I usually wake up in the morning to a local news station, which is a real encouraging way to wake up. You know, you can get your day off to a really cheerful start. You can hear about a war or two, a little terrorism, some of last night's fatalities. Oh yeah, that will get you started! Actually it's not the news I'm actually so interested in, it's the weather I want to hear. And when you hear the weather, then you can plan your day's wardrobe and your activities, you know, a little better.
I never had a sister, but my sons have one, which means I have a daughter. Now, our oldest son is two years younger than our daughter, who is the oldest, but it was interesting to see as I watched their relationship what I had missed growing up. Oh, there was a lot of kidding around; the kids called it "busting." They had some exciting disagreements growing up because, well, they're two very different people.
Well, the President of the United States; let's see, he's got wars to manage, wild economy to handle. But you know what? Every Thanksgiving he steps up to one of the most decisive responsibilities of his office. He pardons a turkey; actually, two turkeys. And this is really serious business. Actually they even have a backup turkey (this is the truth) just in case Turkey #1 isn't able to serve as, well what one writer called the ungobbled gobbler.
Have you driven past a home or building that's under construction lately? Take a good look, because there are some things that you will never see again, so you'd better look now. Like the foundation for example. You can see it right now while they're building, but pretty soon all you'll see is the house, or the office building, or the condo. The foundation will pretty soon disappear from view. But it's always going to be what's holding up that whole structure. The same is true of the support beams. Pretty soon they're going to be covered with walls, and paint, and wallpaper. But they will always form the invisible support for everything. If the foundation or the support beams go, the whole thing goes.
When you're a kid, you're wet cement. Impressions, well, they get written on you so easily and so deeply. And then they harden into beliefs, I guess or un-beliefs, and that kid becomes an adult. Apparently, Steve Jobs was no exception.
Apple's communications genius and revolutionary, was been described as "intriguing, yet inscrutable." But as he battled cancer, he opened some windows into his mind and soul to the author who was writing his life story. According to the new biography that bears his name, Steve Jobs studied Zen Buddhism for years. A recent article in USA Today said, "He never went back to church after he saw a photo of starving children on the cover of Life and asked his Sunday school pastor if God knew what would happen to them. He was 13 at the time."
A lot of life's disrupting sounds you can learn to ignore: sirens screaming, telephones ringing, TVs blasting, trains rumbling by. It is almost impossible to ignore a baby crying. If there's a baby in your house and he starts crying, what should you do?
I thought I might have to live to 100 to see the widening of this major highway in our area ever get finished. Man, it took forever it seemed like! But the trip north, oh now, it's a breeze. I love it.
And I know why it took so long - mountains. Yeah, see, they were trying to put a road where there were hills and mountains, and those don't just move real easily. After all, they've been there quite a while. But they did move, because even a mountain was no match for explosives like dynamite. It's amazing what dynamite can do. It just blows away whatever is in its way.
Back when my son and his friends were going into their sophomore year in high school playing football, they moved up to the junior varsity and the varsity team. And the word got to them that they were going to have triple sessions in August and September practices. That's exciting... Triple sessions meant that you got to go, not for the regular two-hour practice of calisthenics, and running, and working hard, and running into things, and running into each other. No, you got to go for four hours. No, you guessed it: six wonderful hours of that!
Wow! Talk about so near and yet so far - poor Desmond Bishop. He missed what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the White House and meet the President of the United States!
Desmond was a linebacker for the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers that year, and his team met the President. Meanwhile, Desmond took a nap on the team bus. Why? All because he inadvertently left his I.D. on the plane, and the Secret Service wasn't about to make any exceptions on letting someone close to the President. No I.D., no White House, no President.
I don't know who invented the credit card, but I'd like to have a very serious talk with him, because I'm not sure he helped any of us by thinking that this plastic "postponer" was going to help us. With a credit card you go to the store with $100 in cash, you get what you wanted, and you come out with $100 in your wallet. And it feels like, "Hey, that didn't cost anything." Wrong! Fantasy land! The bill will come...it always does. You postponed the payment, but you didn't cancel it. Oh, and by postponing it, that purchase is actually going to cost you more. I think that's what they call interest. The time lag between what you buy and what you pay can get you into big trouble.
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