Download MP3 (right click to save)
I had the opportunity to spend 24 hours of my life in the city of Athens in Greece. I was on my way home from a teaching mission, and if I only had 24 hours, well, I knew what I wanted to see. I wanted to see the Acropolis, and there it was on a hill that just dominates the entire city. That's where the ancient Greeks built a temple to their goddess, Athena, after whom, obviously, the city was named.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
The attack on the USS Stark was really a double tragedy. It happened during the Iraq War, and an Iraqi pilot fired a missile into the side of our missile frigate, the USS Stark. And 37 American sailors died in an awful inferno that followed. Actually, one of the reasons for the tragedy wasn't even so much the missile. It appears now that someone had turned off a vital alarm; one that actually could have alerted the crew in time to respond. Well, there's the double tragedy. The American sailors died, yes. But none of them had to. An attack was underway and the alarm was off. Well, wait a minute! Let's be careful, because you and I might be making that same mistake.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
Our garage had gotten to the point where it was scary. Yeah, it was so scary my son used to have nightmares about it. He'd wake up and realize the nightmare was real! It was so messy there really wasn't much walking space. You could crawl around, but that was even tight. See, it had been a busy year, and we really hadn't any time to clean it up. It wasn't that it was all our mess - we had been storing things for other people too.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
This is going to come as a surprise to my friends who know how technically challenged I am when it comes to building things, but over the years, my sons and I have built several houses together. Don't expect to see a pickup truck that says "Hutchcraft and Sons" on the side. No, and don't look for us in the Yellow Pages. Actually, our houses haven't fared too well. It wasn't because we didn't work hard on them - we did. And it wasn't because they didn't look good; actually they were pretty good. And it wasn't because they weren't big; we did some pretty good sized ones. But every house we built literally collapsed within hours of the time we finished building them. It might have had something to do with the material we built our houses from - sand on a beach next to the ocean.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
There's this disease that hits college campuses in the spring every year. It's called "senior panic." You arrive at college as a freshman with this sneaking suspicion that you might just meet the person you're going to marry while you're there. And as you go through college, that suspicion becomes an expectation.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
We were zipping down the Interstate, and we saw this long cloud of thick blue smoke ahead of us. When we got close, we saw that it was belching out of the smokestack of this big old semi, and the smoke was so heavy you could hardly see as you passed it. In fact, it was a very good time to hold your breath. Now, as we passed him, I looked through the smoke into the cab, and I saw two men inside and they were just kind of laughing and they seemed oblivious to the smoke and the smell that they were spreading down the Interstate.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
Now, we had not had a major airplane crash in New York City for a long time. So, we were all pretty riveted at that particular time by the scene of the crash of Avianca Flight 52 on Long Island near JFK Airport. More people survived the crash than died in it, thankfully, but it was still a terrible tragedy. There was no fire, because they were apparently out of fuel, and that was a major reason for the crash.
Download MP3 (right click to save)
Our kids rode many miles in the old back seat of our car. And they had their share of turf battles over who was taking up more than his share of the seat. Pretty customary with three kids in the back seat when you drive quite a ways. They also spent some time sleeping there. In fact, I remember when our youngest was a baby. He would just doze off in his little infant seat right next to his brother who was two years older. We'd turn around and we'd see the little guy asleep and we'd say, "Oh, bless his heart."
Download MP3 (right click to save)
I can still remember my wife's excited phone call that day. She said, "Honey! The baby just turned over!" Hey! He was three months old; it was a big deal. It's hard to believe there was a time you couldn't turn yourself over. Can you imagine a time when you couldn't walk by yourself? You couldn't feed yourself?
Download MP3 (right click to save)
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.
