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Tuesday, July 27th, 2010In some regards, this blog has become a substitute journal for the one I sporadically keep at home. I don’t think I’ve managed a sentence there since early spring. When I peruse entries over the past few years, the annual input is shrinking dramatically.
Others have been much more successful at journaling. John Quincy Adams’ diary […]
Forgiveness
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010Forgiveness is one of those warm and fuzzy subjects with a thorny underside. Warm and fuzzy when we remember being forgiven or are hoping for forgiveness. Thorny when we have been hurt and are called to forgive. I recently caught a lesson on forgiveness from a surprising source.
On a recent father/daughter date with Lindsay to […]
Air Guns
Thursday, May 13th, 2010If you’ve ever owned a BB gun, you’ve probably heard some version of the infamous warning, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”
My first BB gun, a lever-action Daisy, came into my possession for Christmas in 1971. For several days I plinked at cans and other random targets on our West African mission compound. Then I aimed […]
Home Turf Advantage
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010The other night I watched a pseudo documentary that tried to determine the victor if an Apache warrior ever met up with a Roman gladiator. Talk about random. The hour offered insights into Apache and Roman fighting tactics and the key weapons used by each combatant. When the collected data was fed through some computer […]
The Healing Power of Laughter
Monday, March 8th, 2010Bill Mauldin, the iconic World War II cartoonist, is being honored with a U.S. postage stamp. I think that’s great news. So does CNN contributor Bob Greene. You can read about the stamp and Greene’s tribute to Mauldin here.
Mauldin shares the stamp with his two best-known creations, Willie and Joe. Mauldin used the bearded, bag-eyed infantrymen […]
What’s In a Date?
Monday, December 7th, 2009Today many have been thinking back to the events at Pearl Harbor in 1941. President Roosevelt summed up our nation’s horror over the resulting loss of life from Japan’s surprise attack when he called Dec. 7, 1941, “a date […]
The Greatest Generation
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Tom Brokaw’s 1998 best-seller, The Greatest Generation, looked back to the generation of Americans who came through World War II victoriously. The past few weeks I’ve been reading E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (1980, Presidio Press), a first-person narrative of two WWII […]
‘ABC,’ Kung Fu, Charlie’s Angels and The Tonight Show
Friday, June 26th, 2009Obits hit the headlines constantly, some making a bigger splash than others. But the recent loss of David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson feel linked, and their combined weight transcends whatever individual ripples they create in the international media pool.
It’s almost as if 1970s television has died too. Jackson’s shrill rendition of […]
The Few
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009In the weeks leading up to Memorial Day, I’ve been reading The Few by Alex Kershaw. Kershaw charts the Battle of Britain, the epic air war between Britain and Germany during World War II, from a perspective I had never before considered — that of the American pilots who joined the cause and flew for […]
Coins
Friday, April 17th, 2009Austin went with his second-grade class to a Springfield Cardinals game this week, and the kids each picked up this season’s commemorative team coin. Austin’s been toting his around the house in its protective plastic sleeve, occasionally taking it out and buffing it with a “microfiber” cloth his sister gave him, an extra one of […]
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