Our three-year-old grandson was talking with his grandmother on the phone. And all was well. Then he handed the phone over to his Mom and took off across the room to play. Suddenly, Grandma heard him crying in the background. He had tripped over something and actually he had fallen pretty hard. Nothing serious, but he was hurting. Well, he walked back over to Mom and he cried through his tears – “I want to rewind and talk to Grandma!”
When England's Queen Mother died, the British people poured out their affection and respect by lining up for hours to honor her. Her crown was displayed, including the massive, 105-carat diamond - what is known as the Kohinoor Diamond. Actually, Kohinoor means "mountain of light." The story, as I was told it, is that years ago that diamond was given to Queen Victoria by an Indian maharajah when he was a boy. Later, as a grown man, he visited the queen and requested that the diamond be brought from the Tower of London to Buckingham Palace. Kneeling before the queen, he gave it back to her saying, "Your Majesty, I gave you this jewel when I was a child, too young to know what I was doing. I want to give it to you again in the fullness of my strength, with all of my heart and gratitude, now and forever, fully realizing all that I do."
I don't do hospitals. Well, I mean I visit people in hospitals - but I don't stay there myself. I've been blessed not to have to stay during my whole adult life actually. Until a few months ago. For a guy who has very few sick days, this one bout of the flu really knocked me out. My blood pressure dropped, I dropped - and I ended up in the emergency room, being treated for dehydration. I thought they'd give me some rehydration fluids and I'd be on my way. Instead, they decided to admit me because I could only hold intravenous fluids due to the flu. I was not a happy boy. Under my breath I was muttering, "Mur-mur-mur-mur-mur." Until my sister-in-law stopped by and reminded me of something I had told her once. (Don't you just hate it when people nail you with your own words?) She simply said, "Ron, remember who you are, and remember why you're here." Oh, yeah.
We're speeding down the Interstate when suddenly we come upon this RV, pulling a small car behind him. It looked like the little car was actually pushing this big recreational vehicle, but, of course, I knew that couldn't be. The car's license plate was clearly visible - it said, "Me also." That didn't make any sense until I managed to get a glimpse of the license plate on the RV that was pulling that car. It said, "I'm happy." Cute.
Speaking at National Football League pre-game chapels has always been an honor. You should see me in a roomful of those pro football giants - when I stand next to one of them, it looks like "Bring Your Son to Work" day. But over the years, we've gotten to know some of those players - so it's been very special to take their gift of tickets and go watch them play. Having been with them on the morning of game day, it's clear that this is much more than a game to them - you can tell by their seriousness and their intensity. Which is in total contrast to the fans I then get to sit next to at the game. They're cooking out, drinking, then they go in the stadium and cheering - or jeering - the home team.
This one very obnoxious guy kept jumping up and criticizing almost every play our team ran. He was such an expert - and so annoyingly loud about it. Now, I know a little of what's going on for those players - this is their livelihood, their profession, their future, their body that's on the line. For Mr. Fan, hey, this is just a party with no pain. I can't tell you how badly I just wanted to stand up and shout, "Hey, buddy! Why don't you get out of the stands and get in the game!"
My wife and I passed a sign for a town with what I found to be an amusing name - "Girdletree." Now, if you live there, I'm sorry - but I did get a chuckle out of that name. And then my wife let me know that "girdletree" really described a process I had never heard of. She said, "When I was a kid, my Dad used to girdle trees on our farm." Now without further explanation, that's going to get some ridiculous images going in your overactive imagination. Now, what she described to me was a process her Dad, and other farmers, used to soften a tree so it would be easier to bring down the next year. He took his ax, and he cut a ring in the bark that "girdled" the entire trunk at that point. The idea was to cut off the tree's sap delivery system. And it worked. The next year, that tree was softer and pretty easy to bring down. So, I'm not laughing anymore.
Our daughter called the other day and told us that we had to hear what our three-year-old grandson had just said to her - totally unprompted, out of the blue. He got on the phone and simply said, "Ronald." My wife and I cracked up. That's exactly what my wife says to me when I'm doing something weird - which, of course, is very, very rare. It's her lighthearted way of trying to correct this crazy guy she's married to. But our grandson had even mastered the tone of what she says - "Ronald." All this time he's been listening, recording - and now reproducing. Like we should be surprised?
Let's say you have a friend who's a classical music fan - and he really likes the music of this composer named Beethoven. Now, you don't know much about this Beethoven guy, but you accept your friend's invitation to go to a concert where Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is going to be presented. The performers are the local junior high band. Now your friend has told you repeatedly that Beethoven was a genius and his music spectacular. But, after hearing the squeaking and squawking of 13-year-olds giving that symphony a go, you walk out saying, "Man, forget this Beethoven guy and his music!"
The financial collapse of Enron's energy empire sent shock waves through America's financial community. When questions began to arise about the practices of Enron's accounting firm, the damage from the quake spread faster and farther. That firm has been one of America's "Big 5," doing both the accounting and financial consulting for some of this country's biggest corporations. It may take many months, even years, to sort out what really happened. But the questions alone have had a devastating effect, with client after client bailing out of their relationship with the accounting firm, leaving it severely crippled. And it all happened so fast.
My wife had plans for that particular Saturday. And, I was busy working with our high school football team. But all that changed really fast. A friend came running to get me because our then 12-year-old son had injured himself playing a pickup game of football in the park. As I arrived at the field, he came walking up to me holding one arm, breaking my heart with the most pained and pitiful look I think I've ever seen in his big blue eyes. One glance told me that he had broken his arm - it was protruding grotesquely. And, needless to say, our plans for that day went out the window. There was something much more important to do. We had a broken son.
My wife was driving one night recently when she saw a sad sight by the side of a busy interstate. She first noticed a dog standing dangerously close to the edge of the highway. Then she realized that the dog was actually standing over another animal that was lying in front of him. The dog was sniffing his companion, and nuzzling his companion, and apparently pushing it trying to get some response. She said the dog would look up at passing motorists with an expression that seemed to say, "Can anybody do something?" Well, no one could.
Now, I'm a passenger on airplanes, not a pilot. And that's a good thing. But I have a lot of friends who are pilots - and they've taught me a lot about my attitude. They tell me that "attitude" is actually a pilots' word. As they've explained it to me, the attitude of your plane has to do with its relationship to the horizon. Other things are variable - terrain, weather, even the pilot's perceptions. But the horizon is the one thing that doesn't move. So you want the nose of your plane properly aligned with that horizon. When it isn't, problems can develop - like friction, for example.
Only four people survived above the 78th floor on that awful September 11, when a hijacked jetliner struck the south tower of the World Trade Center. Two of those were in a group of six that were on the 84th floor, right in the middle of where the plane crashed into the building. The six men ran to the stairwell and started that long trip down. At the 81st floor, they met a woman who said, "You can't go down. The floors below are in flames. We have to get above the smoke and fire." The six coworkers debated whether to go up or down. Four decided to climb up, hoping for a helicopter to rescue them from the roof. They could not have known that the rooftop doors were locked, and the roof was smothered in smoke. Their other two colleagues continued down, heading right into the dense smoke that had made others turn back. They struggled to breathe, but thankfully that smoke lasted only a floor or two. They were the last people who got out of the south tower alive. Their friends didn't make it.
In his Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis created a magical land called Narnia where the animals talked - and which he used to illustrate allegorically some important Biblical truths. The Christ-figure in the Chronicles is a majestic lion named Aslan. And, there's a little girl named Lucy, who's one of the children who discovers Narnia. Now, in the Narnia book, Prince Caspian, Lewis relates a reunion between Lucy and Aslan, whom she has not seen for some time. And, it's a tender reunion. What follows is a short, but very insightful, conversation. Lewis says that Lucy "gazed up into that large, wise face. 'Welcome, child,' he said. 'Aslan,' said Lucy, 'you're bigger.' 'That is because you are older, little one,' answered he. 'Oh, not because you are?' 'I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.'"
Apparently, they were talking about America's reservoirs in terrorist centers in Afghanistan. As al-Qaeda documents were uncovered by American troops there, it became clear that folks who want to attack American interests have been at least considering some of our major water systems. So, security has really been beefed up at those kinds of facilities. And that's a good thing.
I'm glad they didn't tell me until it was over. It was my first time landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York City - an airport whose runways jut right out into Jamaica Bay. When I arrived, my friends told me that I had just landed on the garbage of New York City. Now, that is a very exciting thought. It turns out that much of the airport was actually built on landfill - yes, it was made from Big Apple garbage. That's not bad for piles of trash.
I'm not really excited about telling you this frankly - but, then again, maybe you were as psycho about trying to get out of school as I was sometimes. There were just days when, well for one reason or another, I just didn't want to go. Which meant, of course, that I had to be sick. Which I wasn't - at least physically. And at our house, being "sick" meant having a fever. Which I didn't. But I thought I could change that. I sat on a radiator. There - I said it. Now, in case you weren't alive during the Ice Age, radiators were these iron structures that sat on the floor and radiated steam heat into the room. And, of course, they became very hot in the process. And, yes, I sat on one. Did I get a fever? No. Did I get blisters where I sit? Yes. Did I need my head examined? You decide.
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City were full of memorable spectacle and, of course, exciting performances. And, as most Olympics, they were tinged with a little controversy. This time the controversy revolved around some of the judging. For several days the headlines focused on the judging of the pairs figure skating competition. Now, most observers thought the Canadian skaters' flawless performance had won them the gold medal. But, much to almost everyone's surprise, the gold went to the Russian skaters. There was some evidence of deal-making between judges and that might have influenced the results. Commentators discussed how similar judging improprieties had actually shown up in other world class skating competitions over the years. Although the Olympic Committee later decided to award duplicate gold medals to both the Canadians and the Russians, that judging controversy - as well as some others - raised a lot of questions about Olympic judging and Olympic results.
Bessie, one of the cows on the small farm where my wife grew up, was ready to give birth to a calf. But somehow she managed to get out of the wire fence and wander off into the woods to have her calf where she wanted to. Which meant my wife's dad - and his two girls - had to go out into the dark woods that night to try to find them. Dad decided they could cover more ground by dividing up. They were to fire three shots if they found Bessie. Unfortunately, they only had one lantern - and my wife didn't have it. What she remembers is how scary it was to be walking alone in those dark hills, not knowing if there was a panther, a bobcat, or a poisonous snake within striking distance in the dark. Finally, Dad fired those three victorious shots in the air - he had found Bessie and baby. But only after a walk in the dark that one young girl would never forget.
Our friends recently got a new horse - number five of the little herd they have in their barn and pasture. This one is the biggest of the lot - half Morgan, half Belgian, for those to whom that means anything. As soon as she was let out of her corral for the first time, it was interesting to watch the social interaction in the Pasture Club. The smallest horse - a strong-minded Arabian horse came up real close to the new girl on the block, pushing to see who would be in charge. The answer: a swift kick in the hindquarters. The next couple of hours was an equine soap opera as each horse asserted their claim to their turf and maneuvered for dominance - and to be sure who was the herd boss in this new arrangement.
