometown of Rittman, Ohio. We Become What We Think About   The community where I live. Rittman, Ohio, is a town that has seen its share of hard luck. That can probably be said about many towns on this planet, but I have called Rittman my home for the past 40 years. I have seen several businesses and a large employer go out of business in this time. I have also been the marching band announcer for the local high school since the 2000—2001 school year. In this time, I have seen ups and downs on the football field, and from 2006 to 2021, there have been more downs than ups. The town has seen hard times because other nearby larger communities, most of which are off major roadways, have gotten the major retailers that have put mom and pop businesses out of business

Keeping It Simple

I took some time away from writing the past couple of months, but am back trying to complete my upcoming book "The Daily Uplift."  I am currently part of a challenge given by Dan Miller of 48 Days to the Work and Life You Love Fame to listen to the Earl Nightingale classic recording The Strangest Secret . I reference this in my latest writing. Keeping It Simple   This morning, while I was sitting in church, I opened my bible and stopped at Matthew 5, which begins Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The amazing thing about this scripture is the fact that Jesus preached with so much simplicity. The reason I say this is because most preachers tend to show off how much education they have, and some denominations require quite a bit of classes before you can get behind some of their pulpits. This is a shame because there may be some people who have been called to preach and have learning disabilities that prevent them from getting the almighty piece of paper. The world may miss out on som

Let's All Be Ambassadors

 In the latest sample from my upcoming book, I share a poem I originally wrote in 2018 as I was rhyming my way through How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I begin the passage expressing why I don't do politics. The Good aren’t all Good, and the Bad aren’t all Bad   I do not like discussing politics personally or virtually. I have observed most people that choose one party over another will extol the virtues of their party and glaze over the bad things. You must choose the whole package. And the opposition party, no matter what good they do, you place a magnifying glass over the bad. And no one who is active in politics is willing to step across the aisle. They can’t spell cooperate, much less do it. We have all been guilty of bias at one time or another. It could be one thing or another, but it’s all wrong. You can’t even tell anyone why you think what you do about a person or a group. Chances are it’s born out of tradition. Having spent my adult year

When You are Down, Look Up

 It's been over  weeks since I have shared anything I've been writing with the blogosphere, but The Daily Uplift is seeing some progress. I am up to page  and have written over 40,000 words. here is what I have been writing this morning. Beat Down? Look Up!   It’s been often said, written, and sung that life is full of ups and downs. We enjoy the up time but tend to like to talk more about the down time, hoping for some sympathy.   When we are down, we also learn the most about ourselves and others and you find out who your friends really are. When we are looking for sympathy, we will get the same things. People will tell us that life is tough all over. We may hear about others who are having it worse than we are, or we may hear about people who are always up and what they are doing right. Or you may run into somebody like my dad who would say “If you are looking for sympathy, look in the dictionary……” I prefer not to finish that quote. When you are down, this can be a

Being Happy in the Spot you Inhabit

 I am now on page 94 of my upcoming book, The Daily Uplift . Getting up early has yielded over 35,000 words. Not bad for soeone that has very little college education. But the experience I gave myself in this location in cyberspace fron 2006-2010 is paying off.  I decided to share something I wrote just this morning. If you have a Kindle or Kindle app, you can go there and download some of the ebooks I referred to. Make me happy and put a few quarters in my bank account. Be Happy Where You Are   “If you can’t be happy where you are, it’s a cinch you can’t be happy where you ain’t.” ~ Charlie “Tremendous” Jones As a project, I once wrote a series of eBooks. The series, still available on Kindle is called Ten Poems for a Buck . Most of the times there was more than 10 poems and the book this one was poems based on positive quotes. I thought I would write some thoughts concerning the quote above before sharing the poem I wrote about it. You hear all the time that people are not ha