Friday, October 26, 2007

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It used to be a lot simpler. These days, it can really be embarrassing - helping your kids with their homework, that is. First of all, most of us have forgotten more than we remember from school - you know, if you don't use it, you lose it. Second of all, they're studying things we probably have no clue about! And they're learning things a lot sooner than we did. So here comes Junior, looking for answers. You can't just tell him you don't know - you're a parent! You're supposed to know everything, right? So you find some diversion - a sudden coughing seizure, a call you forgot to make, the business trip you forgot to leave for. I found - especially in some areas of learning like science or the humanities - you don't need to know all the answers. You do need to own a set of encyclopedias. No, you may not have the answers, but you have the source of the answers!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

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One of the cities that symbolizes for me the charm of the Old South is Charleston, South Carolina. When you go down to the harbor and hire a carriage ride to go to the old part of the city, you feel like you're suddenly back in "Gone With the Wind" or something. Those antebellum houses and mansions are classic. I thought it was great that this historic part of the city had been so well preserved over the years, until the carriage driver told me what really happened. These old buildings had actually deteriorated terribly over the years and the area had become pretty shabby until some people took an interest in financing a renewal.

According to our driver, they only had a limited amount of money, so they decided to invest it in one building. Now the owner used those funds to convert this dilapidated old building into a historic masterpiece. You say, "Well, that's only one building. What about the neighborhood?" Well, the fellow next door was so inspired by what had happened to the neighboring property, he decided to find somebody to restore his building. Then the next neighbor did the same thing, and then the next neighbor, until finally the entire neighborhood was finally transformed.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

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The phone rang in my study. I thought my wife was asleep in the other end of the house. Even though I was really preoccupied with what I was writing, I answered the phone so it wouldn't disturb her. A guy named Mike said hello and he started explaining his special offer related to satellite TV. I wasn't interested, and I tried to tell him that. He just kept talking. I was just starting to tell him no a little more forcefully when I heard a little giggle on the phone. My wife was awake and she had picked up the extension. That's when I woke up! I was talking to a recording. Feeling stupid now! Click.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

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There's this two-lane highway that's a main link between communities. And when they had to close one lane for a short-term road project, it created some delays for all of us tremendously patient people. It was one of those projects where one flagger stops the traffic in one lane while another flagger allows the traffic for the other lane to proceed. All day long, open your lane, close your lane - open your lane, close your lane. They had a car with a "pilot car" sign on it that led the proceeding traffic to the end of the one-lane area. Then the pilot of the pilot car got to turn around and drive back with the traffic following him from the other side. That's got to be exciting work. One lady apparently was short on patience that day. Oh, she waited until her lane was open and the pilot car came. She happened to be first in line. But her patience ended as soon as she started to follow the pilot car. She decided to floor it and pass the pilot car. Bad idea! She crashed right into their heavy equipment.

Monday, October 22, 2007

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"Daddy, would you play with me?" I can still hear those echoes from when our kids were little. I can still remember how preoccupied I was a lot of times when they asked that. So I can relate to the man who was reading his Sunday newspaper - you know, one of the big ones that comes in volumes. His little guy kept tapping on the newspaper and asking his Daddy to play with him. Dad kept giving him little things to do to keep him occupied. Finally, he tried another way to be able to finish his paper. He tore out a page that had a map of the world on it and he ripped it into pieces. He said, "Scotty, put this puzzle together. As soon as you've got it finished, I promise I'll come and play." Two minutes later, Scotty was tapping on Dad's newspaper again. "I'm finished," he said. And there it was - the whole map of the world, together on the floor. Dad said, "Son, how did you ever put that together so fast?" His little guy replied: "It was easy, Daddy. There was a picture of a man on the other side. If you put the man together right, the world goes together just fine!

Friday, October 19, 2007

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It was a race against time. The last ferry boat to the island where we had a hotel reservation left at 8:30. We did everything the speed limit would allow. When we stopped for gas, we did one of my infamous Hutchcraft drills where you fill the car, empty yourself, and grab a meal in just minutes. All that's missing is the stopwatch. We knew it was going to be close so we didn't waste a minute. We roared into town and up to the dock at 8:40. We got there too late. We missed the boat - the last boat.

Friday, October 12, 2007

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Rwanda. That's a word many Americans never knew until that little African nation was all over our TV and newspaper a few years ago. Tens of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered in this bloody civil war. Billy Graham's son, Franklin Graham, took a medical team to try to help them, and I heard him tell about one little girl that he could never forget, and I don't think I ever will forget this. He was in this rebel camp, and he was walking by an army truck, and he noticed this one little girl sitting in the back of it, and she was just rocking back and forth. And she was singing something very softly, but in a language Franklin couldn't understand. There was a soldier standing by and he was paying no attention to the girl, but Franklin said, "What happened to this little girl?" And he said, "Ah, same as all the others. She's got nobody left." Franklin said, "Well, would you do me one more favor? Would you tell me what she's singing?" The soldier seemed a little annoyed, but he listened for a minute, and he said, "Yeah, it's, uh, uh..." And then he went on to translate it. And when he translated the song, it was clear this little Rwandan orphan hadn't lost everyone.

Monday, October 8, 2007

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Our friend, Cathy, has walked to get around most of her life, but recently she started floating. She's got this glow. She's got a new bounce in her voice when she answers the phone. She's got a new confidence. Cathy's more alive than we've ever seen her. Now what magic could bring about all these wonders? If you haven't guessed by now, you have 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 life-long romance, and it's pretty exciting to watch.

Friday, October 5, 2007

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Think about you in seventh grade. You say, "I'd rather not." Well, think about you. I mean, what a hunk, right? Miss America! Probably not. Our daughter had a funny experience in her senior French class in high school. There was some down time, and some girls were comparing their wallet pictures, including our daughter. She had out her senior picture and her seventh grade picture, and she put them right next to each other. The teacher asked what everybody was laughing at. Well, our daughter's always had a beautiful smile, but I have to tell you, in seventh grade it was decorated with braces, she had glasses, her hair was kind of kinky and curly and all pulled back, and she looked like a seventh grader. Well, her French teacher looked at that particular picture of our daughter, the seventh grade version that is, and then to the very beautiful senior in her graduation picture: no glasses, long hair, carefully curled hair, big blue eyes unconcealed by glasses. That teacher had a simple two-word reaction, (French teacher, of course) "La Miracle!" Well, "The miracle?" Our daughter could laugh with her friends; she could laugh with her teacher at that old seventh grade picture. Hey, it wasn't her anymore.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

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Few people captured the American imagination like America's first astronauts. That's why, for many of us, names like John Glenn are on a list of 20th Century heroes. John Glenn was, of course, one of the first men to ride a rocket into space. Then, years later, as a "senior citizen" he amazed the world by doing it again. So when John Glenn gives advice to today's space shuttle astronauts, he's got credentials! I love what he is reported to have told the Columbia astronauts before what turned out to be their last flight. He said, "Hey, don't forget to look out the window!"

Monday, October 1, 2007

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Now, it can't be good news when a lifeguard yells, "Everybody out of the water!" He did that day I was in the water at the Jersey Shore. My first thought was "Jaws!" Since I didn't have my shark repellent that day, I got out very quickly. But sharks weren't the problem. Drowning kids were. These three kids were too close to a jetty, it was high tide, and the kids were in big trouble. And so, the lifeguard cleared the water, and then a bunch of lifeguards plunged into the surf. Some were swimming, some were rowing. Hundreds of people were lined up along the beach watching this life or death drama. Now the beach patrol guys got there before these kids disappeared, and it's a good thing. There was no way those kids were going to be able to swim their way out of this. They were rescued, but they didn't contribute a thing to being saved.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

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If you're a parent, you'll understand this. There are those times when you just wish you could trade places with your child because of the pain they're going through. Our 12-year-old son had been playing a pickup football game with some of his friends when a tackle caused him to break his arm. I mean, really break his arm. The fracture was so severe that his arm bone bulged out grotesquely, his hand was limp, and he was really, really hurting. The doctor met us in the emergency room and he went to work trying to reset this arm that was broken in several places. Our son was very tough, but it was obvious that he was in excruciating—I think almost unbearable—pain. He's pretty sure he doesn't ever want to do that again.

Monday, September 24, 2007

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The Lewis and Clark Expedition! They were that bold group of explorers that Thomas Jefferson sent to explore the largely uncharted Louisiana Purchase. The expedition, under the leadership of Captains Lewis and Clark, faced blazing heat and bone-chilling cold. They had some close calls with vicious animals, they were attacked by insects, they had the prospect of massacre by many Indian tribes whose land they were crossing, there were perilous passages, and even the death of one of their own. After a year and a half of paying a very high price, Captain William Clark stood one day in the bow of his boat, pointed west up the Columbia River, and shouted, "Ocean in view!" Later he wrote in his journal: "Ocean in view! O the joy! Great joy in camp! We are in view of the ocean, this great Pacific Ocean which we had been so long anxious to see!"

Friday, September 21, 2007

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One of our new staff members just discovered the secret in our headquarters dining room. As she was carrying her lunch to the table, she bumped into this white pillar that stretches from floor to ceiling, and it moved. The look on her face was priceless! She wasn't quite sure what she had just done, or if she was about to cause the collapse of the room on top of all of us. But, see, that's the secret. The pillar looks real enough, but it's just decorative. It's made of plastic, and it doesn't hold up anything!

Monday, September 17, 2007

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For a while, it seemed like it was just a head cold. But suddenly my wife's chest started to hurt, and a serious almost uncontrollable cough developed, and minor activity even made it hard to breathe. I had suggested she see a doctor earlier in the week, but she's about as good at taking those suggestions as I am. But eventually she got so miserable, she called for an appointment. "You've got pneumonia, girl!" That's what the doctor said after the chest x-ray. Sure enough, there was this dark stuff, camping out in her lung, causing all this trouble.

Friday, September 14, 2007

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Amid all the amusement and theme parks clustered in Orlando, Florida, there's one that is pretty distinctive. It's a Holy Land theme park that attempts to bring some of the scenes and the stories of the Bible to life. Our daughter and son-in-law were there not long ago with our two grandsons. And the kids, who are pretty up on their Bible stories, really enjoyed walking through those stories and meeting some of the characters (actually, people portraying some of those characters). The one that impressed our then two-year-old grandson the most was Jesus. A man portraying Jesus stood in the middle of the small crowd and He spoke some of the very stories He told in the Bible. But then came the moment our little guy will not soon forget. Jesus came over and picked Him up, just like Jesus did with the children when He was here. The next day Mom and our little guy were talking about his upcoming third birthday party, and suddenly out of the blue, he said, "I want Jesus at my birthday party."

Thursday, September 13, 2007

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Recently, I spoke for a large youth conference at one of the East Coast's most popular vacation spots: Ocean City, Maryland. The boardwalk, the hotels, the restaurants, the amusements seem to stretch for miles. My friend told me he's been coming to Ocean City since the 1970s, when most of what I was seeing wasn't there. Not that many folks used to come to Ocean City. I asked my friend what changed that. "Oh, the bridge," he said. The building of what is called the Bay Bridge opened up this beautiful spot to many people who had never experienced it before.

Monday, September 10, 2007

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"Court TV." Sure enough, there's a popular cable channel in America that just shows court trials all day! For some reason, America's got this strange fascination with criminal trials. It's almost like another sport we watch. We're even learning some of those fancy legal words that only lawyers and judges used to know. So how's your "writ of habeas corpus" doing today? Is an angry parent now the "plaintiff" and the disobeying child the "defendant?" The trials that really intrigue us are those celebrity trials, where someone rich or famous or notorious is on trial. And from these trials have come even the phenomenon of celebrity lawyers - attorneys who make big bucks and a big reputation trying to get some big names off the hook. Believe me, those folks make sure that they get the best defense attorney money can buy!

Friday, September 7, 2007

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Norma Jean was born on a cold, snowy day after a battle just to get into this world. She's a little white calf whose mother wouldn't have anything to do with her, and she lay out in the snow and the cold for many hours, actually, before her owner realized her predicament. That newborn was in pretty bad shape, with her hind legs just not even supporting her when she tried to stand. Her attempts to get up were, well, they were pitiful. Kenny's a teenager, and he doesn't live on the farm where the calf was born. But when he saw her, he offered to take her and try to pull her through. The farmer was pretty pessimistic about the calf making it, but Kenny arranged for her to stay in a stall in a friend's barn. Every morning, he drove to that barn before school, and he faithfully fed Norma Jean a big bottle of milk substitute, and slowly nursed her back to health. Today, that calf who had been on her last legs is now bouncing all over the place on four good legs!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

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"Embedded reporters." It was a concept most of us had never heard of until Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the U.S. Military decided to allow reporters to actually travel with and report from active combat units, fighting for the liberation of Iraq. The result was these amazing live transmissions from sandstorms, rapid troop movements, actual combat in progress, and even the takeover of some of Saddam Hussein's palaces. It was the ultimate in reality TV. Of course, it had one disadvantage; one that briefers and Pentagon officials kept reminding people of. The embedded reporter could only report on the small slice of the big picture that he was able to see from his unit's vantage point. A seasoned military observer expressed it this way on television: "The closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war."