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When I was in junior high school, we usually bought one copy of the local newspaper every day. Until the day I won the County Spelling Bee! Yeah, I can do autographs later. I'm sure you're very impressed. Well, that day my parents bought about twenty copies of the local newspaper. What was the difference? Well, my name was in it this time!
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Christmastime is kind of like time to get things in shape; especially around the house. Most of us become very motivated when December arrives in terms of getting things cleaned up. We dust corners and clean areas that haven't been touched for like eleven months. Trouble spots in the carpet that had gone unnoticed, suddenly we notice them and we work on them. That wall in the kitchen that needed some touch-up paint, it becomes a priority. We begin decorating things! Houses are suddenly in better shape than they've been in all year, especially since last Christmas. Christmas is shape-up time for houses…and people.
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Communicating across the miles these days is amazing and occasionally frustrating. Not too long ago, you would just call someone and if they weren't there you'd try later. And you'd have to do that from a land line. Well today, we've got smart phones, and laptops, and Face-Time, you can text, and leave a voice-mail, video chat.
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You know, flying commercial airlines isn't as much fun as it used to be. I mean it's more of a hassle. A lot of people who have to fly seem to agree with that. There are overbooked flights, and long lines at security, and cancelled flights, and crowded flights, and equipment problems, and all kinds of frustrating delays. Now if you don't like something about the way the airline is performing, guess who usually gets all the grief? I've seen it happen in the airport over and over again. That poor ticket agent.
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Our outreach to Native Americans has only increased my wife's appreciation for Indian jewelry. She can't afford a lot, but she can look a lot. One night I was busily involved in a conversation and she was over in a corner, quietly working on some jewelry. Actually she was painstakingly trying to glue some tiny little pieces of turquoise into this bracket thing. And then I heard, "Oh-oh!" I said, "What happened?" She said, "I got some glue on my finger. I said, "Well, okay." She said, "It's Super Glue!" And instantly her thumb and her forefinger had become part of the bracelet. "Oh, no! The ads are right! That stuff bonds instantly; it bonds permanently!" Well we had our own little E.R. there and we spent probably an hour trying to unglue my wife. We tried hot water, home remedies, carefully pealing. It was painful, but well, finally we were able to give her back her thumb and finger.
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Three New York City boys broke into a zoo there, and one of them climbed into the polar bear area to swim in the moat. He was attacked by those bears and he was brutally killed. I was intrigued by an interview with the Park's Commissioner of New York City who said afterwards, "You know, bears are portrayed to children as friendly animals, even as cuddly animals. We've got Winnie the Pooh, and Paddington Bear, and Smokey the Bear. But the Park's Commissioner went on to say, "Actually, they're carnivorous killers." He was right. I mean look, the image of bears is cuddly; the reality is deadly. And not just in bear country.
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This could sure come under the heading of "You know it's going to be a bad day when..." Yeah, my wife and I were stopped at a stop light during the rush hour one morning. We were on a local street that intersects the busiest highway in the area in that town. There were two lanes. We were in the left one-the left turn lane. The light turned green, I started turning left. Well, I noticed another car next to me on my right turning from the right lane. Well that's not allowed. You're not supposed to do that; it's illegal, and it's very dangerous at this intersection. Well, suddenly, I guess this guy saw in his rearview mirror – this blinking light behind him. He had just made that illegal turn right in front of a police officer. Needless to say, he was pulled over on the shoulder before he even cleared the intersection. I mean he's not even out of the neighborhood yet and he's been caught.
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I suspect children go to secret seminars on how to manipulate parents. They are so good so early, especially at bedtime. The object seems to be to squeeze out a few more minutes before you have to go to sleep, right? Let's see, there's water, and then there's getting rid of the water, and then there's praying. And then, "Let's pray some more." Who can argue with that one? There's a sudden interest in talking about things; they are suddenly communicators. Then, of course, the ever popular "monsters in my closet."
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If you live on the East Coast, there is one word that's pretty sure to get your attention—hurricane. Yeah! I'll tell you, Hurricane Hugo was one of those mega storms that really got our attention. You could watch the news for several nights before Hugo arrived. And they would show you this cyclonic circle inching across the weather map toward, well at that point, an uncertain destination. Half a million people were evacuated from Florida to the Carolinas, not knowing where that destructive little circle on the map was going to land. Finally, it became clear that Hugo's 130-mile-an-hour winds were going to slam ashore at Charleston, South Carolina.
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Many of the world's greatest dramas are not on a stage or a screen. They're played out in that quadrennial spectacle we call the Olympics. Maybe you remember the year Britain's representative in the 400-meter race, Derek Redmond, began to falter and went down in the back stretch with a torn right hamstring. Now, when I describe the scene, you'll know it's one of the great classic moments in Olympic history. As the medical attendants were approaching, Derek Redmond was fighting his way to his feet and he's limping along in anguish. Hopping, desperately trying to finish the race. He knew he wouldn't win; he was just trying to finish.
