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June 4, 2020

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The Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri are known for their rocks. They make for some hard farming, some beautiful views, and some challenging road building. Like this one stretch of highway from Branson, Missouri, to Springfield, Missouri, that they widened. As you slowed down through those construction zones, there were some pretty impressive changes that were taking place. Some places were nothing but solid-rock mountain, but somehow they managed to blast away at those mountains and they literally made a road where a mountain used to be!

June 3, 2020

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I've never been able to get this little four-year-old girl out of my mind. I never met her, but I'll tell you what, I saw her story and it really affected me.

June 2, 2020

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He was only supposed to be a minor character in what was then a new television series. It's called "Happy Days." It was a hit series about 1950s teenagers. And as it grew in popularity, so did the popularity of a character known as Arthur Fonzarelli, a.k.a., Fonzie or "The Fonz." With his motorcycle and his greased-back hair and his ability to have a girlfriend literally with the snap of his fingers, Fonzie became one of the best known sitcom characters ever. Fonzie was like the epitome of "cool," well, most of the time. He wasn't cool when he tried to say three little words. No, not "I love you." A strange paralysis seemed to take over his tongue whenever he tried to say, "I was wrong." Maybe you remember. It always came out something like, "I was wr-wr-wr-wr-wro-wro..." He never seemed to be able to get those words out.

June 1, 2020

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Wow! Talk about so near and yet so far. Poor Desmond Bishop. He missed what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the White House and meet the President of the United States! Actually it was a few years ago.

May 29, 2020

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Sometimes when our son comes to visit, he comes with a box of doughnuts under his arm. Just what we need! Now these are not just any doughnuts. They're from a doughnut chain that has become very popular in America. I don't do ads, so you'll have to figure it out. But we were driving with our son through a tourist community a while back, and he suddenly exclaimed, "The hot light is on!" I thought my car was overheating. Nope! It was good news. He meant that the light in the window of this doughnut store was on, which is their signal that a hot batch of their delicious doughnuts has just come out of the oven. And I have to tell you, when you get them fresh like that, oh, can you say "irresistible"? Did I just make you hungry?

May 28, 2020

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When people ask me why I'm not going on some roller coaster that goes upside down and around and around at something like 200 miles per hour, I don't want to just tell them I'm chicken. So, I tell them I'm not tall enough. You know that picture they have of a little person? They have them at the entrance to rides that are a little more challenging. You're supposed to stand next to it, and if you're not as big as that person that they've drawn, you're not allowed on that ride. I've got grandsons, on the other hand, who would love to get on some of those rides. They don't have the wisdom of my years. They don't have the well-developed survival instincts that I have, but for a long time they weren't allowed on the ride. They just didn't measure up.

May 27, 2020

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It was a 911 call that alerted the first responders. A man was slowly wading out into San Francisco Bay, inching his way to ending his life there. Pretty soon a group of firefighters, and a crowd of about 75 people, were watching as this desperate man went a little deeper and a little deeper, and sadly occasionally glancing back at the shore. They stood there watching for an hour...and they watched him die, without anyone making a move to help him.

May 26, 2020

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I guess you could call it a "tale of two cities." It was during the Civil War. The Confederate Army had again invaded the North. The Confederate General came to Hagerstown, Maryland, and he threatened to burn the town unless they came up with a $20,000 ransom. A local businessman rallied the townspeople and he collected the ransom. Hagerstown was spared. Then the Confederate forces moved up to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and they made the same demand. Those folks didn't come up with the ransom. Chambersburg was burned to the ground.

May 25, 2020

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It was one of those milestone wedding anniversaries for my wife and me. I got congratulations cards. She got sympathy cards. But we had a wonderful couple of days in a romantic location, even doing some romantic things. Like a horse-drawn carriage ride through some beautiful countryside. Along the way, our driver pointed out a forest of tamarack trees which the Indians reportedly called "twice-burning wood." Our driver explained that tamarack trees need a fire in order to reproduce. Their bark is petroleum-based rather than glucose-based like most trees, so it takes a fire to burn off the bark to expose the seeds that produce new life. Interesting!

May 22, 2020

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Hans Christian Andersen wrote this little fable, The Emperor's New Clothes. And when he did, he was displaying some keen insight into human nature. The Emperor in the story was a vain man, whose main focus in life was to dress in these elegant clothes and show them off to his people. Two scoundrels exploited that vanity by offering to make for the Emperor an extraordinary garment made from cloth so light and so fine that it looked invisible - invisible, that was, to anyone too stupid or incompetent to appreciate its quality. Which none of his officials wanted to be, for fear of losing their position. So they simply expressed admiration for the garment that didn't really exist. Even the Emperor had to fake his response to the garment lest he appear stupid and incompetent, right? So at that point, the scoundrels convinced the Emperor to appear before his subjects, wearing only his magnificent new clothes. And, of course, the crowd cheered for the clothes that weren't there. Who wants to be stupid, right? Until a little child did what little children do: tell it like it really is. He just went up to the royal carriage and blurted, "The Emperor is naked."

May 21, 2020

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When you drive into Texas, these signs say, "Don't mess with Texas." One reason might be the weather in Texas! And, you know, if you just watch the national weather on any given day from spring into the fall and you're likely to see the color red. That's for severe thunderstorms or possible tornadoes. Our son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter were driving across the Texas panhandle one spring day, and sure enough, they drove into one of those really nasty weather fronts. Amarillo, Texas, was behind them. New Mexico was ahead of them. The sky was featuring that special shade of tornadic green. The rain was torrential and the clouds were growing those little fingers, you know, that sometimes turn into tornadoes. Our son decided it was time to call his brother and see what the Internet was saying about this weather. His question: "Shall I keep going or turn back to Amarillo?" The answer: "Just keep going, man. Twenty more miles and you'll be in bright sunshine!"

May 20, 2020

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If you're a baseball fan, it seems like winter is going to last forever. Then you hear those wonderful words: "Opening Day!" Snowballs turn to fast balls, and you're happy again. You know, over the last years, one of the great stars in baseball has been Albert Pujols, who for many years made records on St. Louis Cardinals. And he has had some great seasons, acknowledged by many to be one of baseball's all-time greats.

May 19, 2020

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Sadly it seems to be in every summer's headlines - fires raging in the West. Millions of acres destroyed by fires that can range for weeks on end; fires that bring a lot of bad news. But, you know, fires like these aren't all bad news. Now, there's no doubt they cause tremendous damage, but over the long haul, they also can produce a lot of new life. Somehow, nature renews itself with fire - a lot of old and dead stuff is burned away, new vegetation begins to grow, and new life actually begins to spring up.

May 18, 2020

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It was an incredible moment when our second grandchild was born. My wife and I actually got to be in the birthing room only minutes after his arrival. There was that fragile, precious little handful of baby boy, and then across the room was that amazing life-support system they call the placenta. I couldn't help but flash back to the birth of our youngest child. His delivery was the first one I was allowed by the hospital to be there for. (That was in the very old days, you know.) And I'll never forget our obstetrician's comment immediately after the baby and the placenta had come. He looked at me and he said, after having had this experience hundreds of times, "This is the greatest miracle known to man."

May 15, 2020

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Throughout the history of warfare, there always have been those weapons or tools that gave an army an edge. When I was a boy, it was the iron chariot or the catapult. Later, it was the crossbow, and then the latest rifle. While it's not exactly a weapon, there is a new military tool that can give military folks an edge. It's called night goggles, and they help soldiers live up to their reputation for "owning the night." Night goggles literally allow the wearer to see an illuminated view of what's going on in the darkness; things that would otherwise be invisible. If you can see through the night, you can see what others can't see and you can operate when others can't move.

May 14, 2020

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They call them the chain gang. They wear stripes, but they're not prison inmates. They're football officials, and they carry this chain that measures whether or not a team has made a first down. Now not everyone is a football fan, so let me explain this. A team has four tries to move the ball ten yards. If they succeed, they get a "first down" and they get four more plays. If they fail, they have to turn the ball over to the other team at that point on the field. Many times it's impossible to tell with the naked eye if the ball has made it those ten yards, because it's very close. So they call out the chain gang. They come trotting out, they extend the chain to its full length, and then they set it down. If it extends beyond the ball, the team falls short. If it falls short, the team has succeeded. And as many who have played or watched football know, winning or losing a game can, like in moments like these, literally be a matter of inches no matter how far you've brought the ball.

May 13, 2020

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Over the years, I've learned a few lessons about how to meet a little child for the first time and how not to. I used to stand there all big and adult and come on real enthusiastic, "Hey, how you doing, Billy?" Well, at that point the child promptly turned his head and disappeared somewhere in his mother's leg.

May 12, 2020

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Okay, you book your airline flights in advance to get the best possible fare. The only problem is occasionally something will change and I can't use that ticket. They'll let me use it later, but sometimes I wish I could give it to one of our staff or a family member to use toward a trip they're taking. No can do. No, see, that ticket has my name on it. The person using it has to prove with photo I. D. that they are me because that's the rules. Only I can go on my ticket.

May 11, 2020

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My wife and I had the chance to visit this Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg, Mississippi. I asked her if she had any firsthand memories of the war that she wanted to share with me, which almost started another battle at Vicksburg. President Lincoln had called Vicksburg the "key" to the Confederacy and he told his generals, "We do not yet have the key in our pocket." Standing on high cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, it was a daunting challenge for the Union Army. For more than a year there were bombardments from the river and the many hills. There were numerous clashes on land. And at the end, it was a siege that actually drove Vicksburg's residents to live in caves. Everywhere we drove, there were markers indicating Union and Confederate regiments that had battled it out for the hills all around the city. Some of the bloodiest fighting took place as Northern forces mounted bold attacks on the Southern strongholds which were atop the highest points. As in so many battles, the fight for the high ground helped determine the outcome of the battle.

May 8, 2020

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Our high school grandson came up with "Hmmm" kind of gems. "Life's different from school. In school you have the lessons then the test. In life, you have the test, then the lessons." Like I said, "Hmmm." Now, we hear a lot about the need for more testing in this pandemic to know what's going on inside of people if we're going to contain and trace this virus. Yeah, we need to be testing for coronavirus, but the fact is the coronavirus has been testing us with fear and financial stress, disruption and distance and loss of control and connection. There's something about a crisis like this that exposes what's inside.

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