Monday, June 12, 2006

It's usually the most watched event of the Winter Olympics every four years: the women's figure skating competition. At the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, a lot of America's hopes for a gold medal were riding on Sasha Cohen; especially after she managed a thin, first-place edge after the initial short program. Then came the decisive long skating program. Suddenly, all hopes of any medal seemed to disappear with a major fall early in her program. The TV commentators actually said, "Now it's going to a fight just be on the podium." With a major deficit in her score from her fall, Sasha Cohen could have easily lost heart. She didn't. She fought back with a strong and impressive showing in the rest of her performance. When the rest of the world's best had all skated, the young woman who had fallen - who seemed to have forfeited any hope of being a champion - stood on that podium with a coveted silver medal.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

John Parker had it made. After two attempts to escape being a slave to a Southern slave owner, he had finally gotten his freedom. He chose to live in Ripley, Ohio, right on the freedom side of the Ohio River. He got a house and a good job as a factory worker. Ultimately, he owned a foundry and he invented many processes that were used widely in the foundry industry. He was safe, secure and successful. But night after night, John Parker risked it all. Under cover of darkness, he rowed across the river to the Kentucky side - slave territory. If he was caught, he could lose his freedom. He could even lose his life. But in spite of the risks, John Parker went looking for runaway slaves. And he found them and rowed them across the river to freedom. It's believed that John Parker was responsible for at least 900 slaves going free.

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

This would come under the heading of, "You know it's going to be a bad day when..." My wife and I were stopped at a stoplight during the rush hour one morning. We were on a local street that intersects the busiest highway in the area at that point. Now there are two lanes, OK, but we were in the left one - left turn lane. The light turned green, I started turning left, and I noticed another car next to me on my right turning left from the right lane. No, no, not supposed to! That's illegal, and it's pretty dangerous at this intersection. Well suddenly, our friendly scofflaw sees this blinking light in his rear view mirror. He has just made that illegal turn right in front of a police officer! Duh! Needless to say, he was pulled over on the shoulder before he'd even cleared the intersection. He's not even out of the neighborhood yet and he's been caught!

Thursday, June 1, 2006

My wife and I were out for a Sunday afternoon drive and we saw a very strange contradiction. It was this church, and there were long stairs leading up to the entrance and one lone lady at the door. She was trying every door to get into that church, and they were all locked. She looked very frustrated. Now what was the contradiction? It was the name on the church, "Our Lady of Perpetual Help." Well, my wife said, "You know, this reminds me of a scene I saw when I was in Haiti." She said, "I was right near a church, and there was this very gaunt woman, probably almost starving to death and weeping at the door of this church. She looked like she was desperate to get in and every door was locked." That lady was literally beating her fists bloody on the door and there was no response.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Our older son dreamed since first grade about playing his first high school football game, and the day finally came. And the first game was an "away" game. It was a freshman game, and let me tell you, at freshman games, the parental attendance was usually underwhelming! Well, my wife and I were huddled conspicuously in the bleachers, up there with a few others. And finally the team came in with their mix-and-match freshman uniforms. Of course, we're looking for only #76. We didn't take our eyes off of #76, our son. And he, on the other hand, oh, he's all business, man, looking appropriately all macho - staring straight ahead - game face. Oh, he wasn't about to be needing Mom and Dad, but he couldn't resist a glance. For just a moment, he glanced from under that helmet into the stands, and our eyes met. And then, he was quickly back at the field - no smile, no wave, except from us, but our son had to know we were there. Our presence was very noticeable. Our absence would have been, too.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

When you drive in the New York City area, lane switching becomes a well developed art form. Of course, the danger zone in switching lanes is your blind spot. That one area in your rear vision where you can't see in any of your mirrors - that's pretty critical. Actually, the words blind spot have taken on new meaning for my wife and me. She had some vision problems and she developed what the doctor believed to be a temporary blind spot. He injected some dye to see how much of her vision was blocked, and I was surprised as the doctor showed us the results. He said, "Now, here is the blind spot that we all have." I said, "I do?" Right around the optic nerve, there are no rods and cones to produce a visual image, so we all have a blind spot.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Ellis Island - that was the first piece of America that millions of immigrants ever touched. It's a little island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. When you visit the island, there's a long, granite wall with thousands of names of immigrants who passed through there. This was the point of entry for all the immigrants coming through New York. They would book passage and get the cheapest price they could often down below decks. Finally, the boat would reach America, they would step off the boat and enter this long, red brick building on Ellis Island. It's cavernous; it echoes on the inside. But this is where they went through the steps that eventually permitted them to move from the island and on to their real destination, which was New York City and the rest of America. The tour guide says the people carried all their belongings in a basket. That was okay. They knew the island wasn't where they would live, so out of all those thousands who came there, not one ever set up a house there. They weren't going to be there very long.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

The sign said, "Antique Auto Show." So, my wife and I decided that we'd take a few minutes and stop at this car dealership and look at the antique autos. Really, we were interested in seeing the ones that went back to the 50s and the 60s when we were young. There was this one sleek, black '66 Mustang and it had a flawless exterior, a really rich interior, and the hood was open so you could look at the horsepower underneath. And there sitting on the engine block was a thick book of photos. It wasn't the guy's children or grandchildren. It was his car, and at the beginning of this photo album there were "before" pictures of this car. Well, let me tell you, it was garbage when he started. The first pictures were of this rusted out wreck, this banged-up Mustang. That must have been what he bought. And as you look through the book step-by-step you could see the car was being slowly transformed. It took months and maybe years of the owner's patient attention to get this beautiful classic. When the owner saw that wreck, he saw more than a wreck. He saw something that others didn't see.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Our local high school football team has a history of championships and the guys work very hard to get a starting position. One of the things they do is spend a lot of time in the weight room. Our two sons played for that team and, I'll tell you, you have to be in that weight room a lot. The coach is watching. Of course, the weight room is the best place to lift. For one thing, of course, the coach sees you there and he knows you're working hard and that's what coaches like.

You also have spotters there - those are the guys who stand by you while you're lifting to help lift that bar off you just in case you get in trouble because you've lifted more than you could handle. That's what Chris was missing that day. See, Chris had a weight bench in his basement and he didn't have anybody around, but he wanted to do his lifting, and he was trying to increase the amount that he could bench press all alone. It's not smart to be pushing it when there's no one there to help, and he lost it and all that weight came down on top of him. So, Chris is there struggling, and finally he was able to roll it off of him. Naturally, he was pretty lucky because he escaped with just a few bruises, but some guys have actually gotten badly hurt that way. If you're not careful, you could end up trapped under what you thought you could lift.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

My family calls it an idiosyncrasy or is it "idiotsyncrasy"? I'm not sure. But no matter when we get home whenever we've been on a trip, I must unpack. It is the first thing to do when you get home. Oh, it may be 2am, but there's Ron putting his clothes in the closet where they go; making sure his toothbrush is where it needs to be the next morning, putting my books back where they came from. Everyone else is zonked! They're in a coma, and here's Mr. Compulsive busily restoring order. See, I'm not home until I'm unpacked and finally I fall into bed and I go, "Ah, I'm finally home!" See, once everything is put away, I can finally start enjoying being home. Actually, we should unpack even sooner