Once upon a time there was an explosion in a junkyard.
It all started with increasing nitrogen gases expelled from overheating debris in the hot summer sun.
It was epic! One of a kind! Never to be duplicated!
I can’t prove it, so just trust me, it was the PERFECT storm to create such a powerful explosion!
Continue reading Junkyard ExplosionSomeone posted our high school class picture from 40 years ago!
Forty. Years. Ago!
That’s how long Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness!
A little over 300 of us, all in purple gowns, grabbed a diploma, walked across the stage, and waltzed into life.
When we graduated 40 years ago — Ronald Reagan was fresh on the job, the space shuttle had just made its maiden voyage, a new disease called AIDS would be announced two weeks after graduation, and two months after that, IBM would introduce something called a “personal computer”.
With the unbridled power of technology and social media, it’s been fun to “reconnect” with some I haven’t seen since graduation day.
Continue reading Forty Years AgoDear Addie K,
You burst into life a year and half ago! At first, we loved you solely on whose you were, but now we love you because of who you are. Your first 1 1/2 years of life have gone by way too fast!
Life is like that. Before you know it, you’ll be looking back and remembering in sepia toned colors.
Seek wisdom, Addie. When you look back, you’ll smile at the vibrant, bright memories that wisdom can bring!
Continue reading Dear Addie K,My mind turns, twists, moves and churns. Earthquakes of urgent thoughts turn into raging thought tsunamis.
It’s not what isn ‘t. It’s what is.
What’s isn’t, isn’t talked about. What is, is.
Raging waters flow uphill, gather speed, then dribble down the mind’s mountainside spilling into the deepest depths, depths that do not surrender the issues of thought, whether forgotten or taught, surrendered or caught, given or bought.
Words sound large, but quiet speaks loud. Its silence heals. The healing rest, the energizing of silence slips away in our loud, boisterous, information-based system of living. Yet the need to be still and hear the leaves rustle remains, even when it’s pushed aside.
Seriously, it was the best love letter!
I was in high school. The summer before my sophomore year, I lived with and worked for my uncle in another town about an hour away. Through their church, I met two sisters, one also about to be a sophomore and one a junior.
I was pretty naïve then, like Forest Gump at a dogfight naïve.
Continue reading The Best Love Letter Ever!From the time I was a seedling, I wanted to be something worthwhile. Every day I stretched higher, farther, reaching for the sun to bathe my leaves in life giving photosynthesis.
My life in the forest ended when soldiers wearing helmets, red cloaks and armor cut me down.
I hoped the soldiers would form me into an honorable, useful item, like a fine chair, magnificent bed, or maybe a grand formal dining table. I would’ve even been satisfied to be a powerful support post in a house or mansion holding it all up.
Instead, their axes hacked me into a long, rough beam. Still, I hoped.
They loaded me in a wagon and hauled me to a city. There they cut off a smaller beam from my top, notched a side to fit over the beam, and secured my pieces with long spikes and rope.
Continue reading Cross TalkWhen my first grandchild was born, I found it interesting how you can love a newborn so much. Throughout his life, we’ll share DNA, and the same last name.
He’ll carry our family name down the generational rivers entering a sea of names. Maybe it’s just a man thing, but that’s downright satisfying!
I looked back at a flash drive of old family pictures that included a scan of an article my grandfather wrote in 1974. My Grandpa is my grandson’s Great, Great Grandfather.
He only had a 6th grade education, so to write a life summary and family history is phenomenal! It was exhilarating to read! Continue reading Age to Age
As I sit and peck on my iPad, the wind is beginning to blow, and the rain just started playing pitter pat on the windows. Hurricane Laura makes landfall tonight.
We’re 3 1/2 hours drive from the beach, but hurricanes are non-discriminatory storms, especially the wind. We’re lucky though. We’re west of the hurricane’s eye, the less destructive side.
Even so, trees will come down. Electricity will flicker, then fail.
Tomorrow afternoon the rain will wane, the wind will pucker out, and everyone will get on with things. Continue reading Hurricane Rest
My wife, Janet, had surgery two weeks ago to remove a kidney tumor. The doctor said it’s an 85% chance of being malignant.
The last two weeks have been fast, and slow, lightening quick, yet forever.
Yesterday was the surgery follow up appointment, complete with the pathology report. It was also Janet’s birthday.
Strange, really. You find out about continued life, one way or the other, on a day designated to celebrate life.
The doctor came in quickly, and asked Janet how she was doing. He sat down. I asked to record the doctor on my phone so we could listen and rehash as much as we needed to later.
He agreed. I pushed the record button. He asked if I was ready, and took a deep breath…
Last Friday I took my wife Janet out on the town! A five-course dinner date! I know! Right!?
But we live in the oldest town in Texas, and there’s not a great deal of five star restaurants in Nacogdoches, Texas. So we created our own “fine dining” experience in a mobile, drive around way.
I wrote down twenty restaurants and fast food joints up and down our hometown main drag. Each place was cut to its own little strip, and I put them all in a styrofoam cup that had all 5 courses scribbled on the outside. Janet blindly reached in the cup and pulled the first slip for the first course.
It was Subway. Janet objected. She said Subway had the most expensive drinks in town, so she wanted to go somewhere else. Eventually, she acquiesced, and we ordered one large half and half tea, two straws.
The second course was Bottle Cap Alley for appetizers. A quarter mile drive and we were there, but they didn’t have many choices. Basically, we settled for fried onion rings. Besides, the next course was vegetables, so we could get something healthy then.
The third course drawn, however, was another fast food place, Taco Bueno! My five-course meal deal idea was falling apart.
We had to be creative, but guacamole with fried chips was as close as we could get to vegetables.
The fourth draw for the main course drew a groan from both of us, and then the laughter. Dominos Pizza!
While they made the extra thin crust vegetable pizza, we munched on the chips, guacamole and onion rings. After that, the pizza tasted like saltine crackers with onions and tomato sauce on it.
There’s a bloated, clog up your arteries with grease feeling that was kicking in, but we were committed to a 5 course meal…
Dessert! Should’ve started there! A quick draw from the cup and it was Whataburger, the Texas standard for fast food burgers. It was a no brainer choice!
But ice cream and milkshakes don’t mix with lactose intolerance, and the scrumptious home style cinnamon rolls were 580 calories a piece! We settled on apple pies that were only 200 calories each. Did I mention they were fried?
It was fun though, and totally random! We’ll do it again, but not tonight.
Tonight Janet will be in the hospital.
We’re in Houston. At this very moment, Janet is in surgery to remove cancer from a kidney. She was diagnosed three weeks ago.
I’m scribbling to redirect my emotions, blind my thoughts, dull the heightened awareness that the future has changed.
How much, and to what extent it’s changed, we won’t know until the pathology report comes in next week.
If all goes well, this will be a one and done surgery.
If it goes really, really well, next Friday we’ll be celebrating the 15% chance that the cancer is benign.
That’ll be worth a five course meal for sure! 
