“We don’t have your rooms, Mr. St. John.” Those are the words a tour leader never wants to hear. The words weren’t, “We don’t have your rooms ready, Mr. St. John, because housekeeping is running a little behind.” Or “We don’t have your rooms ready, Mr. St. John because the laundry is down, a…
You know you’re getting old when the holidays exhaust you before they even get here. I think it is mostly the stress of getting everybody shopped for, packages wrapped and planning that fantastic meal that all the family so looks forward to.
The internet is chock full of get-rich-quick scams. Have you read any of the spams in your email telling you about the wealth you are missing? According to the advertisements, you can make a gazillion bucks the first month working part-time. You can buy a vacation home in Hawaii, send the ki…
My 12-year-old grandson is gearing up for a BIG Christmas. This boy is an only child. I can so relate to this. I’m an only child. My dad was an only child. His mother was an only child. It was kind of a sacred family thing.
I sit and write this column at 10:15 p.m. in a one thousand-year old converted barn while 14 weary Americans have just retired for the evening after a very long and full day of eating our way through the Tuscan countryside. It is quiet in Villa il Santo, but there is still an amazing energy …
Over the past 30 years our company has been busy. We’ve opened fine dining restaurants, New Orleans-themed restaurants, an Italian restaurant, a live-music club, a daiquiri bar, a 20,000-square foot country and western nightclub, a burger joint, a couple of neighborhood bars, four steakhouse…
Recently we hosted a small gathering of friends. My wife had worked hard to prepare several dips, spreads, and hors d’oeuvres for the group to go along with the alcoholic punches she conjures up for such occasions. In the middle of the party, I walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a blo…
I am thankful for life and waking up each morning and that we live in nation of freedom. I am thankful for our veterans.
Do you ever wonder how your dearly departed loved ones who’ve gone on long before would react in today’s world? I often think about my great-grandmother and what if by some witchy quirk I could conjure her back up today for just a visit.
I had it hard growing up but not as hard as my dad. He used to say he had to walk five miles to school every day — in the snow — in July — uphill both ways.
The first four chapters of Exodus detail the awesome providence of our sovereign God. Moses was a Hebrew baby born in Egypt at a time when male Hebrew babies were being killed at the order of Pharaoh. God provided a way for Moses not only to survive but to be brought up in the household of …
Even though Sarah came up with the plan for Abraham to father a child by Hagar, when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, quite naturally Sarah became resentful. Hagar fled but after being confronted by God, she returned to the home of Abraham and Sarah. After Sarah gave birth to Isaac, she told …
Childhood will either kill you or make you stronger. Considering my age, it apparently made me stronger, ‘cause I’m still ‘akickin’ and stirring up trouble.
A few years ago, I read a restaurant survey that ranked customer’s priorities when dining out. The study listed food, service, atmosphere, and location. The results were a little surprising to me in some areas.
Abram and Sarai got impatient waiting on the promise of the Lord. Sarai sent her servant, Hagar, into Abram’s arms. Hagar conceived and quite expectedly Sarai became jealous and resentful. Hagar fled to the desert to escape mistreatment from Sarai. Hagar stopped beside a spring in the d…
Kids today don’t have a clue what we silver foxes had to come up with for entertainment. Notice, I said silver foxes, not senior citizens. Dang it. You are going to be in the same spot I’m in now — if you are lucky. The alternative sucks churchyard dirt.
A strange phenomenon occurred after I opened our first fine-dining restaurant in 1987. It’s still happening. Most people assume the chef/owner of an upscale establishment must eat upscale food all of the time. They picture a life filled with micro greens, waygu beef, caviar, and foie gras. N…
I spent an hour perusing the latest copy of a certain upscale fashion magazine.
The book of Job finds the main character, God, teaching a majestic doctrinal truth about His worthiness. Job will learn that the Creator is worthy of reverence, worship, and awe because of who He is regardless of what He does or does not do. God used the rebellion of Satan to teach this mar…
Yeah, I’m crazy — canine crazy.
Sometimes in the scriptures, God asks questions. We would be wise to pay attention to His questions. The questions God asks are certainly designed to get you and me to carefully examine our condition, motivations, attitudes and actions. Let’s consider the event that brought on His first …
Home doctorin’ comes from a long checkered history
On a recent list of the most stressful jobs of 2018, Aimee Picchi of CBS News listed (in order from least to most stressful): senior corporate executive, public relations executive, broadcaster, reporter, event coordinator, police officer, airline pilot, firefighter and enlisted military personnel.
The culinary world has evolved in many ways over the course of my lifetime. We have moved from using lard to using butter and then abandoning butter for margarine (which they told us was “better for us than butter” for a while), only to return to butter. During World War II we were sending o…
Church is really important. Christ established the Church on His identity as the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God, the Redeemer of mankind.
Church is really important. Christ established the Church on His identity as the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God, the Redeemer of mankind.
What do the creator of the first thesaurus Peter Roget, Colonel Sanders the inventor of the first fried-chicken franchise and your humble columnist have in common?
Life is full of changes. From the moment we are born until the day we die, our bodies, minds, and lives are in a constant state of transformation. My trainer has always stated that humans are either adding muscle or losing muscle mass every minute of every day. There is never a static state …
So, you think you are a Christian. Well, you are, if you have a personal relationship with the One whose name you claim. You enter into relationship with Christ by agreeing with Him that you are a sinner, admitting your need for a savior and publicly confessing that He and He alone is the …
As you grow older and wiser(?) and enter the different landscapes in your journey through life, you evolve. It’s the dynamic of the universe. It happens to everybody — life changes you and your environment.
Is there any job that drags a woman down like cleaning house? Not in my world.
No matter hard you try, you can’t protect your youngsters from every bad thing in this world. The one thing that makes me madder than an “old wet hen,” is the ease of accessing internet pornography. It is absolutely horrific what you can find. It is wicked and it not only destroys the adults…
My earliest memory is of a cocktail party my parents were hosting in the living room of our small home on 22nd Avenue in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
My country celebrates Independence Day this week. Freedom will be celebrated, and thanks will be expressed for the freedoms that we have. It is marvelous to be free to speak, free to exercise religion, free to possess weapons to defend ourselves, free to assemble, free to print things crit…
I say that cyberbullying is the coward’s way because the perpetrator will hide behind a computer or cell phone and do their bullying. They do not have to confront their target “man on man” so to speak, they can do it “from the bushes.”
The headline quote above is a lie. Bold and bald-faced.
God created us as creatures of sight. We are bound by time and space. We need pictures, stories, visual aids. We need God to open our eyes to physical truth so that we can see spiritual reality. I do not believe that God created things and then later revisited those creations when He dec…
I once found a lost book in the refrigerator.
Times change, it’s inevitable. People change, it’s inescapable. The seasons don’t change. They come and go as they always have. Winters may seem a little colder, though in reality they’re basically the same as they have always been. It’s just that I get colder these days. Grown up, mature, R…
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