Author: Buddy McElhannon

  • What A Caddie Taught Me About Encouragement

    What A Caddie Taught Me About Encouragement

    This past week I was invited to play a round of golf at East Lake Golf Club in Decatur, Georgia.  East Lake is no ordinary club.  It’s the site of the Tour Championship, the culminating event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedEx Cup. More importantly, it was also the home course for golfing…

  • Bingo and the Value of 20 Quarters

    I found a quarter in the street this week.  Holding the twenty-five-cent piece in my hands flooded my mind with a sweet memory — the kind of recollection that produces a smile and a heartwarming reminder of the value of giving. It was in 2014, while playing bingo at a Nursing Home, that I discovered…

  • Ask Me in a Hundred Years

    My response was immediate when a friend questioned the prudence of one of my decisions. Without much thought, I blurted out, “Ask me in a hundred years.”   Some of life’s decisions are uncomplicated.  Yet life has taught me that many others, the kind that reverberate for generations, are not always so readily or easily…

  • Are You Dying To Have Sex?

    Sex is no big deal, they say.  Everybody’s doing it, they say.  If it feels good, do it, they say.  It makes me wonder who exactly “they” are? This reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague before he retired.  He and his wife had just bought a home in a large retirement…

  • Barrabbas and Me

    Barrabbas and Me

    During Holy Week this year, I pondered the familiar story of  the most eventful week in history, those days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  Hollywood could not have written a better script or assembled a more fascinating cast.   I mused about the diverse list of characters who witnessed the Easter drama that climaxed…

  • Simple Pleasures

    In the elusive pursuit of happiness, 21st Century man has learned the more you have, the more you want. Once we obtain it, we must continue to get more, do more, or experience more to remain happy.  More, it seems, is never enough in a culture drunk on materialism. It almost seems as if the…

  • We All Need A Ninja Zone

    I rarely visit any of my grandchildren when this Poppy does not come away with some new life lessons.  A few years ago, one of my grandfather therapy sessions (i.e., babysitting) with three of my grandsons provided a prime example of the insights available to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear.…

  • Men Play Checkers, Women Play Chess and Other Differences Between Men and Women

    Men Play Checkers, Women Play Chess and Other Differences Between Men and Women

    Not too long ago, one could safely comment on gender differences without the fear of being “canceled,” condemned for not being “woke” enough, or accused of sexual discrimination.  In today’s world, one must be careful as free speech can instantly become hate speech if someone, somewhere, is the least bit offended. I’ll take that risk.…

  • My Imaginary Friend Did It

    My Imaginary Friend Did It

    My three-year-old grandson ran down the hallway, dashed into our master bedroom, and took refuge in his favorite hiding place – a spot behind my LazyBoy rocking chair.  Having just knocked something over in our living room, he knew the noise would bring Poppy to see what havoc his rambunctiousness had wrought. Young Luke sought…

  • 3 + 200 = 92

    After writing my grandmother’s memoirs in the late 1990s, I realized I should start sharing my own stories and personal reflections.  A growing number of friends and family agreed as requests to be included in my email list continued to grow, if for no other reason than curiosity as to what “that fool will write…