By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstatesman
Over the years I have delivered a few homilies at the Veteran’s Hospital chapel communion services, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be part of a full-blown sermon at the Grace Presbyterian church in my hometown, Panama City, Fla. Actually, the part I played was from a [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstatesman
I think my wife, Ada, invented the word “serendipity.” Or was it Gloria Johnson?
Put those two people together and you have serendipity. What exactly is serendipity? It is a noun meaning having a natural gift for making useful discoveries by accident.
What happened during this Christmas season is a case in point. My [...]
The Confession
By John Grisham
Doubleday
Hardcover $28.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Consider this: You are a Lutheran minister with a quiet, conservative congregation in Topeka, Kansas, miles from a Texas prison where within days Donte Drumm, a young black man is scheduled to be executed for the murder of a teenage white high school cheerleader – a crime he [...]
Missing Lucile
Memories of the Grandmother I Never Knew
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Hardcover $23.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
There are two kinds of book writers in this world. One writes fiction, sometimes mixing fact with imagination, but always with the flare of poetic license. The other is a non-fiction writer, who bases every written word on fact, gleaning [...]
The Wrong Side of an Illness
A doctor’s love story
By Owen Stanley Surman, M.D.
iUniverse Publishers
Paperback $17.95
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
As a people, we don’t like to talk about death. Despite all of our sophistication in communication, we still consider the term taboo. Even in death we shy away from the actual word in our acknowledgement of [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstatesman
Alexander Graham Bell said it first:
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Since that time there are many versions of the same quotation attributed to others. Regardless, there is [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elderstateman
I remember when I officially became a senior citizen. I was in my fifties and must have looked the part. I had stopped at a Burger King for a quick lunch and when I went to pay, the cashier asked me if I had my senior card.
“What’s that?” I said.
She explained it [...]
A Feather Duster Tail
By Areta BasSteele
Bravado Publishing
Paperback $10.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Like most books of fiction, “A Feather Duster Tail,” has a disqualifier that says all names have been changed, etc., etc. But I know a secret, the veterinarian character in the story is a real veterinarian who lives and practices in Roseburg.
BasSteele doesn’t even [...]
By BILL DUNCAN
The Elder Statesman
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had wall-to-wall guests in my home – children and grandchildren. While I watched more football on television than I would normally watch all year long, the visit was a learning experience.
My visiting children already qualify for the senior discount and as Baby Boomers were on a [...]
