In all the years we were raising our family, we didn't have a dog at our house. One big reason is that dogs have a non-negotiable need to be walked. We've had some fish. Our fish never needed to be taken for a walk. We had a parrot. It's very hard to walk a parrot.
If you're a parent, or even a grandparent, when your kid gets a great teacher, they become a hero to them and to you. But every once in a while, a teacher does something so unforgettable that we nominate them for the Heroes Hall of Fame. Robert Bailey is one of those. He's a 27-year-old British teacher who was serving in a school in Japan. A school that suddenly was right in the path of that monster tsunami that swamped northern Japan. The students there had eight minutes to find a safe place after the tsunami sirens went off. He described the moment the earthquake hit this way: "We first heard a weird cracking noise, and then came the violent shaking."
Some years ago our family got to sample an extended period without Mom's touch. Mom had a prolonged illness, and that left a lot of work not being done around the house. So, our three children and I divided up the chores, which is why not a lot of work was not done around the house. But somehow the kitchen sink always seemed to go unattended. Those dirty dishes took on a life of their own!
With the era of space shuttle flights coming to an end, I was thinking back to some of those original pioneering flights to the moon - the Apollo missions. It was mind-blowing to think that we had reached the point where men like us could actually walk on that moon that had just been that distant light in the night for millennia. It really was a big deal!
You know, some people who financially support Christian ministry also like to play golf. I don't happen to be one of them. If you'd seen the one time I did play golf, when I hit my partner in the head with a club, you would understand why I've been banned from golf courses.
We couldn't figure it out. For some reason, the mice suddenly liked our house so much. All I know is after not having had that problem, we suddenly were invaded. Well, I planned very strategically to be gone, of course, when they invaded the house. In fact the reason we know that they were there is because my wife found, well let's just say some signs of them in the silverware drawer of all places.
I've never been a mother. You probably guessed that, but I have talked to a lot of them. In fact, one of my very best friends on earth is a mother; in fact a couple of them. And I understand that the nine months of waiting for a baby...I guess it's fun at the beginning, but it gets a little long about the eighth or ninth month.
My kids always loved that amusement park ride where they get to drive those little race cars around this track. I guess I should put the word "drive" in quotes. Oh yeah, kids grab that steering wheel and they do their NASCAR thing as the car speeds around that track at this eye-blurring three or four miles an hour or something. I could hardly blink. But driving, well that's a bit of an overstatement. See, that car is attached to a little rail, and it's going to go where it's going to go, no matter how what little Miss or Mr. NASCAR does at the wheel. We won't tell them, but they're not really in control at all.
When you've been sick in bed for six weeks, you can get pretty desperate for things to do. That's probably why my wife spent so long just watching a frustrated lady bug one day during an illness. Well, my wife had been sick long enough to be at that point of desperation.
Sometimes something happens in the news that just leaves images you can't forget; that massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, that was one of those. Those images of that inescapable wall of water consuming everything in its path! I mean, those are moments that are more than impressive. They're deeply moving. Sometimes even the usually dispassionate reporters get caught up in a story like that.
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