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I used to work with our high school football team quite a bit, and their practices were in full swing. And I was talking with one of the soon to be freshman football players, and he said, "Ron, it seems like just yesterday we were having our first practices back in the summer." And I talked to some seniors, and then they said, "Ron, weren't we just freshmen? How did we get here so fast?"
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Millions of Americans are on the move right now. It's part of the annual Thanksgiving migration. They'll get to experience turkey on the table today and turkeys in those traffic jams!
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You can find it at a football game. You can find it in a concert. There are thousands of people drawn to a gathering, and they're talking excitedly about some star they've come to see or hear. Hands and voices are raised in praise and all eyes are on the star, or the stars. In fact, if you want to get people really agitated, use the name of their favorite musician in vain. Yeah, or say something negative about their favorite athlete. Uh-huh. I mean, people who might be relatively passive about minor issues like nuclear war, or abortion, or people starving to death are majorly aggressive about their heroes. I mean, we're excited about our favorite musician, or politician, or sports star, even our favorite spiritual celebrity...maybe too excited.
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You know, flying commercial airlines isn't as much fun as it used to be. A lot of people who have to fly seem to agree with that. There are overbooked flights, and there's long lines at security, and canceled flights, and crowded flights, and equipment problems, and all kinds of frustrating delays. If you don't like something about the way the airline is performing, guess who usually gets all the grief? I've seen it happen at the airport over and over again. That poor ticket agent.
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Honest, we really didn't mean to be in northern Kentucky on Kentucky Derby weekend. But obviously, thousands of people did! In trying to avoid flooding as we traveled, that's exactly where we managed to be. So there we were in the middle of rampant Derby Fever. I didn't bet on anybody, and I refuse to wear one of those floppy hats.
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Three New York City boys broke into a zoo there, and one of them climbed into the polar bear area to swim in the moat. He was attacked by those bears. He was brutally killed. I was intrigued by an interview with the Park's Commissioner of New York City who said afterwards, "You know, bears are portrayed to children as friendly animals, even as cuddly animals. We've got Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, and Smokey the Bear. But the Park's Commissioner went on to say, "Actually, they're carnivorous killers." He was right. I mean look, the image of bears is cuddly; the reality is deadly. And not just in bear country.
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I had just finished speaking for a Christian leaders' gathering that was part of the countdown to a Franklin Graham Festival. The setup team there was in their early days of working together on this massive mobilization. The team leader thought it would be a good idea to get his team together for a few minutes after the meeting ended, and he invited me to join them. Then he handed me a cluster of helium balloons tied together. Suddenly, I felt like I'd gone from speaker to circus clown. And, you know, I've read Winnie the Pooh stories to our kids enough that I couldn't help but picture Pooh Bear being carried into the sky by a bunch of balloons like that.
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Many of the world's greatest dramas are not on a stage or a screen. They're played out in that quadrennial spectacle we call the Olympics. Maybe you remember the year, many years ago now really, that Britain's representative in the 400-meter race, Derrick Redman, began to falter and went down in the back stretch with a torn right hamstring. As the medical attendants were approaching, Derrick Redman was fighting his way to his feet. Now, he's limping along in anguish. Hopping, desperately trying to finish the race. He knew he wouldn't win; he was just trying to finish.
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Well, I'd been asked to speak at an adult couples thing at our church. And they did this auction sort of deal. It was sort of a "Let's Make a Deal game." I think some people call it a White Elephant Auction or something like that. It's the kind of game where you go to your garage and you get something you really want to throw away, and you wrap it up in real pretty paper and you bring it to the auction. And what happens is this: One person goes up and has to pick one of those packages, and they open it and then they have it. From that point on everyone can either take an unwrapped package and take their chances on that, or they can trade for something that's already been unwrapped that looks interesting.
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I suspect that children go to secret seminars on how to manipulate parents. They are so good at it, so early! Especially at bedtime. You notice? The object seems to be to squeeze out a few more minutes before you have to go to sleep, right? Let's see, there's water, and then there's praying. And then, "Let's pray some more." Who can argue with that one? There's a sudden interest in talking about things; they are suddenly communicators. Then, of course, the ever popular "monsters in my closet."
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Oh, it was a great time to be traveling out East! I got to be there at cherry blossom time. I was where those pink beauties were popping out everywhere! I'm so glad. I mean, wherever we went there they were. One of the gals on the Weather Channel was broadcasting from Washington, DC, and she had this beautiful backdrop of these exploding cherry blossoms all around the Jefferson Memorial.
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When I'm in a new city, I don't usually make visiting a local cemetery one of my sightseeing priorities. But I did in a ministry trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I visited the cemetery where 121 passengers of the doomed Titanic are buried; many with their names still unknown.
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The five members of the Hutchcraft family have the same last name, of course, except for our married daughter, but that's pretty much where the sameness ends. And I think it's good that we're different.
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It wasn't the big one, but it was pretty big. It was that 6.6 earthquake that rocked Los Angeles some years ago. It was 4:31 A.M. and the ground began to tremble underneath Southern California again. And those who watched it will not forget the picture of what collapsed; those Northridge Meadows Apartments where 16 people died in those apartments. But in the midst of the Northridge tragedy, you heard the word miracle a lot. Maria Ballesteros was one who survived that apartment collapse and she was rescued. And she claimed she knew why. She said there were 50 pictures hanging on her wall and 49 of them were destroyed. But one was still there when the shaking was all over. Maria said this, "The one of the Lord was the only one left hanging."
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Monday was not a favorite day for our local high school football players during the season. No, that was the day they watched the film of last Saturday's game. Oh, it's nice to see what you did right, of course, but see, coaches don't spend much time on that. Most of the coach's attention is focused on what you did wrong or what you could do better. And so, on Monday you may get yelled at, critiqued, pushed to improve.
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My wife was on this airplane flight, and she was sitting in the aisle seat, and a mother was sitting next to her in the middle. And this little four-year-old girl, the daughter of that mom, was at the window. The daughter had never flown before, so she wanted to be where she could see. It was one of those cloud-covered days. This little girl occasionally glanced out the window.
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I was on an airplane flight and I overheard a conversation in the seats behind me. Eavesdropping? Maybe. In any case, there was this boy flying with his Dad and he was full of questions...I mean the little guy. He said, "Daddy, what are all those lights for? Daddy, why did part of the wing go down? Daddy, why is it called Lake Erie?" See, the pilot told us the name of it, but he didn't necessarily tell us why it's named that.
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The summer of '88 was a long time ago, but man, it left an indelible mark on Yellowstone National Park. Forest fires? They ravaged our national treasure. And you know, it left behind thousands of acres of charred landscape, displaced animals, dead animals. In fact, the fire almost reached that famous geyser called Old Faithful. It came really, really close to it.
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It was another one of Daddy's great vacation adventures! I announced to the family that we were going to climb Panther Mountain that day. The idea was greeted with underwhelming enthusiasm, but off we went, hiking up the gentle uphill trail that would get us to our goal: the rock fortress I had been told was at the top. As we trudged up the trail, my wife kept pointing out nice things along the way, "Oh, look at the chipmunk! Look at that tree growing out of the rock! Oh, don't you love the sound of the wind blowing through the pines?" I would smile and politely acknowledge her little observations, all the while keeping my male mind firmly focused on the real reason for this activity-getting to the top of the mountain. You can imagine how un-thrilled I was when my wife suddenly said, "Well, the kids are getting tired, and this has been a really neat hike. Let's head back." What? Head back? We were only halfway to our goal? If we went back now, this would all have been a waste of time!
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I know the flight attendant was trying to be polite. The kid wasn't! No. We're on this plane and everyone's eager to take off, everybody's got their seatbelt on and we're ready to go, except for this mother and her four-year-old boy who were standing in the aisle of the plane. The son wouldn't sit down. He's crying, he's yelling at his mother, and the flight attendant was making the announcement, "We'll be able to leave as soon as everyone is seated."
