THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury     Okay, I confess. I am–as many retailers know–a sucker of the first order. I’ve ignored pleas of loved ones and friends warning me about buying items at greatly reduced prices. I want to do better, but can’t help it if adrenaline jumps into overdrive upon my noticing signs like “drastically reduced” or

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury When my aged Uncle Mort tells a story that is not “truth-proofed,” it merely means he heard it somewhere, and details may be accurate–or, more likely–figments of his imagination. Herewith is his most current tale. An habitual criminal–swearing to lead a new life on the straight and narrow–still owed society some “slammer time” for

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury For many decades, football-loving men gathered in coffee shops to dissect the previous Friday night’s schoolboy football games. There was more dissecting than coffee-drinking. Many may not have realized it, but those games–won, lost or tied–helped to unify community spirit. For the most part, high school sports were kept in perspective, unlike major university programs

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Umpteen years ago, I entitled a speech–cleverly I thought at the time—”From Adam’s Rib to Women’s Lib.” I provided more details than audiences wanted to know, explaining that with such an expansive title, maybe I wouldn’t wander too far off track. It was admittedly a weak joke, probably not warranting so much as

THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury I, as well as most others who string words together, will never be confused with Robert Frost, the poetry genius from whose pen flowed marvelous words about his beloved New England. One of his best–published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1915–was “The Road Not Taken.” Actually, it was intended as a joke to

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury Residents in the East Texas thicket where my Uncle Mort hangs out almost never leave, so welcoming a new family is quite a topic of conversation. Larger communities have welcome wagons delivering goodies to newbies, but it’s not every day that the guy bearing gifts drives up on a golf cart, carefully balancing one

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury With each passing year, I am less likely to categorize occurrences as coincidences, happenstances or even “blind hog” luck. Now, it is probable that on significant matters, I’ll classify many of them as divine interventions or acts of God, His angels or others He might designate.Two recent conferences at the same hotel on

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury “Doting” is an adjective often used to describe grandparents. In the case of Rick and Becky Cadden, however, “pranking” might be a better fit.Theirs is a family whose members are on perpetual look-out for ways to get a leg up in the prankster department, and grandchildren are not off limits. In fact, Rick

 THE IDLE AMERICANCommentary by Dr. Don Newbury We laughed intermittently for weeks about our decision to embark on a 3,000-mile road trip because we didn’t have time to fly. As the date neared and mass media folks conveyed horror tales of passengers stranded in airports or delayed, our decision to take to the highways seemed well-founded. Our ultimate destination was