By Jim Nichols I am not a golfer, but I have played it a few times and understand the game to an extent. In what seems now a lifetime ago for me, I was in a locker room with colleagues after exercising. It was the fiftieth birthday for one of them and, included in the banter he said, “Yes, I

By Jim Nichols It is impressive when one sees how someone else has solved a problem with minimal skill but with great logic. Adding to that is when the action reminds or teaches us about something that has widespread application and significance. The sound, frankly, was deafening. The construction of the building involved two primary areas. One was predictable looking

By Jim Nichols Are ladders for climbing? Must we climb? There were two small turbines on our roof; their responsibility was to turn in the wind and to draw hot air from within the attic to the outside. It was part of the cooling attempt during hot Texas summers, and they made good sense to my scientific mind. The complication

By Jim Nichols Here is the punchline for this article. I believe Donald Trump is bad for our country, but I most fault him for damaging the witness of the church. Governments have often had uneasy relationships with religion. Putting them together seems at first like a positive idea; when implemented, however, it often ends in disaster. A small example

By Jim Nichols Classroom valentine parties were an exciting time during my early boyhood days. My parents would buy me a multipage scrapbook that contained both valentine cards and envelopes for them. My task was to use my blunt-end scissors to cut them out. The envelopes were the most complicated because they had trim on them that was to be

By Jim Nichols It is unfortunate that John Donne in 1624 did not use gender-neutral language, but the power of his short poem remains the same. He is writing about the interconnectedness of humanity and, specifically, the impact of loss. On a high shelf in a spare bedroom, we have several photo albums. If I were to peruse through them

By Jim Nichols I cannot believe that I am the only person who feels this way occasionally— “I have no idea what I am doing.” It is not always true, certainly. For years I could walk into a college biology classroom and feel confident about the known science I was about to try to explain to captive students. Occasionally, they

By Jim Nichols It all started at 5218 Olive when I was six years old. My father planted two small elm trees in our back yard. One officially “belonged” to me and the other to my only sister at the time. One thing I learned was that getting trees started successfully after transplantation was uncertain. Indeed, my sister’s died within