April 20 – “Coming your way”

Here’s a quick vacation planning update.  It’s how we spent our Sunday afternoon.  My job has been to map out a general route for us to take, main cities, nearest major roads, that sort of thing. Chris is in charge of what we do along the way.  We are essentially heading to the Louisville, Kentucky area, but whatever we hit before and after are still negotiable, and will be even as we drive.  That’s the greatest kind of vacation, you know.  It’s the only way to find three-headed cows and the largest rocking chair in the world.  Chris had a great idea for the before and after scenario.  We are going to make this, very loosely, a Civil War site trail.  Some of the places are set in stone.  Others depend on how interesting they look once we get there.  I would like to stop in on some of the fire stations along the way and maybe trade some patches or something.  If you recognize any of the places, let us know.  We might just drop in on you, if invited.

We know that we have to go through Alexandria, Louisiana.  That’s where we have a drop-off to one of Chris’s half-sisters.  Second leg puts us going through Vicksburg, Mississippi to the Corinth area, which is relatively near the Shiloh battleground.  From there we head to Huntsville, Alabama, and on over to Fort Oglethorpe and Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee.  From there we’ll head north and drive the Abraham Lincoln trail just south of Louisville, before heading into the city and the Louisville Slugger Museum, destined to be a major highlight of the journey. 

And that’s where everything gets murky.  My route has us on somewhat of an ultimately biblical trek.  We head north through Cincinnati, Ohio, and through Columbus.  From there we go through Wheeling, West Virginia, and with a slight detour to the north along the way we see the Little League World Series fields in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  Then back on the road until we hit the biblical portion of our journey: Bethlehem (Pennsylvania).  Then, since we’ll be so close, we could head north and drive through Vermont, just to say we’ve been there (It’s one of three of the lower 48 that I haven’t been to.  The others are Minnesota and North Dakota … and I have a plan.  Chris has never been to Utah, but I’m not sure yet about that one.  I have to check alternate routes if she wants to check that one off her bucket list).  From Vermont we’ll drive west through Chicago and on into Minnesota.  Check off number two.  If I can talk Chris into it, we can then keep on a westerly heading and make our way through North Dakota before heading back south (with some adjustments, maybe through Utah, eh, Chris?), probably swinging through Waco when we get back into Texas. 

We have almost three weeks to fit in whatever comes up.  And as is our custom, if we see something that looks like fun, we’ll change the route.  And if we are having fun in one spot, we may just stick around there the whole time.  Gotta love an unplanned, semi-controlled-chaos vacation.  Oh, and I guess I never mentioned, the whole reason we are even taking a vacation … June 6^th is our 40^th wedding anniversary.  Gotta make it memorable. 

Matthew 25:14 says, “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.”

Father, thank you for the excitement of planning a journey.  Thank you as well that we can know you will be traveling with us.  Amen.

April 19 – “The Home of the Chief”

Yesterday was one of those times when I got to be a part of a random community event indirectly involving the fire department.  Two years ago one of the East End historical district houses was sold to a San Antonio family intensely interested in Galveston’s history.  It had already been renovated into a beautiful showcase home.  They did some more research on the house’s history and saw to it that the home found its place onto the registry of historic homes in Galveston.  Yesterday they were doing a house dedication.  They asked Fire Chief Wisko to read a history of the house and me as Fire Chaplain to pray a blessing.  On duty crews from Stations One and Two were there with their engines, but the Station Two crew was called out before the ceremony started.  Retired Fire Chief Brantley brought his old restored fire engine from the 1950’s.  Invited guests included past owners of the house as well as descendants of the original owners.

So other than the fact that we have really cool dress uniforms, why involve the fire department?  Well, as it turned out, the house was originally the home of Galveston’s fire chief during the 1900 Storm.  Not only did it survive that catastrophe, but it became the sanctuary of 150 people who rode out the storm together.  Not all of them started out inside the house, though.  One of the fire chief’s family members shared a family history anecdote about that event.  They kept the windows open, and as people would float by clutching the roof of a house or clinging to a stray bit of debris, they would throw out one of those old ice hooks and pull them to safety.  The chief’s wife reported that the morning after the storm she baked 400 biscuits to feed everyone.  The chief retired about a year later, but it wasn’t long before the city asked him to come out of retirement and become the city’s … get this … Police Chief. 

Our fire fighters represented the department and themselves admirably.  They interacted with the people with respect and professionalism that certainly made me proud to be a part of the department.  Oh, and Chief Wisko did an amazing job of telling the house’s story.  He had four pages of notes, but didn’t refer to them even once.  I think there may be a docent job in your retirement future, Chief.

Psalms 84:3 says, “Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young — a place near your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.”

Father, thank you for personal stories like the ones from that house.  They really make history come alive.  Amen.

April 18 – “Awash …”

Big news around Galveston early this morning is the huge supercell of thunderstorms that whipped through here last night.  The fire department app on my phone was going crazy with power lines down or arcing.  The whole Island was awash with downpours.  FaceBook was lit up with reports of hail and extremely strong winds.  And several houses in Sea Isle and Jamaica Beach were outright damaged by a probable tornado.  Guess I’ll need to make a quick trip out west to check on the church.  It’ll have to come after my appearance at the dedication of a restored house today, though.  That’s at ten this morning.  I have been outside, but it’s still dark so I couldn’t really see that much.  Looks like we are all OK here.  I know both of us were in the bed when I woke up. 

We spent the bulk of the day yesterday doing yard work again.  It is truly Spring around here.  You might say we are awash with color.  OK, so you might not say that.  It does sound kind of weird.  But the grass is growing like crazy.  Chris’ flowers are blooming all over the yard.  I can’t begin to remember, much less pronounce, the names of all the types of flowers we now have.  Roses.  Pink roses and yellow roses and red roses.  I know there are those.  And Easter lilies are about to bloom, although they should be called Mother’s Day lilies, since that’s when they usually pop out.  There is a virtual hedge of what she calls Mexican petunias.  I’ve heard her use the word amaryllis, but I’m not sure which one that is.  She has a few that are really big blooms, really impressive, showcase flowers.  The periwinkles are back, of course.  The hangy-down vine thing on our back fence has stopped blooming for the moment, but it is still really green.  Our baby pecan tree in a pot on the deck finally started putting out some leaves.  It’s always the last to show up.  Oh, and the tree that our friends the Gerans gave us, the one that arrived at their house in a box in the mail, has put on several leaves as well, so it has officially awakened.  The sycamore trees are doing their part to provide shade.  The satsuma tree in back is full of leaves.  Not sure about fruit this year, though.  There is a persimmon tree in a pot upstairs keeping the pecan tree company.  And the two fruit trees that the city gave us are doing well.  I know I left some things out, but I’m just in charge of the grass and trimming the hedges and trees.  More than I can handle.

Leviticus 26:4 says, “I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.”

Father, that’s a promise we have sure seen come about the last 24 hours or so.  You’re doing some great Spring work down here.  Really beautiful stuff.  Amen.

April 17 – “Street worthy”

Well, Muffler Day finally dawned yesterday.  After water therapy it was time to take the truck in to have a new muffler installed so it could then be inspected so I could then go get the registration sticker.  But that muffler thing … I had no idea.

I called the place that had been recommended to me by our mechanic.  Dennis assured me the guy running it could be trusted to do a good job and give us a fair price.  Strong endorsement as far as I was concerned.  The shop itself was pretty run-down looking, but hey.  I wanted a muffler, not a manicure.  Sure enough, the guy who greeted me was quite amiable, and seemed very willing to help.  He asked about my fire department cap.  Seems he grew up with some of the active duty guys: Moose, Jim, and Danny were the ones he mentioned.  When he realized I was the chaplain he decided not to share any details of their exploits together, however.  Can’t say anything to horrify the man of God, I guess.  Apparently he was the face of the business, too.  He stopped what he was doing whenever anyone walked up.  He even diagnosed one lady’s brake line leak, and then told her another place she could go to get it fixed.  I talked to several other folks, and most were repeat customers who nothing but good to say about the company in general and this guy in particular.  You have quite a reputation there, Bobby.

The thing that fascinated me was the way the muffler was made.  It was not one of these pull-it-out-of-the-box, follow-the-installation-instructions kinds of things.  Well, I guess the muffler was that.  But not so much the tailpipes.  He cut the whole thing off with a sawzall, and the muffler itself was a mess.  It was so rusted that the pipes were literally hanging by a thread.  He told me it was the original 1992 muffler that came with the truck.  Hmm.  1992 to 2015.  That’s twenty-three years.  Maybe I should be in a GMC TV commercial.  He took the old pipes over to a vise he had, grabbed a long straight pieces of pipe, and carefully molded it by hand to fit the shape of the original.  Bet he didn’t think he would ever be using geometry back when he was in high school hanging out with his buddies.  Welding it all back in place didn’t take him long at all, and I was back on the road.  As far as I could tell the price was reasonable, so I was happy on that count as well.  But my day was not over yet.

Next I had to drive over to get the truck inspected.  Since it is so old, there are only a few places left on the Island that do those inspections.  The one I went to has been recommended by several folks, including Dennis and some of the fire fighters.  When I drove up there was an old guy (Yep.  Older than me) sitting in a padded chair in the center of the entrance to the garage.  He asked what I wanted, and when I said “an inspection of a 1992 truck” he cursed a bit and added, “Now I have to move my chair.”  Aside from running into a table when he tried to get the truck inside, he was quite competent with the apparatus.  Kept up a running commentary while he was doing the testing, and the guy was absolutely hilarious.  He announced the passing grade before the computer ever did.  I think he was determined to get the thing passed no matter what the computer showed.  Finally, he gave me my paperwork and sent me on my way.  Next stop … registration.

Well, I did have to go home first to pick up the paperwork and have a bite of lunch.  The registration office was “way downtown.”  It took me all of at least ten minutes to get there.  The line was pretty long, too.  Must have been seven people ahead of me.  I finally made my way to the front, though.  Took about two minutes.  And that’s about how long it took to get the sticker – and new license plates.  Seems the old ones are more than seven years old, so they were “losing their reflectivity.”  I didn’t realize it until I got home, but the new ones didn’t have the word “Truck” on them.  Wonder if that’s going to cause a problem in the future.  I got the sticker applied and the plates screwed on with no problems, and we finally have a street-worthy truck once again. 

Wonder what our next issue will be …

Psalms 25:4-5 says, “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”

Father, thank you for artisans like Bobby who can craft such intricate twists and turns into a hunk of straight metal.  Thank you for crafting the twists and turns that have been my journey toward you.  Can’t wait to see what you have in store for me next.  Amen.

April 16 – “O – M – G”

Great news on the medical update front.  Cailyn went in for her recheck yesterday.  The official report read, “No scratch seen.”  That’ll work.  Way to go, God.

Kel and Christina and their kids are all geared up for a continuation of their vacation.  They spent a day or two with cousins in Waco, and now they are heading to Glorieta, New Mexico.  Along the way they will stop in Lubbock to see some of Christina’s family.  Cailyn and Chris were talking about that leg of the journey. Cailyn wanted to know exactly where Lubbock was.  Chris answered with that most typical of Texas approaches, time instead of miles, “It takes about twelve hours to drive to Lubbock.”  And Cailyn’s response to that tidbit of information? 

“O – M – G.” 

Wait.  How old is that girl, anyway?

Speaking of vacations, Chris and I have started planning ours.  Looks like we will have two weeks at the end of May to make one of our famous road trips to … well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out.  Her first find was the Louisville Slugger museum in Kentucky.  Sounded great to me, but what else is there to do in that part of the country?  And where to go on the way there?  And how long could a baseball bat museum take to explore, anyway?  What then?  All completely valid concerns, right?

Now our first stop has to be somewhere in Louisiana.  Another one of those inheritance delivery things.  But after that we are literally wide open.  I seem to recall a friend in Alabama somewhere.  Is that on the way to Kentucky?  I’m pretty sure we know someone in Indiana, too.  And Minnesota.  And Pennsylvania.  And Virginia.  Guess we’re getting all over the map, aren’t we?  Wait.  That’s what we need.  A map.  And not one that only shows where your car is and how far it is to your next stop.  We need one of those antique, folded-in-an-impossible-to-refold-pattern, travel maps of the United States.  I know they used to have them.  In fact, I checked on the AAA website.  They still have them.  But you have to go into the office to pick them up.  And the nearest AAA office is in Missouri City.  So … one of our Thursday ventures will be to WalMart or Target to see if good old Rand McNally is still in business with his infamous road atlases.  Or maybe we could take a field trip into Texas and see if Buccees has road maps.  Or maybe I could just get all the grandkids to draw me a map and send it to me.  Now that sounds intriguing …

Exodus 15:26 says, “He said, ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.’”

Father, thank you for the great news about Cailyn’s eye.  You are ever Yahweh Rapha.  Amen.

April 15 – “A Pirate Maiden”

We had a little bit of a family crisis yesterday.  The first part of the scenario occurred totally unbeknownst to us.  Chris and I were both working at our respective computers when a call came through on the house phone.  I checked the caller ID as we always do, since the vast majority of spam calls come to our land line.  (Can it be considered “spam” if it has nothing to do with a computer?).  There were only four numbers that appeared – not even a complete seven digits, much less ten - so we ignored the call.  About five minutes later we got a call from Nathan.  He had just talked to the school nurse, and Cailyn had been hit in the eye by another student’s name tag.  There was evidence of a ruptured blood vessel, but the school wanted to have it checked out for a possible scratch. 

We left immediately and hurried up to the school.  When we arrived, Cailyn was sitting in the nurse’s office, grinning happily at the thought of leaving school, “before we even had lunch.”  The nurse showed us the injury and explained the circumstances as she understood them.  Then she proceeded to chew us out.  Yep.  She said that she had called our house phone and both our cell phones and no one answered.  Then came the shocker, “Whenever you see this four digit number appear on your caller id you better answer it.”  Wait.  Back the bus up.  You mean the school’s emergency number only appears as four digits on a caller id?  How about this … why not inform the parents and grandparents of that tiny little detail?  It might facilitate things in the future.  (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps that tidbit of information had been communicated to April at some time in the past, but she was engrossed in a training day for her new ER position at the hospital).  And Nathan had certainly never heard it.  He had that slippery four digits on his cell phone and had ignored them as well. 

And speaking of cell phones, that little oversight wasn’t the worst of it.  When she insisted that she had called our cell numbers, Chris pulled her phone out and checked her call logs.  The mysterious four digits were nowhere to be found.  She pointed to her computer screen and argued that she had called every one of the numbers.  That’s when I leaned over to look for myself.  And there was my cell number as well.  So I checked my own call log.  Again … no mysterious four digit numbers there, so I let her know mine didn’t match her story either.  That’s when she started back-tracking.  Seems that she didn’t ever really call my cell number.   For some reason she must have skipped over that one.  Hmm.  Interesting. 

We didn’t come for a lesson in protocol, though.  There was the more pressing matter of a possible scratched eyeball, after all.  Since her cell phone was in her hand anyway, Chris flipped over to camera mode and turned to take a picture of the injury.  The nurse almost protested at the presence of a recording device.  Didn’t get out much more than a faint grunt, though.  Chris informed her quickly that Cailyn’s Dad was not at all happy with the turn of events, and he was expecting a photo of Cailyn’s injury as soon as possible.  Can’t argue with that logic.  Hey, you can’t argue with Chris at all once she puts her mind to something.  Picture all sent, we checked her out and headed for home.  Nathan in the meantime made an appointment with the pediatrician to have it checked out. 

The doctor’s office was eerily quiet.  In fact, Cailyn was the only patient in the waiting room.  We did hear one crying child on our way to the room, and one other youngster arrived as we were called back.  Very strange for a normally busy office.  Cailyn was noticeably nervous.  In fact she was bouncing all over the room, dancing and making faces.  I did get some of that on video for future revelation to prospective boyfriends. The tech who took vitals and checked us into the system was quite engaging.  Cailyn fell in love with her instantly, whispering to me, “She is one funny lady.”  After the usual preliminary once-over, the pediatrician put some special dye in Cailyn’s eye and turned out the lights.  It was the glow-in-the-dark juice.  Her eye lit up like a Christmas tree.  I fumbled to get a picture, but forgot to take the flash off.  We did manage a few pics after the fact, but much of the dye had worn off.  And the dye did indeed reveal a scratch.  That meant a pirate patch for a few days and some antibiotic eye drops.  I’m sure it was scary for her when the doc applied the eye patch for the first time.  That fear was alleviated a bit, though, when that first tech returned with a “Hello, Kitty” sticker that covered the entire thing.  I guess it’s hard for a little girl to be frightened in the presence of a cartoon kitty cat.  Now if it was me, I’d have run screaming in the rain to get that horrid creature away from my face.  But that’s just me.  And cats. 

Jeremiah 17:14 says, “Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.”

Father, please bring healing quickly to Cailyn’s eye.  Amen.

April 14 – “Beware the Gojin”

I know I’ve told some imaginary friend stories over the years.  They usually center around that odd little imp who called himself Boy.  He first showed up when Kel was a youngster.  I suppose his task was to introduce the young innocent to all the finer points of misbehavior and mayhem.  Boy certainly received the blame for anything bad that happened around our house for several years.  He finally departed into the black hole of imaginatory nothingness that is the source of such companionship for children, and we figured we would never hear from him again.  But several years later the rascal was back, introducing himself to Josh and doing his best to lead this new youngster into all sorts of mischief.  Understand here … we never mentioned him to young Josh by name.  Never even mentioned the imaginary friend concept.  But when he arrived it was unmistakably Boy.  Once again he stayed with us for several years before quietly taking his leave.  As Nathan approached the “Boy years” we couldn’t decide whether to eagerly anticipate his return or do whatever we could to discourage it.  As it turned out, when Boy arrived into Nathan’s life he discovered that he had nothing to do.  Nathan was light years ahead of him already in the impishness department.  In fact I think Boy might have been more than a little bit intimidated by Nathan.

Now all that to say, we have a new imaginary friend in the family.  As far as I can tell, this one is not much like Boy at all.  In the first place he showed up much earlier than his predecessor.  And secondly, he has attached himself to a girl.  No, this one is not guiding Cailyn into the paths of naughtiness.  Remember who her Daddy is.  This new guy is a friend of two-year-old Noa.  I guess the IFB (Imaginary Friend Bureau) has lowered its limits of attack.  Noa introduced us to this creature the last time she and her brothers were over here without parents.  Gojin is this one’s name.  Not sure about the origin/etymology of that one, but it does have a genie kind of flavor to it.  So Gojin was quite an active little critter.  He enjoyed hanging around light fixtures and sometimes up on the roof.  That much we got from the BLT (Brothers’ Living Translation).  But she did have some things of her own to say.  Here’s a rundown, best I can remember.

Noa: “Gojin on light.”  Followed by a pause.  We weren’t sure if something was happening right then or she was remembering an earlier event.

Noa: “Gojin fell down from light an’ got a owie.”

Well, now that couldn’t have been fun.  But apparently we needed a fuller explanation.  Looking back up at the chandelier above our dining room table, she continued.

Noa: “Gojin swing swing and he up up and fell down and got an owie.”

Introductions made, she went back to the task at hand … lunch.  And after a nibble or two on a piece of cheese …

Noa: “Gojin gonna eat eat.”

Well, of course he is.  Everybody has to eat eat.  I couldn’t resist this time, though. 

DadDad: “What’s he gonna eat?”

Come on, I never did get any details about Boy when he was here.  He was always in hiding.  This was just parental curiosity, you understand.  She had an immediate answer for me, though.

Noa: “Gojin gonna eat Heidi.”

And there it was.  Heidi is our dog.  That’s right.  Dog.  Old Gojin was not that different from Boy after all.  I kept my eye on our poor old dachshund after that.  I’m not sure she could handle a mealtime attack by a hungry Gojin. 

Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Father, thank you for imaginary friends and tired old dogs.  Thank you more for being a real friend and an eternal companion.  Amen.