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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

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"The Mad Cleaning Man" - that's one of the nicknames affectionately given to me by my family. And I've worked pretty hard to earn that name. Let's put it this way, I hate clutter. I'm not the neatest guy in the world, but I can only function so long when mess is building up around me, you know? So, often without warning, I will go on a straightening rampage. And what's the best way to keep from having to pick something up again? Right! You throw it away! Oh, yeah, I look at things before I trash them. You should know that. I'm not irresponsible. But over the years, a family member will walk into a room that was messy when they left but had since had my magic touch. And they'll say "Oh no! Dad's been at it again." Which may be followed by cries of frustration as they look for some item, "Dad, where's my such-and-such? It was right here!" Then they see the glazed eyes of "The Mad Cleaning Man" and they give up asking. Cleaning up is good, right? But it can be irritating.

Friday, October 17, 2008

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He was just a teenager and his village had just collapsed all around him. He was one of countless thousands who were affected by this massive earthquake that hit Turkey. In an interview with National Geographic Magazine, this young man offered an amazingly insightful perspective on what he had just witnessed. He said, "I accept this as a geologic event, but it can be taken as a warning. In seconds, billionaires can become penniless. So you must have values you cannot lose."

Thursday, September 4, 2008

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I had been on a radio interview, and I was about to sign off. Suddenly I heard this familiar voice chiming in, "Hi, Ron. This is Rosetta." It wasn't the lady who was interviewing me, it was the traffic lady, and she was up next as soon as they got rid of me. But she just jumped right in and said "Hi." Now I knew her voice because morning after morning she had been there giving us the latest scoop on how long the commute was on this road, or where the accident was on that road, or which roads had turned into parking lots. In the New York area, there's a lot of ways to go, and which one you choose any given morning can make the difference between on time or very late. So just before I signed off that interview, I thanked Rosetta for what she did for us every morning. I told her, "Rosetta, you help us pick the right road to be on!"

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

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Oh, man, we love the ocean! We love to walk the beach and if my wife has a head-start on me, I can figure out which way she went - Oh, I kid her about being a little paddle footed - she leaves behind footprints that make a slight "V" in the sand. Of course, when the tide starts coming in you can forget all the footprints any of us left that day! When the waves finish giving the beach a bath, you can't even tell anyone walked there today. Notice when they want to commemorate the careers of those Hollywood stars. They have them put their footprints in cement in the sidewalk, not in sand at the beach.

Friday, August 22, 2008

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A lot of news stories just flash into our lives and then are forgotten almost immediately. Then there are those images that are just embedded in our brains for years to come. Several years ago one of those events happened, and a lot of us can still see the images of that dramatic rescue in our minds. A little toddler named Jessica had been playing in the backyard in Midland, Texas, and she plummeted down this narrow little shaft. She was wedged in there; trapped underground. It seemed as if the whole nation stopped to watch the tense vigil as rescuers tried to find a way to save that little girl. It was a long ordeal, but one rescuer, using a parallel shaft and working in the tightest of quarters, was finally able to get to little Jessica. And in a moment of incredible relief and joy, he brought her out.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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When you work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, you know there will be no physical link to the outside world for you between February and October. You are 840 miles from the nearest populated site and you're facing average winter temperatures of eighty below zero. Now, imagine being one of the women stationed there and discovering a lump that indicates you have breast cancer. Distant medical authorities determined that this lady must receive some emergency medical supplies. (And it really happened.) Getting those supplies, though, is easier said than done.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

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When our older grandson was 14 months old, he had a ball discovering his world. I loved to take him in my arms and get him excited about something in God's world. I'd point to a tree, or a flower, or a dog, or a cow and teach him the word for it. After that, whenever we'd be together, he'd start the pointing, and he'd give me his version of the word for whatever he was point to. But I think I saw the greatest wonder in him when he'd look up at the night sky. It didn't matter what was going on around him, he'd start looking up and pointing at the moon, at the stars; oh, man, he loved the stars. He just couldn't miss those lights shining in the dark night sky.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

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Not all the drama of the Olympics takes place during the Olympics. Some of it unfolds in the weeks and months leading up to the games. Like the Olympic torch, for example. In the spirit of the ancient Olympics in Greece, the Olympic torch is carried by runners over thousands of miles until it's finally carried into the opening ceremonies to light the official torch of the Olympic Games. Each year it's a journey of many, many miles. It can be as much as 15,000-20,000 miles. And that's quite a torch run. One person doesn't do that all. I mean, not even I can do that - even though I'm in such great shape! Every Olympic year there are a lot of runners who each carry the torch for a fraction of the journey and then they hand it off to the next runner. We've seen that. In the case of some Olympic Games a few years ago, Coca Cola selected 2,500 of the 10,000 torch bearers that were needed. They accepted nominations from anyone that you might know who you thought was "worthy to carry the torch."

Monday, July 7, 2008

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Once upon a time, there was a heifer named Muffet. She lived on a little dairy farm in the Ozarks. So did my wife - who wasn't my wife then. She was the farmer's young daughter then, and she tells me that Muffet had a harder life than some of the other heifers, but it was her own fault. See, Muffet was a stubborn heifer. Would she stay inside the fence that was there for her protection? Oh no! She found ways to crawl through that fence. Which meant Muffet got a yoke attached to her head - basically a sturdy Y-shaped branch that made it impossible for her to get her head outside that fence. Now, it was a nuisance; a nuisance made necessary by Muffet's stubbornness. Other times, they would try to get Muffet to move, and without serious coercion, she would just plant her feet. Then there was the time she refused to stand still to be milked, and she started to charge toward the door. My wife's Mom - whose job it was to keep the cows inside that little shed - quickly slammed the shovel across the door to keep her in. Well, Muffet ran into the shovel and lost part of the cap on one of her horns. They tell me that from that day on, she went right in and stood there quietly for milking.

Monday, July 1, 2008

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Not long ago I was in downtown Oklahoma City, and had the privilege to visit the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing back in April 1995. I don't think any of us will ever forget the images of the day that that Federal Office Building was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The images of that devastated building and of the frantic rescue efforts there, of a baby in a fireman's arms. It was a day of heart-wrenching tragedy and it was a day of incredible heroism, too. Literally, an entire city dropped everything to respond in whatever way that they could to this life-or-death situation. The job was clear that day: rescue the dying whatever it takes.

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