Why go to Church? ... Thx Pidge F!

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper & complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. 

'I've gone for 30 years now,' he wrote, & in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons, but for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them.

So, I think I'm wasting my time & the preachers & priests are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.' 

This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column.

Much to the delight of the editor, it went on for weeks until  someone wrote this clincher:
'I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked  some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu  for a single one of those meals. 

But I do know this: 

They all nourished me  & gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given  me these meals, I would be physically dead today.
Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!'

When you are DOWN to nothing, God is UP to something!

Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible & receives  the impossible!

Thank God for our physical & our spiritual nourishment!

IF YOU CANNOT SEE GOD IN ALL, YOU CANNOT SEE GOD AT ALL !

B. I. B. L. E. simply means: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth!

When you are about to forward this to others, the devil will discourage you. 

So go on ! Forward this to people who are DEAR to you & TRUST GOD.                                          

Van Florence passed away ... Thx Judi C!

Van Florence

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Judi Cole	3:43 PM (1 hour ago)
to me

Sam, did you know this man?

Van Florence gone but not forgotten at awards ceremony

By LARRY VAUGHT
He couldn’t be there, but no one forgot Van Florence.
The Bluegrass Sports Commission named Florence its Bobby Flynn Volunteer of the Year for his years of service to the Kentucky basketball program as president of UK’s 101 Club for over 30 years.
However, Florence passed Saturday at home after a long illness. He has been born with cerebral palsy, but never let that slow him down and it was the same when he got sick a few years ago. He had worked with Adolph Rupp, Joe Hall, Eddie Sutton, Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith at Kentucky. He helped both Smith and Pitino start charitable foundations during their time at UK.
Florence was honored as one of Camp Horsing Around’s Amazing Eight citizens in Lexington for raising over $75 million for charity in his lifetime.
“Van has given more of himself than anyone I have ever known to help UK’s athletics programs and the Bluegrass area in general,” said Jim Host.
Host is right. Florence was one of a kind and it was no surprise man of UK’s Blue Coats — 101 members — were there Tuesday night. Both speakers and award recipients, including former UK basketball standout Larry Conley, praised Florence.
Florence’s family did not attend. They thought it might be too difficult, and it probably would have been. But they already knew how beloved he was by so many and always will be.

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Jim Kegley's article for this week's Scioto Voice - Bombsoite Lawson ... Thx Brother Jim!

Thanks Jim,

I enjoyed speaking  with Bombsite a few years ago.  Y believe he played on some excellent basketball teams for Coach Skinny Preston at Wheelersburg and maybe alongside Gene Bennett. Oor older sister, Joan used to go to Wheelersburg and New Boston when she was at PHS.  She knew Bombsite.

Jim Kegley	12:20 PM (20 hours ago)
to Scioto

Anybody with the nickname, “Bombsight” in 1947, surely had been one of the daring-do guys of the United States Air Force, and had fought in the recently ended (1945) WW II.  But, no, this “Bombsight” was so named because of his exceptional ability to shoot, and make, long-range basketball shots as a member of the Wheelersburg Pirate Basketball team of the mid 1940’s.  His real name is John Lawson, and rather than dropping bombs on Naples, Italy, or Tokyo, Japan, John was dropping basketballs into the hoop as a forward on the Pirate basketball team.  His Naples is in Florida where he now lives.  John’s military experience was during the Korean War while serving the U.S.A. in Tokyo.

     John is a reader of “The Scioto Voice”, and he telephoned me recently about a column I’d written about Harold Micklethwaite, who graduated Portsmouth High School in 1946.  John said he graduated from Wheelersburg High in 1947, and remembered Harold’s sister, Marian (Caskey) who was an English teacher at WHS for a short time.  Later after Marian’s husband died, she returned to Portsmouth and helped-out at Harold’s restaurant.   While I was talking to Phyllis (Pidge) Fuller recently; I had called her to verify whether Marian had taught English, and Pidge said, “I’m pretty sure she was a teacher, and she worked for Harold as cashier after her husband died”.

     Mr. Lawson told me a story regarding Mr. Smith, who was WHS principal during those days of the 1940’s and John said, “I was in Miss Micklethwaite’s class one time and a couple of Wheelersburg student pranksters (Harry Chastain may have been among them) had caused a ruckus in the classroom and Mr. Smith came in.  After surveying the turmoil, he just turned and walked back out”.

     I telephoned Marian, with whom I had become acquainted during her time at Harold’s Restaurant, and she verified that she had student-taught at WHS when she was in her early 20’s.  Marian is 90-years old now, and she lives at Hillview Retirement Center.

     John Lawson’s wife is Bernadine R. Shumer Lawson, who graduated Portsmouth East High School in 1946.  Bernadine was attending nursing school at Portsmouth General Hospital in 1947; which I gleaned from my 1947 Polk City Directory.

     Speaking of long-range-basketball shooters, South Webster Jeeps graduate, Austin Loop, a senior on the Marshal Thundering Herd, basketball team is making his mark as a three-point shooter specialist.  A bold 4-column headline on the front page of the Huntington Herald Dispatch Sports section for Wednesday, January 6, read: “Marshal’s Loop found his rhythm”, and he is ranked among the best 3-point shooters in Conference U.S.A., and scored 26-points in Marshal’s recent victory over Western Kentucky University”.

     More: “Best sermons are lived not preached” as sent to Dottie Watkins, and shared with me.  She got them in an email from RayJean Wagner, of Columbus.  “Today, after I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying.  And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.”

     And:  “Today, after a 72-hour shift at the fire station, a woman ran up to me at the grocery store and gave me a hug.  When I tensed up, she realized I didn’t recognize her.  She let go with tears of joy in her eyes and the most sincere smile said, ‘On 9-11-2001, you carried me out of the World Trade Center’”.

"Medicine, law, business, engineering. They are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." -Tom Schulman, screewriter