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It takes a little longer to pick out a cereal at the supermarket than it used to. You've got to read all the ingredients these days; all the nutrients, and how much calcium, and how much of my daily requirement of vitamin C, and vitamin X there. You know all that. Well, it's on the package. In fact, on everything we buy in the supermarket, it's there because of laws that we call "truth in packaging." Good idea.
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Buck Helm - yep, that name was one light in the darkness on October 17, 1989, the day of the tragic San Francisco earthquake. It was the day the whole freeway collapsed, burying scores of people. And just when the rescuers thought there was no life left to find, an engineer spotted movement under one heavily damaged section. Under there they found, still alive miraculously, Buck Helm, a 57-year-old longshoreman. He'd survived four days in that rubble. And I think that's why we felt so sad when word came four weeks later that Buck Helm had died suddenly in the hospital. He was rescued, but he was lost. We can't always hang onto what we save.
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It was a tough stretch for our two-year-old grandson. Mommy was expecting his soon-to-arrive baby brother, and she was sick with a respiratory infection. Normally, Mommy and Daddy were both in the room where my grandson slept. But for comfort and health reasons, Mommy had to sleep in another room for a few nights. My grandson never said anything about his mother not being there during the night, but it obviously affected him. He slept in the big bed with Daddy, but he didn't sleep much. Neither did his father of course. Every few minutes, he'd snuggle up against Daddy and just say two words until his father responded, "Daddy, hold."
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Our grandson was gaining weight, and boy, he was going to be glad! (Unlike his grandfather who happens to find weight gain depressing.) Yeah, he was soon going to be over 20 pounds. Well, that meant his parents would turn his car seat around. No more looking out the rear window. That's a great feeling! You know, you don't have to keep looking back at where you've already been. It's all about looking where you are going - now.
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I don't talk about it much, because I don't want people putting me on a pedestal or asking for autographs. But the fact is I was the (Are you ready for this? Drum roll...) the champion of our county's 8th grade spelling bee. Yep, I even got a trophy. That's right.
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I'm having sort of flashbacks of some very special Easters past; often at a sunrise service. Like the Easter in Miami, with the sun rising over Biscayne Bay as I spoke about Jesus rising from the dead. Or celebrating Jesus with Native Americans in a public park. And the... Oh, yeah, there was the one on the mountaintop near New York City.
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The land is flat around Joplin, Missouri. And then after the great tornado that hit there, much of the town was leveled by that F-5. It was just heartbreaking devastation as far as the eye could see. But you know what? In the midst of all that devastation, there was still one thing still standing. A reporter commented on it as the camera scanned across this sea of wreckage, and you couldn't miss it. It was a cross, and his words went right to my heart, "The church is gone, but the cross is still standing."
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We had rented this nice cabin in the mountains, and we really didn't want to leave it much. The view across the valley was like a painting. It would change as the sun changed and the weather changed; all kinds of moods, you know, like you see in the mountains.
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Yeah, when it came time for them to choose teams for softball, I felt a little rejected. Last one chosen. Poor me. And how about the time when I was the only one on the hayride without a date? Poor me.
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I was on this early morning flight to Pittsburgh. It's the kind where most of the passengers are real veteran flyers, you know, business people. And wouldn't you know, we got one of those two-for-the-price-of-one landings. Yeah, one of those bumpy, bouncy ones. I mean, even with the seasoned flyers aboard, that landing got everyone's heads out of their papers and their briefcases...including mine. I couldn't wait to hear what the flight attendant was going to say. And, fortunately, we got one of the few that had a sense of humor. He came on and he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have your attention, I'd like to make a few announcements!" That's great! Believe me, after a landing like that, he had our attention!
