Lessons from my life

Photo by  Constellate  on  Unsplash How I Met My Wife In the early seventies, when I was roughly eight years old, my mom, my brother, and I would board a bus often, to travel to a larger town to do some shopping and afterward we would go to this tire shop that my dad worked at. There were a line of TVs lined up along the wall and there was always one of the TVs turned on that customers could watch while sitting on the couches and love seats as they waited for their vehicles. I remember the ashtrays in the shape of tires and the throw rug under a wooden coffee table that was placed in the middle. I was there so much, that it felt like a second home. I knew the secretary and the manager by their first names. There were other mechanics that worked there and one in particular had a daughter that also visited quite often. We didn't know each other and we didn't even like each other. One day, we happened to be there on the same weekday and she was watching her favorite soap

Photo by  Waranya Mooldee  on  Unsplash Easters of the Past On this Easter Sunday, my mind returns to a earlier time of simple joy. It was the early half of the seventies when my dad was a preacher of a small country church in a community of not only where everyone knew everyone, but where everyone were neighbors and truly cared and help each other. The church was very small. It didn't even have a bathroom, but an outhouse off to the side of the church in the middle of the field that the church sat upon. It had an entryway which housed the bell above your head that rang every Sunday to announce the beginning of Morning Service. You entered into a wide open space with wood floors and wooden pews. On the back of the pews where two blue hymnals and a bible in between them in each holder on the back of them. There were 2 different, long folding tables sat up near the entrance of the church where we would have Sunday School. The adults would be to the right while the children wer

Photo by Krystian Piątek on Unsplash My mom could do a lot of things well.   When I was in the 3rd grade, instead of running out and buying new school clothes for me, she made them. She worked for hours, cutting the material and sewing (on her sewing machine) the pieces together to create button-up shirts that looked like they were bought from the store. She even ironed a cardinal onto the upper left corner of the pocket (this was way before anyone had ever thought about stitching an alligator on a shirt), and, of course, I was embarrassed.  I was afraid to tell anyone at school that my mom had done that, until one of the cool kids said that he liked my shirt and wanted to know where I had gotten it. So I reluctantly admitted to him and the crowd that had gathered around to gander at my clothes. "Cool. I like the cardinals." he said pointing, "Where did your mom get it?" I told him the name of the store in the nearby city that my mom had purchased all the mate

Photo by  Rodolfo Mari  on  Unsplash In the late sixties, I was three and I had a red tricycle that I loved to ride everywhere.  Every morning after eating breakfast and saying our goodbyes and watching my dad drive off to work, I would hop on my trusty trike and ride it the few feet to my grandparents house next door. There I would have a cup a coffee (yes at the age of three I was already addicted to the most satisfying and delicious beverage that God had ever created), have a second breakfast and visit. After staying for a while I would get back on my trike and ride up and down the block till my heart's content or until I was called home by my mom. After having dinner with my mom and dad, I would once again mount my trike and go to my grandparents house for a second dinner (you would think that I was huge child from all the double meals but I guess all that exercise I got kept me in pretty good shape). Sometimes I would grab a banana and combine my two favorite activities,

Photo by Will Swann on Unsplash When I was in the Army. Back in the eighties, I would often get these phone calls that would wake me in the middle of the night (of course we called it early morning), to call me away from my wife and children to go to the middle of nowhere. After being tossed around in the back of an armored vehicle, we would arrive at our destination. I never knew exactly where I was because all the trees looked the same no matter what part of the country I was in. I didn't know why I was there. I didn't know how long I was there for or when I would get to go back home. So I was stuck there until those in charged said that we all could go home. It was almost always guaranteed that some time during my stay out there it would rain. It would rain for days. So I would be standing there (because it is my turn to pull guard duty), fully geared up with an M-16 hanging upside-down from my shoulder (to keep the rain out of the barrel), and a poncho (it was the ol

Photo by  Krisztian Matyas  on  Unsplash Not too long ago, a soda cost less than a dollar. So, my first blog is a rant about the price of soda. (I know, I know, my mom use to say "I remember when a coke cost you a nickle" and I realize that I am now at the age to where I say "I remember when.") I remember when a pop cost less than a quarter and candy bars where ten cents. That wasn't that long ago (at least in my mind it wasn't). The year was 1972 and my dad would give me two pop bottles a week for my allowance. I'd then walk two blocks to the local grocery store and get the deposit back and get fourteen cents. Sometimes he would give me a quart bottle (I think it was a quart, there was no such thing as a liter back then), and that would get me fifteen cents. With that fifteen cents, I could buy myself a soda. Nowadays a small bottle of soda cost almost two dollars. How does that make any sense. I can go in the back of the store and buy mysel