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August 16, 2022

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I was ten years old, and I had one of the most frightening moments of my life. I was out with some of my friends about my age in Lake Michigan. Some reason I panicked in the water and I started to go under. I can still remember it like it was today. I really, really felt like I was going to die. Now, unfortunately, my friends did not take my cries for help seriously. "Oh, there's Ron! He's clowning around again! He's goofing off!" I guess that's the price you pay for being a clown, which I guess I was...and I am. Well, I began to flail around; I was desperately trying to save myself. And someone, thank God, saw me. I mean, they saw I was really in trouble and they came to my rescue. And when they did, I quit thrashing, I quit trying to swim, and because I did they were able to rescue me obviously. You know why? I quit trying to rescue myself!

August 15, 2022

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Our friend's horse was in a jam. She had accidentally stepped into a small feeder that's usually used to hold a mineral block. It was so bitter cold that the bottom cracked when the mare stepped on it and her hoof went all the way through. Of course, that created something like a plastic bracelet around her hoof and she couldn't get it off. Visiting relatives saw the mare just standing there like a statue; traumatized and paralyzed by this thing that wouldn't come off her foot. So, they went out there to help. One of them calmed the horse while the other worked on setting her free. This is interesting because usually this horse would balk at letting strangers get near her. Not this time. She stood perfectly still, somehow realizing that these people had come to help her out of her jam. And they did.

August 12, 2022

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Over a lifetime I've done a lot of the driving. But this time, I was the passenger. It's a good thing I was the passenger. I glanced over at this little amusement area by the side of the road. We just zipped by it, but I saw a water slide, a miniature golf course, and then I was really startled by what I saw. There was a giant, plastic water faucet and it was hanging, suspended above the ground with water falling out of it. It wasn't attached to anything, or nothing you could see anyway. There was just a faucet hanging there.

August 11, 2022

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Many Civil War scholars would consider the Battle of Gettysburg as the turning point - or certainly one of the turning points - of that bloody war. And Civil War buffs have discussed for decades what factors actually decided the outcome of the battle that may have decided the outcome of the war. One key factor happened before the real battle actually began those three days in July of 1863. Soldiers from both North and South were on the move as General Lee's troops launched an invasion of Union territory. Union General Buford unintentionally encountered some of the advance Confederate forces. Well, he sized up the terrain around Gettysburg, and he decided that the ground called Cemetery Ridge would be the decisive high ground when the forces of Blue and Gray finally came to blows. And he determined to keep the advanced southern troops from having that ground, and he succeeded. In so doing, he secured for the North, ground that would indeed help decide the outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg.

August 10, 2022

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My wife grew up on a little farm in the Ozarks just down the road from her grandparents. It was almost like a page out of that television program, The Waltons. The family was close and they never had much materially, but neither did the families around them. In fact, my wife told me if her family was poor, she didn't realize it, she didn't know it. She thought she was rich!

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.

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