Experience

I have been blessed over the years to have had some great teachers, from Mrs. Morrow in kindergarten to Dr. Willis in grad school. But I believe that my best teacher, by far, is Experience.

Experience is the most persistent of teachers, always providing opportunities to learn and advance my understanding. S/He lets me know there are things I can do and must do. S/He has shown me that there are things that I cannot do and need to depend on others. Experience teaches me dangerous things to avoid, as well as beautiful things to pursue and embrace.

Experience has helped me get jobs and taken me to exotic places. S/He has given me confidence that I could accomplish and achieve. S/He has brought me disappointment when I did not reach a goal, but also brought great satisfaction when a job has been done.

Experience has introduced to a vast number of people. S/He has brought me into contact with people that are the greatest joy in life, and taught me to love them. Experience also has taught me that there are some folks with whom I will have no positive interaction. Experience has taught me how to endure them, at times even honor them.

Experience has helped me realize a lot about life and how to handle the ups and downs. Through Experience, I know that when I am having a mountaintop moment, it will not be long till I have to go back down into the valley to continue my journey.
And when life has dealt me a severe blow, Experience reminds me that it is another hurdle to be overcome, but that the sun is still shining behind the clouds.

Expressions of Gratitude

There are so many things for which I am truly and deeply grateful that it almost seems impossible to do justice by naming a few on a blog. But as an exercise similar to my prayer life, I am going to enter this post as a feeble attempt to let my appreciation be known.

I am grateful for a curious and active mind that leads me to ask questions and seek answers.

I am grateful for a wife that is a strong and capable person who can make up her own mind and stand her ground, without whining, and yet has made me the focal point of her life. We are about to celebrate 41 years together.

I am grateful for health, both for myself and for my wife and grandkids who live in my house.

I am grateful for our home. We have a nice house, but a wonderful home.

I am grateful for books! I love to read and seldom find something that I cannot finish. Reading has been among my greatest delights.

I am grateful for the privilege of serving a congregation of Christians that is seeking the will of God and tries to practice it.

I am grateful for the ability to express a thought and motivation to share ideas with others.

I am grateful for a heritage of honesty and dependability from my parents and grandparents.

I am grateful for my three girls and four grandkids, whom I hope will receive the same heritage.

I am grateful for the avenue of expression, and the challenge to creativity that I find in blogging.

I am grateful that you took the time to read these thoughts!

Favorite Movie Scenes

I just saw a promo for tomorrow night’s O’Reilly Factor show. Bill is going to reveal his top ten movie scenes of all time. I love movies and the ad prompted me to think about my favorite scenes. It might be hard to stop at ten, and the ones I list tonight might not be the ones I would list a month form now, but here are some of mine.

Number 1 for me is the chariot race scene from Ben Hur. I worked at the movie theater when it was released. On the nights I was off I went to the theater every night for three weeks to watch the race. It was spectacular!

There are several scenes from The Magnificent Seven that I love, but maybe the best is the first scene when Yul Brynner and the other six chased the forty bandits out of the little village.

In the Sons of Katie Elder, there is a scene when the bad guy, George Kennedy, is trying to find out some information from an associate of John Elder (John Wayne). He is holding the fella’s head under water in a tub. Wayne walks in on the scene and picks up an axe handle. He shouts to Kennedy, who turns to look and receives that axe handle across the bridge of his nose!

The scene in Marathon Man where the dentist, Lawrence Olivier, is trying to get information from the hero of the movie, Dustin Hoffman.

The scene in It’s A Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart & Donna Reed fall into the swimming pool at the dance.

The motorcycle scene in The Great Escape, featuring Steve McQueen, followed closely with his return to the cooler and bouncing his baseball off the wall.

In Old Yeller, when the older boy has to shoot the dog that he has grown to love.

In Shennandoah, when Jimmy Stewart’s youngest son walks into the church and is reunited with his dad, following having been mistakenly taken away as a prisoner of war.

The scene in Singin’ In The Rain where Donald O’Conner sings and dances “Make ‘Em Laugh”.

The scene in Field of Dreams when James Earl Jones’ character is in Iowa and gives his soliloquy. “They will come Ray. Baseball….”

What are some of your favorite scenes?

Chemistry or Harmony?

For the past few weeks I have seen quite a few ads in a campaign by Chemistry.com. The ads have someone with a compelling story that has “jumped through hoops” in order to find romance or companionship, only to be rejected by EHarmony.com. The ads make you feel sorry for the ones treated in such a manner. The ads assert that more than a million folks have been treated so.

Now I am an old dinosaur and would be scared to death to try to find a romance or companion online. But the more I thought about the ads, the more I thought it may be good for the folks at EHarmony to do the screening a bit more stringently than other sites. Surely that should cut down on the risk of being in a bad situation, wouldn’t it?

Sixty?

Friday, the 29th, was the sixtieth day of the year 2008. Some of the ladies in the congregation where I worship came up with a Leap Year Day plan to have a party celebrating all those in the congregation that will turn 60 in this calendar year. I happened to be one of five guys “honored. We had food and fellowship and fun. There was a “Not So Newlywed Game” that brought several laughs.

One especially creative lady came up with a bingo-type game using information about the guys in the squares. The idea was to be the first to correctly identify the guy described by the information for five squares in a row, across, up & down or diagonally. Some things were brought to public knowledge that might not otherwise been broadcast, thanks to the wives of the guys.

Here is a complete playing board. Your task is to identify the five bits of information that describe me (they will not be in a row, but there is one in each line that describes me)!

At age 2, was wanted by the police	Wore Mutton chops in the 70s	Went to an Ice festival in Japan	Was escorted through Little Rock by National Guard	Set a high school track record
Won science fair awards	His family had the first TV set on their block	Was lost in mountains as a young boy	Owner of Deacon’s Men’s Shop	Had surgery to remove a toothpick
When a teenager, owned 2horses	Drove a candy apple red Mustang	Owned a ‘68 Chevelle	Used Morse Code in Vietnam War	Had 3 near death experiences
Oldest of our 60s guys	Made a rain suit by sewing and gluing	In 1979 was offered a job in Iran asNational Coach	Is aSCUBA diver	Knows over 10 languages but speaks only one
Hung his neighbor’s cat (accidentally)	Played trumpet in high school band	GatorFrat Boy	Vietnam Veteran	Builds his own telescopes