Well, the blackberries are tiny, hard balls on the bushes. The dogs never come out from under the porch, except at night. The pool is now the temperature of a very large hot tub and the wind has all but ceased to blow here. School supplies have been purchased, and both children and parents are ready to get back to the work of education. Summer is nearing its end.

Father's day is past, and even as we continue to celebrate the imagery and the memories, we need to remember that while there are many remarkable, amazing fathers in the world, our struggling culture and our lost children need more than tender memories.

I had surgery in early March. I?ve always believed we could date our lives by our procedures. You have your tonsils out as a child, your fractures are reduced as a teen and there are C-sections for ladies in their 20s and 30s. Soon after, we have things like vasectomies, tubal ligations, biopsies, hysterectomies, colonoscopies, heart surgeries, broken hips, prostatectomies and all the rest. There's a rough sequence to it all.

I sure wish I could build things. I stand in awe of people who, given an afternoon, a few boards and some mysterious power tools, can construct a windmill or a yacht. They build garages and gazebos for fun, and when someone asks if they build their house, they can honestly say ?yes!? All I can say is, ?Well, I went to work to pay another guy to build it??'that counts, right??

In this edition of The Baptist Courier, most of our readers will meet for the first time a new columnist, Edwin Leap, who practices emergency medicine in the Upstate and is a deacon and Sunday school teacher at College Street Baptist Church in Walhalla.

I enjoy reading Edwin Leap's writings in the Greenville News. Thanks for including him in The Baptist Courier. His columns are so refreshing. Also, I enjoy reading about his family.