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Back in the 1990s, the United Nations announced the appointment of a new Secretary General. His name was Kofi Annan. He was a highly respected African diplomat. And as the spotlight shifted to this new Secretary General, well, the reporters wanted to learn more about his life, including what I found to be an enlightening story that he told from his childhood.
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I have no official statistics on what I'm about to say; just a personal impression. But I believe the State of Pennsylvania might be the road kill capitol of the Northeast; especially for deer population. I have seen many more dead deer by the side of the road there than any state in that region. Of course, there's a lot more of Pennsylvania, too. But I read an article about the outraged mayor of a small town in Pennsylvania. The Interstate runs through his community. This is a true story! The reason for his outrage? A paving crew was working on that road one summer, and they came upon a dead deer with much of its carcass lying on the road. Want to try to guess what they did next? They went right ahead and paved right over the deer! "Honey, I just hit a bump in the road. I think it's a deer!"
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Part of my heart's been in Charleston, South Carolina these past few days. So has a part of America's heart. There was this hate-driven murder, of nine Christian worshipers in the church. It’s devastated the city and it’s riveted our nation. Seasoned reporters have been groping for words. They come up with words like "horrific" and "heartbreaking." But even more overwhelming than the brutal crime was the response of the families whose loved ones were murdered. "I forgive you."
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It's important for fathers and sons to do things together, right, like my son helping me with the yard work so we can bond, of course. I remember one day when my oldest son was probably just about five. It was a hot day. I was mowing and my son was following around after me clipping. I looked over to him and I smiled. About five minutes later he came over and yelled over the mower, "Daddy, could you please do that again?" I said, "Could I do what again, son?" He said, "Daddy, could you smile at me again? Your smile keeps me going."
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We sure take for granted our ability to make a phone call. There were some folks in Chicago's western suburbs some years ago who didn't take it for granted. Now, you've got to realize, that was in the day before cellular technology. My daughter was in college in the western suburbs of Chicago, and she was used to being able to pick up the phone and there's Mom and Dad.
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I was in Arizona taking the opportunity to spend a little time with my son and our daughter-in-law. And since I'm the early riser of our family, they showed me where all the breakfast food was.
Now, breakfast isn't breakfast without a bagel or an English muffin, right? Well, they had some. So I popped a bagel into their aging toaster oven. And after rounding up the rest of my breakfast, I looked through the oven window to see how my bagel was doing, and I quickly opened the door to save it from burning, only to find out it was nowhere near done. I repeated that exercise two or three times. You know why? The window on that toaster oven had gotten clouded and murky over the years. So everything you looked at through that window looked darker than it really was.
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In my little world, "nuke" is just a word that describes what happens to my leftovers when I put them in the microwave. But when I was doing a week of outreach on an Air Force base, nuke meant something far more lethal, like nuclear missile. This particular base was home to scores of missiles that had been part of the front lines of our nation's defense for years. They were kept in underground silos surrounded by very high tech security systems. And it was my privilege to be taken on a visit to one of the launch control centers. Each one of these control centers was responsible for ten missiles.
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Our dog, Missy, had to share our attention with another pet. Yeah, it was a canary that we named in honor of one of our Native American friends. We named the canary Cherokee. Now, this little yellow cheerleader was great for when you were in a bad mood because he never was! As soon as you uncovered his cage in the morning, he began warbling his repertoire of happy tunes. It might be a sunny day, and you had happy singing from him all day long. It might be a miserable day. Guess what? Happy singing all day long! It didn't matter how the people around our canary felt; happy, stressed, noisy, quiet, or down. It just didn't matter. No matter what, he was always singing!
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Easter night millions of Americans tuned in to Jesus, like they did two years ago with "The Bible" miniseries on cable TV. Except this time, "A.D. - The Bible Continues" was on a major network. I was one of those millions who was watching on Easter, plunged into the world-changing events of that first Good Friday and Easter.
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I checked my suitcase at the airport, and then I see it disappear as the conveyor belt carries it beyond the curtain into that black hole called the luggage zone. I sometimes wonder how my bag is going to be handled. Now, I don't know exactly what baggage handlers do, but I do know that Bertha, (that's the name I gave my suitcase since we spend so much time together) may get tossed or buried, or squished.
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I was 12 years old when I was baptized. And I thought getting in that baptismal tank at our church was hard! Well, my wife was nine years old when she was baptized, and she grew up in the Ozarks where they baptized folks the John the Baptist way - in the creek (or crick).
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Years ago in college, our son and a young lady friend of his decided they needed to have an RDT. I know it sounds like an injection or like bug spray. But it actually had to do with what was going on between them. See, men and women at the college that they attended often would have an RDT with someone. And I guess history does repeat itself, because I actually had one with my future wife one night many years ago. We didn't call it that, but that's what it was. I told her this: "I'm just sick and tired of just having a brother/sister relationship. I want it to be more." I risked it all that day.
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My schedule? Oh, forget it. It's ridiculous! So much so I often can't get to stores before they close. And banks just don't seem to have schedules that are made for guys like me. Here I am after banker's hours with nothing in my wallet but pictures of my family. But, listen, a great thing happened! The ATM was invented, the ATM card just for people like us. What a concept! Any time of the day or night I can go in with an empty wallet and use that card to instantly access my account and walk out with something in my wallet. Good deal.
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Hunting season has always been a pretty big deal for my friend, Stan. Actually, he was a young man the day that he and his cousin were on a trip that turned out to be one of their more memorable trips - all because of the rattlesnake. Yeah, they were deep in the woods turkey hunting when they heard that telltale rattle behind them. Stan turned, fired his gun, and I don't mean to be crude, but he actually shot the head off the rattlesnake.
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Velcro Man! That's what my wife and I nicknamed one of our good friends. And Jack, if you happen to be listening, I'm sorry you have to hear about this through the radio. Jack is Velcro Man! Everywhere we look in his house, his vehicle, his studio, we find a problem solved by Velcro; that special fabric tape that has hundreds of little hooks on one side and loops on the other side. Man, when you can connect them, they stick together!
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My thumb is not and probably never will be green, but I think my friend Mel was born with a green thumb. He has one of the most beautiful fruit and vegetable gardens I think I've ever seen. And more than once I've literally asked him to take me on a tour of his garden. Now, city boy always learns a lot in that garden. On the last time, I think, we toured (which was a while back) he showed me a garden spider at work, for example. Actually, it wasn't at work, it was at dinner. It was just finishing filet of grasshopper; the latest insect to be caught in his web.
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My wife and I knew we were going to be spending our lives together a long time before we announced it to the rest of the world. But our schooling demanded that we have a long courtship and a long engagement, which honestly we're grateful for unto this day. Except for the two summers we had to be apart a lot. They were tough! You know what helped though? The letters.
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Back in Kindergarten we all had to play a little instrument in this band our teacher put together. I got to feeling the kids with the musical ability got nice things to play. Looking back, I realize that those of us who were musically incompetent were assigned to "play the sticks." I got two drum sticks. All we had to do was hit the floor with them. See? Yeah, it didn't take a whole lot of ability.
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Sometimes I think my schedule looks like an episode of Mission Impossible. Some years ago, I was speaking for the Billy Graham Crusade Committee for two pre-crusade leadership rallies. They were in two completely different locations on the same Saturday morning. One was in the heart of Philadelphia and one was in an outlying suburb. They were scheduled back-to-back, and we had to make a very flying trip when I finished speaking in the city to get to the suburbs.
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My wife and I had a very long honeymoon; well, let's just say for a lot of years now. Our honeymoon was in its early years when we got some very scary news. The doctor said that my wife might have a very serious disease. She had a routine physical for her job, and the chest x-rays revealed some suspicious dark spots on her lung. We got that report on a Friday, and we had to wait until Monday to get the final results. It might have been one of the longest weekends of our lives!
