I am reading a book entitled After the Flag Has Been Folded: : A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost to War–and the Mother Who Held Her Family Together, by Karen Zacharias. Ms. Zacharias is an outstanding writer. As a reader, you feel like you are there with her when she receives the news at age 9 that her father was killed in Vietnam. His untimely death of course is the defining moment in her life. In the book, she…
When it hurts to look back, and you’re scared to look ahead, you can look beside you, and your best friend will be there.—Unknown Viktor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, appropriately points out that no one has the capacity to take away our hope. He reached that conclusion after surviving a Nazi concentration camp during WWII. He experienced firsthand the loss of everything anyone would consider precious. As he looked back at that horrific time, he realized…
Winning markets really well. When I walked into Academy Sports yesterday, I was immediately greeted by special displays of shirts and caps with the Texas Rangers’ logo. I am just like most Texans. I am thrilled that the Rangers are going places they have never been before in their history as a professional baseball franchise. I also found it very interesting that apparel adorned with the Dallas Cowboys logo was noticeably missing from the front of the same store. And…
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana I saw this quote this morning applied to the Dallas Cowboys. In their game against the Vikings yesterday, two of their veteran players blatantly ignored a penalty that contributed to their recent loss to the Titans. I can see where players could get penalized for holding. Blocking effectively is not as easy as it looks on television. But these guys purposely orchestrated some kind of leap…
Today I experienced one of life’s not so subtle reminders that life marches on whether I am ready or not. When Randall was 5 years old and Daniel was 2 years old, we had a very responsible 16 year old baby-sit for us. The boys loved having a male babysitter. And then life marched on. That 16 year old babysitter recently turned 30. The pace picked up some momentum when Daniel left for college and Randall took the entrance examination…
As the world watched, the last trapped miner was rescued in Chile today. I have friends who watched some of it, as it happened. I have at least one friend that watched the entire dramatic rescue! I was swamped at work today, but I did see miner #24 come out of the rescue capsule and be united with his wife. To say that it was moving is the understatement of the year. An insightful 21 year old shared this…
Jeff Hart was living a relatively obscure life a few weeks ago. The 40 year old contractor from Denver was drilling water wells for U.S. Army bases in Afghanistan 35 days ago. But then he received a call from the country of Chile. Since that fateful call, he has spent 33 days on his feet drilling a hole that will ultimately provide a way out for 33 trapped miners. He told the media this weekend that he thought his heart…
Tonight several friends from Monterey High School are meeting in Dallas to celebrate the conclusion of treatments for cancer on behalf of one of our classmates. We are a part of the class of 1980. (We were the first class in MHS history to graduate a group of child prodigies, who were only 5 years year old as seniors.) That makes us about 35 years old? Yes, that sounds great. That could be stretching the truth just a bit, but…
About a year ago I participated in a work day at our church building. Our assigned task that Saturday morning was to knock down some interior walls in order to make preparations for a complete remodel of our teen center. What I found is that church walls are solid. They were not constructed with the intent of ever being torn out. I found slinging the sledge hammer to be almost as exhilarating as shooting weapons out at the firing range…
I took my lawnmower and the gas weed eater to the repair shop on the same day. I decided to carry the sick weed eater in first and then bring in the disabled lawn mower. Before I could even set it down near the service counter the man at the shop told me in no uncertain terms that they don’t work on “that brand” of weed eater. And why is that, I inquired? I was told that they were built…