Thanks, Evelyn!

I just finished reading Ev's blog regarding her return to writing after a hiatus of some years (2?). My hiatus has been much longer but here I am now. In truth, I have nothing in particular to write about but I just wanted to give notice that I am also back. Maybe you have started a renaissance, Ev.

The Trouble With Horses
5/30/2014 3:52 PM
Okay, here is why I don’t want ponies at my birthday party.
When I was 4 or 5 (not sure and no one to verify it with, anyway) I was staying at my mother’s sister’s house (just to differentiate between maternal and paternal aunts) in Alabama. She either had a farm or lived close to one but, at any rate, she lived in the country. There was a shallow creek that meandered through the countryside on or near her property. As a child, it appeared to be fairly wide and the channel was fairly deep; as an adult, I would guess that the creek channel was a total of about 6 feet wide and probably 2-3 feet below the surface of the ground. The water was probably no deeper than 5-6 inches but it was deep enough to sit and play in on hot summer days.
One day, my brother, oldest sister and myself (and perhaps various cousins but I don’t know for sure) were playing in the water when I heard the sound of horses running across the ground coming closer and closer. Suddenly, about 10 – 12 horses jumped directly over our heads – a most unnerving experience to me. Fortunately, we were sitting in the water and not standing but I have been distrustful of those beasts ever since.
I have other negative experiences with horses that I will recount in due time – but for now, I am about out of time and I feel ill due to remembering that traumatic childhood event. I must go lay down.
5/30/2014 4:02 PM
The Trouble With Horses (Part 2)
6/2/2014 5:36 PM
Okay – to continue my journey (on foot, obviously!). Time marched on after that affair and, to be honest, I didn’t really know that this experience actually had a lasting effect on me where I would be reluctant to actually ride a horse. I think the first time I ever rode a horse, I was probably 14 or so and I was actually riding behind someone else. I was living in Green Cove Springs, FL and one of my friends came up to my door on a horse and asked if I wanted to ride with him. Now what boy aged 14 is going to admit that he just might be afraid of horses? Not me, for sure. So, somehow I managed to get up behind him (he was on a saddle and I was on the horses haunches – see any issue here, yet?). I did, however, take off my glasses and put them in the new metal case that they had come in (actually just got them that day after being without glasses for a week) because my dad had threatened my life if I damaged or lost them (we were pretty dang poor). No way was I going to risk my new glasses just for a horse ride that I didn’t really want to take. Nonetheless, I got up behind my friend and although it was a little disconcerting to bounce up and down and side to side as the horse walked, it wasn’t all that bad. However, within 5 minutes, my friend urged the horse down into a fairly steep ditch and the side to side, up and down became more than I could deal with. I fell off and, as I did, manage to do a complete flip and land on my butt. Guess where my glasses case was?
6/2/2014 5:46 PM
The Trouble With Horses (Part 3)
6/3/2014 7:17 PM
And then there was San Diego. I was coerced into going horseback riding at a horse stable. How bad could that be, I thought? The horses were (so I assumed) pretty much tame and probably pretty slow as well. When we got there, there were a few people ahead of us and I stood there (sweating in fear) watching them mount the horses and ride away. The horses were in a sort of corral and as one was needed, it was led into a narrow causeway with split rail fences on both sides and gates fore and aft. The customer would climb a couple of stairs to a platform which made it easy to get onto the saddle – not bad! It was getting close to my turn; in fact, I was second in line and the guy in front of me was getting ready to get on his horse. He had no sooner placed a foot in the stirrup (or perhaps his butt in the saddle – not sure now) when the horse went absolutely berserk – wait, berserk is too tame – he went destructively, frenetically violent and pitched, bucked, bit, smashed into the split rails, fell down with the man smashed between the horse (horse? – DEMON) and the fence. Yep, I turned right around even though the guy who was running things promised me that this was really unusual behavior. Right. I believed that a whole bunch – in all probability, all the other horses had really unusual behavior and the one in front of me was normal!

The Delusion of Christians

Do we delude ourselves when we say that we are Christians? Or do we prove our Christianity by what we do?

"But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of a person he was." (James 1:22-24 NAS)

Delusion is one of the great tricks of Satan; with it, he can convince us that we are indeed practitioners of Christianity when, in fact, we may merely be thespians in a Christian role. Oh, I don’t think we intentionally don our dramatic persona; I think we’re just afraid to look at the truth about our Christianity. If we did, we might find ourselves recognizing that our professed faith requires more of us than we are willing to give. The great hallmark of Christ was His giving – He gave us hope, salvation, eternal life with God, and a purpose to our lives. That purpose is to give so that others might come to know Christ and receive that which He would give. To do that, though, requires true Christianity.

Christianity is both faith and action; by faith we accept Christ as our Savior and by action we demonstrate to the world that our faith is tangible. Faith, without demeaning it in any way, is simply believing in something that cannot be empirically proven. We all have faith – faith that gravity will always be there, faith that the sun will rise in the morning, faith that we will be loved by our spouses. Action, though, demands something of us – our energy, our willingness to give of ourselves, a commitment. As James so aptly puts it:

"Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself." (James 2:17 NAS)

When James speaks of our looking at our natural face in a mirror and, immediately upon turning away, forgetting what kind of a person we truly are, he is reminding us that we are incapable of seeing the genuine reflection of what and who we are. A true mirror will exactly reflect our image but through our own self-deception and Satan’s distortion we believe that we are something other than what our image displays.

The First Time I Saw Eileen

The first time I saw Eileen, I must admit that I was underawed. Here was a woman with an Afro that stuck out about 12 inches on either side of her head. She was wearing a peasant blouse with 2 tassels in rather obvious locations and an old pair of faded jeans. She had on hippie-styled granny glasses and no shoes. She was sitting in a sort of lotus position on the sofa in the house of my shipmate Robbie. It was a blind date; you know, the kind that you say that you will never participate in and yet you somehow end up being a part of.

My day had been quiet – in fact, it was about 9 AM and I was asleep on the ship when I was told that I had a phone call on the quarterdeck. You must remember that this was prior to the invention of cell phones. After getting dressed and stumbling up the ladder to the quarterdeck, I heard Robbie saying that a friend of his wife was staying with them and would I like to come over and have dinner with them. My brain was saying “No thank you – I have something to do tonight” but my mouth was saying “Sure, Robbie, what time?” I immediately tried to correct the situation but Robbie didn’t give me time. “About 5,” he said and hung up.
Great. Just great. Well, I wasn’t about to make any special concessions for someone that I had never met, so I went in my very best (well, at least it was clean) plaid flannel shirt and jeans. Did I mention that I had on my Navy-issued glasses? The ones everyone called “birth control” glasses? And I arrived in my white Ford F-150 pickup truck. Definitely a man of distinction and impeccable taste. But back to Eileen.

We obviously had nothing in common other than we were both breathing and alive. I’m sure she was contemplating a sit-in or something as a protest against the military-industrial complex that she thought I represented and I was anxiously hoping that the cops would show up and save me from someone who was undoubtedly an anarchist. No such luck. We ended up sitting across from each other at dinner and I had to admit that she was good-looking although I probably wouldn’t want to introduce her to my folks.

The evening kind of dragged by and I was glad that soon it was about over and I could escape. I had managed to survive without creating any problems or making a total fool of myself. As I was getting up to leave, I was going to say “Thanks, I had a nice time” and head for the door but it didn’t work out quite that way. Instead, I said “Hey, would you like to go to a movie tomorrow?” And the rest, as they say, is history.

Something Unexpected in a Happy Meal

Now, don’t get me wrong but Happy Meals aren’t exactly my thing. I know, I know – the kids love them but, for me, there just isn’t enough food in there to keep a mouse happy, let alone a gourmand such as myself. I have on occasion bought one, although I am careful to indicate it is for my grandchild. Honestly, I only buy Happy Meals for the toy in the box – not the food.

I did find something in a Happy Meal one time that was so unexpected that I couldn’t believe my good fortune in receiving that particular box. After all, how many people do you know that have a ¾ inch plastic pistol that can get you arrested if you carry it into a school? Aren’t those things illegal? Well, don’t tell anyone but I did get one and I have to admit that it is definitely scary, especially after I used my pocket knife (also illegal in schools and in airplanes) to remove some of the excess plastic that tends to extrude from little plastic toys. And, the fact that it is green makes it look almost like it has been sitting somewhere in an area unprotected from the weather and it gained a patina of verdigris. Almost an antique.

I think I am going to give it to the little brat next door and encourage him to take it to school to show his friends – won’t his dad have a hard time explaining why his “wonderful little Tommy” has been arrested and is in jail awaiting trial for terrorizing the school teachers with his gun. I can only hope that none of them have a heart attack at seeing such an obviously dangerous instrument; however, should it happen, I doubt that I would lose much sleep over it.

Light My Fire

“Come on baby, light my fire. Come on baby, light my fire. Try to set the night on fire”

Thus sang Jim Morrison in early 1967. The inference is, of course, obvious and although this is certainly not the only song that influenced the fire of the sexual revolution of the 60’s, it was almost certainly one of the songs that helped to fuel it. Compare those words of Jim Morrison to the words of Elvis Presley just 11 years or so earlier:

“Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfilled. For my darling, I love you and I always will.”

Not quite so much fire involved there – more of a quiet, caring and thoughtful approach that would, in just a few years, be considered trite and old-fashioned.

I, for one, loved both songs. "Love Me Tender" evoked that soft side of my nature (yes, there is a soft side of my nature) while "Light My Fire" appealed to my fascination with that which is chaotic and agitated (yes, believe it or not, I can be chaotic). And, even though I was only 11 when Elvis sang his song, I knew that love was supposed to be tender and caring. I knew that love was supposed to be permanent and committed. I knew that there was supposed to be one love in your life.

At 21, well – that was a different story that we will not go into here. All I can say is that I am delighted that I have come back around to that 11-year-old’s point of view again. As I get older, I realize that chaos is not all I thought it would be - can any of us say that life is better now than it was when Elvis sang "Love Me Tender"?

My Version of Gone With The Wind

Just for Miss Ev and with sincere apologies to Margaret Mitchell


Gone With The Wind

A poem I sat to write but ere a word was penned
I found, to my chagrin, my thoughts were gone with the wind.
Alas, now what to do? I don’t think Evelyn would buy
That my words had been stolen by Yankees, evil and sly.

The dog ate my homework seemed less than appropriate
And I didn’t want to risk that she would expropriate
My seat in writers group henceforth and for evermore
I cringed at hearing her proclaim “Nevermore!”

I’ve got it, this excuse she will have to believe!
I swear my assignment I had achieved,
But that final act of Sherman’s occupation
Caused my paper to burn in Atlanta’s conflagration.

6-Word Novels

One of our exercises in writing group was to write a complete "novel" in just 6 words. Not an easy task, I can tell you. Below are some of mine (and certainly not the best of our group!).

Senate seat for sale, call Blago.

Hope and change - lost, not found.

Market crashes; acrid smoke; splattered blood.

I love Congress; smoke and mirrors.

Red and yellow, summer is over.

He Adjusted His Glasses and Read It Again

He adjusted his glasses and read it again… it still read the same way – cancer; terminal cancer. Slowly he put the paper down and removed his glasses. From habit, he pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and proceeded to wipe the lenses of some imaginary speck of grease, some dirt that may have caused him to misread the letter. He knew, of course, that he had not misread it; he didn’t make mistakes of that kind. The finality of the diagnosis pulled at the edges of his mind, threatening to crumble that invincible wall that he had so carefully placed around his feelings so many years before.

Reluctantly, he picked up the letter and scanned it again, hoping to find some small imperfection that he could use to destroy its credibility. It wasn’t that he couldn’t believe it – it was that he refused to believe it despite his awareness that the doctor was a man of impeccable character and capability. The top man in his field within a 500 mile radius of his home; a man that had politicians, movie stars and captains of industry as his clients.

Should he tell his wife? Should he lay the burden on her shoulders as well? Would it not be kinder to keep her unaware of the situation until it was too far gone to be hidden? Or was it merely cowardice on his part that sought to hide the truth from his partner of more than 35 years? The truth was that she might figure it out on her own even if he didn’t say a word about the letter or its contents. He never underestimated her ability to discern when things were just not quite right but he hoped that he might use some diversion that would throw her off.

With a sigh, he realized that, in all fairness, he should let her know – after all, she believed in sharing all things. Even the bad things. He just hated hurting her even when he knew that it was the right thing to do. How would her life be after the cancer had its way? How would she cope with the grief? Life was such a fleeting thing at the best of times and death was the end for everyone but why did it have to be cancer? Why not a simple falling asleep and failing to wake up?

He pushed back his chair and went in search of his wife. She was, more than likely, in the garden tending to her flowers so he opened the French doors that opened onto the patio and stepped outside. The garden lay before him, a thing of beauty that reflected the beauty of its keeper. He found her kneeling in front of the fountain watching the gold fish in the pond darting in and out of the lily pads.

“Sweetheart, I have some rather bad news,” he said.

Even as he said it, he knew that he had not approached it with the grace that he needed to. Her shoulders hunched slightly and she slowly turned around. Her beauty staggered him as it always did when he first glimpsed her face – it was incredible how much he loved her.

Bravely, she smiled and looked at him questioningly – waiting for him to reveal to her what was weighing so heavily on his mind.

“The doctor confirmed it – its cancer.”

A shadow crossed her face and then the determination that was such a part of her shone forth.

“Well, she has had 14 good years and, after all, cats don’t live forever. Just don’t tell her, please – she wouldn’t understand.”

An Unusual Phobia

Write about an unusual phobia...

Okay, let’s do this right – let’s inquire into the meaning of “Unusual Phobia” – break it down into its component parts:

Unusual - uncommon in amount or degree

Phobia - a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

Well, there’s my fear of falling off high places like cliffs and high bridges or tops of buildings and while that fear is persistent, it isn’t irrational and it isn’t unusual. After all, falling off high places is inimical to life as we know it so it could hardly be a phobia.

Okay, how about my fear of aliens conquering the earth? Nope – that’s not it; while that is more than likely uncommon in degree and may be irrational, it is not a persistent thing with me (I only worry about it when I’m awake) so I guess it isn’t a phobia.

You know what? This writing assignment was a little more difficult than I originally thought. What would be a fear that I would have a compelling, uncommon desire to avoid? Well, there’s the movie Chamber of Fear with Boris Karloff? Maybe that would count since it has fear in the title? No; I like Boris Karloff and only werewolf movies really scare me – I mean, OMG – the hair growing on the arms and the claws growing out from the ends of the fingers! Now that is scary but it’s hard to have a phobia about something that isn’t real (they aren’t real, are they?).

An unusual phobia...

Okay, how about a phobia of the mailman? After all, they deliver things from the government and I DEFINITELY have a phobia (or at least a paranoia) about stuff that comes from the government so maybe by extension that could be an unusual phobia.

Nah – that’s probably not unusual enough to satisfy the Eradicator of Egregious Elucidations for whom I must write. Not that she is so obviously evil, mind you, but misplace a comma or muddle your syntax and beware the Wrath of the Wicked Witch of Wordsmithing!

I mean, come on! I don’t think this is in the running for a Pulitzer or anything, is it? Or a Newberry award? A Reader’s Digest feature of the month? I didn’t think so.

I guess I’ll just have to admit I don’t have any phobias that are unusual and take my lumps.

Shadows - A new short story

Shadows

Shadows. Illusions. Shape-shifters. Perhaps cosmic dust that had been spreading since creation. None of us knew the truth. The mood of depression and defeat that encapsulated all of us was palpable. Sure, we were all hand-chosen for this mission and had suffered through extensive psychological testing prior to that selection. A more stable group of people could not have been found and, yet, all of us were unnerved by the shadows.

None more so than Silva. He had been transformed from a man with huge reservoirs of strength and an unshakeable faith in his own courage and capabilities to a near-catatonic lump of trembling flesh that would not walk. We briefly debated the merits of trying to take him with us. No one wanted to leave him but we had no way to carry him without further endangering ourselves and he would not walk. Surely he would understand what we had to do, wouldn’t he? I made the decision to leave him.

He cried in silence but did not fight us as we squeezed him into a cleft in an overhanging rock that almost completely hid him from view. Why we were hiding him or what we were hiding him from was unknown to us. Those of us who believed in a merciful God said a quiet prayer for him, knowing full well that he would soon be dead.

Now there were only 6 of us left out of the original 15 who had left the ship. We had repeatedly tried contacting the 3 men we had left with the ship but it was like speaking into an acoustic dead zone; we had no idea if they just couldn’t hear us or if they were no longer there. I would never admit it to my crew but I was certain that they were not there – making it an even dozen of us that were dead.

We could not begin to guess what had killed the people we were leaving behind – they were just dead. Not a single death had been witnessed by any of us. Each man was unmarked, with no wound or evidence of what had killed him. Yet, each face was a grotesque death-mask and terror was permanently etched into their features.

At first, we tried to carry our dead with us back to the ship but it was simply beyond our capability. In the perpetual shadows surrounding us, each of us could barely look out for ourselves. Even had there been good lighting, the footing was treacherous. With the shifting shadows and the perilous terrain, being responsible for dead weight was just not possible. We lost Johnson when he fell and ripped his suit while trying to carry out Miller who had been the first person to die. We could only watch in anguished disbelief as Johnson choked, writhed and died as he tried to breathe the thin and poisonous atmosphere.

After we left Silva, I took point only because I was the leader; I wanted to remain in that cleft with Silva and just close my eyes. I wanted to shut out those illusions, those shapes, the terror. All fear is powerful but when all you can see are shadows and those shadows continually evolve into something that reaches deep into your psyche, the fear morphs into something enormously destructive. I had faced dangers and the fear that comes with danger multiple times in my career, but in every case I could see or at least know what it was that I was dealing with. Not here. Not even the powerful lamps we carried could remove the shadows – the light was simply swallowed up; like it couldn’t exist among the shadows; like it didn’t belong.

Only a few more kilometers to the ship and those of us who were left could leave this place forever. Leave the shadows. Leave the fear.

“Colonel, Stewart is missing!” Evans shouted. “He was right behind me and now he’s gone!” Panic was evident in Evans’ voice and that was nearly as dangerous as the shadows.

“Shut up, Evans! Just stop and get a grip; there’s no reason to lose control!”

What a joke. We had lost control within 24 hours of arriving in this God-forsaken place.

“Everyone just turn around. We’ll backtrack a bit and see if we can find him – he might have stopped for a moment to gather his strength.”

There was muttering at that command but they did turn around and start walking slowly back the way we had come. It was a compelling testament to their courage and the training they had received. We were scared and nearly broken, but we were still men. I was terrified and close to panic myself; I admit it. Stewart had been riding trail and now that we had turned around, I was riding trail. I couldn’t help thinking “It’s always the last man in line that dies.” I kept turning and looking behind me, expecting to see whatever it was that was killing us; expecting to die next. Before that could happen, though, the column stopped.

“Here he is, Colonel; he’s dead,” Evans muttered. “He looks just like the rest of them did.”

Evans was right – Stewart had the same look of horror on his face that all the other men had when we found them. Saying a silent prayer, I ordered the march to resume, leaving Stewart in the dust and shadows.

We were less than a kilometer from the ship when it finally occurred to me that I hadn’t heard anything from the men behind me for some time. I stopped and forced myself to turn around. Emptiness. Emptiness and shadows. Emptiness, shadows and fear. Who knew when the last man died or fell over? My heart hammered at my chest wall and it was then I knew that the shadows had won.

With grim determination, I turned back toward the ship and started to run; ignoring the possibility of falling and dying like Johnson. That seemed infinitely preferable to what had happened to all the others.

In one of those inexplicable twists of life, the shadows momentarily cleared and I could see the ship standing tall and proud and ready to return me to safety and sanity. It was so close!

I ran faster in an effort to beat the return of the shadows and, with them, my certain death. I knew it would be in vain. I could feel the breath of something unknown and unseen close at my back – something ancient and evil. I pushed myself harder in an effort to escape. The last thing I saw was the shadows closing back in over the ship and I knew it was too late; too far; too difficult. My screams went unheard by anything human.

Write about The Front Door Slammed

The Front Door Slammed

Wham!

I jumped as the front door slammed behind me.  Fear washed over me in waves of ice water and I struggled to breathe. I shivered even though it was August and the muggy heat of Chesapeake had previously been sapping every bit of energy out of my old, tired body. It was a fear reprised from childhood when the front door slamming invariably meant pain and humiliation was soon to follow.

I was an only child – mostly because my mother refused to bring another child into the world to face the drunken wrath of my father. Consequently, it was me and me alone who had to bear with the beatings and near-starvation. Surprisingly, my father was never unkind to my mother even when drunk – unless, of course, you counted the beating of her only child as being unkind to her. He never laid a finger on her, almost never had a cross word for her and was constantly bringing sweet, unexpected gifts to her.  Usually just before he beat me.

It had, obviously, been many years since my father had beat me – he died peacefully in his sleep more than thirty years ago. No, I had nothing to do with his death, although I had often turned the idea over in my mind more than once - even as a grown man. No, it was a natural thing. He even looked kind and somehow angelic lying there in his coffin. It was all I could do to pretend to mourn but I felt that it was required of me in order to protect my mother. No one ever knew about that side of my father – no one but me and my mom.  She had tried to protect me but my father had created a small prison out of a closet and if she interfered, he would put her into it until the beating was done.  I'm amazed that my mom retained any degree of sanity at all.

I have never married. How could I risk the possibility that something evil and foul lived within me and could, at any moment, leap out to destroy my family? No, it was better that I remain alone. I turned down all attempts at friendship from the people I worked with, as well. After all, I might strike out at them, too. Who knew how deep the stagnant pool in my heart?  People considered me to be antisocial when, in reality, I was doing my best to keep from destroying the social network around me. It has been a lonely and sad life but I can’t do anything to fix it.  I mean, who could I tell?  Who would believe what I had to say – about my life, my fears or the slamming front door?

Me versus You

I thought I knew the answers; turns out that I don’t even know the questions. I am nearing the end of my life – well, I am certainly closer to the end than I am to the beginning. And I am just now learning that I can never learn enough to keep up with the changes to the world. No, I’m not talking about new gadgets, new inventions, new ways to do things – I’m talking about changes in people.

What has happened to courtesy? What has happened to respect for a person? What has happened that no one counts for much of anything any longer?

I hold a door open for anyone – not just women, the elderly, or handicapped folks – everyone. Why? Because that is what I was taught – courtesy is indicative of a concern for others. It is indicative of the fact that I am recognizing that person and respecting them. How many folks do you suppose bother to say thank you? I’ve never actually counted but I am going to start doing so just so I can answer that question for my own benefit.

How many times have you wondered just where the world is going? I find that I am more and more frequently wondering just that. When did our love for others become just a self-love world? At what point does our self-love give way to a hate-others sort of society? We are already all about self-love; we are well on our way to hate-others, I believe. I don’t think I want to live in that sort of world, do you?

It’s not about Democrats versus Republicans, blacks versus whites, old versus young or anything else other than me against you. Me is much more important than you. Me is what it is all about – you is so last week.

Are you tired? I am.

Write About a Mess

I hit him - hard. He got back up and wobbled over to where I was standing. His lip was bleeding and my knuckles were skinned. I wasn’t sure but I think one of them was probably broken.

“Is that the best you can do,” he sneered? “My sister used to hit me harder than that and she only weighed about 70 pounds.”

“Listen, I said I don’t want to fight – why can’t you just leave it at that? Why get yourself all smacked around and maybe get some real damage?”

“Real damage? You’re going to pass along some real damage to me?” He looked up into the sky. “I don’t see any pigs flying,” he laughed.

The stretch of his lip when he laughed caused it to start bleeding heavily. Large drops rolled over his bottom lip and spilled to the floor. As I stood there, momentarily mesmerized by the blood flowing from his lips, he swung a huge haymaker right that caught me squarely on the side of the head. My eyes momentarily rolled back in my head and I abruptly sat down; not neatly or gingerly, mind you, but with a huge ‘whump’ that rattled my teeth together.

He stood over me and there was no longer a trace of laughter in his face. I knew what was coming next – a swift kick aimed at my ribs but I managed to partially block it with my left arm and I caught his foot with my right hand and pulled over and upward as hard and fast as I could. He fell backwards and his head smacked against the floor. He wasn’t unconscious but he was temporarily out of the fight. I took advantage of his situation and struggled to my feet. My head was throbbing and my left arm was strangely numb.

I knew that I had to do something to stop this fight; it was way out of hand. I did what any self-respecting boy would do.

“Mom, Mike started a fight and when I hit him back I split his lip. The blood on the floor is from his lip – he made the mess, not me!”

Writer's Assignment - Someone Calls Your Name

It was late and it was cold. The street was dirty, filled with muddy water from the recent, heavy rains. It was dark; most of the street lights shattered by vandals and the few that were left seemed to make it darker rather than lighter. Random pieces of trash floated down the gutters turned impromptu rivers. My shoes were sodden, filled with water from the multiple openings in the soles. Had it still been raining, my heart would have filled with water as well, flowing in through the holes in my soul.

I tried to pull the threadbare coat tighter about my shoulders but it, too, was sopping wet and having little to no effect on keeping me warm. At least the boonie hat had kept most of the rain off my head. Both had come from a thrift store that wasn’t too concerned with how clean things were before they sold them. I had waged a small battle with certain bugs for several days before the folks at the shelter had helped me conquer them. Life hadn’t been all that wonderful lately.
“Hey, Frost, where are you going?”

I stopped dead in my tracks for a few seconds and then slowly turned around.

No one was there. Just more trash and more water. More cold. More emptiness. More darkness.
Had I been so sunk in my misery that I had started imagining that someone cared about me? I started to laugh but the dry, hacking cough I had developed in the last day or so stole my laughter and drowned it in its infancy. I couldn’t even begin to believe that someone had some sympathy or concern for me.

I turned back around and continued my plodding trek down the street; stumbling now and again over things hidden beneath the brown water. I don’t know why I continued in that direction – all directions led to that ultimate destination of a destitute and useless end.

“Hey, Frost, didn’t you hear me? I’m talking to you.”

I stopped again but didn’t turn around. What would be the purpose?

“What do you want?” I whispered.

“You, of course,” the voice spoke. “I want you.”

“Why?”

“Because you have no time left and I am here to collect you.”

Ah, I thought – the Grim Reaper. Thanatos. Apollyon. Abaddon. Death. Well, he would get no argument from me; I was more than ready to leave this mortal coil and shuffle off to my reward or, more likely, to my punishment.

“What took you so long?” I asked. “Why didn’t you show up a couple of years ago when I was on top – why wait until I had lost everything? Why the prolonged suffering?”

“Not my choice, friend. I’m only the transportation; it’s someone else’s decision as to when I show up.”

Surprisingly, the water in my face was warm and the pavement was soft as any mother’s love.

12U Fast Pitch Softball

All this week, my middle granddaughter (Autumn Woods) has been up in Washington, DC playing in the NSA Nationals Tournament for 12U Traveling Fast Pitch softball. Her team lost their first game in the actual "it counts" part of the tournament yesterday and then battled back to get to the final 4. Unfortunately, they lost their second game this morning (double elimination), so they ended up in 4th place. Still pretty darn good out of a field of 17 teams. I didn't have a photo of her in this team's (Galaxy Red) uniform so I used a photo of her from a couple of years ago when she was on the Triple Threat Lady Tigers (10U) and they won the Pony Nationals up in Delaware. Eileen and I went to that tournament and it was quite the show!

Congratulations to you, Autumn, and to Galaxy Red for their fine tournament play!

The 11th Commandment - Tease not lest ye be teased.

I admit that I have a terrible habit - I pick on my grandchildren. Now, I do pick on them, but it isn't out of meanness - mischievousness would better fit the situation. Unfortunately, as they have grown older, they have learned how to play the game and I am frequently on the receiving end of their wit.

My youngest grandchild is August, who is almost 9 years old. When she was about 4 or 5, she was riding in the back seat of the car and she was pretending to be a policewoman writing tickets. I'm sure you can guess who was the recipient of all those tickets - it appears that I couldn't do anything right. Finally, I complained about all the tickets and why she was being so mean to me. Well, she didn't answer me directly - she merely said, "I love my job!"

Fast forward to this past Sunday - she was going to church with us and, as per our routine, I was teasing her. After this long back and forth about something, she just kind of shook her head and said to me "Grandaddy, you have sooo many things wrong with you."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Have I ever mentioned that Eileen and I have 2 dogs? Here is a photo of Shamus Lochlan MacGregor when he was just a couple of months old. He and Eileen fell in love with each other at first sight. She was "browsing" at the pet store while I was doing something else in the mall and she said that all these folks walked by him and he just lay in his cage looking at them. However, when she walked by, he got up, came to the window and put his paw on the window so she put her hand to the window as well and they just stared at each other for a while.

As fortune would have it, our youngest daughter (Katie) happened to be in the mall and when Eileen saw her and told her about the puppy, she wanted to go see him. I had already checked on the price and told my daughter that there was no way I was going to spend that kind of money on a dog (big bucks!). Anyway, while back in the pet store, Katie had the girl get the puppy out and give her to Eileen. Tears just blew loose from her eyes and I knew that I was sunk - big bucks or no, that puppy had to come home with us.

I'll have to tell you the story of our other puppy some other time - I don't have a photo of her in this computer.

Joplin, MO

I was involved last night in leading a session of The Truth Project at a friend's house and when we ended the session and I asked about prayer requests, one of the folks indicated that he was mad at God for the damage done to people's lives in Joplin, MO. He asked the proverbial question "How can a merciful God allow these things to happen?" He didn't say this, but implicit in it, I believe was that God was at fault for the loss of lives and the loss of homes and businesses.

I think that is a fair question to ask but a hard one to answer and unless one is solidly of the belief that God knows best, there can probably be no answer that would satisfy those who do not have that solidity of belief.

We could talk about the fall of man bringing all sorts of calamity into the world; we could talk about that in a natural world, these events will always happen; we could perhaps come up with many other explanations - but there is no way that we can truly know the answer. And, the question presupposes that life on this earth is preferable to anything else that God might have in store for us. While death (especially to a family member or close friend) is a terrible tragedy for those remaining, is it a tragedy to those who died? We are all going to die at some point (unless, as I frequently ask of God, I am caught up in the Rapture instead!!) and make the transition from life on earth to life in heaven or hell. The real tragedy, of course, is those who die without Christ as their Lord and Savior. I believe, in the final analysis, that is the only real tragedy of this world; everythng else is short of tragedy even if long on pain and suffering.

Just wondering

I heard (briefly) President Obama's talk about Israel, "Palestine" and a 2-state solution to their issues. Just wondering why Obama thinks that Israel will agree to the 1967 borders that had Israel at just 9 miles wide in one spot, had Jerusalem partitioned so that part was Israeli and part "Palestinian", that had Jerusalem's Jewish holy sites predominantly within the non-Jewish part of Jerusalem. Jews were not allowed to visit their holy sites prior to 1967; 86 (or so) mosques were destroyed in Jerusalem under Muslim rule. What is the purpose of Obama's "solution"? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, particularly considering the fact that the "Palestinians" constantly send thousands of rockets into Israel with the borders as they are... imagine if Israel was back to its 1967 borders.

And, just for the record, "Palestine" and "Palestinians" are in quotes because there is no such group of people. These people were either Turkish (way back), Syrian, Lebanese or Jordanians living in that area prior to the establishment of Israel as a nation. There has never been a state/government that was known as "Palestine".