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There are lots of people digging into their family tree these days. In fact, we've done some of our own. A lot of digging around to find out where your roots are. You know, where my grandfather came from and my great grandfather, and which king or famous person I'm descended from. Of course I would be descended from someone famous, right?
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There's just no better time to have a baby boy than Christmastime. My parents did, we did. Not my wife and me! That would really be a Christmas miracle! No, it was our son and daughter-in-law.
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I remember that time when our son got a new haircut and a pretty noticeably different hair style. Not something real radical, but it was different. Needless to say, he was a little unsure of how he looked the first day after he had the makeover. At least he was used to the old style; he knew how to feel about it. We tried to reassure him. We gave him our parent's opinion about how he looked, but of course, what does our opinion matter...right?
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Well, for several years in a row our town was pretty lucky. We had a winning football team every year in high school. And every year the parents had a dinner in the team's honor, and everybody came. I mean, even people who had nothing to do with the football season suddenly showed up: the politicians, the board members, a variety of seemingly unconnected dignitaries. Oh, I'm sure they were there to honor the players.
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Having had two teenage boys who loved football, there was one Christmas gift that was a sure hit - a new leather football. And seeing how it was a rare 60-degree Christmas morning, do you think we were going to just sit around the Christmas tree and admire that ball? No! They went right outside and did what you're supposed to do with a football.
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I grew up around Lake Michigan. And when I was little, I used to go in it. Now I mostly just look at it when I'm in Chicago or in the Great Lakes area. Part of that is because of what happened to me when I was ten years old. My memories of that lake are memories of a struggle I will never forget. I was out with my friends. I didn't know how to swim and I was too proud to tell them. Well, I started to go under. No one took me seriously. I mean, I'm yelling. I'm trying to get some help. I'm drinking the lake! I'm in a panic, flailing around, and my friends are going, "Oh, Ron, you know him. He's such a clown!" Great! Finally, just in the nick of time, someone came. They grabbed me and they literally saved my life.
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Poor Charlie Brown. For over 50 Christmases the same frustrated question has wailed from his mouth - "Can anyone tell me what Christmas is really all about?!"
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Years ago in college, our son and a young lady friend of his decided they needed to have an RDT. I know it sounds like an injection or like bug spray. But it actually had to do with what was going on between them. See, men and women at the college that they attended often would have an RDT with someone. And I guess history does repeat itself, because I actually had one with my future wife one night many years ago. We didn't call it that, but that's what it was. I told her this: "I'm just sick and tired of just having a brother/sister relationship. I want it to be more." I risked it all that day and, guess what, I married her.
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You think you've had a bad day? Oh, I'll tell you about a bad day. It was the summer of 1997; you're a cosmonaut on Russia's space station Mir. So far, you've battled a fire on board. Then a supply ship runs into you in a docking procedure. You lose 40% of your power. You think you've already had your fill of bad days for one mission. But then, the central computer on the space station suddenly shuts down. You are tumbling through space in what reporters called "chaotic flight." Hard to believe! It happened!
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I was on a flight several years ago and my neighbor was one of the flight attendants. For whatever reason we ended up talking about plane crashes. There was one that came to mind in particular because it was a tragic crash off the coast of Nova Scotia back in the '90s.
