A new study in the Journal of Public Health indicates that adolescents who experience back pain more frequently are also more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and report problems like anxiety and depression.

During adolescence, the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain (pain arising from the bones, joints or muscles) in general, and back pain in particular rises steeply. Although often dismissed as trivial and fleeting, adolescent back pain is responsible for substantial health care use, school absence, and interference with day-to-day activities in some children.

When the forest is laid bare each winter there is a tendency to think of it as a bleak and dreary place. But the basic structural skeleton of each tree can be seen at this time, with every branch, twig, and bud visible, thus revealing how it has grown in the past, and how it has prepared for the future. So put on a coat, go outside and go look at a tree.

I like cabbage just about any way you fix it. Stuffed cabbage is my favorite, with cole slaw a close second. That said, there was often more cabbage in the garden than I could use. Those heads were wrapped in newspaper and hid away until December or so. That is when Scalloped Cabbage entered the picture.

Sweet Southern Tumbling and Cheer is getting a new front entrance with a set of double glass doors and glass panels on each side with a transom above. Coming soon is a beautiful new canopy and a new sidewalk.

Owner Breann Welch of Sweet Southern Tumbling is entering her third year of providing a great place of fun for kids where they can build self confidence as they learn and make new friends.

As part of a new series called: Things That Make You Go H’mmm!

Matthew 1:18
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”

A good friend of mine recently asked me a question about “The Nativity” or birth of Jesus Christ. A question which I had never fully considered. Actually, it is a two-parter. Here is the question:

The lights in the sanctuary are turned off and it is very dark for a few seconds. Tripp tugs on Timmy’s jacket. He moves Tripp up to sit on his shoulder, close to his ear.

After a few songs, Timmy whispers to Tripp, “You’re a very good singer. Did the Big Guy teach you that?”

“No,” Tripp whispers back. “It just comes natural because we sing to him all the time.”

“Then how do you have time to make all those toys if you’re singing?” Timmy asks.

“That’s because I have never made a toy, but I was at the very first Christmas,” Tripp answers.

One thing professional athletes do not have to worry about is healthcare. Teams want their players healthy so that they can get their money’s worth. Longevity on the playing field is paramount, because for every year a player remains competitive, millions of dollars may be earned.

This is a Christmas card my father received near the beginning of the last century. It was addressed to Master Owen Stimer. That was the way a young boy was addressed back then. It was a more formal time. Postal cards were sent rather than the folded cards we receive now. I have an album full of such cards. This card cost 1 cent for domestic delivery and 2 cents for foreign delivery.

The Christmas traditions we are all familiar with: Holly, mistletoe, Christmas trees, all were imported to the US from Europe, the United Kingdom in particular. There are other traditions still celebrated in the United Kingdom that never caught on here, some of which go beyond Christmas Day.

My mother, who was born in 1914, grew up on a farm in Union County, Tennessee. Raising a family and making a life out of the rocky red dirt was never easy, but both my mother and my grandmother were always proud to declare that they always had enough to eat even though in other parts of the United States, people were standing in lines at soup kitchens or choking on dust or hurling themselves out of windows. My mother reminded me countless times that in those days a dime was a lot of money.

“But what was Christmas like?” I would ask.