With full military honors at 2 p.m. Tuesday, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chad Allen Barrett will be buried in the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.
Though his interment is taking place hundreds of miles from Southwest Virginia, the region will share in his family’s grief.

I work in a building filled with stained glass windows. I suppose stained glass is archaic in a culture that worships in corrugated metal and with Plexiglas pulpits, but I am a little archaic at times. My children suggest it is all the time.

I will never forget the couple or the story they told me. Far into their 80s, they were sitting close together in a room full of people. In the middle of a conversation, the woman confessed to me that they were celebrating their 65th anniversary. I teased them a little about the fact that he must have proposed to her when they were 6 years old, and that the wedding had to have occurred on a playground. Then I made the mistake of asking the woman if she had ever thought of leaving him. She did not say a thing.

For a couple of days, it has been cold. How cold has it been? As a friend told me, it was so cold he saw a couple of beagle hounds trying to jumpstart a rabbit.

Seventy-five years ago, a group of hungry actors stepped into the lights washing the stage and performed “After Tomorrow.”
Those actors were the first Barter actors. The play, the first the now-three-quarters of a century old theater produced.
Author Sherwood Anderson, then editor of the newspaper in Smyth County reviewed that first effort.
“The play itself wasn’t much… the acting much better than the play,” he wrote. “‘After Tomorrow’ gave us, and this is really the main thing, an honest-to-goodness evening at the theater. And Barter Theatre will surely give us more.”

Psychologists often say about children, “They are wonderful observers, but lousy interpreters.” Children do not miss a thing, their young ears and eyes take in everything, particularly the things we may not want them to notice. Unfortunately, their youth does not enhance their ability to understand, but is limited by it. Children know something has happened, but they are often not sure what it means or why it has happened.

In one of my first columns about two and a half years ago, I wrote about my efforts to improve my drinking habits by drinking the Aquacal brand of strawberry flavored water as opposed to Coca-Cola.  Having become quite addicted to the soft drink over the course of my lifetime, I remember telling you that I was uncertain as to how long this change would last.  While I cannot recall exactly how long I was able to hold out, I regret telling you that I have completely fallen off the wagon. 

The Food and Drug Administration said this week it’s OK to go around eating cloned meat and milk. That’s what all the television stations, newspapers and Web sites were saying Wednesday.

For my entire life, Genesis has been unquestionably my favorite rock band.  I can remember being 2 years old standing in front of the TV in a walker with a fake microphone singing along with Phil Collins on MTV.  This was of course during the days when MTV still used music videos for their predominant airplay.  In fact, it was Collins who inspired me at approximately age 5 to request a drum set for Christmas, which I doubt I ever even play.  I never possessed even an ounce of musical ability at any point in my life, no matter how much I wished for it.  Nevertheless, I have still spent my entire life following the careers of Phil Collins and Genesis.  Thus, it has been a lifelong dream of mine to see either act perform live.

On Dec. 29, a benefit rock concert was held at the Clinic starring local punk rock band Lucky 65.  The show generated around $700 for Coy Mulhall, a high school friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with leukemia.  I was honored to attend this event in honor of Coy, whom I first met nearly a dozen years ago.  Every time I see him, he always had a smile and a joke waiting for me.  The members of Lucky 65 expressed the exact same sentiments.