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Monday, May 19, 2008

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I guess every generation has its surprising music hits. Like a song by a Mississippi trucker driver about a hound dog - Elvis something - or a song by some longhaired British quartet about wanting to hold your hand. I think they were called The Beatles. But then, in more recent years, there was a very surprising song that sky rocketed to number one for several weeks, and to a Grammy nomination. The singer was not well known, but the song asked some questions that no popular song has ever dealt with. It had a haunting melody that was pretty hard to forget. Back then, as I played a portion of that song for 11,000 teenagers I was speaking to, virtually everyone in the room sang the lyrics. "What if God was one of us, what would His name be? If God was one of us, what would His face look like?" You know what? The questions are provocative. The answers are shocking!

Friday, May 16, 2008

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I'm in our van sitting at a red light - and suddenly this cloud of dark, acrid smoke starts belching out of my exhaust pipe. It was disgusting! Apparently, the motorists behind me felt the same way - they started honking at me. That helped tremendously. I just wished honking would have solved the problem. Believe it or not, it didn't. One mechanic told me, "I wouldn't leave town with that van if I were you." He was right - of course, the smoke wasn't the problem - the problem was the engine. No, it didn't need to be fixed. It was far too gone for that. It had to be replaced!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

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If you ever spend any time near the ocean, I'll bet you've got some photos of seagulls. They just soar around above the surf, you know, almost as if they're posing for some of us amateur photographers! Now, seagulls are impressive until they get together. I remember sitting on the rocks along the Maine coast trying to feed some corn chips to this seagull - see, they're into junk food too - and as soon as one gull started to go for the food, another one would land and start yelling at him. Then they were joined by a third gull - they got pretty nasty contesting who's going to get this little corn chip! Now, that's standard operating procedure for seagulls. Like the time we were enjoying this picturesque New England harbor. The highest point was this weathervane and one gull would land on it - sometimes he'd even trumpet the fact that he was number one. That lasted about ten seconds until another gull came plowing into him, knocked him off, pretty soon he's followed by another gull who knocked number two off, so he could have his ten minutes on top! Scientists have even put a red band on a seagull to see how the other gulls would react. They literally pecked him to death because he had something they didn't have. Nice birds, huh?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

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It was a great day for me when I went bowling and found out that they now had automatic score keeping. I never could figure it out, especially on the more complicated stuff, when you just had to add it up on these cards. Now, we never went bowling often, but, when we did we used to fumble around trying to figure out how to score the game. There are some folks who say, "Let's just have fun and in this sport (whatever it is), forget about the score!" Well, we're not among those folks. In fact, no matter what the sport, most athletes wouldn't be too interested if no points were kept for goals, or runs, or touchdowns, or whatever. But I have to wonder if the people who just enjoy the game without keeping score have a little less stress in their lives.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

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We were driving with some of our young Native American friends in Arizona and we were returning from a little sightseeing outing. And even though men never get lost, right? The man driving did. As we were debating which way to go to get back, one of our Indian passengers described exactly how we had traveled to this area and exactly how we could get back. We listened, we tried it, and we weren't lost anymore! Now maybe it's just been my experience, and sometimes I even joke about it with my Native friends - Native Americans just don't seem to get lost! I've tried to figure this out. Maybe it's just instinct, but over and over I've noticed something. My Indian friends pay very close attention to where they're going. Seldom do they have to travel there twice to know where they're going. Now, they have taught me a very valuable lesson - the way to know your way is to pay close attention to where you've been!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

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In the fall I really got exercise in our yard. We had lots of trees in that yard, and lots of leaves. Our sons were gone, and I got to do just about all the raking. There was this one corner of the yard that was kinda nice to rake because it smelled nice. I'd be raking away and suddenly I'd smell the strong aroma of spearmint. Now, I don't chew gum and I don't wear spearmint scented deodorant usually. So, it had to be coming from what I was raking - and it was! That was my wife's herb garden, and when some of the spearmint plants got bruised by my rake the spearmint scent started to fill the air. My wife told me that that's the way it is with lots of herbs, like with lemon balm, for example. If you take a little piece of that plant and you crush it between your fingers, the air will suddenly be sweetened by this scent of lemon. Crushing a plant releases its scent.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

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I had a mountain of work to do to prepare for some radio programs I was scheduled to record, and the way things worked out, I had to travel by van about twelve hours with two of our team members. Now, I'm going to make one thing clear. I am a driver, okay, I'm not a passenger. I hate to ride. I love to drive. Problem: I had so much work to do it could easily fill the twelve hours we were traveling. So they set up this little office for me in the back of the van and they brought along a power pack that would allow me to use my computer all the way. So, very reluctantly I went to the back of the bus and settled into work and to watch someone else drive. Now, at first it drove me nuts. But by the end of the trip, I realized how much creative work I had completed in this office on wheels! Man, what a productive day I had, all because I let someone else drive.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

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Every other Wednesday morning it's hard to sleep in our neighborhood - not that I ever had that opportunity very often. But early in the morning you hear this clinking and clanking all over the neighborhood. The recycling convoy is moving through with these trucks collecting all the bottles and cans and newspapers we all saved for them, and off they go into recycling land. The other day I got behind one of those recycling trucks and I was in a hurry and I was not thrilled, but, because I had to slow down I got to read what was printed on the back gate of these trucks. Can you believe it? An inspirational message! Here's what it said: "Give your trash a second chance."

Friday, May 2, 2008

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All of us airline passengers have just squeezed down that narrow aisle to our seats and everyone is just getting settled in. And the ground agent comes onboard and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a destination check. This is flight 305 to Atlanta." The next part is what I love - it's so diplomatic, it's almost ridiculous. If Atlanta is not in your travel plans for today, this would be a good time for you to exit the aircraft." Translation: "Hey, pal - make sure this flight is going where you want to end up!"

Friday, April 25, 2008

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The first hurricane that I was in made me think of the Three Little Pigs story. It also made me think of the wolf, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." We were on vacation with our family at the time, and the hurricane was moving into where we were on the coast. We moved downstairs from our upstairs bedroom. We listened to the local station go off air because the water was coming into the station. We tried to sleep but the wind was howling; the rain was pummeling the house. Well the next morning we went out and we surveyed what had happened. The power was out. The trees and wires were down. There was like wreckage everywhere. We had to actually wash and flush using the water that we had wisely stored in the bathtub before the hurricane hit. We ate by candlelight. We changed all our plans, but we were safe. See the storm had beaten up everything around us and it affected our life style. But the things that really mattered - they were safe.

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