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Friday, March 30, 2018

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OK, backpacks are basically a good thing. They make it possible for you to carry some essentials while you keep your hands free, right? But backpacks are not always a good thing, especially when you forget you're wearing one! I've seen a lot of the dangerous side of backpacks in airports and airplanes. See, you get used to your body ending at a certain point, and you navigate through a crowd knowing where the "oops, I bumped you" point is. Now you add a backpack and suddenly you have enlarged what is commonly known as your space, but you continue to navigate crowds and narrow places as if you had the same old parameters. So you turn around and "aahh, Oh no!", you clobber someone behind you or next to you with your backpack! I mean, its one thing to carry your load, it's another thing to hit someone else with it!

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

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In the fall I really got exercise in our yard. We had lots of trees in that yard, and lots of leaves. Our sons were gone, and I got to do just about all the raking. There was this one corner of the yard that was kind of nice to rake because it smelled nice. I'd be raking away and suddenly I'd smell the strong aroma of spearmint. Now, I don't chew gum and I don't wear spearmint scented deodorant usually. So, it had to be coming from what I was raking - and it was! That was my wife's herb garden, and when some of the spearmint plants got bruised by my rake that spearmint scent started to fill the air. My wife told me that's the way it is with lots of herbs, like with lemon balm, for example. If you take a little piece of that plant and you crush it between your fingers, the air will suddenly be sweetened by this scent of lemon. So I learned, crushing a plant releases its scent.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

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Pam was a young woman who was active in a Campus Life Club I ran some years ago, and she was very lonely. She used to call different ones of us leaders two or three times a week. Pam felt like she was unattractive. She had never had a date, and she had problems at home. And she usually called to talk about her problems and how depressed she was. Until that week she called me and I said to her, "Pam, don't call me again until you've carried out an assignment I'd like to give you." Well, I encouraged her to go to the local senior citizens' facility and volunteer for one night. She was hesitant, but she did it. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

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Some years ago our family was vacationing on the eastern end of Long Island near a little village called Sag Harbor. It was amazing how much that village changed, though, over a period of just 24 hours. One day it was a sleepy little town of tourists kind of strolling from store to store. The next day it was a chaotic beehive with snarled traffic and anxious people rushing from store to store. Do you know what made the difference? A hurricane warning! Yes, a powerful storm was moving up the East Coast and it was expected to hit that part of Long Island. So people were rushing everywhere to get prepared. Batteries and candles suddenly appeared by every cash register in every store. And they quickly disappeared. People were suddenly living differently when there was a major storm.

Friday, March 2, 2018

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Our friends own this historic New England inn, and we were privileged to be their guests there on occasion. We loved to go there. I mean, that quaint New England village with a lot of charm. Unfortunately, it's not real close to any major ski area or other attractions. So the hotel and motel owners there were doing OK, but they seldom would sell out. We can understand why our friends, the innkeepers, and the other hotel owners in the area weren't too excited about the news that a couple of major national motel chains would build in their town. There doesn't seem to be enough demand for rooms there to match all that supply. In fact, one point my friend kept making to the town fathers was this. He says, "This is a nice place, but this is not a destination."

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

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OK, I couldn't put it off any longer—we had to move the piano. And in spite of my Arnold Schwarzenegger-build (this is radio; you'll never know), I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to move that monster alone. In fact, I remember my dad needed surgery after he helped move a piano once! So the time we moved the piano was determined by one thing: what time could some guys be there to help? As we eased that piano slowly down the front steps, I was so thankful for those other guys. I had my hands full just carrying my corner. This was something that was obviously never meant to be carried alone.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

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There's one kind of mail from the bank that nobody wants to get - you know, that notice that you've overdrawn your checking account! Yeah, especially when they sock you with a penalty for it! It can happen because you've been traveling or unusually busy, or you know, kind of cutting things pretty close financially, or just because you inadvertently wrote some checks before your recent deposit has cleared. You can't try to buy or pay before the money is there to cover it, or you'll just end up paying for that.

Friday, January 12, 2018

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It's one of those photos you never forget – like, you know, the picture of those American soldiers raising the flag on Iwo Jima. You've probably seen the photo of those three weary, dusty firefighters raising the American flag in the ruins of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. USA Today says "it may have been the blackest day's blackest hour" when that picture was taken. It was becoming apparent that there would be few survivors, and another tower – 7 World Trade Center – was about to fall. An evacuation order was issued to all firefighters searching in the rubble. But one firefighter saw something on a docked boat – a debris-covered American flag on a broken pole. With the help of two other firefighters, he found a large metal flagpole jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about twenty feet above the ground. They climbed up and they rigged the flag to the pole, totally unaware that a photographer was watching and capturing it for all the world to see. A woman who taught nearby, summarized what that moment meant: "People were grasping for hope," she said, "and suddenly there it was."

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

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Three feet of snow! That was a weather record I didn't really want to participate in. But, sure enough, we woke up that cold New Jersey morning to three feet of snow that had literally buried the metropolitan New York area. Even New York, the city that never sleeps, had been effectively shut down by the storm. Our little guy really wanted to go out in the snow that blanketed our backyard. So we bundled him up and we watched as he ventured out into that white stuff. And he promptly disappeared! I went out after him and, as short as I am, I just about disappeared myself. It took quite a while for that snow to become manageable and for life to get back to normal. And it wasn't the last snow dump of the winter. But for those of us who have lived through some pretty long and tough winters, there is one word that sustains us through it all. You know the word: spring.

Monday, January 1, 2018

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It was the countdown week to the birth of our first grandchild. And, as you might expect, there were some of those mother/daughter conversations about what this experience was going to be like. You know, birthing this child that you've carried for nine months. I didn't think I had a lot to contribute, so I kind of bailed on this conversation. And while our daughter was still at home with some of those first contractions, I overheard her mother giving her some insight-the words of the veteran who's been there and knows what's ahead. She said, "Now, you're going to reach a point where you'll feel like you just can't take it anymore. Well, that's when you've got to hang on, honey, because that's when the baby comes."

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