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Wednesday February 19, 2014

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Our oldest son was working with young people on an Indian reservation in Arizona. One of his first challenges was to find a place to live on the reservation. And that was pretty difficult. But God provided him with a lot and a trailer to put on that lot, and that was great! Second challenge, how to work everything on the trailer. Now, we're talking about a son here who shares his father's mechanical aptitude. I taught him everything I knew. It took about 30 seconds.

Monday, February 17, 2014

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Clark Kent! What a wimp! I started watching Clark Kent when he was a "mild-mannered reporter (it said) for a great metropolitan newspaper." I was a kid then. Poor Clark! He always seemed pretty easy to push around, kind of Joe Ordinary; "Clark Can't" really. Of course there was a secret no one in Metropolis suspected. No one knew that underneath that ordinary exterior was his real identity-Superman! Clark knew that he was a whole lot more than meets the eye.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

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A self-respecting hummingbird would never have been caught where we used to live, because there were just way too many people. But now we are in a quieter area where we get to see those little guys. They're the original helicopters you know. They hover; they dart around with their wings moving so fast you can hardly see them. If you want to have them visit your place, your best bet (My wife tells me) is to hang a hummingbird feeder outside. You fill it with this sweet sugar nectar, (It's delicious. I tried some) and before long they zoom up to that feeder, they insert their long straw, I mean beak, and then they start loading up on the sweet stuff.

Monday, February 10, 2014

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Our oldest son grew up Mr. Suburban Boy, and he has a very sensitive nose. Okay, those are the two reasons he has never enjoyed a ride through farm country in the spring. Especially after the farmers have fertilized their fields the, shall we say, natural way. It smells, but it works! Like compost; all this dead and decaying stuff mounded up in a pile? Time does not improve the aroma of that, but you put that stuff on your garden and great things are going to grow. The stink? That's not very nice, but what grows from it sure is.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

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It was a steep trail! It was during the summer and we were up about 12,000 feet on this mountain. Of course the air was pretty thin, but it was worth the climb because my wife and I were hiking up to this magnificent glacier. Now, you can't see it from the road, but as you climb the mountain, you finally get a peek at it near the top of the trail. That would be shortly before I collapsed from oxygen deprivation. There's this beautiful white blanket on top of the mountain, especially at the end of the summer. Actually, it looked more beautiful from a distance.

Friday, January 31, 2014

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We were in Phoenix on a ministry trip, and the last thing I expected was to be leaving something there when we were ready to come back. But we did, or rather my wife did. She decided to leave her gall bladder there. She had unexpected major surgery about 2,500 miles from home. I thought I was going to be back to my office, of course, that week. And I needed all kinds of files and reports urgently. So, I asked our office to mail me my office overnight while my wife is getting the surgery we hadn't expected. So they boxed everything up and sent it by a mail service that guarantees "next day delivery" by 10:30 A.M. So, the next morning I happened to be talking on an outdoor pay phone (Remember those?) when the truck pulled up. The driver made a mad dash toward me, handed me my package breathlessly, and I looked at my watch-10:27 A.M.! They're good! I was impressed. Just in time, but in time.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

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Hurricane Andrew! You say that to someone in South Florida and they are likely to have a story to tell you. The Miami area took one of the century's hardest hurricane hits when Andrew landed there. Home after home was devastated by the brutal force of what was a killer storm. But some friends in Florida told me something very interesting. They said that in an area where many homes went down in Andrew's fury, there were certain homes that withstood the storm. Here's what they had in common. They had been built by that Christian agency Habitat for Humanity. Apparently they had used the best materials, they used the best design and the best hands they could find to build those homes. And when the storm was over, they were still standing firm.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

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Beware of the Florida sun! Especially if you're an office-white Northerner. Yeah, that's the voice of experience! I started out for a walk on a Florida beach before the burning hours, which is supposed to be like 10:00 a.m., right? That didn't help me because I can burn next to a 60-watt light bulb.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

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Once a year, it's gets to be that time again-annual physical checkup. I know it's important, but that doesn't mean I have to get excited about it. I mean, they're going to poke me, and they're going to take my blood, and they're going to analyze me, and they're going to weigh me, and they're going to test me and hook me up to machines. Of course one of those is especially important in light of my family's cardiac history. Sometimes they give me an electrocardiogram; otherwise known as an EKG. And in a sense, that EKG gives information you couldn't get without it. It's sort of a picture of what's really going on inside my heart.

Friday, January 17, 2014

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Our daughter was just eight years old when we left her at a summer camp for the first time. That's kind of a milestone for the child and the parent. But our daughter was really excited. I guess it's the parents that have a little harder time letting go. But a beautiful island, Camp Tapawingo, is on an island in the middle of an Adirondack lake only accessible by boat. So as this boat pulls away, it really underscores the reality that you are leaving this girl. But to be honest with you, it wasn't all that tough.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

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Our friend, Kathy, has walked to get around most of her life. Recently she started floating. Yeah, she got the glow, a new bounce in her voice when she answers the phone, a new confidence. Kathy's more alive than we've ever seen her. Now, what magic could bring about all these wonders? If you haven't guessed, you've been away too long. She's in love! She's in her twenties, and this is her first really big romance. It might be her lifelong romance. It's pretty exciting to watch.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

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You can become fairly addicted to a predictable television adventure series. You know how it's going to go. There's a victim you like; there's a villain you don't like, and there's a predicament. And you want to see the predicament resolved, but what if the predicament isn't resolved? You see this wrong sense of values as it goes down to three minutes, two minutes, one minute. You know it's going to end very quickly and it's getting worse. The villain you don't like is winning. The victim you really do like, well how are they going to fix it? And finally, one of the heroes appears on the scene and it's resolved.

Monday, January 13, 2014

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For many years I was kind of an old fashioned sort of guy in shaving. You know, I wasn't going to have any of those electric shavers for me. I've sort of succumbed now. But for many years I shaved, well, what I thought was like real men. Which meant cooking my beard with hot water first. And that required filling that sink with hot water; as hot as I could stand it. Now, in order for that to happen, the sink has to be able to hold water for a few minutes. And you know what I've noticed traveling around? They don't all do it. I can get them all full; I just couldn't keep them all full. So I'd close the drain, but they just didn't all hold water. I have to keep filling the sink, filling the sink because it leaked.

Friday, January 10, 2014

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I checked the bread drawer and it was still there, but there was a smell! Our daughter was visiting and she put in a bagel order with her aunt. She said, "I want an onion bagel." Well, somehow that onion bagel spent a few days in that bread drawer before it finally disappeared. Oh, the bagel was gone, but the smell remained. Well, that's not correct. Oh, no! In fact, the taste wasn't even gone. That little round stinker flavored every bagel in the drawer. So they all tasted like onion bagels now. I even had a bag of Starburst candies in the bread drawer, (Don't ask me why.) and guess what? You should try those with a little onion flavor! Yum, yum! Who would have guessed that one thing could stink up and flavor everything?

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

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I have a friend who seems like every winter he reminds me, "January is my bad month." I thought, "Well, does he get the credit card slips from Christmas, or what?" He said, "No, my biorhythms are always down in January. I feel unmotivated; things go wrong." I don't spend a lot of time with him in January.

Friday, January 3, 2014

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There are some advantages to living where it's cold in the winter, especially if you're a child in school. You know, it's those two great words, "Snow Day!" I remember on one particular overnight snow when the guys were real small. We heard our sled calling us from the garage. I said, "Snow Day! Let's play!" So there's this hill near us, and when we got there half the town was there. So, we got on our sleigh; my oldest son and I were on it this one time. We started down the hill and we were almost to the bottom when I looked behind us. I didn't like what I saw. There was this big sled speeding straight at us. He didn't see us. I had time for one word, "Jump!" My son responded instantly. We both jumped off and I think we might have missed some injury by inches. I was really glad he didn't take time to ask, "Why, Daddy?"

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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My son and I were trying to remember those basic food groups the other day. And we decided that there's one more than we learned in school. Haven't they added junk food as a basic food group? The problem with all that stuff, you know, the chips, candies, and cookies. They're habit forming! A long time ago, before you could actually skip the commercials, there was one that showed a well-known comedian reaching into a bag for one chip, then he got another and another. And he finally says, "You can't eat just one."

Monday, December 30, 2013

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It's a good thing our oldest son could outrun his sister when they were kids, especially after one of our "earthquake drills." Oh, the earth wasn't really shaking. It started after we returned from a trip to California where we heard a lot about earthquakes. So - for no intelligent reason I can think of - I would occasionally yell randomly, "Earthquake drill!" And the ensuing script went something like this. Brother would run to his sister and hold her tightly. Father: "What are you doing, son?" Brother: "You said if there was an earthquake, we should hang onto something heavy!" This is when speed saved his young life.

Friday, December 27, 2013

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I guess there's a daredevil inside of most little boys. They like to push the limits of safety and sanity. If you've got a boy or ever raised one, you know that. I'm not sure that part of the boy ever grows up, even when that boy becomes a man. I know that whenever we would hike to the top of a mountain, I would tend to head toward the edge of the cliff. That's where you get the best view, right?

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

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Billy was just about to celebrate his tenth birthday. It was the day of his birthday party, and Mom had made sure that all of his little friends were invited over. She came in the family van, drove up to the school and picked everybody up; went on home and all the kids stormed into the house with all their presents, and laid them on the table that had been set aside just for that. Then they went ahead and they played some great games, they played a little kick ball in the back yard, and they came in and they sat down for the goodies. The dining room was all decorated, and they sat around the table and in came the cake with ten candles on it. Sure enough!

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