Your Relationships

A Human Harbor - #4474

Thursday, March 4, 2004

It was a crazy Christmas at our house! Everybody in our family - three generations now - is so excited about giving gifts to the others. Oh yeah, about getting them, too. That sometimes our festivities are not quite like "peace on earth." Such was our last Christmas. The chatter was loud, the laughter was hearty, and the buzz was intense. Or, in the case of a two-year-old, confusing. My wife, with her finely-tuned grandma's radar, noticed that our little grandson seemed a little dazed by all this happy Christmas crossfire. So she just quietly slipped to the floor where he was and began working patiently with him on assembling a toy he had just opened. This precious scene had been going on for a few minutes before any of us even noticed in the chaos. But there was Grandma, quietly creating an island of sanity in a sea of craziness.

The Beautiful Side of a Brutal Storm - #4470

Friday, February 27, 2004

If you ask our kids about the four or five most indelible memories from their childhood, at least one is bound to bring up the night of the hurricane. Some friends had offered their home on Eastern Long Island to us for our vacation. I wonder if they had advance word that Hurricane Belle would make it all the way up the East Coast that week and smack Long Island right on the chin? Thankfully, the home we were in was on a cliff above the ocean so we didn't have to evacuate. But we made all the appropriate preparations. We loaded up on batteries and candles, stored water in the bathtub, lined the freezer with newspaper in case the power went out. Well, the leading winds of the hurricane started blowing in about bedtime that night, and you could really hear it howling around our bedrooms upstairs. The kids were pretty unnerved. So, we all moved out of our rooms to the downstairs living room. We laid out some sleeping bags, and slept side by side together in the living room. I'll tell you, the kids loved it. They actually said, "Hey, hurricanes are fun, Dad!"

Family Infections - #4436

Monday, January 12, 2004

I don't get sick very often, but I managed to pick up last season's special flu bug. Which, of course, meant my wife soon followed suit. We believe in sharing everything. Our friend Janice got a similar flu - sick for four or five days. Then her husband got it - sick for four or five days. Then their lucky daughter took her turn - sick for four or five days. Their teenage son was the only one who didn't get it. His mom said he was the one walking around the house with a can of Lysol all the time! You can almost count on it - when one person is infected with a germ, it will probably end up infecting the people closest to them.

Defying the Vultures - #4435

Friday, January 9, 2004

My friend Rich has just come through a major battle with cancer with heavy radiation therapy which has helped him win. The only problem is that the radiation left Rich pretty weak and depleted. So, he would work a short week at his business and then he'd retreat to this little cabin he and his wife have way back in the woods. One day Rich was down by the stream, and he was feeling pretty tired. So, he lay down right there by the water and fell asleep. When he woke up, he was startled by what he saw. There above him, a vulture was circling him! Now, you wouldn't believe how quickly Rich got up! I can just imagine him telling that hopeful vulture, "Hey, bird, I may look dead to you, but I'm still alive!"

Linus Minus his Blanket - #4434

Thursday, January 8, 2004

A little word association exercise for today. What's the first word that comes to your mind when I say this name? Linus. Let me guess - blanket. Well, of course. Unless somehow in your life you've missed cartoondom's classic, "Peanuts" and the world of Charlie Brown and friends. And Linus is the little philosopher of the group, known most of all for his ever-present security blanket. And I mean ever-present. Everywhere this boy goes, he's dragging his precious blanket. Trying to separate him from his blanket is a hopeless cause. It's like, "Who am I without it?"

Singular Love - #4431

Monday, January 5, 2004

It was one of those primitive science experiments that a lot of boys try. OK, it's a sunny winter day. You lay out a board out on the ground - this is what I did anyway. Now you can leave it there all day with the sun beating down on it. It won't even get warm. Now comes the exciting part of the experiment. You take a piece of glass and you focus the sun's rays on one spot on that board. Same sun, same board - very different result. Eventually, that board starts to get hot - and you've got smoke - maybe even fire going there. Amazing, huh?

No Lone Rangers - #4430

Friday, January 2, 2004

Somewhere on cable or late night TV, you might run into my old hero. He's a masked man who rides on a white horse, who shoots silver bullets and always brings in the bad guys. Every episode ends with someone asking, "Who was that Masked Man?" And as the exciting William Tell Overture crescendos in the background, someone will say, "It's the Lone Ranger!" I'm getting all emotional here. Now there was one other thing about the Lone Ranger. He had a faithful sidekick, that Indian man in buckskins, Tonto. He's the one who got famous calling the Lone Ranger "Kemo Sabe." I never did know what that meant. Maybe the Lone Ranger didn't know either. Maybe that's a good thing. But there is one thing about the Lone Ranger that always seemed a little hard to understanding - even the Lone Ranger wasn't alone.

Directed by the Dispatcher - #4428

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

When a police officer shows up for his shift, he has no idea where he's going to end up that day. That's not really up to him. His car is connected to headquarters by way of radio - and on the other end sits that person who will tell him where he's going next - the dispatcher. An officer can be cruising along peacefully one minute and the next minute racing full speed to the scene of a crime. Police officers don't decide where they're going to go next, they go wherever the dispatcher sends them. It's that voice from headquarters who sends an officer to where he or she needs to be next.

Standing Strong, In Spite Of The Storm - #4397

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Hurricane Isabel was roaring up the East Coast, bringing with her 100 mile-an-hour winds, flooding deluges of rain, and a trail of destruction. As the storm moved from North Carolina toward Virginia and Washington D.C., something unprecedented happened at one of America's most hallowed sights. At Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many of the nation's honored dead, there stands the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, guarded proudly by military sentinels, day and night. For some seventy years, the guards have been there, marching with impressive precision, their rifle on their shoulder. But with a violent storm headed that way, the guards were given the unprecedented option of leaving their post long enough to seek shelter. They refused.

Banging The Pan - #4352

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Some people really have the gift of sleeping. Yep. One of our young friends, Michael, recently stayed with us for several months. He definitely has the gift of sleeping - but not the gift of waking up. It became my job to wake him up every morning to get to work. Did somebody say "Mission Impossible"? It seemed like no matter what I tried, I couldn't get him to wake up - and if I could to get him to wake up, I couldn't get him to stay awake. No alarm clock we tried could do the job, no calling his name, no calling him very loudly, no shaking him violently. Somehow he always managed to stay asleep or go back to sleep ... until the pan. Yeah, see, one morning I marched upstairs, into his room, and right over his head, banging a metal pan with a metal spoon with everything I had. I had neighbors a block away waking up! And Michael woke up, and got up - and stayed up!

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