Crisis of faith...

I attended a church where the preacher thought the Bible was the actual inspired word of God.

He thought God’s grace was enough for whatever came up.

And then a bomb fell on his house and family.

(Not a real bomb, that might have be easier to explain.)

I know he knows God is still enough, but God appears to be standing by, waiting to see what the major players in this situation do.

I have some experience with this. I remember thinking a bolt of lightning might have been useful, if only God had decided to use it.

So the story goes on, slowly, without closure…pain is resurrected and recreated. And the people that are trusted with the next step seem to be doing nothing...to help.

It's all fun and games until the truck comes...

Gracie watches this show called “Piggly Winks.” It’s about a pig, a duck and a cow that are friends as children, told by the adult pig (years later) to his grandchild (or is it grandpig?).

Anyway, it never makes mention of what happened to his buddies. And it makes no sense to me that of all of them, the pig made it to adulthood.

Why rub out the duck? I guess the family (although they never are seen...what is this..Animal Farm?) was snowed in one Christmas and couldn’t get to the market to buy the Christmas meal. Otherwise, who sees a duck as ready cash?

And the cow? He could have been of use for years, and not just as a hamburger.

Why the pig survived, I have no idea. They produce nothing but waste and stench until they head off to the abattoir.

I’m waiting for the reunion show… with pate for an appetizer followed by filet mignon. But without, apparently, bacon bits on the baked potato.

The bad news is I have to buy a lawn mower...

We have to buy a house.

We need at least four bedrooms and would like to have five with an office. But I think I need some other stuff too.

1. A separate room for my golf clubs and golf related stuff. I have a couple extra sets and golf bags. I don’t want them in some closet somewhere, all jangled up. Same goes for my banjo and my guitar.
2. In the bathroom, I need a “new bar of soap” dispenser that I can reach from inside the shower. Or…I need a warning light that the soap is almost all gone that I can see BEFORE I get in the shower and get wet.
3. A workbench in the garage with my tools displayed. This way, if I want to cut off my finger with the circular saw, I’ll be able to easily find it and get started before the emergency room gets really busy.
4. A small refrigerator and pantry in the living room to easily get drinks and snacks without missing anything on TV. (I had thought this was why I got married, but I turned out to be mistaken.)
5. Basketball hoop.
6. Putting green.
7. Helicopter.

Did Nostradamus know I’d be posting about him today?

Frankly, I’m skeptical of his powers of prophesy.

First of all, his wife and children died of the Plague. Didn’t he see this coming?

And the rest of the “prophesy” was only apparent AFTER the event occurred. Yeah, he predicted a big fire in a major city…duh…when, where, why, how? Come on…

He is credited with predicting the rise of Hitler and Napoleon…really, you mean some guy would gain power and try to take over the world? His predictions are as useful as someone saying, “I told you so!”

He didn't predict anything really useful, like the invention of Bartles and Jaymes Wine Coolers or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

They say he predicted his death. Do I need to spell this out for you?

20 years clean this April...

I slid hard into second base and heard a scream. It didn’t come from my lips.

When I looked up, there was Scott bleeding from the nose like a sieve. I had broken it. When he realized the blood was his, he jumped up and began to chase me. The reason he was chasing me was that I was running. Seemed like the thing to do.

I cut through the yard next to the ball field and jumped over a hedge. The house was about six blocks away.

He was gaining...angry is faster than terrified, apparently.

When I cut across the next street, I remembered that Tommy (an older friend of my parents) was home recuperating from knee surgery. He was a block away. I ran around the fence that had the dog, cut to the right, ran two more houses and ran up their driveway.

I slowed down and knocked on the door. “Tommy,” I asked, out of breath, “You there?”

“Yeah, come on in,” he said.

For the next couple of hours I sat with Tommy, talking about things (I skipped the part about the broken nose)…we played a game of Strat-O-Matic Football…and I had lunch with him. About 2 p.m., I very carefully made my way home.

I’ve only broken three noses since. But none since 1988.

Things Wikipedia won't tell you...

Yesterday was Earth Day. Back in 1970, a bunch of people convinced that we were about to enter into another ice age proposed an awareness day to promote the environmental movement.

It also doubled (same crowd, why not?) as a trade show for drug paraphernalia. There was a screening of "Reefer Madness."

The day was set as April 22 for a few reasons:
1. The birth of John Muir was April 21. He founded the Sierra Club. But, the people in charge thought his birthday was April 22. Oops.
2. Eddie Albert of the show Green Acres was born on April 22. In his honor, people shouted, “Give me that countryside!” at the opening ceremonies.
3. Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, was born on April 22. This was a nice honor…but now that Earth Day has largely overshadowed Arbor Day (only Nebraska still has it as an official holiday), I would suspect ol’ Julius is a bit miffed.

The FBI thought that there was another reason. The would-have-been 100th birthday of Lenin was April 22, 1970 and the boys from the bureau thought Earth Day was connected somehow. Ok, whatever.

Finally, yesterday was Holli’s birthday.

Honey, sorry the crazy people took over your special day.

The pass that kept me out of Canton...

When I was nine, I played a year of football in Danville, Illinois. Helmets, pads, the whole thing. We had a pretty good team…only lost one game.

In that game (the only one I remember) the opening kickoff came to me…I juked left, then right, then backwards as I was driven into the ground. I still remember how much it hurt. I still remember how much I didn’t like it.

This is the moment I think back on as to why I didn't play a second season.

Later in the game, we scored a touchdown and went for two (we never kicked) but we had a false start…or rather, I had a false start. The coach decided we would try a pass play. And he put me in as quarterback.

I remember calling signals, and dropping back to pass…I saw three guys coming and threw it as hard as I could toward the designated receiver before I was smashed into the ground. It was incomplete. I never found out where the pass went…was it short? Long? Where?

I don’t remember much else. We lost 33-31.

I don’t think I handled the ball again for the rest of the year. For my wide receiver career, I never caught a pass. I had one thrown to me, but I dropped it.

Hit me right in the chest. I still think about that.

Giving Back...

I haven’t watched much TV lately. I feel bad about it.

I need to do a better job of keeping up with the people who helped raise me: Hawkeye Pierce, Alf, Bob Newhart, Gilligan, Jimmy Walker, Maxwell Smart and Fred Sanford. I’m sure there are many I’m forgetting.

I know I haven’t paid much attention to them lately, but I hope they don’t think I’ve forgotten them.

We need to plan a vacation together, and have some quality time to renew the friendships and create new memories.

I’ll take them by Wal-Mart and get them a soda. We’ll sit on the bench in front of the store and people-watch for a while. We won’t talk much, but we won’t need to…just some time together will be enough.

With the hustle and bustle of life, we need to remember those who were such a huge influence on our lives.

Have you hugged Scooby-Do today?

Overheard...

I heard someone say this morning that one of the players in the tournament I am running is a cheater.

“Yeah, but,” replied the other person, “It’s part of their culture.”

Now, I’m not going to argue the validity of this. There are people that cheat at golf and they aren’t limited to only one demographic or nationality, but it seems that almost all of a couple of cultures either cheat on the course or on their handicap. Seems that way...I'm sure there are exceptions.

Where this comes from, I don’t know. But to hazard a guess, it seems to trickle down from the top…if your leaders (political and business) are known for dishonesty, the citizens will cheat also.

I’d write more, but my taxes are late (I filed for an extension) and I have some bogus charitable donation receipts to print on my computer.

And petting a pit bull with a rib-eye in your pocket...

One of the definitions of insanity (the other being mixing tequila and wine coolers) is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Eight women came into the office yesterday with their bikinis on and demanded that we change the format of the golf tournament to accommodate them. When we explained why this couldn’t happen, they repeated themselves. We explained again. They repeated. It was like directions for shampooing your hair.

After three whinings and three explanations, they asked to speak to the boss. I told them I didn’t know exactly where he was at the time (he was upstairs, but I didn’t know EXACTLY where).

They began to repeat their reasons and pulled out the “we need to talk to the boss because YOU can’t do anything about it.”

This used to bother me. But now I just smile.

The “and it needs to be right now,” made an appearance.

They said they had to speak to him now, because the opening night dinner wasn’t the right place. (I guess the best time to discuss the format of a tournament is 13 hours before the first tee time in a bikini.)

And then they used “we won’t be coming back next year.”

I was hoping we’d get to that. These are just the kind of people we hope for…self-centered, impatient and demanding.

I sure hope they were serious.