Romance doesn’t seem to care about convenience; love will go wherever to be with the beloved one, right? Take our son, for example. The woman he fell in love with and ultimately made our wonderful daughter, lived many miles down a rough and rutted gravel road across open range, and across dusty desert terrain. He was dodging cattle and jackrabbits on every trip to his honey’s house. In the first leg of his trip to her house, he was on this nice paved highway. And if all he cared about was a smooth ride, he could have stayed on that road, right? But it wouldn’t have taken him to the destination he wanted—the woman he loved. There was only one way to get to her—the rough road.
We have a hummingbird feeder, so we have hummingbirds and they’re amazing little guys. They’ve got wings that move faster than you can see, and they hover, fly backwards and sideways, and they love sugar! They’ll drink the sugar water concoction in our feeder and then fly off in a burst of acrobatic energy, only to return a few minutes later for a refill. Apparently if they go very long without some kind of sugar fix, they become sort of catatonic or birdatonic. Here they come again chirping, “Must have sugar! Must have sugar!”
My friend David is from Mexico, and the hotter his food, the more he likes it. So one day, one of his friends asked him to try a pepper that he’d never tried before. He warned him it could be a little hot. David said, “Sure, man! The hotter the better!” So, he gobbled it down. He said, “It tastes good, but it’s a little lame, man. Pretty mild.” For about five minutes, at which time the fire broke out. My friend with the asbestos taste buds was about ready to put a hose down his throat. Yes, this pepper has a little delay mechanism built into it. But when it fires up, it’s like a 911 for your mouth. And when he could finally talk again, David asked what they called that pepper. His friend said, “Oh, we call it The Liar.” I guess.
Not long ago, I spoke on the stage where I had once graduated from college, with you know like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble and the guys. At that commencement, they honored the top scholars in our class of about 300. When they announced the name of the salutatorian of our class, most of us said to ourselves, “Who?” Until she stood up, hardly anyone had ever heard her name, let alone known who she was. Of course, that didn’t change the fact that she was one of our best and brightest.
The other day I got the news that one our grandchildren may need a potentially risky major medical procedure. And after I got the news, I’ve got to tell you, my mind began racing ahead to some troubling scenarios. Somewhere in the middle of my “how are we all going to handle this?” tailspin, I found myself giving myself a wakeup call. “Hey, Ron! Stop it now!” That was the mental slap I needed to arrest my descent into Worry Valley.
