Merry Christmas!

I have one thing to say: If you're here on Christmas, with nothing better to do than read me, God bless you. I wish I had something amazing, to make your day a pleasure, but the best I can offer is a road trip.

Go to the Boston Herald and read my column about basketball and death.

Yeah, I know. They don't usually go together, but they did for me, last week, and... well, it's over there on the website and maybe it will make sense when you see it.

God bless you again,  for liking me enough to come here on Christmas. I like you, too. Now go away.

Soon, with more better stuff.

M/Sgt Buck Pennington

My good blog buddy, Buck Pennington, has left this plane of existence (he being a retired United States Air Force guy, that phrasing is apt.)

Please go to his blog and say something to his sons, of whom he was very proud (and with good reason.)

I'm going to repeat part of what I wrote over there:

"Although I never had the pleasure of physically being with [Buck], I considered him a very good friend. We've been visiting each other's blogs for five or six years, I would guess, and we seemed to share quite a few opinions (and those we didn't share, we either kept to ourselves or were kind to the other about.)"

I guess that's pretty much the essence of what a good blog friendship - or, really, any friendship - should be.

I'll miss hearing from him. He was a truly nice man. I'll leave the link to his blog on the sidebar (with slight modification to the wording) as there's a lot of good stuff over there that people shouldn't miss.

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Buck. Please allow him peace where there is neither sickness nor sorrow nor sighing, but life everlasting. Amen.

A Story In The Herald, A Request Right Here

As a writer, you occasionally find that ink doesn't work. You need to plunge your pen into a vein, drawing blood, then use that to scribble your thoughts.

Such was the case with my piece in today's Boston Herald. Once I opened the wound, it flowed.

The story is not one of which I'm particularly proud - and I almost deep-sixed it before finally resolving to send it off - but I figure it might save someone heartache down the road and I don't believe keeping it to myself would have made me feel appreciably better, so...

HERE IT IS.

As always, kind comments and letters to the editor, etc.

And, on the subject of comments, etc., please pray for M/Sgt (retired) Buck Pennington, my buddy from Portales, New Mexico. He has been one of my most faithful when it comes to leaving nice comments at the Herald website, and I wish there was more of some human nature that I could do for him in his current state, but he needs the sort of help God provides. Anything you think might facilitate that... Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Soon, with more.

Request For Prayer

Buck [seated] with his two sons

A very good friend of mine, Buck Pennington, has become ill enough to be hospitalized. Would you please say a prayer for him?

(Buck would probably add "... to The Deity At Hand" and, with his chosen theological assumptions in mind, I won't discourage whatever you do or whomever you direct it toward. I'm sort of a backslidden semi-Catholic with strong Protestant leanings, though, so my choice would be that you direct them to The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by way of Jesus.)

That's about all for today. Thank you for your help.

Cut To The Chase

My latest in the Boston Herald.

(But, I absolutely promise, next time I post here it will be to give you something more than a ticket to go somewhere else. Promise! In the meantime, as always, your kind comments and/or letters to the editor will gain you good karma, unless God hates me, which I don't believe He does, so there you go.)

Soon, with (promise!) more better stuff.

'tis The Season

'tis.

I've had a longstanding quirk on this blog. I always use a capital letter to lead off every word in the headline. I know it's wrong. Words such as "the" and "of" and "for" are supposed to be given with a small letter leading off (unless it's the first letter in the entire title.) I don't know exactly why I adopted that weird standard, but I did and I figure why change it?

(I mean, aside from the fact that it makes me look illiterate. My usual closer is illiterate, so what difference would it make?)

There is, however, no way to capitalize "'tis" without it looking entirely idiotic.

(Nor is there a way to enclose it in quotation marks without pretty much losing the apostrophe that makes 'tis was it is.)

Now, obviously, I could have foregone all of this twadlle via the simple expedient of rewriting the headline, but all of this twaddle is needed because otherwise there wouldn't be much of anything else here. I felt that if I just showed up again with another link to one of my newspaper columns, and gave you no further value, you'd probably say something such as, "Damn you, Sully! All you ever do on this blog these days is tell me to go someplace else to read what in hell you have to say!"

I can't say I would have blamed you for cursing me out. That IS pretty much all I do on this blog now. As a matter of fact, here's where I do it again!

Please go read my column in today's Boston Herald!

See? And I also usually include some sort of plea for you to do me a favor on top of that, such as asking you to leave a nice comment or even write a letter to the editor, like this...

Please leave a nice comment or even write a letter to the editor!

I have become the sluggiest of slugs and you deserve better. Unfortunately, you won't be getting anything better today, and you've come this far, so why not go read my column in today's Boston Herald and leave a nice comment (or even write a letter to the editor) so your trip here won't be a total waste, hmmmmmm?

(You won't find out why I decided "'tis" would be a good word to use here unless you go there, so aren't you just itching all over now? I know I am, but that's because I haven't bathed in three days.)

(Oh! Here comes the illiterate closer...)

Soon, with more better stuff.