The little kid with the round head and the pitiful tree! He's become a regular part of America's Christmas. Our kids watched "The Charlie Brown Christmas" when they were little, and that thing's been around so long, their kids love it and their parents never stopped loving it.
A friend of ours told us about a lady in this area who had just lost her husband. They had this beautiful farm, but it was really more than she wanted to maintain without him. Some of it was devoted to a wonderful vegetable garden that she'd cared for many years. After her husband's death, she offered to let her neighbors treat that garden as if it was their garden. Well, one day the man next door was picking carrots. and he suddenly stopped to examine one carrot that was very unusual. It seemed to have grown into an hourglass shape; it was wide at the top and at the bottom. It was really, like, narrow at the center. And as he brushed the dirt off that carrot, he was shocked at what he found. There was a gold ring right in the center of the carrot!
My wife and I have had some of the most special weeks of our lives on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. But there was a cloud over one visit during a summer ministry we had there. See, there had been this mystery illness; it was all over the news. It had already taken some 20 lives. People suddenly were developing severe breathing problems, and in a short time they were gone. Well, since then, that same disease has surfaced in places all over the country. That demonstrated that the killer was not a reservation disease. But in the early stages, there was panic on the reservation.
My friend, Gary, was flying with a friend in a World War II vintage airplane. In fact, this man was a former WWII pilot. And my friend, Gary, was full of questions. He said, "What's this dial for?" And, "What does that light do?" And, "What's this stick do?" Well, fortunately he didn't grab for the stick when he was asking. And then Gary said, "Now, what's this red mark on the fuel gauge?" The pilot said, "Well, when we reached the point back in WWII days in which there was only enough fuel to get back, but the mission wasn't completed, we had a decision to make. And at that mark, we had to decide, shall we turn back or shall we go on? And then pretty soberly, and like he was bringing up some memories, the pilot said, "That mark is called 'the point of no return'." Believe it or not, you could be at that point right now and not even know it.
Okay, fill in the blank. Dog collars are for _________. Right! Dogs. Well, of course, there was one case, it was a not-so-bright nephew. My friend's nephew decided it would be fun to put his dog collar on around his own neck. Well, it wasn't just any dog collar; it was the kind that gives the dog a little shock when he's barking too loud. You want to guess the rest? Yeah, well without thinking, he yelled something to someone across the yard, which triggered a shocking reaction from the collar, which made the young man, of course, scream in pain, which gave him another shock, which caused him to shout "Ow!" again. Which caused… You got the idea.
For years, I flew out of Newark Airport a lot. And I was usually in a hurry when I was there. And because I was in a hurry, I was focused on getting to my gate. I wasn't real observant of the little changes at the airport. But one day I was flying down the concourse when a little poster grabbed my attention. It was a picture of a smiling, attractive teenage girl, and there were two words in bold, black letters that grabbed me - "STILL MISSING." Now the smaller print revealed that she lived more than a thousand miles away, but someone who loves this girl has spread the word all over the place. Those two words on that poster just went straight to my heart.
Well, I watched it as a kid, and then my kids watched it, and now my grandkids are watching it. Yep! Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been around for a pretty long time! And those Rockettes, Well, the announcer said they've been around for over 50 years! That's just amazing they can still get their legs off the ground at that age isn't it?
Okay, I'm going to admit it. Sometimes I wear a Superman t-shirt to sleep. That's about as close to being Superman as I'll ever get. As far as leaping tall buildings in a single bound? Sometimes I have trouble getting off the floor.
Our friend, Ruthie, loved crossword puzzles, and she hates bridges. So when she's riding with us and there's a bridge, she knows what to do. She covers her face with her crossword puzzle book until it's over. I've teased Ruthie about this a lot. But then two bridges in a week collapsed in different parts of the U. S., and I was wondering if I should buy a crossword puzzle book. Oh wait - I'm driving.