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My daughter and I had not been back to that camp in the Tetons since she was a little girl, like five years old. We stayed there as a family way back then, because our good friends from college ran the camp. There she struck up a friendship with their five-year-old who's named Holly. Well, the camp has grown a lot over the years, and so have our daughters who are speeding through their lives.
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One day my oldest son and I wandered into this huge memorabilia store. And in the cases were all kinds of artifacts of his childhood, and even mine. Like there was a Brachiosaurus... No, but I was looking at baseball cards that I once owned, thanks to the pop bottle deposits I collected many years ago. Notice I said I once owned. When we were moving, my Mother threw them away. And so I found myself looking at what might have been. Those same cards are now worth hundreds of dollars.
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Stranded on the highest mountain on earth. Or buried beneath the rubble of a shattered hotel.
After the earthquake that rocked that mountain kingdom of Nepal, thousands of people lost their lives. Many more found their world, their homes, actually their lives wiped away.
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Now it's always been my impression that the police like to have the element of surprise in their favor. Suddenly there's a police car coming up behind you, or appearing out of nowhere. That's why I was surprised by something I saw when I was meeting with some staff we had in Latin America in Guadalajara, Mexico. At night we were driving around with our Director, Timothy, and we saw a police car in front of us. Now, he was in no particular hurry, but his lights were flashing. Timothy said, "You know, the police cars here do that all the time. They leave their lights on whether they are on call or not." Now, that's an interesting approach to law enforcement - let them know you're coming.
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Well, several years ago it was our turn again for the cicadas to pay us a brief visit. You can't really complain; they only drop by every 17 years. What a life these critters have! They suck on a root in the ground for a while, they finally emerge, they climb a tree, they make a lot of noise for about three weeks, and they die. You talk about "get a life!"
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You've got to feel bad for the youngest child. Look, there's a thousand pictures of the firstborn, "Hey, we've never had one of these before!" Maybe 300 or 400 of the second born. And then, if you're lucky, maybe like 30 of the final arrival. Oh, we loved him just as much. We just didn't have as many pictures of him. Probably because his brother and sister wore us out.
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On the Sunday before Easter, my pastor was talking about the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And my mind wandered, (not the pastor's fault) to a horse that I met one day in Texas.
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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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I had a mountain of work to do to prepare for some radio programs that I was scheduled to record, and the way things worked out I ended up doing it on the road. I was traveling by van about 12 hours with two of our team members. Now, let me make one thing clear. I like to drive; a guy thing maybe. I'm not the greatest passenger. I don't really like to ride, but I had so much work to do, I needed all the time we were driving on the trip to get it done. So they actually set up this little office for me in the back of the van, and they brought along a little power pack that would allow me to use my computer all the way. Very reluctantly, I climbed into the back of the van and settled in to work and watch someone else drive. At first it drove me nuts. But by the end of the trip, I realized how much creative work I'd gotten done in my office on wheels. What a productive day I had! All because I let someone else drive.
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I was in Georgia when a friend said to me, "Do you know which team is one of the best football teams in our state?" When I said I didn't know, he said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." I've got to tell you that kind of caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be like football champions. He said, "Man, we played them when I was in high school and you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest."
