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August 9, 2022

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When it comes to growing things, I'm not exactly Seedling Sam the Gardening Man. I grew up in an apartment in the city, OK? But my farm girl wife and some friends who have amazing green thumbs? Oh, they've taught me a lot about how things grow and flourish. I was reminded of one of those lessons when I read an article about growing blueberries in our local newspaper. Not growing blueberries in the newspaper. It was I read about it in the newspaper. And the writer of that article is a recognized expert. He's a blueberryologist I guess. He explained how one of his most important steps in making blueberry bushes fruitful is to chop off branches. Sounds destructive, but actually it's constructive. He prunes away a lot of top branches so the interior branches are exposed to the sunlight. The result? Big blueberries and lots of them!

August 8, 2022

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Schools and teachers frequently run into what we might call a motivational challenge; how to motivate a student to do the right thing and stop doing the wrong thing. Now, they used to hit students on the hand or even spank them in the old days. Of course, not any more. Disciplinary actions have gotten less and less as parents have been willing to even sue if a school violates their son's or daughter's rights. A teacher can still threaten a zero, or a detention, or a trip to the principal's office, and the principal can even threaten a suspension. But there are two words that can strike terror into many a student's heart, "This will go on your permanent record."

August 5, 2022

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There's this age where a toddler just starts exploding with words they're learning and hour-by-hour discoveries they're making. Those "discoveries" quickly teach new parents a survival skill. It's called "baby proofing" - as in removing anything that little person could get their hands on that might do them harm or vice versa. The way you discover what needs to be removed is usually by the toddler getting their hands on it. Suddenly, parents are playing defense against this strong, and suddenly very independent, toddler offense. I've watched this time-honored human drama being acted out in our son and daughter-in-law's home when our then one-year-old granddaughter started exploring each new day. When she wanted something she couldn't reach, she made sure that they knew that. Our son explained our little angel's frame of mind this way: "All she ever wants is just beyond her reach."

August 4, 2022

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Albert Einstein's great-grandson doing a commercial? Yeah, he did a few years ago. This particular auto manufacturer was showing that a new generation of drivers was choosing their make of car; not just their fathers and grandfathers. And he would go, "This is not my father's ___." Now, I'm not going to name the car. They've got to pay for that. No, wait, we don't have commercials here.

August 3, 2022

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Brian's a Youth Pastor, and Earl? His most unlikely volunteer. See, Earl wasn't the right age to help out with teenagers. A pretty simple guy, not very well educated. He had one of those faces that looked like it had been lived in for a long time. And he didn't think he had any abilities that would help. In fact, that's what he told Brian. He said, "You know, Brian, I can't do anything. But I really have a heart for the kids." So Brian said, "Well, do you make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?" Earl said, "Well, sure! I can do that!" Well, that began a series of events that changed a life; well, really two lives forever.

August 2, 2022

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I thought "catfishing" sounded like a Friday night feast in Mississippi. Until the absolutely weird news story came out about Notre Dame's All-American football star, reportedly falling in love with a girl who wasn't there. To be sure, his moving story of the death of the woman he loved on the eve of a critical late-season game raised tons of questions. He claimed that she turned out to be only an Internet invention. And that's why "catfishing" was suddenly in the news.

August 1, 2022

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If you're not a "Trekkie" you might know someone who is. A Trekkie, of course, is a rabid fan of Star Trek. I guess there's seldom been a TV series in American television history that so captured people's imaginations like Star Trek did and has, and in new form still is. Then there were the movies: Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, the Starship Enterprise. Really part of America's sort of fantasy memory bank.

July 29, 2022

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I knew this guy who, several times a week, would suddenly make this announcement, "Attitude check!" That never meant much to me until I began to have some friends who are private pilots. Up to that point, the only pilot I knew was, you know, Pontius. But that word "attitude" can be a life-or-death word for a pilot. One of my friends described a plane's attitude to me as its position relative to the ground, and to the horizon - or, as he says, your angle of attack. After decades of flying, including landing on aircraft carriers, he summarized the importance of a plane's attitude this way, "Right attitude, you keep flying. Wrong attitude, you stop flying."

July 28, 2022

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I was on an airplane flight from Chicago to Newark, and suddenly the pilot came on and he said, "You may have noticed that we are not going East any more, we're headed North. We're going to have to make an emergency landing in Detroit."

July 27, 2022

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Some of the most exciting moments heard in the history of the U.S. space program were these: "3...2...1...Liftoff!" In the beginning, the Gemini and Apollo rockets, and then later the space shuttles. You could see the blazing fire lifting that rocket and its precious cargo off the pad and into the sky. Very impressive! But that wasn't all. You don't just say, "Great launch. Let's go home." No, no. All that fire and smoke isn't just to have a powerful experience. The purpose of it is to launch a mission, to make some things happen that would never otherwise happen without that launch.

July 26, 2022

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Our babies were all born in nice, warm hospitals. But with the frigid weather systems that blew across the country, you know, last winter and just about every winter, I can't imagine a baby being born outside...on a city street, no less. But that's exactly what happened in Toronto. As a 20-year-old young woman was trying to walk to the nearby hospital, she didn't get there in time - the baby came.

July 25, 2022

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A new staff couple had just arrived with their U-Haul truck, moving to our area from the Southwest. And a bunch of us were there to meet them and help them move into their apartment. Our then-four-year-old grandson insisted on joining the moving crew. I was inside the truck, handing out items as helpers came to get some more, and no one made more trips than the youngest mover there. Now, I didn't give him the couch to carry, or the dresser or the TV set. You know, I gave him small boxes, small appliances, light objects to carry. There's only so much a four-year-old can handle. Or even someone who's a lot more than four years old - like me, for example.

July 22, 2022

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I can't remember the names of all of Snow White's dwarfs, but I don't feel bad about that. I mean, I do remember one - Grumpy. Actually I've heard the Grumpy shirt is one of Disney's big sellers. Yeah, I might know why. Grumpy is a kind of mood a whole lot of people are in these days.

July 21, 2022

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Our then-18-month-old grandson rapidly became a bulldozer on two legs. He didn't actually walk anywhere; he ran everywhere. And no comments about being like his grandfather here, OK? Of course, he didn't always get around like that. First, he only went where one of us carried him. Then the crawling started. He didn't do that for long. He graduated to walking real fast. And, like every baby who ever learned to walk, he began by taking a step or two and then he fell down. I guess he could have said to himself after a couple of falls, "Oh well, I guess I wasn't cut out to walk. It's just too hard. I keep falling down. I think I'll just lie here from now on." Oh, great! Now he's 18 years old, his mother has to vacuum around him. His friends come over and he says, "Hey, you want to roll into my room with me?" No, it didn't work that way. After he went "step-boom," he got back up and went "step-step-boom." And then "step-step-step-step-boom." Now you can't stop him!

July 20, 2022

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So, when we're discussing roller coasters, and some of us were talking about which ones are the best-which means, the wildest ride, of course. Others of us were talking about avoiding roller coasters. One friend said that she just pleads what she calls "an inner ear condition." Now for me, most roller coasters are a non-issue because I stand next to that sign, you know, that shows how tall you have to be to ride it. So far I've never been tall enough. (No, that's not true. I wish I had that excuse.) Actually, some that I have ridden had these moments when I was pretty sure I had made a very big mistake getting on it in the first place. There are some really high ups and some really scary downs.

July 19, 2022

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Some people can skip a meal and barely notice. I am not some people. For example, it's been four or five hours since breakfast, my body very convincingly says to me, "Feed me now!" When I don't eat regularly, I feel it. I take action. The doctor says there's nothing wrong with me, but my metabolism just seems to demand some regular maintenance. It's not like I'm alone in this. I mean, most of us know when it's time to eat again, right? And we usually stop what we're involved in to do something about it. Hunger isn't exactly passive. You know, it goes after something to satisfy it!

July 18, 2022

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On a family vacation, we had some time to do some extra biking. There was a lake nearby. It was fun to go around the lake...well, sort of fun. See, there were these long, downhill stretches, "Oh man, just flying down that hill! It was fantastic! Then guess what came right after that. Yeah, the uphill climb, and that was grueling, sometimes painful. And guess which lasted longer...the downhill thrill or the pain of going uphill?

July 15, 2022

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One of my more anxious moments related to air travel, and it actually had nothing to do with an airplane. It had to do with my two sons, who at the time were pretty young. We were going through the security checkpoint on the way to our gate, and all of a sudden they started joking about the one word you don't mention at airport security.

July 14, 2022

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You know, you can learn something from a cab driver, even if his vocabulary is R-rated-or maybe even X-rated in this case. I was on a trip to an airport in a cab a while back. And well, without even knowing it, I must have hit some trigger in this cab driver. Oh, man! All of a sudden I couldn't believe what started to come out of his mouth. He started to pour out all kinds of racial hatred, and he said, "I don't really care about anything in the world or anybody but myself, and let those starving people starve, and let those poor people be poor." Wow!

July 13, 2022

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Hey. it's a huge job to try to keep the roadsides of interstates and major highways from looking like garbage dumps. That's why someone came up with this great idea: have clubs, and churches, and schools, and civic organizations volunteer to maintain just one mile of the road near them. You've probably seen the signs: "This mile maintained by the Forest Grove Garden Club, or a Boy Scout troop, or the Busy Hands Presby-Baptist Church, or whatever. Maybe it's a family. Separately, none of those groups could ever maintain the entire roadside in their county, but they could do a mile. And if each group makes sure their mile is covered, the whole area will end up looking a whole lot better.

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