The Mickey D. Special

            I guess I’ll never be known as a gourmet, but I do enjoy eating different sorts of foods.  I also am partial to regular meat and potatoes meals, I really like liver and onions, but especially when I am somewhere new and looking at an unfamiliar menu, I try to find something ‘different’ to order for lunch.  Most of the time when my selection arrives at the table I am pleased with what I have asked for; occasionally the food has a new taste that really tickles my palate.  Sometimes it does not.  When this occurs, even though it is not a gastronomic delight, my self-made rule is since I am going to have to pay for it, that I will eat it anyway.

            At many Korean restaurants they serve a dish called Bugogie.  This is not what it sounds like, but rather a small earthenware bowl filled with rice and various other ingredients baked and served piping hot with an egg cracked on top just before it is brought to the table.  The egg sizzles and cooks while you are stirring it all together.  It’s quite good.  There are a number of different styles of Bugogie, but on the occasion I am remembering I ordered Sea Food Bugogie.  I was thinking about sea food such as shrimp, crabs, and scallops, and that it would taste good with fried rice.  My sisters, sitting across the table from me asked me if I was sure that was what I wanted.  Surprised at their question, I answered yes.  When my Bugogie arrived and I removed the lid I was surprised to see other types of seafood than what I have been expecting including slices of squid and what appeared to be the arms of a small octopus which looked exactly like what you would expect the arm of a small octopus to resemble.  I carefully ate around all the parts which did not look appealing.  I finally tried a bite of the octopus and found it very chewy and not too tasty.  This was not one of my best lunches.

            Then there was the time I ordered Gnocchi.  I saw where my daughter-in-law wrote that she had the best Gnocchi in Southern California at a restaurant near Los Angeles.  I was unfamiliar with Gnocchi, but during a visit there while dining at a restaurant called Olive Garden I saw Gnocchi Soup on the menu and decided to order it.  The Gnocchi turned out to be something like a dumpling, and was very good.  I enjoyed it.

            Last Saturday my two sisters and my nephew and I drove out to Elk City in western Oklahoma to visit the place where my Mother’s family homesteaded property in early days in the Oklahoma Territory.  We spent time at the library copying some of our ancestor’s obituaries and visited my great grandfather’s gravesite.  We then began looking for a place to eat lunch.  After rejecting Pizza Hut and Sonic we finally found a Mexican style restaurant which all agreed would be satisfactory.  At the table I began looking at the menu, saw all the familiar Mexican style dishes:  Burritos, enchiladas, tacos, tamales.  I looked at them and then looked for something ‘different’ which I found.  It was called the Mickey D. Special, and consisted of grilled jalapenos, grilled onions, and sliced avocado.  Now that looked ‘different’, and without giving it a great deal of thought that is what I ordered when the waitress returned, and that is what she delivered to my place at the table.  There was no meat, no rice, no refried beans; just grilled jalapeno peppers, grilled onions, and half a sliced avocado.  Hmmm, I thought; maybe I have made a mistake, especially when my nephew was delivered a plate containing rice and refried beans, and eventually some sizzling Fajitas.  Resigned to my fate I dug in and began.  Luckily the jalapenos had most of the fire cooked out of them, the onions were sweet and tasty, and the avocado sort of topped everything off.  It was not my very best culinary experience.  My nephew eventually shared some of his Fajitas which helped to ease the hunger pangs.  On the way back to Oklahoma City I told the old joke about eating ice cream after consuming jalapenos, but everyone thought I was serious, and I had to tell them I was just kidding.  So far the Mickey D. Special has not disagreed with me, but I am not straying far from home.

Some Thoughts about Time and God difficult for us humans to understand. For example we are taught as I understand it that God exists outside of what we know as space-time, i.e., God is not confined by what we accept as physical laws. We believe, because we are Christians, that God created the Heavens and the Earth, we believe that God has the ability to enter space-time when he wishes, and that at different times God has chosen to step into our world to perform various acts, the most important of which from our point of view was the time he was born into a human body and lived a short blameless life on the earth and was executed horribly; all in order to provide a way for we humans to be saved from our many sins and enter a new life with Him when our earthly existence is complete. If you accept this concept unquestioned, you need not read further. If it is difficult to understand you might try reading on. The following thoughts are paraphrased from a book entitled Time Travel by Paul Nahin in a chapter called Block Universe containing some words from a 1928 New York stage play Berkeley Square. Suppose you are in a boat sailing down a winding stream. You watch the banks as they pass by you. You went by a grove of maple trees upstream, but you can’t see them now, so you saw them in the Past didn’t you. You’re watching a field of clover now; it’s before your eyes in the Present. There may be wonderful things around the bend ahead of you, but you can’t see them now, so you don’t know yet because they are in the future. The stream is the arrow of time and the boat is your life. You can remember the past always, but as the stream flows onward the past grows dimmer and dimmer; until finally only the very important, the very unusual events are remembered. The pleasures and displeasures of the present are your daily experiences. You cannot see the future. Certainly you can guess what will probably occur; you can plan for your future and if correctly done so, you can expect your plan to probably develop; but you can never know with certainty what will occur even in the next moment. Are you ready for this? Now, remember you are in the boat. You can remember the Past, see the Present, but not know the Future, but I’m up in the sky above you in a hot air balloon, or maybe a magic carpet! I’m looking down on it all. I can see all at once the trees you saw upstream in your past, the field of clover you are looking at now, and what is waiting for you around the bend in your future. I can simultaneously see your past, present, and future. They are all one to the man up above. So, who is in the balloon? God is up there looking down. I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but simply to use these words to try to explain a concept that I think lots of folks have difficulty understanding. John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (NIV). If my hot air balloon runs out of air, or perhaps my magic carpet gets low on magic, and I float down and land in the boat with you, say howdy, and sit on the other seat as we float along I would just as you be able to remember the past, see the present, but differently from you I would remember what is around the bend in the future, e.g., that there are big rocks on both sides of the stream. I could tell you to steer or paddle to the narrow lane in the center to avoid them. Then again, if somehow I acquire some air for my balloon or some magic for my carpet, I could just float back up above you, maybe even so high that you would not be able to see me, but all the while I would be observing you, and at any moment could lower down and ride with you in the boat if I choose to.

Some Thoughts about Time and God

The Shadow by my finger cast divides the Future from the Past:
Before it, sleeps the unborn hour, in darkness, and beyond thy power:
Behind its unreturning line, the vanished hour, no longer thine:
One hour alone is in thy hands, the now on which the shadow stands.
The Sundial at Wells College by Henry Van Dyke
Some theological concepts are very difficult for us humans to understand. For example we are taught as I understand it that God exists outside of what we know as space-time, i.e., God is not confined by what we accept as physical laws. We believe, because we are Christians, that God created the Heavens and the Earth, we believe that God has the ability to enter space-time when he wishes, and that at different times God has chosen to step into our world to perform various acts, the most important of which from our point of view was the time he was born into a human body and lived a short blameless life on the earth and was executed horribly; all in order to provide a way for we humans to be saved from our many sins and enter a new life with Him when our earthly existence is complete. If you accept this concept unquestioned, you need not read further. If it is difficult to understand you might try reading on. The following thoughts are paraphrased from a book entitled Time Travel by Paul Nahin in a chapter called Block Universe containing some words from a 1928 New York stage play Berkeley Square.
Suppose you are in a boat sailing down a winding stream. You watch the banks as they pass by you. You went by a grove of maple trees upstream, but you can’t see them now, so you saw them in the Past didn’t you. You’re watching a field of clover now; it’s before your eyes in the Present. There may be wonderful things around the bend ahead of you, but you can’t see them now, so you don’t know yet because they are in the future.
The stream is the arrow of time and the boat is your life. You can remember the past always, but as the stream flows onward the past grows dimmer and dimmer; until finally only the very important, the very unusual events are remembered. The pleasures and displeasures of the present are your daily experiences. You cannot see the future. Certainly you can guess what will probably occur; you can plan for your future and if correctly done so, you can expect your plan to probably develop; but you can never know with certainty what will occur even in the next moment.
Are you ready for this? Now, remember you are in the boat. You can remember the Past, see the Present, but not know the Future, but I’m up in the sky above you in a hot air balloon, or maybe a magic carpet! I’m looking down on it all. I can see all at once the trees you saw upstream in your past, the field of clover you are looking at now, and what is waiting for you around the bend in your future. I can simultaneously see your past, present, and future. They are all one to the man up above.
So, who is in the balloon? God is up there looking down. I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but simply to use these words to try to explain a concept that I think lots of folks have difficulty understanding. John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (NIV).
If my hot air balloon runs out of air, or perhaps my magic carpet gets low on magic, and I float down and land in the boat with you, say howdy, and sit on the other seat as we float along I would just as you be able to remember the past, see the present, but differently from you I would remember what is around the bend in the future, e.g., that there are big rocks on both sides of the stream. I could tell you to steer or paddle to the narrow lane in the center to avoid them. Then again, if somehow I acquire some air for my balloon or some magic for my carpet, I could just float back up above you, maybe even so high that you would not be able to see me, but all the while I would be observing you, and at any moment could lower down and ride with you in the boat if I choose to.

Christian Ethics

            While serving on active duty in the United States Air Force in the mid 1970s, I received an assignment to be stationed at Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany.  While waiting for an apartment on base, I, and my family, lived temporarily in an apartment in a little town a few miles South of Frankfurt named Grafenhausen.  Grafenhausen is a small German village in the District of Darmstadt.  It is just an ordinary small German town and its only claim to fame that I am aware of is that it is 750 years old.  We resided on the one main street, paved with cobblestones, which wound its way East and West through the town, at an address called #12 Wixhauserstrasse.  We had many interesting and fun experiences living there.

            One of the fun things which I enjoyed was drinking beer, and Grafenhausen had several establishments where beer could be purchased.  The place I usually gravitated to was named the Gasthof Lindenhof, a very ordinary German Gasthaus which served Heidelberger Schlossquel—a really good bier.  The sign outside this gasthaus had a picture of a linden tree.  Underneath was the proprietor’s name:  Gg. Schmidt.  Inside were the standard gasthaus fixtures:  wooden tables, wooden chairs, and a bar where the bier was drawn.  One of the tables was reserved for regulars.  It had a sign on it saying:  Stammtisch.  Another reserved table near it had a sign saying in German:  Table reserved for hunters, fishermen, and other liars.

            On my first visit, being a stranger in town, I entered the room, saw a number of people sitting at the stammtisch, understood it was reserved for regular patrons, so sat by myself at another table and ordered a bier.  It was not long before the friendly men sitting at the stammtisch noticed me and invited me to come sit with them.  I spoke rudimentary German, most of the men spoke some English, so we had good times together.

            After a few visits I realized the barkeep was the Gg. Schmidt listed on the sign, and that his name translated to English as George Smith.  One night I was introduced to his Father, an 80 year old man, who was also named George Smith.  I especially enjoyed trying to communicate with this old gentleman.  In talking with him I found that he had served as a soldier in the German Army in the First World War; that he served in the infantry in France.  I asked him what that was like, and he told me it was terrible.  Then he told me something which was especially interesting:  He said, “Charlie, Every Sunday there in Frankreich (one German word for France) mothers and wives would go to church and pray that their sons and husbands would be safe, and that their armies would prevail.  Here in Deutschland every Sunday mothers and wives would go to church and pray that their sons and husbands would be safe, and that their armies would overcome.”  “Charlie”, He said, pointing upward with his index finger  “It was the same God”.

Flying

copied from Wikipedia

I had my first flight in an airplane at Miami, Oklahoma.  I was 16 years old at the time.  One of the men who attended the Methodist Church in Commerce OK possessed license as a private pilot.  Through my Father, I suppose, he learned I was intensely interested in airplanes and promised to take me up.  Now, every time I rode with my parents to Miami I would pester them to let me off at the airport and pick me up on the way home, which they usually would do.  I saw many wonderful things.  I watched as the radial engine on an old PT-19 Stearman biplane was started by hand cranking using the propeller.  After warm up it rolled a few feet and took off nearly straight up.  One day I saw a floatplane in the hangar, which had no wheels.  I watched as the pilot started the engine ran it at high RPM and screeched slowly on steel runners over to the damp grass and took off.  I saw my first jet-an F80 Fighter fly aerobatics (it couldn't land there because the runway was too short) over the airport.  When the great day of my flight finally arrived, my Father's friend and I drove over to the airport in his pickup truck.  He parked and we casually walked up to the office where he rented a Piper Cub.  Now I was hoping for a Taylorcraft airplane where you sit side by side rather than a cub where you sat in front of the pilot, but, I thought, beggars can't be choosers.  We walked over to the airplane parked there in the hangar and I started to get in when he told me, "No.  Let me take it around a few times.  Then I'll come back and get you".  I watched, very disappointed, as he started the engine, taxied out, and took off.  Around the pattern he flew and approached to land.  Through lack of practice he over controlled and bounced up and down on the runway.  Bang!  I could hear the airplane hit the ground.  The engine would roar as he opened the throttle.  Bang and roar again!  I was astonished.  What have I let myself in for, I wondered?  The first time around he never did get it on the ground.  The man who had rented the airplane to us heard the noise and came out to watch.  The same thing happened on the second landing.  "I can stop that", he said, and ran to get in his car and drive out to the runway, but by then my 'pilot' was gone again.  Was I glad he didn't take me right with him?  You bet your boots I was.  On the third approach the landing was smooth.  My pilot taxied in, picked me up, and off we went for my first flight.  He taxied out and took off to the north and we flew over my home in Commerce OK and returned.  It's funny, but I remember little of the flight, other than thinking there's only a piece of canvas painted with dope holding me up in the air.  I do remember the sinking feeling when he pulled the throttle back for the landing and the ground rushing up; but I had no fear the landing would be rough.  What a wonderful thing to do for a boy-to take him on his first flight.  I later in my life traveled many thousands of miles in the air, but no flight was ever as fabulous as that first flight in a yellow J3 Piper Cub.

Car Trouble

          As I was driving home from work my cell phone rang.  When I answered it was my wife, Ann.  She sounded sort of tense and frustrated.  Worriedly I asked her what was wrong.  She told me, “Sally’s car broke again, and she is driving home from taking Matthew to the Doctor, and she is lost in Oklahoma City”.  I asked, “Where is she”.  Ann then told me she was somewhere in Oklahoma City and didn’t know how to get home.  She asked, “Would you please call her”.

          With some effort, I was driving in traffic; I managed to call Sally on her cell phone.  I asked her what is wrong with your car.  She explained that it “won’t shift again”.  To digress a moment and explain.  Sally has had a really bad time with her car.  Twice now one of the computer sensors has become defective.  When this happens the car will not shift out of low gear and it costs a considerable sum of money to get it repaired.  I think the first time the defective part was called the Speed In/Out sensor, and I can’t remember the name of the failed part the second time.  The only way to get the car home or to the shop is to drive it about 25 MPH in low gear.  She has had so much trouble with the car that she was not surprised that it was ‘broke’ again, just sad and depressed about it, and was driving home from Northwest Oklahoma City at very low speed staying on the slower streets.

          I asked her where she was and why she was lost.  She told me that she was at 15^th and South Robinson, but that she thought she could find her way home.  I told her to drive carefully, and that we should take her car to the shop and have it repaired.

          I drove on home.  A few minutes later she called home and said she had found her way to Santa Fe Avenue.

          As there was not much I could do about the situation, I sat down in my chair to begin my afternoon nap.  I thought, though, that I should say a prayer that the Lord would help Sally with her car.  I asked the Holy Spirit to actually fix whatever was wrong with it.  Almost immediately I received the answer, “I already have”.

          After another short period Sally called again.  This time she said, “The car is OK now.  Should I come on home, or just go back to work”?  I told her to go on back to work,

          About 4:30 Sally came in from work.  I asked her how her car was driving now.  She told her Mother and me, “I found out what was wrong with the car”.  “What was it”, I asked.  With a red face she explained that she had discovered that she had the car in low gear, and that there was nothing wrong with it.  She had just assumed that it had broken again.

          My assumption is that the Holy Spirit, in answer to my prayer, had caused Sally to glance down and see that the transmission lever was in the wrong selection.

So what we need is some intercession.  We need Sally’s Guardian Angel to pay much closer attention, and to jog her memory when she gets into these kinds of situations.  Do you suppose maybe Sally has a blonde guardian Angel?  I wonder if we could get an exchange; perhaps an Angel who is more car smart.

Oh my Gosh, What Have I Done

This true story is rather technical, but I needed to explain some of the electronic systems in order to get to the funny part; so please bear with me.  The year was 1963-4.  I was a just married young Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force when I received what was then called an unaccompanied duty assignment to remote Alaska.  The unit to which I was assigned was the 714^th AC & W Squadron at Cold Bay, Alaska.  This organization had more than one mission.  Primary duty was to operate a chain of Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar stations which stretched about 700 miles along the chain of Aleutian Islands from King Salmon Air Force Station to Nikolski Air Station on Umnak Island.  The secondary mission was to extend the Alaskan Communications System through a wideband system called Forward Propagation Tropospheric Scatterwave (FPTS) from Anchorage all the way west to Shemya Island 2000 miles southwest of Anchorage.  Our stations were at Port Moller, Port Heiden, Cold Bay, Cape Sarichef, Driftwood Bay, and Nikolski.  This bleak black & white photograph is of the station at Nikolski.

Another mission was to provide long distance telephone service to persons living in the Aleut Indian villages along the chain.  The FPTS Radio System transmitted and received a communication system called Western Electric K & L Carrier, a Frequency Division Multiplexed system which through the miracle of electronic technology allowed a large number of separate communication channels to operate simultaneously.  Another mission was to provide Air Traffic Control (ATC)  Communications using VHF and UHF Radio equipment to aircraft enroute to the short gravel runways at each of these stations.  These stations were minimum manned—at Nikolski the number of assigned people was about 32; the personnel complement consisted of electronic technicians, radar operators, cooks, power production technicians, vehicle mechanics, and civil engineering specialists.  The Commanding Officer was usually a Captain.  The facility was designed so that most of the time it was not necessary to leave the building, and even the 2 or 3 vehicles were stored inside in the garage.  I cannot remember going down the mountain more than 2 or 3 times during the entire year.  The Aleut Indian villagers from below visited the station only once that I can recall while I was there.

All this equipment required electrical power to operate; and because the technology at the time had not yet advanced beyond vacuum tubes, the electrical load was high.  The power was provided by 5 large diesel generators in the power plant.  Normally only two of these generators were required in order to carry the electrical load, but in order to equalize the wear and tear on the engines and to perform maintenance, the power production technician would occasionally switch from one to another.  Now this switchover had to be carefully accomplished in order to ensure the two generators were in phase just before the switchover was performed.  This was accomplished by using a phase meter connected between the generators.  This meter read in degrees from 0 to 359 marked in 1 degree increments.  The switch was thrown at the moment when the meter read 355 degrees, which allowing for a few seconds of switch time resulted in the actual change occurring at 360 or 0 degrees.  I watched once as this was done.  It was a little scary in a noisy power plant wearing noise reduction headsets to listen while relays and switches slammed open or shut as the switch occurred.  This, however, was not my normal job.

My job was as an electronic technician in what was called Lateral Comm, the room containing the FPTS Radio Equipment, the Carrier System, a complete small dial telephone system, and the ATC Communications Radio Equipment.  Although my Air Force Specialty was ATC Communications Radio Technician, I had prior experience both with Scatterwave Radio in the US Army and with L Carrier equipment working for A.T. & T.  This was an advantage for me, and I quickly became the ‘go-to’ guy if the other technicians had a problem.  I learned the station well and began performing preventive maintenance routines which had been ignored in the past due to lack of knowledge of how to operate the equipment and perform maintenance.  After a few months of this duty I knew the job well, and I may have become overconfident.

It might surprise you to learn that almost all electronic equipment, even today, actually operates not on the 60 cycle AC Power supplied to it, but on DC.  The AC Power (in this case, from the Power Plant in the building) is immediately converted to DC Voltage and distributed throughout the circuitry to provide the necessary operating potentials.  For the K & L Carrier equipment and all the rest of the telephone central office at the station 130 Volt Power was supplied from a large bank of batteries—I think there were more than 100 of them connected in series.  The electrolyte was contained in clear glass containers with open tops.  The negative and positive electrodes were suspended in the electrolyte.  An approximate dimension of one battery was perhaps 12 X 12 inches square and 18 inches in depth.  They were mounted in racks.  These batteries supplied power to the Carrier System, and in turn they were ‘trickle charged’ by several racks of Mercury Vapor Rectifiers which were supplied AC Power from the Power Plant.  So the power chain was from the diesel electric generator to the mercury vapor rectifiers to the battery bank to the electronic equipment.  Preventive maintenance of the power chain included testing the electrolyte in each battery with an instrument called a hydrometer and recording the results, and testing the mercury vapor rectifiers to ensure they were performing properly.  This was the one facet of Lateral Communications which I was the least certain about.  Considering the amount of electrical power available from that large number of batteries I was usually pretty careful in that part of the station.

On the day I am remembering, however, the maintenance routine I was performing required me to remove a control vacuum tube from an operating mercury vapor rectifier, and to measure how long it took for the now defective equipment to switch off and transfer the DC load to a spare.  So, following the maintenance instruction I went to the rack containing the rectifier, made very sure I was doing exactly what was instructed, pulled the control tube, and began timing the changeover.  I was standing there with the control tube in one hand and the maintenance instruction in the other when to my astonishment everything seemed to go wrong at once:  The rectifier alarmed, the station minor alarm began ringing and major alarm began sounding: bong, bong, bong, and suddenly the overhead lights began flickering dim to bright to dim over and over again.  Some fellows who chanced to be watching from outside the room said I got so excited I ran around in a big circle about 3 times trying to plug the control tube in my hand back into the rectifier.  I was in an absolute panic; thought somehow I had made a mistake, possibly ruined the batteries, and caused an outage which might get me thrown off the DEW Line and court martialed.  To others it may have been funny, but I was frantic.  After what seemed like forever I plugged the control tube back in, and shortly afterward the overhead lights returned to normal.  I silenced the alarms, made sure all the systems were back in proper operating order, answered calls from other stations, and began trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

Within a few minutes I discovered that It wasn’t my fault.  What had happened was that at the exact same time as I pulled out the control tube, the power plant operator was switching diesel generators, and somehow had made an error using the phase meter causing two generators to be operating unsynchronized resulting in extreme power fluctuations.  Whew!  I was relieved.

I never did go back and complete that preventive maintenance routine. 

The Hat In the Box Story

          “And this one Daddy, this is your Hat”.  With this phrase, or very similar words my baby sister Mary Kay spoiled everyone’s Christmas more than five decades ago.  At least that is what I thought at the time.

          I think we lived in Bokoshe, Oklahoma at the time—I believe I was in the third grade—my other sister JoAnn, of course, was a year behind me.  If I have the time right it was 1943 or 1944, during World War II.  By then JoAnn and I, having successfully completed our early school years, were both rather intelligent.  Mary Kay, naturally, had just begun to learn to speak.  She was still in the infantile stage, probably wearing diapers, and had not yet begun to be a pain-in-the-neck demanding to participate in mine and JoAnn’s play fun.  She often went walking off with her Daddy while JoAnn and I were engaged in our games which suited us just fine.  Throughout the war years very few of what we presently consider to be everyday necessities were available to most families there in Eastern Oklahoma.  Many common foods were not available and many were rationed.  We had no automobile.  Our only source of news and entertainment was an old Zenith Radio which I think was given to us by relatives.  Although I was not aware of it, our family must have been very poor.  I think it must have been very difficult for Mama and Daddy especially at Christmas Time.  Somehow though, that Christmas our parents scraped together enough money for one gift for each of us.  I can remember only two of them:  Mine and Dads.

          Dad nearly made me crazy with my wrapped up gift.  He told me what it was; only he used a word I had never heard.  He told me it was a furbisher.  He teased me about it for a number of days as Christmas approached.  It lay there under the Christmas tree in a box, and I stewed and dithered wondering what it was.  I can remember asking Dad over and over to tell me, but all he would say was that he had already told me what it was:  A furbisher.  I’m sure we had a dictionary, or that I could have looked the word up somewhere, but somehow this idea never occurred to me.  This one-sided teasing was fun for Dad, and for me, but it made me insane.  I wanted somehow to be able to do it back to him.

          Dad’s gift was a hat.  As I think back on it today, after years of married life, I realize that my Mama and Daddy had no secrets; that we had so little that it would have been very impractical for Mother to have purchased a hat for Dad without his knowledge.  I don’t know where she got the hat; whether it was second-hand or brand new; or whether or not it was a good hat.  So, even though Mama made us children think it was a secret; he had to have known about the hat.  If it was new I’d guess he picked it out and tried it on for sizing.  Mama, perhaps because Dad had teased me so much about my gift, waited until Dad was gone visiting, and with the help of me and the girls wrapped his hat in a box and put it under the Christmas tree.  All the while she told us it was a secret, and not to tell.  She was teaching us how much fun it is to give and receive gifts.  Now that everyone had a gift our Christmas was complete.  She told us all several times that when Daddy came home it was all right to show him that now he also had a gift under the tree, and that he would ask what was in the box, but that it was a secret, and we were not to tell.  I can remember the feeling today—a fullness similar to when you eat too much dinner—of knowing a secret which I was not to tell even if my Dad asked me—of being able to get back at Daddy for the teasing he had done to me.  Oh, what a feeling!

          Sure enough, just before supper time Dad came striding up to the front door, and he was home.  I can’t remember who pointed out the new gift under the tree, and I can’t remember exactly how it happened.  I don’t know whether Dad asked me or JoAnn about his gift.  I do remember vividly Mary Kay pointing to each gift explaining who it was for and when she came to Dad’s gift saying, “And this one Daddy, this one is your hat”.  It was as if the world had come to an end for me.  How could she have done this so easily, just threw our wonderful secret away?  I was so angry I know I was near tears, maybe I cried.

          So that is what one Christmas was like when I was a boy, oh so many years ago.

Sibling Rivalry

Megan This happened way back in the early 1950s when I was about 13 years old.  Our family lived sort of a nomadic life with my Father being a Methodist Preacher.  Every year or two the Oklahoma Conference of the Methodist Church would decree that we should move to a new Church, and we would pack up and move on.  At the time I am thinking about we lived in a little town way down on the Southern Oklahoma border just East of Durant called Bokchito.  This, by the way, was the first parsonage we lived in which had indoor plumbing.  I can remember my Mother teaching me how to take a bath in a bath tub, but that is not what this tale is about.  Now I don't know what life was like for my folks at that time--I guess no one really can understand their parents lives, but it was tough for us Preacher's Kids changing towns, friends, and schools every time we turned around.  Part of the way we PKs adjusted to this change was by showing-off in front of our new-found friends and school-mates.  This tale is of one of those showings-off.

          The school in Bokchito was right across the street from the Methodist Church and the Parsonage.  I believe I was in the 6th grade at the time.  They must have been short of teachers that year as JoAnn, who was a year behind me, and I were in the same classroom.  The students sat in rows with the 6th graders on the right side and the 5th graders on the left.  I sat on the right side about two-thirds of the way back, and JoAnn to my left 2 or 3 rows over.  Naturally the teacher was in front with a black board behind her.  One spring day that year the subject must have been quite boring--it was probably Oklahoma History, because we ended up taking it over and over as we moved from school to school--I think I learned it at least 3 times.  Anyway, whatever the subject was, it must have been boring.  While the teacher was writing on the blackboard, I distracted myself for a while by whispering with classmates.  Eventually I caught JoAnn's eye and threw a paper wad at the blackboard while the teacher's back was turned.  If I recall correctly my paperwad was not thrown hard enough to get the teacher’s attention, or did not reach the blackboard objective.  I am sure that I purposely did not apply enough impetus.  Anyway I immediately acted very innocent, and did so successfully.  In the sibling contest I was now a big one up on JoAnn.  Eventually the teacher turned again to write on the board.  I signed to JoAnn (the same Jo Ann who is today a law abiding member of society) that she should do the same, i.e., I double dare you to throw one too.  JoAnn (the very same Jo Ann who is today a church-going Christian woman) not being as smart then as she is now, was unable to resist the temptation and challenge.  I watched with eager anticipation as she prepared to show all the class (at least those who could see what was happening) that she was braver and could throw harder and straighter than her brother..

          Now 5 decades later I can still see in my mind the mortified look on her face when, reared up with a large paperwad in her right hand drawn back to throw, the teacher turned around and caught her.  Did I think it was funny?  I think I almost had apoplexy trying to keep from laughing.  You can imagine what JoAnn thought.  I mean that was a pretty serious offense for a new kid in school.  I can not remember the derivation of the phrase ‘caught red-handed’, but I sure know the meaning, and that is precisely how JoAnn (the identical Jo Ann who is now a Lay Leader in the Methodist Church) was caught.  If the teacher had waited 1 or 2 seconds later to turn she would have been home free, but, if memory serves correctly, when we got out for lunch, she had to stay behind and got paddled for it.  She was a good trooper though, she didn’t tell on me.

          I guess I also was not as smart then as now, because when I walked across the street to the parsonage for lunch, and Mama asked where JoAnn was, and I could have said something like, I don’t know, or she will be here in a few minutes, but not me.  I told her what had happened, and that JoAnn was being spanked.  Naturally I only told of Jo Ann’s part in the escapade.  Of course, Mama got just about as upset as the teacher.  When JoAnn came in a few minutes later after being paddled at school, Mama punished her as well.  Then she told Mama that I did it too, but I just didn’t get caught.  I can remember, I think, explaining that it’s not the same thing: That I didn’t get caught on purpose.  All in all it was a bad lunch.  I was glad to get out of the house before JoAnn and go back to school where no one knew I had told.  I expected to be treated by my classmates somewhat like a returning war hero.  I’m sure you can understand my meaning.  Unfortunately I was not quick enough, because when I looked back there was JoAnn with revenge in her eyes (the same kindly Jo Ann who is today a gentle 74 year old lady) picking up a rock.  I remember thinking she can not even throw a rock that far.  I turned and walked on because I wasn’t worried about getting hit, when all of a sudden Wham! She got me right in the head.  It practically knocked me cuckoo.  As she walked by she said something like, that’s what tattle-tales get.  She was quite vengeful back then.  I had to go back home to be bandaged up, and told on her again, I’m sure.

          So anyway, I don’t want us to end up like our ancestor Thomas Pettus down there in Williamsburg VA who all we know about him is that he went to church often enough to get his name painted on the pew.  I want our children’s, children to know more about us than that, and future generations will be able to know what sort of people we were.  I know you will find this very hard to believe about your Aunt Jo Ann, but once again, Megan, I swear this is all true.

Written for Megan the Puppy Dog,

                                                                      Your Uncle Bill

Your Name is not an Accident

            On Judgment Day ‘When the Roll is Called up yonder’ by what name will you be called?  Does it matter?  I think it does.  Why?

            Let’s back up for a minute.  Let’s think about Judgment Day.  What might it be like?  In my NIV Bible in Rev. 20:11, I find the following:  Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it.  In verse 12 St. John continues:  And I saw the dead standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  In verse 15 he saw that if anyone’s name was not written in the book of life he was thrown in the lake of fire.

            So, let’s imagine for a moment what Judgment Day might be like:  Here is one scenario:  I envision long lines of people standing in front of God seated on the great white throne.  In front on tables are all the books in which the deeds of the people are recorded.  In the center front stands an Archangel with the opened book of life on a table.  An Angel, perhaps with several assistants, standing before each of the lines will ask their name as each person approaches, open the book to that name, looks over their many sins quickly, then check to see if the person’s sins have been forgiven; and if their name is written in the book of life.  All those whose names have been recorded in the book of life will be told to stand before the throne where God will pronounce them Not Guilty.  They will then stand off to the side watching the proceedings.  Every time another Saint is pronounced ‘Not Guilty’ I’m sure they will shout Halleluiah!  For those whose names are not found written in the book of life they will probably give a collective gasp of horror as those persons are immediately taken to be thrown into the lake of fire.  Now, when the Angel asks your name what name are you going to say?  My name is Charles William Holcomb, but my parents always called me Bill.  At work and at church I use the name Charlie.  At various times in the past I have been called Chuck, and at least one person called me Billy Charles.  My Little Sister always calls me Billy; the other sister calls me Bill.  When I was baptized down in southeastern Oklahoma in the icy cold Mountain Fork River by my Father, who was a Methodist Preacher, he said, “Bill, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.  Most assuredly we do not want to give the Angel an incorrect name because He might not find it written in the book of life, and before you could even say wait a minute you might end up in the lake of fire.  Just think for a moment how busy the Angels will be; and whether they will have time for you to dither around thinking of the correct name to give them.

            Now, because I am a human, and try to think practically, I wonder how this throng, which consists of all human beings who have lived since Adam—although I suspect perhaps Moses, Enoch, the Twelve Apostles, St. Paul, and some others I haven’t thought of have already been judged blameless—will be organized.  Obviously some sort of organization will be required.  I remember from my early years in the US Army when payday rolled around, since the payroll was in alphabetical order by rank, that was the way we had to stand in line to be paid, thus making the Payroll Officer’s job easier and faster to perform.  I always thought the lucky guys were the ones whose names began with A or B, but at least I was somewhere near the front middle of the line, and not back with the Zs.  So I conclude that each of the lines will need to be alphabetized, i.e., the first line on the left will be the As, next the Bs, and all the way to the Zs on the right side.  The people in the individual lines will also be in alphabetical order, e.g., in my line, the Hs, the front will be the Has, and right on down the line to the Hos, and continuing to the Hxs, although I doubt if there will be any of those.  Naturally this alphabetizing will be used through all the letters in the name so that the last of the Hs will be the H---zs, and I know there are some of them.  Married women, to avoid confusion will need to use their husband’s surname.  Come to think of it some of these lines will be shorter than others.  I’m sure at least in modern history there are not many surnames beginning with X and maybe not very many beginning with Q or perhaps U.  The secondary sort, to use computer lingo, would be by family groups.

            This will work.  I know it will.  It worked for the US Army, and it should work for the end-times.  Now comes the tricky part.  We have everyone organized by surname and family group, but how many different given names are there for each surname?  In my case, the Holcombs there are many.  I know that there are Absalom Holcombs and Zephaniah Holcombs, because I have seen these names while researching genealogical data.  My Mother’s name was Lucile; my Father’s name was Charles, and my sisters are named Jo Ann and Mary Kay.  So once again it will be necessary to have everyone queue up in alphabetical order by their given name. 

            Wait a minute!  What is your given name and when did you get it?  Who gave it to you?  Was it just a whim of your parents?   In olden times the husband always selected the name of his children.  It was his right to do so.  It is done differently today.  I remember when I and my wife named our children we did it very carefully.  Before they were born we selected names from a book which identified the characteristics of the name, characteristics which we hoped would be attributed to the child in the future.  Today almost always the child is given a name which is recorded on its birth certificate before leaving the hospital.  Notice what God says in Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart”.

            In most Christian Churches today people are baptized as a sign of their Christianity; in the Lutheran Church this is done as soon as possible after birth.  Other churches prefer that baptism occur later in the child’s life.  In Luke 2:21 I find on the 8^th day when it was time to circumcise him he was named Jesus, the name the Angel had given him before he was conceived.  I equate the presentation of the child Jesus to God at the Temple to modern baptism.  I believe that baptism is the event which causes the person to be marked with the seal; the event which causes your name to be entered into the book of life.  We Lutherans believe baptism is a Sacrament, a Holy Act of God in which God’s promise is combined with an earthly element.  In Eph 1:13 it states: having believed you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.  In Trinitarian churches baptism is done with water, and in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Pastor pronounces the child’s name and states:  I baptize you in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In Mark 16:16 we find that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

            Is it possible that your Baptismal Name is the one which will be written in the book of life?  In Luke 10:20 it is written that we should Rejoice that your name is written in Heaven.  As we see above the Lord Jesus was named even before conception.  It seems plausible to me; so plausible in fact that I intend, when the Angel asks my name, to say proudly, my baptismal name, Bill Holcomb.  Since I know that my name is written in the book of life I do not have to fear the second death, will be pronounced ‘Not Guilty’ and will go stand with my Mother and Father and all my Christian ancestors to see my descendants as they are judged, and found, I hope, Not Guilty, as well.  As I said before, I do not think that your name is an accident; I believe our names were chosen for us even before we were born.

HOW WOULD WE DECIDE

Suppose through some incontrovertible means the Shroud of Turin was determined to be of the correct age to be authentic.  Suppose also that through indisputable scientific analysis the cloth was proven to have come from the Holy Land.  Suppose again that the derivation of the Shroud is revealed by an extremely respected source to be almost certainly authentic, i.e., assume it is probable that the cloth is that in which the dead body of Our Lord was wrapped when it was placed in the tomb.  Suppose further that through DNA testing, almost all the deposits on the cloth were determined to have come from one human being, and that the DNA is in good enough condition to enable an individual to be cloned from it.  Suppose this was done and it resulted in a living, breathing, male, human being.  Assume that this man had what are widely accepted to be the physical features of Jesus of Nazareth, i.e., that to most people, he looked like Our Lord.  Assume also that at a very early age this being possessed Stigmata, what appeared to be scars from what could have been nails piercing his hands and feet, and the appearance of a scar in his side.    Suppose this person, when he came of age, claimed to the re-incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Then suppose additionally that this man began to perform seemingly impossible acts, i.e., miracles:  Healings, and other acts in such a manner that it seems to be done supernaturally.  Could this be the Second Coming?  How would we decide whether to believe?  Would it be possible for a rational Christian person to dis-believe?

          Imagine the worldwide controversy that would immediately develop.  A large portion of the world population would divide into Believers, and Dis-Believers, while another large segment (Muslims, and eastern religions) would perhaps wonder at the foolishness of those peoples who are engaged in the controversy.  In the western world local Church congregations would undoubtedly engage in heated arguments and split up over who believed exactly what.  Denominational religious leaders, perhaps not knowing the proper course of action themselves, would be hard pressed to provide direction to their followers.  Entire Protestant denominations might change or disappear almost over night.

          Who, or what societies, might be part of the Believers?  Many, many people of Christian religious faith, perhaps led by the Catholic Church might comprise the majority of the Believers.  Probably all Judeo-Christian faiths would have substantial increases in their membership from people originally agnostic, atheistic, or just disinterested in religion.  The Nation of Israel  might immediately accept the claimant as their Messiah, finally arrived after all these millennia had passed.  Large numbers of people, especially those who observed first hand, would be won over into Belief by the supernatural events.

          The Dis-believers might be composed of those who did not care, and those too ignorant to understand the events.  There would surely also be large numbers of Bible readers who realized that The Lord himself predicted that many would come in His Name, all of them false, until he returns Himself.  This group  also might include those who read Acts 1: 9-11 where the Men in White Clothing tell the men of Palestine He will come again in the same manner in which he departed, i.e., from out of a cloud.

          No, I do not believe we could accept a clone as the Saviour.  I admit it is an intriguing thought, and I guess that, if I were confronted by a person possessing all the attributes in the opening paragraph, I would be almost convinced similarly to the Rich Man who almost was able to enter into Heaven, but could not divorce himself from his riches and follow.  We must not forget, however, that this world has been given to Satan, and that he also is capable of performing supernatural acts.  A Second Coming which occurred as described above would of necessity at the beginning be revealed to one, or only a few persons.  I believe that when it happens it will be known instantaneously to all persons on the Earth, Believers and UnBelievers.  The modern age is the first where it is easily possible for an event to be seen and heard simultaneously throughout the world.  I suppose at my present age that there is little chance that I will be here to see it, although Paul wrote that We Shall Not All Sleep.  If the rapture does not occur soon it may be that I will see the Second Coming from the Other Side.  What a fabulously wonderful viewpoint that would be.

The Crawdad

The Wikipedia on-line Dictionary defines an Eating Disorder as follows:

An eating disorder is a compulsion to eat in a way which disturbs physical health. The eating may be excessive (compulsive over-eating); too limited (restricting); may include normal eating punctuated with episodes of purging; may include cycles of binging and purging; or may encompass the ingesting of non-foods----. ----There are numerous theories as to the causes and mechanisms leading to eating disorders.

            One day this summer while on a short trip to see the Talimena Drive, my daughter, her two sons, and I stayed over night in a Motel in Mena, Arkansas called the Lime Tree Inn.  This town in Arkansas is at the Eastern end of this beautiful drive across the Winding Stair Mountains in Western Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma.

            While checking in at this Motel I asked whether there was a restaurant on premises.  The clerk said there was.  It was late in the afternoon, so after finding our room and unloading our baggage, and resting a few minutes we decided to go for dinner.  The choices as I recall were Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Sonic, etc., but I wanted to see if the Lime Tree Restaurant prices were reasonable; and, surprisingly, in this day of inflated values they seemed acceptable.  It was Friday and they had, that evening, a seafood buffet, which I enjoy eating, and also is one of the few things which her youngest will eat with alacrity so we decided to eat there and to have the buffet.

            One of the facets of life in which he seems to take the least pleasure is eating.  Even when he is very hungry he will quite often turn down even the most succulent morsel if it is not something which suits his palate.  He is quite fond of sweets and will almost always eat chocolate—at Braums his favorite is the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.  Naturally his Mother prefers that he eat his supper first or he will not have any desert; and often he goes to bed without his sweet.  Some time ago during the children’s sermon at church the Pastor asked the group what they wished for.  His answer was that he wished he would get desert.  One food that he enjoys is crab legs; this is probably his favorite meal; along with other sorts of seafood.  I suspect he also would like lobster, but perhaps because of the expense it is better not to find that out.

            So it seemed to me that the seafood buffet was probably a good idea because my Grandson would probably enjoy his dinner that evening.  We sat down and ordered our drinks; then began filling our plates at the buffet.  Her eldest, as usual, filled his plate quickly and began eating.  My daughter selected mashed potatoes and corn.  I served myself catfish, shrimp, and a vegetable.  I did not observe closely what her youngest son  took to eat—he was sitting across the table from me—but he seemed to be eating what was on his plate and liking it.  Soon he said he was going back for another serving, because he had seen crawdads on the buffet. My daughter then began explaining elaborately to her sons her experience in catching crawdads.  She had just gotten through explaining to them just how you go about catching a crawdad using a piece of bacon tied on the end of a string when he got up to refill his plate. 

            This is the sort of creature that was on his plate when he arrived back at the table.  His Mother had recently eaten crawfish pie somewhere, didn’t really care for it, and I think she thought her son had found some of that dish.  She was very surprised, I think, at what was on his plate when he returned, averted her eyes, and looked disgusted.  She said something to the effect that if you are going to eat that do it quickly and get it over with.

            I’m sure most of you have eaten shrimp; as I have.  I have had it breaded and fried, grilled in olive oil, served on ice, and even boiled whole.  I did not really care for boiled shrimp.  They are messy little things which look much like the picture above.  When I eat them I pull off the legs, peel off the shell, remove any other unsavory looking pieces, and pop them in my mouth.

            This boy, not being very perceptive—what 13 year old is--, and being very curious about what he was probably beginning to think seriously about not eating, picked it up in his hands, turned it this way and that, pulled on the legs, and looking at some other part said, “What’s that”.  My daughter, becoming more and more upset, said, “Put it down and eat it if you are going to”.  She continued to look in any direction other than at what he was fingering.  I think she was beginning to feel ill at ease.

            Paying little attention to his Mother or anyone else, he continued to toy with the crawdad.  He said, “How do you eat it”, and “What part do you eat”.  I think his brother told him you only eat the tail.  My daughter told him, “Put that thing down, get another plate, and get yourself something else to eat”.  Her youngest, blithely unaware of the tension he was causing, continued manipulating the crayfish in his hands.

            I, of course, watched this whole scenario with internal amusement, careful not to interfere in my daughter’s parenting of her son, silently wondered how this would all turn out.

            She finally told him, “Put that thing down on your plate, and cover it up with a napkin!”  “But why Mom”, he asked?  “I was going to eat it”.  I think by then she had become a little sick at her stomach.  “Give it to me”, she ordered!  She then took the offending crustacean, wrapped it up in a napkin, out of sight, and placated him by sending him for some desert.

            My daughter was finally able to relax and finish her dinner, although she placed the napkin covered crayfish off to the side where it was least visible, and ensured the waitress picked up the plate and removed it.

            Would I have eaten the crawdad if I had noticed it on the buffet?  I probably would not have.  Would my Grandson have eaten the crawdad on his plate if his Mother had not objected?  I don’t know, but I don’t think so.  Will my daughter ever again tell her sons her tale of catching crawdads in a ditch?  She probably will, but I suspect she will add the caveat I did not eat them.  Did I enjoy my dinner?  Yes, I did.