Just One Mans Opinion

CHRISTMAS AT THE FIVE AND DIME

2025-12-22T12:22:00.029-06:00

CHRISTMAS AT THE FIVE AND DIME

By Sheila King

This Christmas is looking pretty thin, what with my broken hand and arm healing and Tom's knees reminding him of the upcoming surgery he needs with each step. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to dress myself with only one hand. On my one Christmas shopping outing, even Walmart seemed to be holding back on the seasonal Christmas decoration.

Western Washington is experiencing widespread flooding this year and the mood is less than festive here. In stubborn defiance, I've gone back in time to relive a favorite memory from a Christmas long ago.

I was nine years old in 1963 and no longer believed in Santa Claus. Two weeks before Christmas, Daddy gave my Mama $50 for her purse. That would be the Christmas budget. My Mother couldn't drive so usually my Dad did all the shopping. This was a rare excursion for her.

Because I had abandoned my belief in Santa, I was invited to go along with her on the shopping trip. She donned her winter coat and head scarf, took an excited little girl by the hand, and the pair of us trekked the long street to the corner bus stop. We stepped off the city bus in downtown Monroe into a damp, cold Louisiana December morning.

For a couple of hours, we darted in and out of the brightly decorated shops and stores. Mama was looking for potential gifts for my little brother, sister, and other family members. She would pick up items, look at the price tags, consider her meager budget, and either put them in the cart or place them back on the shelf.

She turned to me and asked me what I wanted. I chose a doll. I wanted that year's highly advertised Thumbelina, a realistic baby doll that moved and cried. My mother picked up the doll, looked at the price tag, then reluctantly set the doll of my dreams back in it's place in the display.

She didn't have to say anything. Even at my age, I knew it wasn't meant to be and quickly selected another, less expensive doll; one that neither cried or moved. Thumbelina would have to wait until another year.

Around lunchtime, her money nearly spent, she said to me, "Let's go have lunch." I was surprised. This would be the first time I can remember eating a meal someone in my family had not prepared. Mama steered us into the Woolworth Five and Dime. As we stepped through the door, warm air struck me in the face. The aroma of fresh-popped popcorn greeted our nostrils and strains of Christmas music filled our ears. Mama knew just where to go and soon I found myself sitting on one of the tall stools at the lunch counter.

Mama didn't need a menu. She knew just what to order. A kind lady appeared and asked what we would like to have. Mama smiled at the waitress and without hesitation ordered two bowls of chili and two cold Coca Colas. It wasn't long before she returned with steaming bowls of chili topped with onions and grated cheese. We each had two packets of saltine crackers and two glasses of Coke over crushed ice.

What a meal that was! What an adventure! This became one of my best Christmas memories. Every Christmas to this day, I get a yen for a steaming bowl of chili and a cold glass of Coca Cola. That year, our trip to the Five and Dime lunch counter was my favorite Christmas present - just me and Mama, two bowls of chili and two glasses of Coke. For me, that will always be a cherished Christmas tradition.

The Five and Dime is gone now and so is my little Mama, but the memory of that Christmas lingers in my mind and heart. This Christmas, in spite of everything, I count my blessings and they are many. I remember what Jesus said to his disciples as he was leaving this Earth. "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will surely come again to receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also." The baby, born in Bethlehem, unlike the coveted Thumbelina doll, is real. His promises are real. His gifts too are real, and His budget is not meager.

So, if you are having a hard candy Christmas this year, take heart. Someday soon, we will meet on that other shore, and oh my,what joy will fill our hearts.

See you at the heavenly lunch counter. Merry Christmas everyone.

Sheila

The Myth of Rotisserie Sinners

2025-12-13T01:49:00.001-06:00

Eternal hell and immortal sinner's torment is a false belief

God is Not a Torturer

Since Rome handed over power to the papacy, people have believed three great lies that have undermined the lives of Christians and attempted to frighten parishioners into the pews (along with their purses). These lies along with a flock of church “traditions” made up whole cloth by the church in order to keep church members under control through fear, cover three basic beliefs that are not supported by the Bible. They are:

Thou shalt not surely die. This was Satan’s first lie to Eve. That lie is still believed despite the witness of Scripture through the millenia. Tradition says the soul is immortal and therefore when we wicked folk are pitched into the lake of fire, we chicken fry for all eternity with full consciousness of the pain without it ever lightening up for all eternity. It’s no wonder so many people don’t buy the idea that God is a god of love. Eternal torment is not the act of a loving deity. Hitler wasn’t even that cruel. Jesus himself said “Don't be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) The most memorized text in Christiandom is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life," In plain words this familiar text says that only whoever believes in him will have eternal life. When we die we basically sleep and “know not anything” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). We do not wake again until Christ’s second coming. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” (I Corinthians 15: 51-52) Turns out Colonel Jesus doesn't chicken fry sinners forever.
Thou shalt go to church on Sunday. Roman emperor Constantine said he had a dream that putting a cross on the shields of his troops would insure victory against his enemies. So he marched the troops through a nearby river to baptize them all and make them Christians. He legalized Christianity, recognized the pope as an authority, and to make it comfortable for the remaining pagans, declared the Sabbath to now be on “the venerable day of the sun.” In doing this Constantine ignored both the 4^th commandment to “Remember the Sabbath Day” and the command that the day should be the7^th one. Over the ages, Sunday-keeping has come to include football games, yard work and overtime, denying Christians the blessings of a Sabbath rest (shortening life spans according to recent studies of longevity comparing 7^th day Sabbath-keepers to mainstream folk.
Thou shalt be saved by your works. In the midst of Rome’s attempts to make pagans feel more comfortable with joining the Roman church, the papacy proclaimed (without Biblical support) that priests could forgive sins, sell indulgences, and perform magic (see “transubstantiation as part of the Eucharist). This doctrine does away with salvation by faith as the way to heaven and leaves you to slide your rosary beads and perform acts of penance and contrition under the authority of a priest whom they claim can forgive your sins or get you banned from heaven if you upset the church. We are saved in a direct relationship with Christ. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2: 8-9) God forgives us directly. No priest, bishop or pope is the gatekeeper of salvation between us and Him.

When you discover the truth according to the Bible, God comes off as merciful and loving. If you reject God, you die and your life and pain is done. You sleep for eternity. God gives no man power to control whether or not we are saved and given eternal life. God even promises to change you and wash away the uglier parts of your soul – the sort of things you wish you didn’t have to fight because on your own, you’re fighting a losing battle.

It’s an encouraging sign that here at the end of time, the ideas of the sanctity of the seventh-day Sabbath, salvation by grace, and the true state of the dead have begun to challenge toxic Christian traditions openly and it’s not just coming from one denomination. The last movements before Christ comes in the clouds and every eye shall see Him look to be rapid ones. That makes sense for these reasons:

More people are alive now than have died in all of history. God we are told is a jealous God not willing that any should perish.
Communication and transportation technology have made it possible to preach the Gospel in every part of the Earth.
Another spurious doctrine is being challenged – the Jesuit idea of a secret rapture which was infiltrated into Protestant denominations in the 1800s in order to get Protestant reformers to stop saying the pope was the Beast/antichrist.

Lately, I’ve been watching what the preachers of my youth said was coming being played out on the six o’clock news. There are a lot of end-time things covered in Scripture that are happening in real time these days. I would recommend that all of us who love the Lord start setting out some extra prayer time.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

© 2025 by Tom King

Beware the Frumnious Money Snatch - Frauds on Facebook

2025-01-13T01:22:00.004-06:00

Beware of a product called Gluco-Revive, hawked by a doubtful doctor with an Australian accent. She claims she's going to show you a 17 day cure for diabetes using just the things in your refrigerator. Red flags went up immediately. It had all the earmarks of an online con. I decided I'd check it out and if it was what I thought it was I would do a blog exposing it for what it is. As I went through the presentation, The classic signs popped up.

A doctor, often with a foreign accent begins a sincere-sounding appeal. She's sacrificing herself to help people and the medical establishment and big pharma are out to get him or her.
The doc claims you should hurry before big pharma shuts them down. They don't know how long this miraculous cure will be available at this special price. The video may be taken down at any moment.
After a brief pitch you are directed to a video that will "change your life."
The doc claims it's a free treatment using things in your fridge.
Pretty quickly you see it's going to cost you something green that's not in your fridge. It turns out to be some proprietary bled of herbs nobody has ever tried before but works miracles.
The video is long and repetitive and keeps baiting you with "in just a few minutes I'll tell you everything."
The video wades through accusations against the medical system and big pharma and mentions the names of some companies like Walgreen's and Pfizer.
The video claims that specific medications are designed to keep you sick and dependent on it.
When you finally get to the bit where you find out a bottle is NOT $29.99, but $39.99, and a total of $59.85 with shipping.
Watch out for the small print when they put up a second product to clean your gut or something like that. The "I don't want this" link is in small print and if you miss it you get two bottles of gut cleaner for $99 each. In the end you're out $259.85.
When you call to cancel the order, they keep offering you cheaper versions of the order you accidentally made and if you demand a refund they tell you it will take 7-10 days to get your money back.
The bank can't block the transaction if it was by debit card until the preauthorization is cleared, then the bank has to file a claim to get your money back and that can take another 7-10 days.

So the company keeps your money for almost 3 weeks. If they scam enough customers, they draw considerable interest on all that the money for 20 days from each customers. And so long as they can keep a well made ad, they can keep a steady stream of cash milked from customers they have conned passing through their bank account.

It's a dirty rotten practice. I once took a course in writing video scripts for marketing pieces like this. I did a couple of such scripts and gave it up. I researched the products in question and wrote truthful dialogue as best as I could. The client kept correcting me and asking me to put in manipulative text that included false claims, manipulative dialogue and fear-mongering. I found that I just couldn't do it.

And knowing what I know, these subtle frauds managed to deceive me. They stole money from me in exchange for something for all I know is some cheap herbal snake oil cure. I mean the stuff might work really well to stabilize your blood sugar, but I can't get past their business practices. I'd hoped to test the stuff, but not for $59.85 plus 199.85 for something I didn't even want because they hid the I don't want it button.

And Facebook made money off the whole thing. And what's really galling. Mark Zuckerberg has the nerve to get all sanctimonious about community standards.

© 2025 by Tom King

How a Burger Place Wins Friends and Influences People

2024-12-23T19:05:00.001-06:00

Out and About Burgers Ain't Ashamed of the Meaning of Christmas

Okay before you go off on Christmas being all pagan and inappropriate for Christmas, just know I'm not having it. I figure if Christians want to celebrate Christ's birth without being commanded to in the Bible, that God might be pleased with this sort of feeble attempts to show Him our love for His great gift. It's a lot like how our little ones hoist their crayons and scratch out impressionistic artwork to show us. We parents and grandparents don't expect the art world to celebrate their pictures as masterpieces, but they're masterpieces to us and we proudly display these works of youthful art on our refrigerator art galleries.

That said, Sheila's chiropractor recommended a certain over-the-counter "medication" for pain for Sheila's chronic pain. Having found that it works, I take periodic trips downtown to the shop to pick up another box of gummies for my Sweet Baboo.

Well, in a bit of inspired location selection for their new expansion Out and About Burgers shop, they put up a drive up shop right next door to the dispensary. I know! Can you say "munchies". They even have a walk-up window for their small burger place which is mostly parking lot and driveway. The little restaurant is the joint venture of some college business students from nearby Pierce Jr. College. They started years atio out in a trailer in the parking lot of a truck rental place on South Meridian Street. They hired fellow college students and soon there were lines of cars circled around the joint. The burgers, fries and onion rings were really really good and soon they had built a loyal customer base.

I went by the shop/dispensary for my wife's pain medication. On a whim, I dropped by Out and About's new location next door and picked up a couple of burgers. A young man with a clipboard met me in the parking lot and showed me to the walkup window. When they opened the window a few minutes after my order was placed they handed me my bag of burger goodness and I handed the guy a tip for the tip jar. When I turned around, the parking lot guy was there with a small plastic bag he was giving out to customers.

In the bag was a card and a lovely knitted candy cane ornament for our Christmas tree. On one side of the card was the familiar "Legend of the Candy Cane" explaining the meaning of the symbols incorporated into the candy cane. On the other side, however was something totally unexpected for a business up here in the land of Happy Holidays, Kwantas and Winter Solstice dances in the woods out by the local volcano. It was a handwritten message of the sort people used to write 50 years ago. It said:

Greatest gift of love, Jesus-filled with joy,
peace, hope, mercy and grace.

Will you receive such a gift?

Merry Christmas!

Out and About
Burgers

These guy just earned my loyalty, especially since their food is so good. In an age where submitting to the herd in matters of faith (or rejection thereof) and politics is considered a virtue and wise business practice, it's refreshing to see honest people of faith who aren't afraid to be who they are. It was refreshingly honest and open to receive that Christmas ornament and declaration of faith with my cheeseburger. It tells me a lot about the trustworthiness of Puyallup's own independent excellentpurveyor of burgers.

WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING IN AND OUT BURGERS HERE!
WE GROW OUR OWN!
I THINK THE ECLECTIC ASSORTMENT OF TEXANS WHO HAVE
RETIRED FROM THE ARMY AND AIR FORCE UP HERE HAVE BEEN
AN INFLUENCE FOR GOOD ON THE LOCAL HIPPIES.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND AN OUTSTANDING NEW YEAR

John Skelton, The Original Rapper and Cultural Appropriation

2024-12-22T03:23:00.005-06:00

A poetic form called Skeltonic Verse was invented by English honky poet John Skelton (1460-1529). You'd probably recognize this verse form. You've certainly heard it on the radio. John Skelton was a colorful character. He was teacher of Prince Henry, later King Henry the VIII (the original party king). Leading the way for modern rappers, Skelton did a stretch in the big house when prisons weren't the fun places they are now. He also was banned by the Church as a "corrupter of youth". Appropriate, given Skelton was the original rapper.

Like rap music, Skeltonic verse has two stresses per line and any number of unstressed syllables. Every line is rhymed with the line before it – unless the poet decides to change the rhymed last word. So sometimes you’ll get 2 lines that rhyme with each other and then two more with a different rhyme. The rhymes could be repeated three or four or ten times – however many times the poet decides he wants to repeat the rhyme. The rhyme pretty much goes on till the rhyme runs out of “energy”.

Given that Skeltonic verse was invented in the 15th century in England, I think it’s fair to say that the rap rhyme scheme was appropriated from medieval Anglo-Saxon culture – at any rate, we had it first. In exchange for my foregoing corn rows, I demand that those folk loudly protesting "cultural appropriation" forego appropriating our historic honky rhyme schemes.

As John Skelton would say, "If you play it loose, what's sauce for the goose......

* On the other hand if you don't mind me borrowing from your culture, you guys go right ahead and appropriate. Meanwhile, I'm gonna have me some Tex-Mex, maybe some Italian, or Chinese for supper being careful not to get it on my Hawaiian shirt. Perhaps I'll play my banjo, bagpipes, bodhran or digeridoo. If you don't like it come on. I know enough karate and some akido to defend myself.

Me? I think this wide world has some really cool stuff in it, if you aren't afraid to appropriate some things you admire wherever they came from.

© by Tom King

Done Stopped Preachin'

2024-10-22T15:43:00.003-05:00

      A Louisiana grandmother sat in the aisle seat located on the right side halfway between the front and back rows of her small Baptist church. That morning the preacher was cranked up about venal personal sins.
     "All of you that are drinking beer are in danger of hellfire!" he roared.
     "Amen!" Grandma shouted back, glancing over at Grandpa.
     "And all of you who are drinking that moonshine whiskey that Tolley O'Flaherty sells out of the still behind his barn are preparing your souls for eternal damnation!" he shouted. Scattered hands went up across the congregation.
     Grandma turned a sharp look at Grandpa and in a level voice fraught with meaning responded with a ladylike growl. "Amen brother. Preach it!"
     "And all of you brothers wasting your money smoking cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco have fallen into Satan's trap!" the pastor soldiered on down his list of condemnations of sin. A goodly assortment of female hands went up.
     "AMEN!" shouted Grandma tottering to her feet and shaking her fist. "You tell 'em, Reverend!" she croaked.
     Finally the preacher fixed a stern eye upon the rest of the huddled parishioners. "And don't you dare let the Lord catch you dipping snuff!" A gasp ran through the crowd.
     Grandma sat down abruptly, apparently stunned. She looked around at her friends and neighbors, about half of them nodding in agreement and the other half frowning along with the whiskey drinkers and cigar smokers.
     "Hmmph," Grandma shook her head disapprovingly and turned to Grandpa, "Preacher's done stopped preaching and done started meddlin'.

Loyde "Snake" Arender: Warrior Poet

2024-07-27T03:42:00.006-05:00

Read this again today. Sheila was with him during his final illness providing care. His wife is her cousin. Sheila learned a lot about Loyde and I put together this compilation of this brave Marine's poetry and stories about him for his memorial. I posted it online as a PDF file and from 5 to 7 people a week drop by to read it. Loyde should have got the Medal of Honor, but the Lieutenant who wrote the commendation and recommendation was killed a day or two later.

There are some dates and things in the news articles and tributes to Loyde by men who knew and respected him. At some point I'd like to publish this. I'll correct the couple of errors made by friends of his.

Here's a link to his very excellent poetry - a tribute I put together for Loyde and to all the men who served in Vietnam.

© 2016 By Tom King and Loyde "Snake" Arender

God Still Watches Out For Us

2024-05-19T10:56:00.004-05:00

When God's children face trials and the petty harassments of the Prince of this world, he looks on approvingly. He absolutely hates God's children. CS Lewis captured that in Screwtape Letters where he showed the devils hatred for any bit of pleasure or comfort we draw from life - be it a good meal or a hot shower.

Today I witnessed just this sort of petty demonic harassment as the devil threw everything but the kitchen sink at us in an attempt to ruin a lovely and special opportunity we had to experience a once in a lifetime joy. It is our 50th wedding anniversary and my daughter and son-in-law paid for a cruise to Alaska with them and they are bringing the grandson along to play with Grammy and Poppy. We are so looking forward to the trip. The last days before the trip, however, the demons attacked us to try and destroy even this happiness for us.

We leave tomorrow, on Monday. A week ago I contacted my HMO about getting Sheila's most critical medication sent early so she wouldn't run out during the week. The pharmacy said they'd handle it. Having that med is serious. To run out of that medicine in the middle of the trip would have resulted in panic attacks, seizures, and possible hospitalization at sea. We leave on the 20th, but her schedule 4 medication would not be released until the 23rd. The doctor has to approve early release. She was going to run out and she can't do that. I checked to make sure the medication had been shipped Friday afternoon and to my shock, it had not even been approved. Someone in the system dropped the ball and failed to forward the request to release her meds early in time for the trip.

The next morning I got on the phone to find out what happened and to try and get her medicine released. That's when I began to hit brick wall after brick wall. The upshot was that the consulting nurse said it couldn't be done. So did the customer service lady, the chat utility person and the nurse at the one clinic that was actually open on the weekend. They told me we couldn't even get help at the emergency room because of this new federal law restricting schedule 4 meds. I finally arranged a video chat with the HMO's on duty emergency tele-medicine doctor and after explaining the situation he put me on hold and when he came back sometime later, he told me that the med had been approved and was being filled, but that the note requesting "early release for travel" had inexplicably been left off. He talked to the pharmacy for us but couldn't prescribe that med himself because of a new federal law that makes schedule 4 meds much harder to prescribe and get delivered. Dr. D. finally said we could go pick it up, but we'd have to go to the Tacoma HMO pharmacy nearly 30 miles away. He was right about that. He was wrong about us being able to "pick it up."

The 30 miles presented another problem as we no longer have a car, are on a very fixed income, are both disabled and public transportation to a whole other city is really problematic on weekends. It takes 3 days just to get a paratransit bus to the bus stop. And her psychiatrist's office is closed on the weekend and apparently they don't have on-call docs in an emergency for psychiatrists.

I'm going a bit off my story here. It seems the feds are okay with legalizing marijuana, opening borders for the drug mules, and even allowing some pharmacies to carry over-the-counter morphine. But my wife's prescribed by a doctor anti-anxiety medication requires practically an act of congress to get a few days early so we can celebrate our 50th anniversary. (end of rant)

Our neighbor, Dan, a wonderful human being, when I asked if he could drive us down to the bus stop, immediately left his supper and said he was going to take us all the way to the Tacoma clinic. God bless that man for his kindness. When we got to the clinic, we hit road blocks again and again. The pharmacy wouldn't release the medication to us. so we had to go to the urgent care clinic there and wait an hour or so to see a doctor. All the nurses and receptionists at the urgent care told us they weren't going to be able to release her meds. One even chided us for not planning our trip properly.

What she meant by planning our trip better was to go through all 15 medications and determine when each ran out and then plan our cruise for the window in the dates when nothing was going to run out. There was no sense from these unpleasant women that the HMO should adapt to our schedule and maybe give us the extra we needed to last the length of the cruise. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the cruise lines' sailing dates are planned more than a year ahead and that the ships are highly unlikely to move around their embarkation dates based on 6000 passengers' medication refill schedules. I'm afraid I lost my temper a bit and threatened to sue somebody.

I went back to the exam room and found poor Sheila prepared to just stay home and send me on the cruise without her. It seemed pretty hopeless. So we did what we always do when things seem hopeless. We prayed and asked God to help us, for without God's intervention, it looked very much like Sheila wasn't going to be able to go on our 50th anniversary cruise. Her most critical medication would run out 2 days into the trip and our HMO was adamantly denying our request to get the refills before we leave Monday. Without that med her life would be placed at risk on a boat out at sea. It looked very like she was going to have to stay behind while our family went on our 50th anniversary cruise without her and I wasn't going without her so everyone on the cruise would be celebrating our anniversary without us. I wasn't going to let that happen, so I kept fighting to get her meds, taking on every naysayer who popped up to tell us it wasn't going to happen.

After we prayed in the urgent care examination room, a young doctor came in a short time later. Although every HMO staff member had told us no way were we getting her medicine, the doc took pity on us. Turns out he kind of stuck his neck out to get her meds covered for the trip. If her psychiatrist didn't back his play, he could have been in real trouble for what he did. He ordered enough of her meds to get us through the trip and home. It took some doing, but this kind man got it done. God bless him.

What Satan means for evil, God works out for good. The devil works in broad strokes to corrupt our culture, our political system and our religions, but as time grows shorter, he grows desperate and is reduced to turning the forces evil loose in ever more petty attempts to harass good people. Petty demons try hard to spoil any good and worthy thing; every bit of joy we may have if they can.

So, we had a little miracle yesterday. Today we're packing for the boat. Tomorrow we leave at 7 am for the Royal Caribbean Cruise Terminal, an hour away in Seattle. We've never been on a cruise before. We've never been to Alaska or Canada. We've never seen the northern lights, glaciers, whales or brown bears. And we get to travel all that way in comfort, even though our knees and hips are wrecked, our mobility is limited, and we live on a fixed income. Our children are good to us, our neighbors are good to us and God especially is good to us. I've got a great pair of binoculars and my grandson and I are looking forward to watching whales from the balcony of our cabin and Sheila and I to spending time with our kids who live 3000 miles away. Sabbath we will spend at sea in the midst of God's natural beauty. Even as the world winds down, our loving Savior is there for us to give us joy and encouragement amidst the storms of life.

God is so very good.

© 2024 by Tom King

Pro-Hamas Students Offered a Free Ride.............to Iran!

2024-05-03T15:56:00.001-05:00

I know. Let's try one of these protests in Teheran! They'll love it!

Iran's Shiraz University Iran has announced a scholarship program offering free tuition to American students kicked out as a result of their pro-Palestinian protests. Oh, mercy, I do hope the whole bunch of them take the deal. We should start a Gofundme to buy airline tickets to Teheran for all of them and encourage the to go try out Iranian education. What an experience that will be. Can't wait till....

1. The girls step out in bikinis and halter tops.
2. The girls go burkha free.
3. The guys try chatting up a female Iranian (probably won't be a student though - they don't like women attending college).
4. The women try speaking up in class, if they aren't banned from attending classes because they are female.
5. They try protesting because some LGBTQ folks were tossed headfirst off the science building.
6. They try to rock that purple hair, navel piercings and tatoos of naked people, serpents and skulls smoking cigarettes in public.
7. They complain about a "unfair" pronouncement by the Ayatollah.
8. They pitch their tents on the quad for a quick fun protest.
9. They show off that tramp stamp.

Well, given the cultural practices of this gang of hooligans, at least we won't have to worry about making it a round trip plane ticket!

Is Rejecting Religion for Spiritualism a Good Thing?

2024-04-27T22:34:00.002-05:00

The dictionary defines religion as a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. So what is your objection to a system of beliefs? Progressivism, Marxism, socialism, communism, and spiritualism are all "systems of beliefs." These are all faith-based systems. The only commonality between all these religions is that they have no God to trouble them or offer them guidance. They are all self-centered systems of belief, not God-centered. You get to make up your system of comfortable beliefs, principles and causes.

The ardor and faith of the God-free religions is obvious if you dare challenge their beliefs or (worse yet) defend your own beliefs. They work up all kinds of ardor and with total faith in whatever herd ascribes to their shared beliefs. Don't ask them to go to church, though. A nice peaceful riot or burning a federal building, however, is a wonderful spiritual solidarity building activity. Just don't call it a religion. That implies you might be expected to sit in a pew.

The demonization of "religion" is, in my humble opinion, a strategic tactic of the forces of the dark side. Basically it says forsake the assembling of yourselves together as Christian denominations do and go out and worship in "nature" or assemble yourselves together to "peacefully" protest organized religion because organized religion is a bad thing.

Bad for who?

No question that some members of the would-be leader class have claimed religious authority and abused it for their own purposes. The devil, always a good military strategist, never attacks from just one direction. Even today he attacks conservatives from below and liberals from above.

And by encouraging us to disparage each other and fight interminably he causes the sort of chaos that helps his guerilla campaign against God. He has to make God and God's followers the bad guys. He does this, I believe, by introducing this nebulous spiritualism in which we get to believe we can find our own truth from within ourselves. No objective truths. No firm principles and only one's own self-defined "truth". Be wary. Religions as systems of belief provide us with an external framework. It assumes original sin - that we aren't by nature really good people. Spiritualism assumes we are by nature, good from birth. Well, we aren't. Don't believe that? Try raising a two year-old. Hard to find a more stubborn self-centered creature in all creation. If they weren't so cute, many toddlers would never survive to become adults. Our jobs as parents are to civilize the wee barbarians. In the same manner, God's job is to prepare us for eternity. We need His guidance. We don't carry goodness within ourselves.

That all comes from God and even when we think it comes from our own naval gazing, we find we become better people only by adopting into our lives external principles like the 10 commandments and the principles we learned in Sabbath school. By beholding we become changed. We are saved by Grace, not by sitting on a pole contemplating our own goodness. It doesn't work.

Eliminating "religion" wholesale is a very bad idea. Even the rhetoric of those who would selectively eliminate religious ideas and getting rid of institutions that make me uncomfortable, encourages pride and a haughty spirit. Spiritualism isn't about rapping on walls in the Fox sisters' bedroom in upstate New York. It's about turning inward for truth and rejecting the outward search for God and the assembling of ourselves together for mutual support in becoming better people.

When I took counseling studies in graduate school, I learned that one of the best ways to change our behavior was through studying, positive self-talk and performing ritual acts which challenged our own negative behavior. It struck me how similar much of the behavioral change techniques advocated by psychology were strikingly similar to those practices and rituals in many Christian churches. Apparently, when Jesus set up the Christian church, He knew rather a lot about how the human brain works.

Seek Him and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart. Searching for some sort of ultimate truth within your "spirit" is a pathway to what Yoda in Star Wars called the "dark side".

Okay, by now my anti-religionist friends are locked and loaded. You may fire at will.......

© 2024 by Tom King

God''s Mercy to a Partially Tone Deaf Would-Be Musician

2024-04-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

I am not a natural musician. My wife, Sheila, has perfect pitch and in high school her band teacher offered to get her a college music scholarship for the oboe, a particularly difficult instrument to play. I envy her. Me? I can barely hold a tune in a fair-sized bucket, but it helped a lot when Bob LeBard, my Valley Grande Academy chorale director, stood me between Dave Dameron and Steve Urich, two strong basses. It took me two years to learn to hear notes well enough to tune my guitar by ear.

Before that I made use of a principle of physics/acoustics that allowed me to hold down the 5th fret of the sixth string and adjust the fifth string so that it vibrates when you strike the sixth string. Then I'd follow the pattern down to the first string. I could only get the guitar in the neighborhood of in tune. Dave would ask me, "Can't you hear that?" when I played my "tuned" guitar. I couldn't. I just handed him my guitar. Eventually, I got to where if I struck the fretted sixth and the open 5th string at the same time I could adjust the 5th string till the note didn't warble.

God gave me this guitar. When I was first starting out playing guitar I had bought a beautiful solid blonde Mexican guitar from Kim Holdridge for $6. The strings were broken and the nut was missing. I replaced the nut and bought new strings and found I had a most lovely sounding classical guitar. Sadly a couple of summers later someone knocked it off the counter in the camp store and broke the neck. The lovely folk I worked with at Lone Star Camp all chipped in and surprised me with a new Yamaha classical. It died a few years after that in an accident - broken neck again.

At the time, Mickey Thurber played a classical Goya guitar with the AYA team and I always wanted one. I've had two 12 string guitars. One died the same way as the little Mexican. My son lost the other one. I carried my instruments everywhere so it was kind of inevitable that wear and tear would have its toll. I lost 3 banjos one way and another over the years and I'm on my 4th and 5th. David Dameron who lived through a year of listening to me learn the guitar across the hall in the dorm at VGA. He gave me a banjo he had that needed repair. I bought some tools and repaired it not knowing what I was doing. I even straightened up the neck. Before that, I had built a Squared-Eel homemade longneck banjo from a kit my friend Mike Gregory sent me because he felt sorry that I'd lost my last banjo. I was getting good, because I extended the neck to make a longneck out of it. The head was a 2 liter pop bottle I tacked over the frame and shrunk with a hair dryer. Totally cool.

My best guitar (the one in the picture above) I found on eBay. It was a Swedish Goya like Mickey's, built in Gothenberg, Sweden before 1972. Some fool had tried to put steel strings on it and ripped off the bridge. I replaced the broken bridge by reading about bridge placement and my little Goya sings as beautifully as my old Mexican. God has been good about keeping me in good musical instruments and I've learned a lot about repairing and building instruments. I'm hoping to build a church dulcimer soon. It's rectangular rather than hourglass or oval shaped. I suspect it has a more low tone.

I've got the tools and I've got the web address of StewMac, a luthier supply place and a membership at Banjohangout.org where the guys love to give out advice if you get stuck. They turned out for me to be kindred spirits, which for banjo players is kind of like when your wife leaves you home alone without competent supervision.

The best part of my musical journey is that I learned you don't have to be a professional musician or be in a band if you're too lazy to practice. I never got very good, but if, like me, you play off and on for 45 years you can follow along with "Awesome God." You can just play well enough to be in the church song service band and Kumbaya for campfires. Learn some chords. Simplify the arrangements. Make yourself a notebook of all the songs you like and do like our ancestor did and sit out on the porch where you won't bother your wife with the perfect pitch. The dogs will howl along with you. It's so special.

Are Sharkicanes Next?

2023-09-10T22:53:00.001-05:00

A few years back, some cocaine fueled movie producers got together and bounced around some ideas for a movie. They thought, maybe comedy or horror or science fiction - something like that. Jaws made a lot of money and shark movies boiled off the franchise in doves. Someone else suggested a disaster movie. A lot of people love disaster movies. Then someone who obviously was one toke over the line, said, "Why not combine Jaws and Twister; call it say, "Tornado-sharks!"

"It doesn't have the ring of a good disaster film."

"What if we have a tornado pick up a whole bunch of sharks and drop them on people in Los Angeles? Call it Sharknado!"

"Brilliant!" shouted the third producer. And it was off to the races with sequels that struck LA again, Florida, and sent the hero, surfer and bar owner Fin Shepherd and his surfer chick girlfriend April all over the world. Wherever they go in the 5 sequels more sharknadoes would break out around them. The world is destroyed except for Fin who then time travels in the last installment, rescues a bunch of key people and saves the world.

Now, I don't want to upset anyone, but I watched a documentary about tornadoes a while back and I'm concerned. Apparently, if these two hurricanes cranking up in the Atlantic and Pacific cross paths, there could be water spouts that draw sharks up into the hurricanes and when these hurricanes make landfall sharks actually could be dumped all over what the movie producers called "The Feast Coast" from Florida to Texas. Now, this isn't the problem that I'm having exactly. I know that between gangs with stores of illegal guns in LA and Texans who are some of the most heavily armed Americans. So both places have adequate ammunition and sufficient stores of spices to handle the situation.

The problem in the states that will be struck would be working out the bag limits on flying sharks. I can't afford to get into any trouble with the game wardens. Can you even shoot flying sharks, when they exit the sharkicane or do you have to wait till they make land fall? Is there a tag I need to buy in the event of a 2020 sharkicane?

If anyone has any information about how to get flying shark hunting licenses, let me know. It will be very much appreciated.

How They Made The Canterville Ghost Better Than Oscar Wilde's Original

2023-08-13T20:06:00.001-05:00

Why I Like What Some Screenwriters Do to the Stories They Base Their Movies On.

Just finished watching the 1944 movie, The Canterville Ghost and then went back and refreshed my memory of the original Oscar Wilde story from which it was drawn. There have been other versions, but I like the '44 outing with Margaret O'Brien and Robert Montgomery. It is the kindest version of the lot.

First of all in the movie, Sir Simon is only guilty of cowardice. In the book he murdered his wife in cold blood along with 4 other people who died as a result of his prodigious haunting ability. He is an evil spirit and lies and manipulates the daughter of the American minister's family who have come to live in Canterville Chase while working for the American government. Sir Simon delights in pointing out the hypocrisy of the minister. This is not in any way a story to create good feelings between the British and Americans.

The '44 movie version, on the other hand, is set during WWII and the story is adjusted to promote good feelings between the Brits and their American cousins jammed into southern England preparatory to crossing the channel into France. In the story, a platoon of Army Rangers take up residence in the castle and are confronted by the ghost. The soldiers aren't intimidated by the ghost and drive into a corner in deep depression. Margaret O'Brien who is delightful as the Lady Jessica DeCanterville, meets her spectral ancestor and sets about to help him find a brave relative to help him end the curse.

The original story also has a female character, Virginia Otis, whom Sir Simon manipulates into helping him cross over to the other side. Given his track record, I suspect that bright light he goes into are the fires of hell, but that's just me. Wilde seemed to be saying that the unrepentant Simon managed to manipulate his way to heaven without having to repent of murdering his wife.

One of the American soldiers in the '44 movie, Cuffy Williams, played by Robert Montgomery, turns out to be a descendant of the Cantervilles and as such can do a heroic deed in Sir Simon's name and free his spirit to rest in the garden behind the pines. He overcomes his own fear, does the heroic deed proving that all Cantervilles are not cowards and frees Sir Simon's spirit from the curse his father had put upon him when he was walled up in the closet. This Simon did repent and was more of a hapless victim than the Oscar Wilde Simon.

I think the movie is way better than Oscar Wilde's cynical version. Wilde, a gay socialist and aesthetic, never wrote anything I cared for other than ones that screenwriters managed to give happy endings like Canterville. The poor man kept looking for God, but didn't seem terribly interested in obtaining forgiveness or changing his ways. Wishful thinking may explain why Sir Simon in his story manages to take advantage of a pure hearted girl and a letter of the law ritual. Wilde attempted to do much the same by doing a last minute Catholic conversion and last rites on his deathbed.

I like movies with happy endings. So sue me!

Tom King
© 2023

I Think Angels Took Pity on Me

2023-08-06T14:04:00.003-05:00


The scene of the action. I worked in the mop shop on the left side of the brown building. Doc Ward's shop was behind us less than a quarter mile. The station where I bought Mission Orange Grape Nehi and, of course, Dr. Pepper is the white building at the far left which often sold gas at 17¢ a gallon when he got into a price war with the station across the street where Mom bought baloney.*

My friend John worked at one of my hometown's ubiquitous broom shops. Doc Ward had a shop on College Drive where John, now a respectable dentist, worked. I worked just down the street making mops for EK Birdwell. Everybody pretty much had a job in Keene, Texas. At one point it was the per capita most heavily industrialized college town in America someone figured. It was mostly because we worked our way through high school and college to pay our tuition.

John had warned me before I went to work at the mop shop to watch out for the pranks they liked to play on new guys. So, my second day at Birdwell's, the guys tried to send me down to Doc Ward's to borrow back our "handle stretcher." There was a whole, unnecessarily detailed story about mop handles that had been cut too short that went with the request. We worked strictly on piece time so a trip down to Doc's would not earn me a nickel and back then, I could get a bottle of Grape Nehi for a nickel. My thrifty soul, smelled a rat.

So, I asked the if they wanted #2 or #4 stretching oil to go with it and by their smirks I knew I'd dodged one of those get-the-new-guy pranks. Later they tried to send me to the broom shop for a yarn stretcher. I used the time to step over to the gas station next door for a 16 oz. Mission Orange. When I got back, I told Rocky who was on his third attempt to "get me" that the broom shop guys had put it under his mop machine. Rocky actually looked under the machine for a second before he caught himself.

For some reason I managed to avoid pranks. I think my guardian angel looked out for me. Tommy Lewis attempted to rig my mop taping and trimming station so that when you pulled the handle release it dumped a big box of mop yarn clippings on your head. Unfortunately (for him) I was over on the mop making machine learning how to make mops that day and EK came in to get a mop sample to put on one of the trucks. He wanted to make sure the sample was perfect and I don't think he trusted any of us to do it right.

Anyway, E.K. shoved the mop's handle up into the catch above him, taped and trimmed the mop and then gave the release rope a big jerk. A cascade of white mop fuzz rained down on his head. He did not look happy. I managed to look duly shocked and thus avoided retribution. I was laughing so hard inside, however, I think I was internally hemorrhaging. Tommy on the other hand looked like a cat trying to pretend it hadn't just eaten the canary while having yellow feathers sticking out of his whiskers.

While working at summer camp, I had two pranksters go after me. I suppose I looked a likely target. My soon-to-be buddy, the young not-yet-a-doctor Allen tried putting jalapenos and bay leaves in my pancakes, but the kitchen staff, whose aid in the prank he'd enlisted, switched the poisoned pancakes and stuck some extra bay leaves in the ones they gave him. There's no taste quite like onion jalapeno chili powder bay leaf pancakes with butter and syrup. Jack ran choking and gagging across the dining area to the water fountain. It took him 3 days to get rid of the taste. He even apologized to me afterward for even thinking of such a thing.

Another prankster dumped water on one of the kitchen girls after he failed to pull off the old glass balanced on a nail gag on me. He picked the wrong victim. The next day the cook called him aside while one of the girls swapped his glass of red Kool-Aid for a glass of onion juice with red food coloring and ice in it. Tim took a big swig of it while the campers were singing the prayer song. The camp director fixed him with an icy stare when he started coughing and sputtering and he had to wait till the song was over before staggering to the water fountain to spend an unpleasant half hour trying and clear his palate.

I learned from all this that you never prank your boss, the kitchen staff, the bookkeeping staff or the innocent. Angels are watching and the word "karma" is probably derived from observation of the likely gleeful angelic works of retribution perpetrated upon naughty persons.

© 2023 by Tom King

*The photo above was taken from the parking lot of Ada's Cafe across the street from the mop shop, where I would on rare occasions buy myself breakfast or lunch of a warm Sunday morning, taking a considerable chunk out of my pitiful wages for the week. But boy howdy, the woman could cook!

Shopping With My Sweetie - Lost in Walmart

2023-08-04T13:25:00.005-05:00

Lost in Walmart

Dear Meghan,

Since you'll be incommunicado all weekend and we could hardly hear each other on the phone, I thought I'd tell you this story before I forget it. We went shopping yesterday. It was social security check day for everybody, so Walmart was packed. We got lucky and I got a mobility cart for Mom. We'd already walked to the Ross store and then to Panda Express and then over to Walmart so she was fading fast. We put our folding camp chairs in the basket.

Walmart has taken away the outside benches during CoVid and never put them back, so we take our own chairs to wait for the return bus. We also loaded the bag from Ross, and Mom's purse in there. This info is important to the story. Mom took off in the electric cart and I waited around to see if anyone dropped off another cart on their way out. My knees have had it so when I can get off them it helps. My left knee has a big dent in it where the cartilage has worn away and left it bone on bone. I now understand why Grandpa used to walk the way he did. I walk like that now. Anyway nobody gave up a cart, so I took off with the shopping basket full of stuff looking for your Mom.

The woman can disappear faster than a Navy SEAL in full camo in the middle of a jungle. I searched for her for quite a while, bought some clearance sale chrysanthemums and scanned the retail horizon before me. No sign of my Sweet Baboo. Then I got a bright idea. I'd call her phone and get her to tell me where she was. To my surprise and relief, when I called, I heard her the distinctive sound of her phone ringing somewhere up ahead of me.

So off I went trying to find the source of the sound. She wasn't answering her phone so I figured I'd follow the ringing. I have her set up with an old-fashioned telephone ring so it's quite loud and easily to identify. Still, I couldn't quite track down the source of the ringing. It seemed to move here and there ahead of me. When the phone went to voice mail, I called again. The ringing sounded really close by so I took off again in pursuit. This time it sounded like she was in the cleaning supplies (not surprising), so I hurried on hoping to catch her. She still wasn't answering her phone. Again the phone went to voicemail and stopped ringing. I called again from the sour cream and yogurt section. This time it sounded like the ringing of her phone was coming from behind the back wall.

I circled back found those double swinging employee doors going back into the stock room. I opened it a little and it sounded like she was back there somewhere. So I turned my cart around and parked it by the door. I rang her phone again. This time the ringing had moved off, to the left again sounding like it was moving but now moving behind the back wall of the store. I hurried to follow, hoping she'd pop out somewhere. Finally, I came to the shoe section. "Aha!" I said, knowing she'd been looking at shoes earlier. I reached the end of the back aisle and turned left onto the sneakers aisle. Again the ring tone seemed move quickly cutting across my path coming out from behind the wall. moving behind the display shelves ahead and settled on a new course somewhere up ahead somewhere. By chance, as I accelerated to catch up with her, I glanced down into the basket and stopped.

My eye caught sight of a brown bag with MAMA written on it in big letters. A sudden awareness began to dawn on me. This was Sheila's handbag there in the front of my basket. And what would be in her handbag? Wallet, hand sanitizer, hairbrush, perfume, her medications, and..............................................................oh nuts! Her phone!

I'd been frantically following the sound of her phone ringing at me from the front of my shopping cart trying to keep up with a phantom wife. I'm getting too old to keep up with a shopping wife. So, I went to the Subway at the front of the store, bought a drink and sat down to wait. Sure enough, in about twenty minutes, I heard my name being paged to come to the fitting room to meet my wife. I stumbled back across the store to find my sweetie perusing the clearance rack. We managed to escape Walmart once we joined forces and got out for just under $200. She says she's going to quit going shopping because she spends too much money. I'm not helping much. She shops by picking up things, trundling around for a while and then putting it back on the shelf because she thinks she's spending too much.

Earlier she'd put back some shoes and some lavender hand lotion. Coming along behind her, I picked up the discarded items and carried them along with me on the side where she couldn't see them to the checkout stand. While the cashier was ringing up her stuff, I slipped the shoes and lavender lotion onto the counter while she was looking for something in her purse. I can't stand for her to not get what she wants. Us guys are like that. Our wives put up with so much from us, we jump at any opportunity to spoil them just a bit. We guys have no idea how to get in her head and just know what she needs or wants. So, if we see that she wants something, we jump on it. Notice that women and men express love in different ways. Women read your mind and do things for their men before they ask. It is their highest form of love. Sheila buys stuff for me that I didn't know I needed.

Men on the other hand, express love by deed - I'll climb the highest mountain, fight tigers, cross blazing deserts and raging rivers. Our expressions of love are things we can do that we know how to do. We're lousy at guessing what women want. We don't read minds. Tell us and we're on the job. It's the nature of men and women. Men do goal directed stuff. Women build nests and social circles. Men are outwardly focused against the threats from the world against their wives and families. Women are inwardly focused, trying to make everyone in the circle, if not, happy, at least safe, alive and breathing. So guys like me follow our wives' handbags around Walmart, rescuing shopping discards and trying to figure out how to make them feel special. I'm going to go ice down my knees now. She's taking a nap. All is well in our little world.

(c) 2024 by Tom King

Taking a Stand Against Spiritual Bullies

2023-07-15T02:19:00.001-05:00

I grew up having to deal with bullies. I was a skinny kid with horn-rimmed glasses (usually taped) and made good grades. I might as well have worn a target on my chest. My small 10 grade public school got all the kids that were kicked out of the larger church school. The teachers used to put all the honor roll kids on the front rows as a kind of human shield against the barbarians in the back. My Mom must have worried that I had hemophilia I came home with blood on me so often.

From that experience, however, I learned to be mule-headed and somewhat indifferent to pain. I still have a knot on my forehead where a kid pushed me face-first into a concrete wall. I think he cracked my skull. In those days you didn't have CAT scans for that sort of thing and doctors were very expensive. You learned to be resilient and you get very tired of knuckling under to bullies. You also learn all sorts of subversive ways to resist them.

As an adult you expect that you won't have to put up with that sort of thing. Sadly, bullying takes on a different form among grownups, but bullies still exist. Spiritual bullying is the most pernicious form of bullying I think. It happens in religion, politics and culture one way and another. Resisting these people can be every bit as difficult as standing up to a giant 5th grade thug.

In church it's the bony-fingered self-righteous who use their position's power to intimidate others to get their own way. We've all met the woman or man that Ray Stevens, in his song Mississippi Squirrel Revival called "Sister Bertha Better Than You." In politics, it's the use of political power to crush any opposition through legal means, bureaucratic intimidation or by silencing those who speak out against whatever they are up to.

In the culture, it can show up as the homeowner's association that tries to fine you for flying a flag. I know of an HOA that tried to fine homeowner's for planting their rose bushes. Another tried to fine a woman recovering from cancer because she was two weeks late mowing her grass. I've seen community members who threaten you because they think you raised funds for a local nonprofit organization without getting permission from whoever thinks they are in charge of that sort of thing. Happened to me a couple of times.

In this day and age, as we close in on the end of time, I am reminded of Christ's admonition that we need to stand strong in such times as these. It's can be hard to do that. Often there is a price to be paid. An Air Force colonel named John Boyd used to tell the pilots he trained that they faced a choice of two paths in their service. Along one path they could do what was good for the Air Force. Along the other, you could play the political games. Play the games and you could count on steady advancement, awards and a long career. Do what is right and, Boyd told them, you can expect that you'll never be promoted beyond colonel.

There is a price to be paid to stand for the right, though the heavens fall. Your reward may not come in this world, but God is watching and the reward he offers for your faithfulness is far beyond the rewards of men.

Jesus once told his disciples a story. It was about Pharisees who stood on a corner praying to God and thanking Him that they were better than other men who were simply praying for God's mercy. Jesus said, plainly, "They have had their reward."

That's all they'll get it seems. For those who like David, Jonathan, Gideon, the disciples and Jesus Himself, who stand for what is right, like a tree planted by the waters, shall not be moved. For these brave souls, there is a reward beyond measure waiting. For the bullies? As Jesus said, "They have had their reward."

© 2023 by Tom King

Christian Filmmakers Making Believers Out of the Film Industry

2023-03-07T00:27:00.001-06:00

Jonathan Roumie in The Jesus Revolution

A New Christian movie from Lionsgate studios called "The Jesus Revolution" starring Kelsey Grammar and Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus in The Chosen) opened in fewer than 2500 theaters on its first weekend and grossed 16 million dollars. The second weekend nearly doubled that earning 30 million dollars on a budget of just 15 million. And word of mouth has been responsible for most of that volume at the box office. It also looks like maverick Christian film producers like Dallas Jenkins over at Angel Studios are also making enough of a profit to fund several future movies that appeal to Christian audiences. Profits from The Chosen as well as other projects Angel Studios is releasing over the coming year include an animated feature about the life of David, the Israelite King, a children's animated television series and though most people don't know it, they produce the Youtube hit, Drybar Comedy that features clean comics performing in, of all places, Provo, Utah.

With the work they've done on "The Chosen", Angel Studios has opened a breath of fresh air upon the Christian film industry and given more mainstream studios like Lionsgate the courage to take a risk on Christian-themed projects. The Christian film industry has been doing some very nice work on pretty tight crowd-funded budgets the last few years. They've even drawn some mainstream acting talent like Ed Asner, John Ratzenberger, Kevin Sorbo, Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Tyler Perry, Sean Astin, Patricia Heaton, Roma Downey, Kirk Cameron, Dean Cain, Stephen Baldwin, Eric Roberts, Kelsey Grammar, Lee Majors, Eric Avari, Randy Travis, Dean Cain and Candace Cameron Bue. Christian film also provides work for a host of new talented young actors and actresses willing to risk the wrath of Hollywood's distinctly anti-Christian culture. Hallmark and the Lifetime Channel have upped the depth of the faith-based films they produce, seemingly a bit less hesitant to address prayer, church-going and Christian values than they once were.

Jesus and His disciples - The Chosen

My wife and I are watching The Chosen over and over every weekend the way we all did when Star Wars came out in the 70s. The series is just that compelling. Christians can't get enough and even hardened criminals find themselves drawn to a Jesus who is approachable, kindly, and joyful with a sense of humor to boot. This Jesus is one they can imagine themselves following. They can see a reflection of themselves in his very human disciples and for the first time in their lives, this collection of tough guys and hard cases can imagine themselves following Christ themselves.

Christian film is growing out of its awkward stage. The burgeoning faith-based film genre has delivered performances in the past 20 years that rival the quality of mainstream films of 20 or more years ago. I've lately seen performances and stories that for quality beat lots of today's mainstream films with much larger budgets. Christian films often tell compelling stories, many of them based on true stories. And they do it all on achingly tight budgets, while managing to look professional while doing it.

Eric Avari as Nicodemus in his secret meeting with Christ

The genre is learning its craft and producing some surprisingly wonderful films. The Chosen has even become a very popular television choice in Texas prisons with inmates stumbling around the day room engrossed in their computer tablets as they binge on season one. Violence has decreased dramatically over the weeks since the new inmate computer tablets were distributed to the men. Soon, word spread throughout the cell blocks that "The Chosen" was "...something you've gotta see, man!" Church attendance went up. An altar call at TDCJ's Coffield Unit last weekend resulted in 30 to 40 inmates coming forward to follow Jesus. Episode 1 of season 2 (only season 1 is available on the tablets so far) packed the chapel this weekend when the chaplain held a special showing.

Something is a' brewing out there; the kind of signs Jesus told us to watch for, I'm thinking. I hope we can take back the part of our culture that finds stories about faith and belief a thing worth watching and supporting. From the number of films crowd funded by independent donors and people who send in their 5 dollars because they want to see a movie they can feel good about seeing, film-makers seem to have discovered a way to produce movies that don't necessarily appeal to jaded Hollywood producers. It seems millions of movie-goers and non-movie goers are willing to put up their own cash to see wholesome films that lift the spirit, instead of being stuck with movies that glorify violence, illicit sex and crime.

Lately, the proverbial fig tree has been putting forth leaves so to speak. This makes me happy.

A Very Funny Guy

2023-01-15T17:34:00.002-06:00

Micah leading the singing of the girl's team's fight song.

It's been more than a decade since the terrible day our beloved son, Micah died. I did CPR for 30 minutes while waiting for the ambulance and couldn't bring him back. It was the worst day of my life and I've had plenty of bad days. Sheila and I got through that day but it feels strange. It doesn't seem like more than a decade since we last heard him drive up in the driveway after work and burst through the front door looking for something to eat. In many ways our lives fell apart in the aftermath - Sheila's illness, our jobs went away, we lost our home, moved far from our families, passed through poverty, homelessness, our other son sick and in prison because of it. We lost most everything of worldly value that we have worked for.

Gray day at the beach - Micah scooping up the ocean with a fork.

And here we stand, trusting in God that all things do, in fact, work together for good to them that love God. The devil doesn't like anyone who passes through the fire and clings to their faith in spite of it. Our daughter and son-in-law, however, are pillars of the church and are doing well. Sheila's health is stabilized. It doesn't mean the challenges are done, but we face them trusting in Jesus. We can do nothing else here at the world's end, save stand and fight. Thank you all for your many prayers and your wonderful support in our hours of need. We love you all and pray for you constantly. God bless you all. Here are a couple of stories friends sent me about Micah. They give me courage.

Micah & Jordan in Mexico
I often think of Micah, and his beautiful love for Christ and others. I still will never forget the Mexico trip we were both on, and our bus arrived at this out-of-the way area with small cabins and a main building. The only food sent on the bus was an entire box of flour tortillas... So around 6:00 PM that night, Micah came to my cabin, and said, ""I've been foraging for food, Paula, and I have found a really old bull roaming this property! Now I know a lot of folks here are vegetarian, but come sun-up, I think most of 'em would change their minds and eat BEEF Fajitas!". Then he added with resignation, "Besides, it's an old bull, And since I've got this (brandishing a large Bowie knife), I think I can take him! So If Harley and the food hasn't shown up by midnight, I'm killing the bull, and prepping him! All I need you to do is get a fire going on this brick-built grill, while these guys (motioning to a few young college kids) can gather fire wood for you!" - Paula Westbrook

Micah "The Wall" King
In 1993 our son Micah played basketball for Keene High
School. The boys team played first and then the girls played. I think this game was at Blum, Texas - big Keene Charger rivals. Between games one of the girls on the team complained to Micah that the girls always rooted (loudly) for the boys team, but the guys didn't seem interested in supporting the girls when they were on the court. As the girls team took the court, Micah rounded up the boys, stood them up and led the Keene crowd in singing the girls team's fight song. Someone took a picture of the moment (top of the page). That's Micah on the far right with the Big Dog sign in his hand, singing his heart out for the girls.

Micah playing shark with our daycare kids.
Micah worked at Little Caesar's Pizza while he was in high school. He and a friend managed the store by themselves. His partner one day was in the back making a pizza when he heard the bell on the door jingle he waited to hear Micah greet the customer. After a while he went to the front to see what was going on. A customer stood at the counter. Micah was nowhere in sight. Micah's partner went to the counter and said, "Welcome to Little Caesar's." He nearly jumped out of his pants when he felt a tug at his cuff. He stepped back and look down to see Micah, all 6'3", 280 pounds of him folded up inside the space under the counter, grinning from ear to ear. Micah's partner had no idea what to do next. He wound up taking the customer's order and pretending there was nothing wrong. When he went back to make the customer's order, Micah crawled out from under the counter and acted as if nothing were out of the ordinary for your friendly neighborhood Little Caesar's. The poor customer looked utterly confused, but sat quietly till his pizza came out. Micah had a weird sense of humor.

Micah with his Boys & Girls Club kids
A mother approached us at Micah's memorial. Her elementary school son played the trumpet. He had been invited to play a trumpet solo at the First Baptist Church, the second largest church in Tyler. He was terrified. He confided his fears with Micah during Boys & Girls Club after school the week before. Micah encouraged the boy to go ahead and play. He shared stories with the boy of his own struggles with stage fright. He sometimes would shake so hard, people on the stage could feel the floor vibrate. What Micah did for the little trumpeter was get up early on Sunday morning, went down to the First Baptist Church and sat down on the front row next to the boy. "Don't look at anyone else," Micah told him. "Look at me. Keep your eyes on me while you play and you'll be alright." The boy gave a perfect performance. Micah came home that day and never told us what he had done. The boy's mother told us how grateful she was for what Micah had done for her boy. "My son," she said, "trusted and loved Micah and that got him past his fear."

Micah's daycare class
Two weeks before his death, Micah was talking to a friend. They talked about the future, girl troubles and school. Suddenly, Micah asked, "Do you think anyone would miss me if I died?" I kind of think he knew God was telling him his time was short. I can answer his question now. There's not a day goes by I don't think of Micah. His Mom is the same. Everyone I know remembers our gentle giant fondly. Many of his kids have come to us years later to tell us how much they miss him.

Making another memory with Mom.
One day I went out in the backyard of our daycare center one stiflingly hot Texas day and found Micah sitting in a wheelbarrow full of water spraying jets of water into the air with a hose. "What ARE you doing?" I asked looking at the growing puddle in the middle of the playground. "I'm makin' a memory," he replied. It was Sunday and the puddle would evaporate by sundown so I figured no harm, no foul. The boy (I say "boy", he was over 6 feet 250 pounds by then) gave me a sheepish grin. I gave him a thumbs up and left him to his memory making. I told his Mom to look out the back window and told her what he said he was doing. She cried a little. Moms are easily made misty-eyed.

Two years after I wrote this, my daughter told her Mom another Micah story we'd never heard. Micah worked a series of restaurant jobs out of high school. He eventually came to manage a restaurant making pretty good money. Whenever he got paid, Meghan told us, Micah came and found her and took her out to eat. His favorite place was a Chinese buffet on the South Loop in Tyler. He was such a fixture there, the lady who owned the place with her husband would spot him coming in the door. "Ah! Big a Boy!" she would hurry to meet him as he came in (Micah was 6'5" by then). "Musta be payday." It was. What I didn't know was that when he went to China Buffet, he would find his sister and take her along to treat her to dinner. He used to check out her shoes to see if they were wearing out. Meg was working her way through school at Chik-fil-A and put a lot of miles on her shoes. We didn't know her shoes were wearing out, but Micah who also put a lot of mileage on his shoes and at his weight, the wear and tear on his shoes was substantial. It was just like him to be aware of his sister's shoes and because he was doing pretty well, he didn't worry for a second about who should pay for Meg some good shoes. He just did it because Micah was just that kind of person.

The mark of a life well-lived is the hole it leaves when that life ends. Our church has never been so filled for a funeral than it was for Micah's memorial service. The stories that we told of his life at the service made us laugh and cry. I've seldom seen a funeral service quite like it. I miss him and look forward to Jesus' coming when he will rise and all of us will together be caught up in the clouds to go home with Him. What a day that will be!

Thou Shalt Not Touch????

2022-12-17T05:05:00.007-06:00

My friend Miss Mary Bob

In this age of CoVid they're telling us we all need to maintain something called "social distancing". Also the public health Nazis say that things like hugging friends and kissing friends on the cheek need to be things of the past and never reintroduced into the culture. We're basically being told that we ought to keep our hands to ourselves.

Well, not me. I'm a hugger and I WILL kiss your cheek. I'll kiss both of your cheeks. I draw the line, however, at kissing anyone's butt cheeks. Seriously though, I read somewhere that a human being needs at least 17 hugs a day to stay mentally healthy. I am not ashamed to show affection, but I have been told before that this is childish, immature, confusing, etc. to some people. That's just too bad. I believe that we will hug each other in heaven and I am practicing to be a citizen of that wonderful place here on this earth where we need all the bits of heaven we can get.

As for being childish, Jesus said, "Except you become as a little child, you shall not see the kingdom of heaven." If I love you, and this includes nearly everybody I know, I will tell you, I will show you. I will cry with you and rejoice with you and there is a place for you in my heart. If you betray me, I will forgive you. If you hate me I will pray for you. This love comes from the Holy Spirit, a gift from God I've had since I was a child. I am not starving for affection. but I have a healthy appetite for your love.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Sheila King*
© 2022

*Thanks to my Sweet Baboo for the guest post this week.
-Tom

The Hands of God

2022-08-16T19:30:00.003-05:00

How God Used a Clock to Remind a Grieving Mother of His Promise

We experienced another of God's little miracles; the sort that come along when God needs to remind you he's still there. First a little background. It was March 7, 1975 around nine or ten o'clock in the evening. Sheila had been in labor since 2 am that morning. The doctor gave her something for pain and she was in and out of it. Labor pains would come and she'd sit up and holler. King babies come in 9 pound plus sizes with enormous heads. Matt was no different. Several of her friends and I were sitting with her, talking and waiting.

Suddenly, she sat up, said, "Isaiah 54: 1 and 13." Then she passed out again. We looked it up in a Bible we had on the bedside table. It said, (vs. 1) "Sing aloud, O barren woman, you who have not been in labor; break forth into singing and rejoice, you who have not travailed with child; for more are the children of the barren than the children of her that is beloved by her husband, says the LORD. (vs 13) And all your sons shall be taught of the LORD; And great shall be the peace of your children."

Turns out we had to trust in that promise a lot with our boys, but God has "taught" all of our children over the years in one manner or the other. A little warning about that, though. God doesn't always teach your children the way we think He ought to. Parents' instinct is to protect their children from danger, pain, and discomfort. God often prefers to pull the rug out from under the little wahoos and let 'em take a tumble. We often had to take a deep breath, let them fall and pray, "God, we trust you know what you're doing."

As you may know if you read this column regularly, we lost our middle son, Micah, in 2006. Fourteen years earlier, Sheila wrote a song called Corin the Piper. She didn't know where it came from and wasn't her usual style. I've written about how the song came back to comfort her when he died. This wasn't the first time God checked in on us to let us know He is still there making things work out as he promised.

Most recently, we were talking to Matt on the phone and he mentioned something that happened to him that he believed was a little comforting sign from God. We were talking about the time his wife had decided to leave him. He had been suffering the effect of increasing symptoms of hereditary bipolar disorder. He had been going through his files looking for documents he would need when she divorced him. He came upon a copy of his birth certificate we'd ordered for him a few years back. What caught his eye was the only bit of color on the black and white document - a red stamp showing the date the copy was made - October 18. Something about it nagged at him as he finished sorting through the little pile of paper that documented his life.

At the time my son had been reading one of those Bible-in-a Year plans. The reading guide was there beside the gathering pile of documents. He turned to October 18 and the central chapter was Isaiah 54. Verse 1 caught his eye - "Sing aloud o' barren woman...." He glanced down to verse 13. "Your sons shall be taught by the Lord." He took the verses as a reminder that God was watching him and would continue to be his teacher. Every day to this day we pray for him and with him at 1:13 pm, a reminder of those promise texts from the night of his birth.

Micah 1995

Later, after we talked to him that day, I was struck by a memory from the night Micah passed away. We'd just got our antique Howard Miller mantel clock back from the clockmaker. As it began to chime for us once again, we were drawn back to that terrible night. Sheila and I had gone to bed early while Micah was still up watching television in bed. We had already gone to sleep and the house was quiet. Micah's movie tape had ended and everything was still. Suddenly, there was whir as the clock chime tried to spin up. Then there was a pronounced single click as the chime gear attempted to move the hammers to sound the chime. But the chime spring had wound down and couldn't turn the chime mechanism. Sheila woke straight up at the click sound and sudden quiet that followed. Immediately, she had very a bad feeling. She woke me up and in an urgent voice said, "Go check on your son." I hurried to his room. To my horror, Micah was rolled over, face down in a pillow. He'd evidently had a seizure. He'd had nighttime seizures since his teens; something that had shown little response to treatment. He slept with a CPAP machine to help him breathe and keep his oxygen levels up. That night he'd gone to sleep without putting the CPAP mask on.

Flipping on the light, I rushed to his bedside. I rolled him over, checked his pulse and finding none, began CPR while Sheila called 911. It was close to half an hour before the ambulance arrived and took over. We followed them to the hospital that night, praying all the way. The next three days and nights were a heart-breaking nightmare.

But while Sheila and I were talking about that night, we were again blaming ourselves. We went to bed early. We didn't make sure he put on his CPAP. We failed to look out for him. Where was God's promise for our children? Sheila said she would never forget the moment the clock stopped. I do to. And I remember the time exactly. It was 1:13 am. The clock has a peculiar glitch. It always chimes about 2 minutes early - some kind of mechanical defect. It still rings at 13 minutes, 28, 43, and 58 minutes. I suspect God has prevented the clockmakers, who had twice attempted to repair the clock, from fixing the chime so that it ran on time. They never did, though I had spent more than $350 dollars on repairs over the years.

That night the hands of the clock stopped precisely at 1:13 am. I've known this for years, but never connected it to Isaiah 54, verses 1 and 13! It was our promise that God left us - a note on the hands of the clock that awful moment to let us know He was still watching. Even in that awful moment, He was taking care of our son. And He also left us a sign to comfort us 16 years later, when it was just the two of us 3000 miles from home and our kids and feeling again the pain of losing a child. Micah was such a good person and it was hard to understand why he was taken from us.

But our God is a kind God; much more so than we give Him credit for. Remembering that little handwritten note from God, was such a comfort to Sheila. Micah's mom still grieves for him all these long years later. That terrible night God laid His hands on the clock and stopped it at 1:13, saying, "Fear not my children. Remember my promise. I loved Micah. He'll be safe with me till I come for you both. The peace I promise is his and can be yours if you only believe."

And God keeps giving us little signs and wonders to remind us we are loved by Him. He left his thumbprint that awful night. Then, sixteen years later, just when we needed His reassurance again, God reminded us that he'd already left us a message that night so long ago.

Six Weeks from Everywhere

2022-06-14T20:09:00.007-05:00

I grew up in the little town of Keene, Texas. I watched this water tower being built and for several years operated a day care center with the tower practically in my backyard. I grew up in Keene during the late 50s and finished college there in 1976. I got a special medallion with my graduation cap to celebrate my class being bicentennial graduates.

A lot of my peers like to get on Facebook and wail about how their childhoods in Keene were so terrible. Most of them do it because they are fighting feelings of guilt for leaving the Adventist Church. They didn't want the inconvenience of Sabbath observance or to have their worldly lifestyles cramped. It's pretty much a typical teenage rebellion and it starts when hormones start running wild and kids want to do things their parents would prefer that they wait before doing.

Keene is (or was) a Seventh-day Adventist town. It's grown and because it's such a nice little town, a lot of non-Adventists have moved into town and set up shop. Adventists are fundamentalist Bible Christian church. My great great grandfather, Elder Horatio B. French signed the church charter and helped establish the original Keene Industrial Academy that became the heart of the town. Elder French baptized better than half the newly minted Texas Adventists of the early 20th century. He was the traveling/baptizing pastor serving churches that didn't have a pastor yet. My family's history is deeply embedded in the town's history. The first hospital/sanitarium in Johnson County was in what became my grandparents' cow pasture. The roadbed of the Old Betsy Railway cut off a corner of their property next to the stock tank. I went to school from first grade to a BA degree right there in town. My great grandfather taught in the original Keene Public School. I did my student teaching in the elementary church school. My great grandfather's students became my teachers.

The town stood on the highest spot in Johnson County which isn't saying much. Tornadoes for some reason (something to do with angels) avoid the town. For years we had no police department. When we finally did there were only two officers, Jake Howard, our neighbor, and my stepdad Ralph DeLaune who stuck lights on the family Rambler and patrolled on weekends. Mom turned us out on summer mornings, we ran loose in the town and surrounding woods, and we came home when the sun went down, often with a jar full of fireflies to light out way. There were no streetlights in town in those days and the streets themselves were all gravel with grader ditches.

The secret to having a happy childhood in Keene back in my day, I am convinced, was to not care about being one of the popular kids. If you didn't care about them, they had no power over you. Me, I had no chance to join that august assemblage. I was a nerd, skinny with thick glasses and most of the time had white tape across the broken bridge of my specs. Teachers set all the honor roll students on the front rows. We acted as a human shield for the teacher, protecting her from the barbarians at the back of the room. In my public school days, most of my class of 35-40 kids in 2 grades were either too poor for church school or had been kicked out or were the few isolated Baptists in the public school district. Meaner than second skimmings some of them. They liked to knock me around for their collective amusement.

Early in my life I discovered two important things. One, you can get a job throwing papers when you are in 6th grade like I did. The route was five miles long, up hill and down, rain, snow, sleet or hail. I made $5 a week which I collected on Sunday (that's when Adventists and agnostics were all home in Keene). The Cleburne Times-Review didn't publish a Saturday edition. That's so they could take off on Sunday. It worked out perfectly for me because I couldn't throw papers on Saturday. All the businesses in town at that time closed up from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and Seventh-day Adventists don't do business on Saturday. Not even delivering papers. So the local newspaper business had a kind of symbiotic relationship with their Adventist neighbors.

The second important thing I discovered was the miracle of mail order. I picked up the newspapers I delivered on the loading dock at the post office where we had a PO Box for years. As my reading for pleasure expanded, I discovered the classified ads in the back of Boy's Life and various comic books and such. For a few dollars I could get all sorts of things through the mail - flying airplanes, toy soldiers, catapults, and a subscription to the science fiction book club. I built a sci-fi library to rival the Carnegie Library's in Cleburne. I pedaled my bike to on weekends, dodging big toothy farm dogs and climbing hilly gravel roads all 10 miles there and back.

Back in those days, we were apparently more tolerant of delay. Virtually everything I ordered from the back of Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and other such magazines, carried a warning label.

PLEASE ALLOW SIX WEEKS FOR DELIVERY.

When you are 12 years old, six weeks is an eternity. I'm not sure whether it was because they had no robots to pull stuff from the warehouses, or because they just weren't in all that much of a hurry. One thing it did was teach me patience. As a kid with galloping ADD, patience was a skill I very much needed.

Anyway, though Keene seemed to be six weeks from everywhere in the world, I became addicted to buying stuff by mail. I took up slot cars and found a whole company that sold slot cars, track, tires, motors, frames, decals and everything you could imagine. I learned how to buy a money order, fill out an order blank and send off for stuff. I bought model rockets, models of things the local five and dime didn't stock. The mail-orders arrived through the pokey old post office kept me supplied with bits and bobs to support the 47 hobbies I practiced in my bedroom workshop.

As an adult, Sears, Montgomery Wards, and various mail order houses scratched my itch to send myself gifts in the mail. As a grownup, I still liked getting those packages in the mail.

AND THEN CAME AMAZON! What a wonderful idea. I was already a fanatic reader and they started out with books, sucked me in and then expanded the range of things they sell astronomically. Then I discovered eBay and debit cards and it was off to the races. I have Amazon Prime and no car, so there is always a steady stream of stuff rolling up the driveway that I got shipped to me free. Walmart's even bringing me some groceries. It's Christmas every day. I even send stuff to my family straight from Amazon. It's cheaper if it qualifies for Prime shipping and it gets there faster than if I went to the post office, picked up a money order, sent my order in, waited six weeks and then reshipped it to Mom for her birthday.

Thanks to Fedex, Amazon delivery, UPS and other competitors, even the US Post Office has gotten faster and more efficient.

So now, I'm down to three days from everywhere on average. I get cranky if I have to wait a week. I even run a little mail order website and print the shipping on my computer. People talk about the good old days and the good old days definitely had merit. We had lots more horned toads, fireflies, and trees you could climb that weren't forbidden by insurance companies. But if I'd had three day Prime shipping and streaming video, who knows if I would have ever worked up the enthusiasm to get out of the house and become an adult.

I think I became an old man during a crucial social, political and cultural upheaval. Not a bad time to be alive. Anyway, the Schwann's guy just delivered two frozen pizzas, I've got Amazon coming this afternoon with a package of guard rails for my Carrerra Go Slot car set, and tomorrow a guy on eBay is sending me a usb fan to cool my 3 tb hard drive that has all my movies on it. And Sheila's got a bottle of vinyl floor polish that will be here Thursday, same day her prescription refill will arrive.

We've come a long way from the days of six weeks from everywhere. We've even got our five year old grandson hooked on receiving packages from Grammy and Poppy (mostly Grammy). Grammy just outfitted him with Batman outfit complete with mask and cape - all ordered from my desktop and delivered in 3 days.

I really like living "3 days from everywhere." We don't have a car. We're old and arthritic and don't get around very well. We're kind of back to where we were as kids. Thank heaven for those wonderful packages. They don't take nearly as long. And icing on the cake? My town just got an Amazon Warehouse that opened up just a couple of miles from our house. Some stuff comes the same day or the next from there.

Is this a great country or what?

If Biden Keeps it Up He'll Be Missing Some Tax Revenue!

2022-06-12T03:27:00.003-05:00

Our alleged president is really working on making Texans mad. Today his administration announced another critical food shortage. As if baby formula wasn't bad enough, there's a new one on the horizon.

IT'S SALSA!

That's right folks, no more picante sauce, enchilada sauce, salsa, or taco sauce? Salsa et al is expected to be off the shelf and in short supply elsewhere by summer. And as he did with the supplies of Covid treatment meds, expect President Puddinhead Biden to restrict supplies to Texas and Florida first. It's likely he'll ship any loose truckloads of Pace Picante Sauce to the border.

Next up, he's issued an executive order radically increasing the production of ethanol to be used in fuel. Not that it will lower the cost of fuel any. What it will do is mess up internal combustion engines, fail to cut emission and, more importantly, it will cut corn supplies.

IT COULD LEAD TO A MASSIVE CORN TORTILLA SHORTAGE.

What next? We've already got a beef and chicken shortage building. Next thing you know it'll be cheese and then where will we be.

SO LONG MEXICAN FOOD!

That will be the point at which Texas and probably Florida will leave the Union. And it will be with the full support of cowboys, Hispanic folks and people everywhere who love Tex-Mex, Whataburger, Dr. Pepper, Chuy's, Taco Bell and those little authentic Mexican taco stands at the Annual Tomatofest, Black-eyed Pea Festival, State Fair, Yamboree, Onionfest, Azalea Festival, Rose Festival and Fat Stock Show.

And don't forget this China Joe. Lockheed makes fighter planes in Ft. Worth. We know how to build ships and the know-how to run a navy. We have a SpaceX Launch base in Corpus Christi, another couple of commercial space companies in West Texas, several Army bases, Air bases, Navy Bases, massive oil refineries and reservoirs of untapped oil. We also make nuclear weapons in Texas and the NASA launch control center is in Houston. We have a massive airline hub in Dallas-Ft. Worth, two NFL teams, three basketball teams, two pro baseball teams, and no income tax.

We also have something like the 5th largest economy in the world and out from under the shackles of Washington's over-regulation, it's liable to rank even higher. With the loss of Texas, as the United States loses Texas' massive power grid with nuclear power plants which have been forced to supply juice all the way up into the northern states. If those states stop sucking power from Texas, we have plenty of fuel for our gas fired power plants. We've even got our own coal, a massive wind farm facility for when the wind blows, offshore oil fields Biden won't let us drill in, and Gulf Coast ports a plenty. We have Halliburton.and dozens of other large construction companies to keep our infrastructure kept up. Halliburton, by the way builds oil platforms.

So go ahead Joe. Makes us mad. I'm betting Oklahoma and most of the heartland would go with us along with Alaska much of the South and Southwest including Tennessee. We'd be an oil producing, food producing, hard-working country. Well-armed and ready. The US Army already has a majority of sergeants who curse fluently in Southern and Texas accents.

We could make Donald Trump the press secretary for the new nation. Just turn him loose on Twitter in case DC isn't paying attention. We also own massive media companies, TV, music and movie production resources. We even have Chuck Norris and the actual Texas Rangers so don't think we're going to put up with Yankee agitators. And we do remember how schools are supposed to be run and what to do with people who commit crimes.

Our national motto could be, "Let's Go Brandon!" Texas already has experience being a stand-alone Republic and we know how to build walls and control borders, so if you Yankees are thinking about swimming the Red River, better check in at the consulate to get permission to enter and a green card because you'll need to work when you get here.

Now all we need is a name. Any suggestions?

Life on the Edge: Childhood Adventures of The Flying Dingbat Brothers

2022-06-06T20:23:00.024-05:00

My brother Donnie atop the Mizpah Gate at SW Junior College 1969.
Campus security was not amused!

We always liked high places. We lived in the treetops in our yard - big oaks with brittle branches. Mom finally quit looking out the kitchen window. The view must have been worrying for a mother. Her two sons, who seemed to believe they were either Tarzan or Cheetah, would inevitably be swinging from the branches of the brittle old post oaks in our back yard or making like a gibbon, swinging arm over arm from branch to branch of the Chinaberry trees. We were pretty good at it too, though Donnie was somewhat better than me. My mom one day found one neighbor kid dangling from the Chinaberry with a broken bone (leg or arm, I don't remember). He had attemped the arm over arm trip round the Chinaberry that my brother and I used to do, only he was scared so he tied a rope around his leg in case he fell.

He did!

It's fortunate he didn't tie the rope round his neck. Mom cut him down and called Edward's mom and he went off to the doctor. Nobody got sued for childhood stupidity fortunately. We were safe anyway as we were too poor to sue.

This is pretty much my youthful
self-image back then.

My kid brother, God rest his soul, and I made a ramp by our driveway on a little rise. We would come tearing down the street on our bikes, hit the ramp and go flying. My brother, not the finest bicycle mechanic in the world, followed me over the ramp. He sailed up into the air (we used to get a couple of feet in altitude out of a jump) and as he left the ramp, his front wheel came off. He hit the ground, forks first, and sailed over the handlebars. But gymnast that he was he managed to tuck and roll up to his feet. He looked around and spied the front wheel rolling off across the neighbor's front yard. He sprang to his feet and took off in hot pursuit, managing to catch it before it ran out into the cross street half a block away.

My brother was the epitome of cool, unlike his awkward older brother. I have two pictures somewhere - one of me and one of him doing a hand spring over a heavy sawhorse we had purloined for the purpose. Donny's image was captured at the peak of the flip, perfect form, toes pointed, back straight headed for a 3 point landing. I was better at photography than gymnastics. The picture of me shows a gangling kid, long torso, short legs, sort of a skinny flying troll look. I looked like someone had flung a bag of loose bones over the sawhorse. I was headed for a -5 point landing and a face plant. I told my brother his looked so much better than mine because I was the better photographer.

How Donnie actually looked!

Life back then was high-risk and a ton of fun!

Our friend Leslie Gilley had a great long rope that hung from a huge tree overhanging a usually dry creek bed in the pasture behind his house. I asked him how often he replaced it. Since his older brother had installed it years ago and the knot was above his climbing ceiling when he was 12, he told me, "When it breaks."

We would climb out on another limb that over hung a bend in the creek, grab the rope and swing out over the creek bed, back and forth until it slowed down enough to slide to a stop in the gravel that filled the bed of the creek at that spot. One day I climbed out on the limb with the rope, leaned back and launched myself out into space. As I approached the bottom of the swing where momentum reached its zenith, I heard a crack above as the rope parted. I hit the gravel in the creek bed butt first and at pretty good speed. Fortunately, I've been blessed with very tough bones and nothing was broken.

Leslie's comment was, "Hey man, you broke my rope!"

I answered, "I'd have been happy to let you break it."

My brother, the gymnast, decided he was going to do a triple flip on the trampoline. He finally did it, but got a bunch of bruises and sprained his neck along the way. One day he was late for school on Monday. Mom flipped back the covers on his bed and found him sleeping in his skivvies and covered with bruises. Turns out he'd been motorcycle racing, had run off the track, through a barbed wire fence and crashed in a gully sans bike. I'm not sure Mom knew he'd been doing motocross or that he could ride a motorcycle for that matter.

In the middle on the bottom,
where else would I be?

I thought I'd outgrown being stupid until I became a staff member at Lone Star Camp and was introduced to water skiing. I got to do a lot of stunts in our weekly ski show, I think, mainly because I used to do such spectacular wipe-outs. Remember: not as coordinated as my gymnast brother.

I was once jerked off my skis (on purpose), but then lost my swimsuit while being dragged around the lake (not on purpose). I had worn a Speedo under the suit and managed to catch it on my foot. As I was dragged on my back by the dock where a row of preacher's wives and kids sat watching the ski show. For a bit of comic relief, I stuck my foot up and passed the audience with my swimsuit waving from my leg like a flag. One of the minister's wives asked me afterward if I had done that on purpose. I told them it was part of the show. We all laughed and laughed.

I've got so many stories about my brother and I and the disasters we suffered doing risky things. I once kicked myself in the back of the head while trying to barefoot ski. We did pyramids for ski shows. I was the center guy at the bottom. When the pyramid collapsed at the end, accidentally or on purpose, guess who got fallen on?

The point of the story is that I look back on my misadventures fondly. I've been almost run over by a motorboat, jerked off a lifeguard tower by a ski boat, and was nearly immolated during a campfire skit of Elijah and the Priests of Baal (Donny was in on that one too.) My best friend kicked loose a 500 pound boulder that hit me square in the chest while we were free climbing a 40 foot cliff over the Brazos River. Not sure how, but when the stars cleared up I was hanging from a scrub of a tree 30 feet above a field of rocks as the boulder bounced down to the river, clearing out a path through the saplings..

As a grownup I risked 5 nonprofit startups unpaid, wrote more than one million dollars in grants, became a nonprofit consultant, a freelance commercial writer and am working on publishing a novel (the sixth book I've done). I taught self-defense for staff of a mental facility treating often violent kids from diminutive 3 year olds to 17 year old football players and one powerful 300 pound Samoan kid. I wrangled 20 horses, read a book on how to break horses and trained several to ride. I cut trails with emotionally disturbed kids and rode 5 days a week, 5 hours a day and never lost a kid. I took youth groups camping and led canoe trips down swollen Texas rivers. I taught canoeing and swimming and rescued a drowning steer from the overflowing Trinity River in a canoe with the help of a junior lifesaver girl I'd just graduated the day before. WE SAVED THE COW!

My wrangling days....
We made some memories and took some risks. My Mom had two ADHD boys and she raised us just right. We were allowed to take risks and we took 'em. She didn't hover. We grew up to be good people with the right blend of courage and kindness. My brother and I once extricated the car of a church singer from stuck high centered on a curb with the front wheels dangling in a deep mudhole. After we leveraged his car from the mud, Donny and I then walked home in the freezing rain afterward. And no, he didn't offer us a ride (we were on foot) because we might get mud on his mother's car's upholstery. Walking home, wet and shivering across a pasture waist high in wet grass, my brother and I felt like we'd won a battle against evil. After all, Steve did make it in time to sing for vespers. We made it home to a hot shower.

I lost my brother his sophomore year in high school, killed by a stupid prank by a friend. Christmas, the night before he died, we sat up late talking about how we would do Christmas when we grew up and had families. He talked about his plans to work on improving his grades so he could go back to church academy with his friends. We used to fight like cats and dogs. I can't remember why we wound up in wrestling matches. We quit doing it when things got too dangerous and chances of hurting each other became too real.

In that last day, however, my brother and I bonded as we never had before. And when Christ comes to take us home, I'll be looking around for my brother. We're still not done swinging on ropes, skiing, climbing trees and sailing. I never got a chance to take him out on my Hobie Cat and catch a full breeze and tip her up on one pontoon.

Tom king

Now, I know How Snow White Felt

2022-06-06T20:22:00.004-05:00

I love the woods and lakes and anywhere the wild things live and play. Our next door neighbors have a beautiful patio that one service guy calls "Narnia". Squirrels drip from the trees and squadrons of birds hang from Dan and Suzanne's feeders. He buys peanuts in 50 pound bags for the squirrels. I've seen chickadees eat bird seed from Dan's hand. Squirrels climb up into his lap. He's like a hairy-chested Snow White.

He's left me in charge of the squirrels on occasions when they go off on vacation. The squirrels have come to accept my presence, but not to quite trust me close up. Imagine my disappointment when I went next door to find Suzanne and Sheila (my wife) sitting on the patio with a table full of squirrels next to them begging for peanuts. Sheila had one on her shoulder. It kept coming back, climbing up in her lap and plucking peanuts from her fingers. I wanted a squirrel to jump up in my lap too, but while she was there, they preferred her lap to mine. She won't let me post videos of her, so I have been waiting to talk Little Red into climbing up so I could show it to my grandson - perhaps to lure him to come visit us in Washington State with the promise of feeding wild squirrels.

Today, after Dan and Suzanne left for Idaho, I went over to feed the squirrels. The red squirrel I call "Little Red" approached me with a puzzled look. Deciding I was the only one around, he took a leap of faith and landed on my knee. After that he ran back and forth stashing peanuts and leaping up on my leg for another one for the rest of the afternoon.

The squirrels all have personalities. Little Red won't take cracked or dirty peanuts. He prefers perfect peanuts. Two-fer, a gray squirrel won't leave without two peanuts tucked under his chin. If you're slow with that second one, he'll snatch it out of your hand. Cressie has a crescent shaped scar on her back and Lightning runs at full tilt wherever he goes.

I was able to video Little Red's first jump onto my leg. It may seem stupid but that has been the highlight of my week. Another little peek at heaven for me.

To Drink From a Trough - A 48 Year-Old Promise

2022-03-30T12:53:00.006-05:00

The pictures, sadly, came out kind of dark, but
this is us 48 years ago in the PFA chapel.

It's been 48 years since the Saturday night that I picked an azalea off the bush by the Pine Forest Academy chapel door, pinned it to my lapel and stepped inside for the ceremony in which I joined forces with the love of my life "for better or worse." It was a moment that would certainly change our lives forever.

True story, Sheila was so nervous that day that she had trouble reciting the vows. She's always suffered with stage fright, but was doing okay repeating the vows after Pastor Reiber*, who was using an older traditional set of wedding vows. However, when he prompted her to repeat, "Unto thee I plide my troth," my Sweet Baboo, who has trouble with English accents and archaic words had no idea what he was saying and did the best she could.

"I promise to drink from a trough...." she mumbled. She tried to deny she'd said it later, but I had proof. This was 1974, well before the advent of VHS recorders, but someone had thoughtfully caught it all on a cassette audiotape. I played it for her several times over the years and it's undeniable that that's what she said. I no longer possess the evidence because, somehow, the tape mysteriously disappeared during one of our moves.

Headed back down the aisle. Sheila looks a
little green around the gills. Me? I look like
the cat that swallowed the canary. But then
I hadn't just promised to drink from a trough.

At any rate she's never kept that part of her vows. I've asked her about it and all she'll say is, "I don't see any trough here!" Those horse (or cow) troughs are expensive and there's no way I'd hold her to it if all I could muster was a pig trough. A cow trough seems unnecessarily demeaning. The least I could do was provide something suitable for a beloved filly. Said trough would, of course, have to be clean and previously unused in any case. There's no way the woman is going to drink after farm animals. I wouldn't expect her to.

In the 48 years since, I have not been able to provide an appropriate trough, I've let her off the hook for all these years. To this day, however, when we get into a fight and I'm losing, I comfort myself by visualizing a big old Farm and Ranch Supply delivery truck rolling up and offloading one of those big round steel horse troughs.

I figure after she's completed her last vow, we could use the trough as an above-ground swimming pool. It is, however, quite unlikely that in this world we'll ever own horses or that I'll ever have enough extra money to waste hundreds of dollars on an appropriate drinking vessel, so I suppose I'll let that vow slide. She's done quite well by all the other vows she's made. I can't complain.

She's a keeper and I intend to keep her around for billions of years after Jesus comes (with time off for good behavior). And, since I do like horses, I may even come up with some sort of trough one day. Just to make her laugh. I'll drink from it first, of course.

© 2022 by Tom King

*Interesting note: Pastor Milton Reiber, who married us that day in the Academy chapel in Chunky, Mississippi, was pastor of the Meridian SDA church. He also served as pastor for the Pine Forest Academy Church where I was going to serve a year as boy's dean and Sheila was going to be a nurse. When I told her who the pastor was, my Mom recognized his name. It turns out that, decades before in Tucumcari, New Mexico, Elder Reiber, was also the pastor who baptized young Clara Bell (Mom) and her sister, Tilitha. It's funny how Adventists can go almost anywhere and find connections to other Adventists.