Wedding Shoes

Our wedding day was amazing. After it was done I said, “That was so fun I want to do it all over again.” There are so many memories I have of this wonderful time. Here’s one of them.

My sister, Lynn, and my mother had come for the week.

Lynn still needed a pair of shoes for the wedding. This was important since she was the maid of honor. She didn’t mention it till Thursday, when, now, the pace of life had really escalated. I mean, we had just been to the mall earlier in the week. She could have brought up that need then.

Lynn decided to ride my antique beach bike to Wal-Mart and get a pair of shoes. I’m thinking, “Wal-Mart? Really? In the August heat of Oklahoma?”

Wrong on so many levels! Read more…

13 Years Old and Dating?

I read this article in a January’s issue of a Southwest magazine. It’s a question, answer format.

Q: My 13-year-old son has just started going out with girls. I think he comes on a little strong; first calling, then texting, then calling again to see if she’s gotten the text. I suspect the girls find all this communication annoying, and I’d like to tell him to take it slower. But my wife thinks we should stay out of it. How about you?

Just reading this again has my blood pumping at a higher rate than it should.

Read more…

Don’t Do as I Do, Do as I Say

That’s what I grew up hearing. That’s not a common phrase used with our children now, but maybe it’s the message we still send.

A dad and pre-teen daughter were coming out of the grocery store when they were approached by a man campaigning for something in the parking lot.

The solicitor asked the dad if he was a registered voter in the state. Wanting to avoid the spiel, the dad said, “No I am not a resident here, and moved on.”

The daughter asked her dad why he said that. He told her he did not have the time to stop and talk with the man.

Later the dad related that he wondered if that did not send a wrong message to her.

Read more…

Normal

My girlfriend, Kay, and I were coming to the end of our 10 week road trip. We were on our way to Bible school. Now we were visiting her army friends in Waco, Texas.

On this one day we went to the army base to bring lunch to Luke, a Drill Instructor. His office was on the second story of a barrack.

Kay and I were sitting next to the open office door that was across from Luke’s desk. As we were eating our hamburger, Luke’s countenance suddenly changed. The veins in his neck stuck out, his body got tense, and his eyes fastened on someone approaching the doorway.

In a second our jovial lunch conversation spun into what appeared to me as an irrational tirade, as spit and chewed hamburger sprayed out of Luke’s mouth. He had jumped up, causing his chair to fall over, was leaning over his desk and yelling at a young solider who looked like he was about to pee in his pants (or was that me?).

I presume the young man understood Luke, as he repeated numerous times, “Yes Sir!”

The solider finally hustled down the stairs to the dirt street below. In the hot Texas sun he dropped and gave him 20, while Luke, hanging out of the unscreened window above the solider, continued his tirade.

I was in shock.

Read more…

Menu of Choice

No thought lives in your head rent free
It is either supportive or not
Empowering or not
An investment or cost
It either moves you toward your desired goals and dreams
or away from them.

Menus of Choice

When we go to a restaurant one of the first things that happens after we sit down – or drive up to the window – we look at a menu.

When we review this menu – we make choices. We choose what we would like to have from the menu. Yes we choose. Sometimes we even already have in mind what we are going to choose.

When I see something I don’t like I don’t say – “Oh well, look what’s on the menu – I guess I have to have _________, since its here.”

No! I simply don’t order it. I don’t like olives. If I see a meal I like but it comes with olives I don’t say, “Oh great – it comes with olives. I guess I’ll have to have olives.” I put in my order and tell them to NOT put in the olives.

There is another menu that we choose from every day – It is actually handed to us each and every brand new day. The menu called Life.

Read more…