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I've never been in a major earthquake. Well, I mean, except for the pandemic. Seems like it's shaken just about everyone and everything. One thing earthquakes do, they reveal the buildings that weren't built strong enough to stand the shock. Just like floods reveal the weaknesses in a levee or a dam. Or a flood wall that wasn't built high enough.
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In recent years, commercial flying, of course, has become more of an adventure. You've got closer scrutiny just going through airline security. They x-ray, they wand you, they search passengers, they do more hand searches of your bag, they check for explosive residues, and they confiscate lots of things: knives, fingernail files, tools, box cutters (I hope, yeah), clippers. And not many passengers object really. I mean, we know if we want to avoid tragedy, you cannot let anyone or anything that could do something damaging aboard. Yeah, I'm for it.
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Well, mail service has changed a lot during my lifetime. Certainly the cost of sending a letter has gone up, and up, and up, and up. I don't know, it's probably quadrupled or quintupled or even maybe more in my lifetime. In case any of my grandkids are listening, I don't mean beginning with the Pony Express. No. But, you know, there are new services that are added. I remember when they added overnight delivery they didn't used to have. But I'll tell you what. One thing hasn't changed. Listen, the postal service, they have a big job and they struggle sometimes. But you know what? Those mail carriers still do their best to keep their commitment not to be stopped by sleet, or snow, or dark of night. Remember that's the motto? That the old saying, "Nothing keeps us from our appointed rounds." Actually, you know, they've been pretty faithful getting stuff to me. And other than holidays, pretty much the mail usually makes it no matter what the conditions were. I'm impressed with that kind of commitment, not just from mail delivery.
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Well, you know, I've had the opportunity to be close to folks who own several horses. And "City Boy" learns a lot about our equine friend. For example, I now understand that old cliché, "eating like a horse." They really do, in fact, to the point of overeating sometimes. Which, as I understand, it can lead to a painful and even deadly condition called foundering. I looked up "founder" in the dictionary and when it comes to horses, it's defined as "to become ill from overeating." Again, as "City Boy" understands it, when a horse eats too much grain or hay or grass, it can have painful gas build up inside. One way you can tell they're foundering is if they become lethargic, just kind of lying on the ground a lot. In its worst case, foundering can actually be fatal. The horse owner's job at a time like that is to just walk and walk with the horse, making sure it gets exercise. To neglect foundering can actually cost a horse's life.
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It was one of my wife's favorite recipes. She served it to our Hutchcraft Ministries Team at one time. I always smiled when she served what she called "Javanese dinner" because I knew what was going to happen. She'd tell the guests what's in the dinner and she'd instruct them to go through the line and pile the ingredients on in the order that they're served. And several guests are going to look at one another as if to say, "You've got to be kidding." The ingredients could include rice, chicken, celery, coconut, pineapple, noodles, onions, cheese and a hot broth poured over the whole thing. (Look, let me just quickly say, don't ask me to send the recipe. I don't do recipes. I just eat them. OK, I can't send you a recipe.) Now listen, there was often some skepticism about this menu. They couldn't understand how that would all go together. Then the guests would go through the line, they would risk it and they loved it. I saw the person who had the most doubts about what all those ingredients would be like when you put them all together. I saw them going back for seconds and thirds.
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It was so cold in the house when I woke up that bitter winter morning. The thermometer announced to me it was like 40-some degrees in the house! I mean, my kids had some good laughs and some rare comments when they saw me praying that morning in front of an open stove in the kitchen. Look, it was the only warm place in the house! Well, Mr. Furnace came over, and he checked things out and informed us that we needed a new thermostat. As soon as our thermostat was working, the thermometer had better news for us; the house was warming up again! It is amazing what a difference a functioning thermostat can make!
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Oh, give me a break. It's not like I'm the only man in the world with this control thing. I mean, it's probably part of our wiring to be in control, huh? Like driving. If you've got four guys traveling together, you usually have four people who want to drive, but that makes the front seat awfully crowded. When a family's going on a long trip, many men make it very clear, "I'll drive." I'm one of those guys who doesn't like to ride very much. I do like to drive. But a while back, I learned a valuable lesson about this "must drive" neurosis. We had an all-day trip ahead of us and I had a full day of preparation for speaking and radio programs. I find that's hard to do with a steering wheel in your hand. Yeah, something the National Safety Council would not be excited about. So my wife drove the whole trip while I buried myself in my work. I got so much done!
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I got to thinking there was something wrong with my nose! Because every couple of months it develops this tender spot on the inside, and that was okay, because only I knew that. But when the outside started to swell and turn to some not so beautiful shades of red, well, then everybody knew. Those were the days I was glad I'm on radio instead of television. So it seemed like a few days a year I get to look like Rudolph, whether it's Christmas or not. I went to the doctor with it, and I said, "Doctor, this is ugly. What will I do?" He said, "Well, you know, there might be an infection in there." Well, that's probably more information than you want, but I'm going somewhere with this, so stick with me. He prescribed an appropriate antibiotic. Sure enough, if I took that antibiotic when that first tenderness started to come along, it stopped the flare-up. So, what other people could see on the outside, well, that wasn't my real problem.
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It was another one of those unforgettable summers with that amazing group of Native American young people. This particular summer, we had traveled to 14 Indian reservations to tell about the hope that these young men and women found in Jesus Christ. One village we were in was typical of so many - so much violence that we were actually advised not to sleep overnight there with the team; a lot of gang activity, a ton of despair. In most places, we're there for multiple nights, but in this particular village we could only do a single night outreach event. Usually, we're outside on a basketball court where the basketball events, the contemporary Christian music and the powerful Hope Stories of the team members convene and hold the attention of a very large crowd. But this night we had to be in a gym, and when team members began to talk about the Savior who had changed their lives, we had an unusual - and very distracting - exodus from the building that was led by several big gang members.
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On a foreboding day in the spring, the tornado warnings were out for this small town in Illinois. Knowing they needed to find a safe place, some folks really ran for shelter into the one basement of a restaurant that was housed in a hundred-year-old stone building. What they didn't factor into their choice was the old sandstone foundation on which that building rested. Well, the tornado roared right through the middle of the town, made a direct hit on that building, and it destroyed everything - the building, the foundation, the basement, and eight people died there that day.
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I go to the barber shop to have my hairs cut - both of them. I don't go expecting to glean some gem of philosophical wisdom. But I actually did! This time, an elderly gentleman was the victim - I mean the customer - just ahead of me. He was telling why he wasn't able to go hunting this year as he had in past years, basically because of a barrage of aches and pains and a lot of medical problems. But he wasn't really complaining. You could tell that by his conclusion. As he was getting up out of the chair, he said, "Yep, my body is wearing out, I guess, but I'm just grateful I'm here for it." Good stuff!
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It was the good old days. The children were little. My wife and I could just decide we were going to go away for the weekend and announce to them where we were going, bundle them into the car and take off. Well, then they got to be teenagers. That got to be a little bit more complicated. Their vote would count a lot more as far as the decision-making process went.
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Some jobs are just plain old monotonous - pretty much the same thing every day. Not if your job is serving as a police officer in a patrol car. Every day is full of surprises. You really don't know where that day's work is going to take you. Basically, an officer on patrol is a responder. His radio crackles with a call from the dispatcher, who tells him where he's supposed to go, "Car 22, go to 160 Elm Street. Domestic disturbance." And so, he's off to a place he hadn't planned to go until he got orders from the dispatcher.
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Every time I go to an airport, there are a lot of planes to choose from. Sometimes I walk past dozens of gates and planes to get to one plane at a faraway gate. Sometimes I get on this little "puddle jumper" plane when I'd, of course, rather be onboard a big, sleek aircraft. I don't get on the first plane I see, or the one that's the most convenient to get to, or the one that looks like the most comfortable, or the one that looks best to me. No, I pick which plane I'll board based on one simple factor - its destination.
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It was a pretty amusing billboard; a cartoon drawing of a wide-eyed, bewildered-looking squirrel, holding a broken cable in his paws. The sign just said, "Call before you dig" and he gave a toll-free phone number. The utility folks have this problem. I'm not sure if it's with squirrels; it certainly is with people. They start digging and they cut right into their lines and their cables. I mean, those could be gas lines, phone lines, or phone cables. And in the process, the happy diggers make a big mess for the utility company and their customers. A mess that could have easily been avoided.
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So this guy was heading from northern Arizona to Phoenix, which is in southern Arizona. He called his wife from Flagstaff. That's a two-hour, 75-mile-an-hour drive. "See you in a couple of hours," he said. So he got on the Interstate and took full advantage of those Western speed limits. He had a lot on his mind that day - apparently not including where he was going. By the time he realized what road he was on, he was almost in California; nowhere near Phoenix! Nowhere near home! The guy? Yeah, that was me. I was lost. I didn't even know it!
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When she was in college, my daughter went on a trip to a part of the world that she brought home in her heart with her actually and brought into the hearts of our family. I was back when the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, as it was known then the Communist Empire and the Iron Curtain was coming down. It was right at the beginning of that. She was on a Christian music team on a tour to Estonia and Latvia. They were actually pursuing some historic opportunities to present Christ in public settings. But what really impressed them was the Soviet believers. And that impressed them even more than the meetings that they were able to hold. And they saw in those people a hope of freedom.
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Back in the 1950s, Walt Disney went to an amusement park he didn't like very much. It was a mess; there was litter all over the ground, dirty bathrooms. It just felt tacky. So he made up his mind that when he built the theme park he had dreamed of, it would never be a mess. If you've ever been to Disneyland or Disney World, you know he got what he wanted. Any time we've been there, it's been amazingly clean; I mean, considering the millions of people who go through there. I've been told that they have a simple strategy that makes Disney parks clean places. Take care of a mess right away. One day at Disney World I dropped my Coke cup and this guy with mouse ears made a flying leap and caught it before it hit the ground. OK, I'm exaggerating. But it almost feels like that. It really does stay clean there because they just won't let a mess get started.
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Some friends of ours were at Universal Studios, and they wanted to see behind the scenes of TV and movies. So they went on the tram that takes you on their backstage tour. They had their preschooler with them, and they weren't really too excited about him being terrorized by King Kong and the shark from "Jaws." So, when King Kong appeared on one side of the dark tunnel, they just turned their child's attention to the tunnel and said, "Ooo, look at this dark tunnel! What's this inside your hat?" It worked. He never saw King Kong. Never saw "Jaws." As the shark was jumping out of the water near his father's back, the little guy was studying the scenery on the other side. Whew! He never saw the shark.
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He's not the youngest motorcycle rider in the pack, but he's got to be one of the most devoted. Take that away from him and you'd be taking away one of the great joys of his life. Problem: he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And as that condition progresses, he can expect to begin to experience some disorientation, among other things. That's not a good thing for a fellow running around on his motorcycle. So he has installed a global positioning system on his bike which will always show him where he is going and where home is. That way, if one day he's out on his bike and forgets his way home, he'll be able to find his way home no matter where he goes.
