The Groom’s Mother’s Dress or “Living an Off-the-Rack Life in a Tailor Made World”

Due to the many, many times that I have been able to ascertain material items well below the customarily going price and due to my penchant for sharing such escapades with my cohorts in a less that innocent way, I have become to be known as ‘Delpstein’ or ‘Delpberg’ in certain circles in which I run. This past Saturday evening I added yet another chapter to this ever growing, ever expanding legacy.

Since it was Saturday night, Rebecca was out and about with friends, many of which were having their last weekend at home before dispersing throughout the east to the out posts of higher education. Micah and Seth were both invited to spend the next to last weekend of summer at a local community swimming hole for a late summer pool party.

Five minus three equals two. Those two were Ann and yours truly. My first thought was, “The kids are out of the house for the evening let’s spend the evening … on the town.” Shame on you for what you were thinking! We dropped our charges off and hit the road. Only trouble is where do two people go by themselves when they aren’t accustomed to being alone? And I do mean alone. Since the end of November 1975 I have only been able to go to the bathroom once by myself. There was a fire drill at work during the 1990’s and instead of lining up across the street to await the building recall, I stole away into the men’s room to take advantage of ten minutes of uninterrupted silence. I usually share this most private of spaces with one or more members of my family. I have occasionally even shared it with the blushing red-faced acquaintance s of my children. We did decide to get something to eat but could not decide where to eat it. Suddenly we both realized that our vehicle was heading south on route 283. Could it think we were going to YFC. It couldn’t. We had no one with us. We were alone. Turns out the destination was preordained by a Power greater than you or me. We were headed to Chilly’s! Romantically we ordered the “Two for $20” deal from the menu (one appetizer, two entrees, one dessert). The last time we ate out alone together we got two full course meals and two movie tickets in Gimble’s restaurant for $8.00.

Being the suave debonair man about town that I am, I suggested that we not end the evening here but continue on with new found freedom. Ann suggested a shopping trip to the French retailer, J C Pe-nay’s to see if the ‘Mother of the Groom’s Dress’ that has been eluding her since January was maybe hiding there. I dutifully agreed in the same breath that I admitted that I had eaten too much. Ann agreed and said that the next time we find ourselves in this position we will split the entrée.

We enter the hunting grounds at Penny’s and immediately cut to the chase. We move from the entrance to the discount rack in the women’s department as quickly as two overfed, stuffed lovers can move. “No, no, definitely NO, too low-cut, too long, too short, not the right color.” These were the words I heard coming from my wife. With each and every utterance I know I was one step closer to going somewhere else.

And then in the matter of time that it takes the nictitating membrane of a bird’s eye to close and open, I felt the joy of victory and the agony of my feet. “This is the one!”, Ann said with, I hope, the same enthusiasm that she had as when she first laid eyes on me. That was the joy. The agony came when we turned the price tag over and discovered that it wasn’t reduced but was full price, $80.00! I think that for $80 bucks one should get two pair of interchangeable pants, one jacket, a nice top (sleeveless of course), shoes and a handbag. I was told that is a guy thing. Well, I’m still a guy. Being the loving caring dotting husband that I am, I stepped into the aisle to look for one of those self-scanner thingys. I hoped I wasn’t playing into the hands of some wicked, warped individual who enjoys wrecking people’s dates by leaving full price clothing on discount racks on Saturday nights. I hoped beyond hope that some employee missed marking this dress, the dress of my dreams, the dress of my dream boat. Red squiggly lines dancing across a barcode proceeded the audible beep that cause the screen to silently say, “SALE PRICE $19.99”. Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Hal-laaaa-luuuu-iah! Handel lives! All is well! I never did drugs but the rush from them cannot be any better than this. I calmly look up to see my own beautiful bride of 34 years come down the aisle. The “groom’s mother”. Wonderingly she asks, “Well?” I deadpan “$19.99.”

Expecting the type of greeting that a weary soldier would receive from his love upon returning from war. I brace myself for the run and leap into my arms. What I got was, “If that doesn’t fit, it’s your fault. You didn’t have to take me out to eat. I probably just gained 10 pounds.” Crash and burn. Hindenburg look-a- like. I am defeated. Next stop is the fitting room man-waiting alcove. Three stuffed chairs, end table, soft light from a lamp. My quit prayer time there was only disturbed by some talking head from CNN. I don’t listen as I calmly ask God to let the dress fit.

It does! Reprise! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Hal-laaaa-luuuu-iah! What a deal. We are livin’ large. All is well. How could life be better?

It can be. Today Ann is going through some papers in our bedroom. But what to her wandering eyes should appear, but a coupon that is worth $10 off any purchase at J C Penny’s. Bad news. The coupon has an expiration date of last Saturday. Good news. We bought something there then. Bad news. That was five days ago. Good news. Ann is filled with holy boldness, so, back to J C Penny’s she goes with the coupon. After three minutes and with more sweetness than Hershey creates in a year, Ann is holding about 3-yards of register tape that says her dress only cost us $9.99. Surprise, reprise! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Hal-laaaa-luuuu-iah!

After I look at all the evidence and became a believer that the “Groom’s Mother’s” dress only cost $9.99, Mr. Delpstein is told once again that he is not to take Mrs. Delpstein out to eat until after the wedding. But come September 6th, look out. Anyone know of any early autumn pool parties? - Dan

I Love to Home School

It all started innocently enough. The Boas Street Delps were sitting around the kitchen table after church on Sunday morning. I had looked at the Sports section (I say looked at because it usually takes several different sittings with the sports to really read them. On the first pass I read headlines and captions. Pass two reveals how someone else viewed an activity in which I am interested. Pass three and four gets me to the things for which I really do not care; the scores, statistics and schedules. Scores, statistics and schedules used to be much closer to the top. However, as I find myself going through the aging process my arms have become shorter and the small print is harder to see. My eyes are still good; my arms are just too short.) and moved onto the Parade Magazine.

Featured this week in the smart lady’s column was a question about if all the nation’s money was distributed equal to all the people, how much would everyone have. The magic number was $9,000. The homeschooling gene kicked in at that very moment. I read the question out loud interrupting the comics, the Best Buy ad and Section A. I explained to one and all about how stupid this really was. I explained how we need the rich and how as soon I could figure out to get each of their $9,000, that I would be wealthier than each of them and that they could work for me so that they had an income with which to survive.

Needless to say I was passionate about the subject. I grab Seth by the arm and said, “This stuff, this passion just effervesces from within me. I am like an artesian well.” I’m starting to roll. I asked my audience whether or not they knew what ‘effervesce’ means. Ann raised her hand. Seth looked at me as if I was speaking in tongues. Micah was back to the Best Buy ad. I continued on with hand motions I had learned to use years ago in Sunday school. Placing the heels of my hands together in front of my face with my fingers pointing skyward, I thrust my arms straight up spreading my now open palms outward as if I were exploding champagne exiting a bottle. Over and over I repeated this act until I had everyone’s attention. But it didn’t end there. Now I had to explain what an artesian well was. I have everyone’s attention now as the looks on their faces were the same amazed looks we have as we watch a shooting star blaze across the night sky burning brightly as it nears eternal darkness.

So I ask Seth, “What comes out of an artesian well?” He looked quizzically at me ask he realized he was being slowly sucked into this madness. Ann interjected “H2O.” So Seth said “Water.”

It was at that moment I reached to point of no return. “No!” I shouted, not water but “agua”. I am truly going to make this an interdisciplinary home school moment around the Delp family breakfast table as I have now jumped from economics, to vocabulary, to science and now to foreign languages. Micah caught the spirit noting that the mention of H2O was chemistry. I jumped on this as Hop-a-long Cassidy used to mount his horse, with both hands. “H” stands for hydrogen and “O” stands for oxygen as I revive the Village people YMCA-like antics. I then launched into a quick run through of the periodic chart of the elements. H – Hydrogen, He – Helium, Ne – Neon as I took a detour through the inert gasses. Then back to Carbon, Boron and on and on. All this chemistry stuff resurrected my all time favorite science poem:

Johnny was a chemist,
Johnny is no more,
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.

I asked Seth, “What is H2O?” He replied, “Water!” I shouted him down with, “No! No! Agua! Agua! Use your Spanish!” I love homeschooling. It provides so many opportunities for immediate feedback. I asked Micah, “What’s H2SO4?” He said, “Sulfur something, sulfuric acid.” Close enough, soon to be struggling chemistry student.

I explained how one can ingest water with little or no harm. Swallowing sulfuric acid means you life story and next of kin will soon be printed on pages 3 and 4 of Section B. Rest in Peace you confused chemist.

I am sure there was more rapid fire insanity from the dark corners of my frustrated educators mind. Only the fog of a tired mind and the late hour stand between that madness and your knowledge of it.

As I pushed my frame back from the table, grabbed Sunday’s HARD Sudoku, I left them cheering as I announced that due to the quantity and quality of material just covered, Sunday could be counted as a school day. Only a home school child or parent can fully understand the significance of that statement.

They were still cheering and singing my praises as I walked to my bedroom. - Dan

Phillies Cap

The phone rang. “Hello.”

“Dan, go to Seth’s room and get one of his Phillies caps for Father Dan.”

“OK. I’m just getting ready to leave. I’ll be right there.”

Now besides trying to schedule classes for Rebecca, making sure that I have my camera, binoculars, backpack, etc., I am supposed to get a cap for Father Dan. No problem, I can multi-task too. I am going as fast as I can so I don’t miss the bus that is taking us to Citizens Bank Park to see the Phillies. I’ll do it right now so I don’t forget. Two steps towards Seth’s room is all the time it took to know that I was on a wasted trip. The trip was destined for failure, not because there are no Phillies hats there, it’s destined to fail because Seth has the head of a twelve year-old and Fr. Dan has the head of, well let’s just say that there is a sizeable difference between the two craniums that would share the same cap. I perform a spin move, pivoting adroitly on my right foot as my mind tries to locate my extra Phillies caps. Now there is an oxymoron, ‘extra Phillies caps’. A person can never have too many Phillies caps.

I find two with little difficulty. See what I mean, they are lying around everywhere. One is my original fitted Phillies cap that I’ve had for many years. It hasn’t been all sweated up like every other cap I own. However, the sweat band is a little yellowed. The second cap is a jewel. It is new though old. It is new to me but it commemorates the Phillies 2007 division championship. The clock is ticking so it’s gotta be one of these.

Not so surprisingly Fr. Dan picks the new looking divisional championship cap. Good choice. The cap looks good on him too. By the way, since it wasn’t fitted it could be left out in the back and made larger by adjusting the Velcro straps. And to think I was sent to get one of Seth’s caps.

The only thing mentioned in the Bible more than money is love. I think when money is mentioned it does not always apply to coins and folding paper but to our material possessions. It can mean those things that we have, those things that we hold onto and cherish. Our cars, our family photos, our homes, our Phillies caps. Years ago, I learned a life lesson from Larry Burkett of Christian Financial Concepts. In teaching about borrowing and lending, Larry taught that we should never lend money to someone unless we were willing to give it to the person to whom we were lending it. The reasoning behind this was that when you ‘lend’ you do so with the full intent of getting it back. What happens when you don’t get it back? What happens when the borrower cannot repay or return the borrowed property? The lender fells cheated. The borrower feels shame. A rift is created. This rift could be in a family, in a neighborhood or in a church. A separating such as this is not good and should be avoided.

We make it to Philadelphia, get into the stadium, find our seats and prepare to watch the ball game. “Have you seen Fr. Dan?” Why would my wife be asking me that question? What happened? What do I do? What did one of my kids do?

So I calmly reply, “What happened now?” Ann begins to laugh as she says. “He got your hat autographed!” My first thought, which until this time has been under wraps inside my skull, was “That’s great. Now I’ll have an autographed cap like Seth does.” The reality of that thought lasted about as long as a drop of water on a hot skillet. I knew that the cap was no longer mine. I was at peace with that thought instantly. I knew the joy Seth felt when Jamie Moyer signed his cap. We still look at it. I knew the joy I felt when I gleaned autographs from my boyhood idols. I felt the same exhilaration that Fr. Dan experienced when he had my cap, his cap, autographed by Greg Luzinski.

He returned to my seat and sheepishly recounted the story in detail as to how he ran into his baseball hero and had but one item onto which #19 could easily affix his autograph. His cap. Did I want it back? After several offers to return the cap with the autograph and after hearing the same refusal and the same “No I gave it to you, now it’s yours” answer, he began to get the feel for ownership. He also got the same life lesson I have had. Never lend something that you cannot afford to give. In one simple act two people were filled with joy. Fr. Dan, with his autographed cap that I overheard him showing to everyone and me, filled with the joy of knowing that I was able to provide an opportunity for unbridled happiness to spring forth in someone.

Fr. Dan was also able to get a full Sunday’s homily from the experience. God was able to use something I had learned years before to touch not only two guys who love the Phillies but an entire parish community. – Dan

Matthew 5:42

Greetings! And now a little maintenance ...

"What is a BLOG?" BLOG (Noun) is an abbreviated form of the term 'weB LOG'. This was used because the letter combination d-i-a-r-y had already been used for another word. The definition of BLOG is "a type of web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries or commentary, descriptions of events, graphics, pictures or video. Entries are usually displayed in reverse chronological order. BLOG (Verb) is also the act of creating the web site, i.e. "I'm going to BLOG now."

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I have also added "Random thoughts from Dan's mind." These will be things that I'm am thinking about at the time that I post my blog.

If you think that you will discourage me by not reading my blog, or by reading it and not commenting on it, think again! I'm doing this for me. I want to write. This is going to force me to do it. You are the beneficiary of this opus or tome, depending on your view point. Read it now while it's free. Once I get published in book form I will gladly sign you high priced First Edition copy at Borders. - Dan

Hershey Park Happy, NOT!

So, I went. As I look back now it was really a moment of weakness. It was a moment when I followed my heart instead of listening to my mind. That in and of itself isn’t always bad but in this case it was.

I should follow my heart most times when it comes to family stuff. Should I stay home and watch M*A*S*H reruns or go to the band concert where they have to introduce the songs so that the audience can recognize what’s being played. Should I go to visit relatives or stay home and clean, mow, paint or do what ever job I’ve been avoiding for the past twenty years.

The calendar years 2009 is trying to squeeze all the haze, heat and humidity of an entire summer into the last half of August. It is always during this time of year when I agree to go to Hershey Park. Reasons for this are; as a home school family we go before Labor Day but after the local families are back in school, the free passes for admission and parking have been received from the Patriot-News and crowds seem to thin. I also have a rule that I go to Hershey Park for a cheaply as possible if not for free. Paying full price for Hershey Park tickets is like paying for someone to give you West Nile virus or Swine flu. Just doesn’t seem right to me.

The planets aligned, the numbers came up and yesterday seemed like the day for us to go. Nate and Jen were able to go with us. Seth had a friend who was able to go with us. I happened to have the day off. I should have known this was wrong due to my rules violations but I blindly, in the name of harmony, said that this may be the best time for us to go. What rules violations you ask? Well I paid for three of the tickets. Not full price but I still used money that I earned to purchase these tickets. Yesterday did not fall into the time slot out lined above.

As the moment to go came closer and closer I became claustrophobic in the situation. I knew I did not want to go but I felt that I should be there with my family on their special day. Then my ‘out’ arrived. I had an appointment with the orthopedic doctor at 1 o’clock. The pressure is off. I don’t have to go. Ann who is not only my wife but is also my social director discovered that three weeks earlier I agreed to have my long standing 1 o’clock appointment with Dr. Cordis scheduled at 9 a.m. on August 20th. See what I mean about the planets aligning.

I changed tactics and instead of trying to avoid the Hershey Park happy day, I decided to cut my losses and aim for something in between. I’ll go but I’ll go late. By going late I can also leave early since I will have my own vehicle there. The price of this tactic is the ten dollars I will have to pay in order to park. Cheap, I just won’t buy anything to eat in the park.

I leave for the doctors at 8:45. Get out of the doctors at 9:30. The doctor refunds my copay so now my total expenditure go the day goes the red to the black. Twenty dollar copay minus ten dollar parking fee equals ten dollars in my pocket. See what I mean about the planets aligning. From the doctors I go straight home so I can get on my way. Not! I drive slowly past Lowes checking out the reduced plants. I go to the credit union (lobby). I go to Mickey D’s for a senior coffee and a McMuffin. I go to Weis, eat my sandwich in the parking lot and after shopping, check out through the lane with the longest line of customers. I go back to the credit union (drive through) to cash a check I forgot the first time. I stop at the bank. Then and only then do I go home. I decide that since I’m home alone I’ll try and finish fixing the upstairs commode. Easier than expected I finish what I was working on. Darn! Ann calls and I promise that as soon as I eat something for lunch I leave to join the festivities.

By 1:30 I have parted with a Hamilton in the Giants Center parking lot, ridden the tram to the main gate and had my camera bag searched by a Hershey Park happy guards. The heaviness is upon me. I feel how I imagine I would feel if I was sitting in the principal’s office or at the police station. I am just somewhere that I do not want to be. Then it rains. Scratch that. Then it pours. Clears up and pours again. You may think that this is bad however it was during this respite that I had my second most enjoyable moment. I was trapped for about half an hour in an arcade next to a giant claw machine. I was entertained by (excuse me for a moment while I try to come up for a word for those people who not only visit amusement parks but also drop hundreds of dollars while there on arcade games; fools come to mind, you know the adage “A fool and his money are soon parted”; I don’t think ‘parkers’ is apropos since I remember from my youth the connotation of that word, so I think I’ll use) Hershey Park happy people who were trying to win oversized blue, pink and purple stuffed bears at $2 a pop. My third most enjoyable moment came during the second downpour when Nate, Jen, Seth, Micah and Joel were caught in the open during the rain and at my suggestion fixed a broken umbrella from a vacant condiment stand and used it to shield themselves from nature’s fury. That was great!

What was my most enjoyable moment? Nothing, and I mean nothing, can match the shear exhilaration, the thrill, the rush I receive from the ride on the tram that goes from the Tram Circle to Tram stop #2. Excuse me while I catch my breath just remembering the feeling I had as I squeezed into the tram and deposited my backside on the seat that was taking me home and away from Hershey Park! From the time I announced I was heading for home while standing at the Wave Runner until I arrived at Tram Circle I felt as if I was being pulled by a team of wild horses. I wanted to break into an all out run. Not wanting to draw undo attention to myself I merely strolled briskly toward the exit only stopping twice once to listen to the Rhythm Chocolate Workers and once to refill my popcorn container.

In retrospect, I believe today’s activities validate once again what I have learned throughout the years. Go to the band concert. Visit the relatives. Stay away from Hershey Park.

Kayaking on the Susquehanna or How 34 Years of Wedded Bliss Went Down the River

Zeke finally got to me. During a moment of weakness while butterflies were landing on our heads and dogs were splashing in the creek, Zeke got me to agree to take Micah and Seth kayaking on the Susquehanna River this afternoon. Then in a moment of unparalleled weakness, a weakness not displayed since linguine was used as a backbone replacement, I not only agreed to taking Ann along, I agreed to get my ex-friends canoe too.

Now here are the problems with the canoe. Remember all the spiders in the first Indiana Jones movie. You don’t? Where’ve you been? Well, I found out where old movie spiders retire. Under canoes that linguine-spined-wannabe kayakers agree to use. Next problem, I drive the testosterone fueled Chevy Silverado1500 work truck with the full eight foot bed. Since it had been maybe ten years or more since I last borrowed the canoe I had forgotten that Detroit does not manufacture a vehicle that has anything less than 18-wheels to transport a 12-foot canoe. So I figured with enough rope, tie-downs and bubblegum I can surely get this canoe from Penbrook to the river. My goodness if nature can get the rain that falls and the snow that melts from my house to the river then by golly I certainly can get a canoe there. Why I even have a Chevy Silverado, like a Rock! After 40-minutes of escalating stress and 137,000 ties and reties, the four of us squeeze into the cab and are ready to go get Zeke and throw his kayaks into the now much smaller bed of the Silverado.

Mission accomplished and on to the river. We decide to ‘put in’ along Front Street between the Burg and Dauphin. We do this with very little fanfare. This is Seth’s first time on the river so he gets the quick 5-minute instruction on using a kayak, drowning while truly making it look like an accident and the signing of the proper last will and testament. I am shoehorned into my kayak know full well that I either must lose weight or die there in order to ever get out again. Ann and Micah get into the demon canoe, which I later found out was and is used to transport the damned across the river Styx. Off we go.

Seth takes to the kayak and the river like a fish to water, sorry. Zeke and I motor along like we know what we are doing and Ann and Micah meander aimlessly back and forth across the channels of the Susquehanna. The river has worked its magical spell and the edge has been taken off my afternoon. I begin to feel sorry for Ann and Micah. They look like they are working themselves to death just trying to go straight. Ann complained about her behind being sore and asked me several times why I didn’t bring a cushion for her. Stupid canoe! After about ninety minutes of guilt and leg cramps, I offered to switch and ride the canoe for a while. Micah thought this was great. Seth was so overjoyed that he was not mentioned in the switch that he dumped his kayak. I never thought a kid could role a kayak and not get his face or hair wet. Seth did. Micah said, “Mom and Dad could be in the canoe together. It would be like a date.” This soon to be sixteen year old gets this from his parents who brag about when they go to the grocery store together, attend a doctor’s appointment together or go to church together that they are going on a date since no kids are around.

Since Seth was already out of his canoe, Zeke thought it would be great for the boys to do a little river swimming. While they were swimming, I got out of my kayak with the same grace that a bull elephant with sore knees would have exiting a sunken bath tub. I learned this style late last year when I had to get out of the hot tube in the honeymoon suite at a Hampton Inn in Johnstown while the jets were on full force. That’ll be a blog story for another time. I then got into the canoe while Ann got into my kayak. This water stuff is really getting easy. The only problem is that as I sit in the rear of the canoe only about half of its in water. I look as if I’m going full power doing a canoe wheelie down the river while standing still. Nobody said anything. They didn’t have to. I could read their faces from within the bowels of the demon canoe.

As any loving, caring wife would do, Ann graciously returned to the front end of the canoe to be with me for the rest of the trip. Boy did she screw up! We had about a mile of river to navigate to get to the take out spot. She and I managed to travel just shot of thirteen mile to get there. I passed a dozen homes along the shore, all of the same build, all of the same color until I realized that we were paddling but going in circles. I mentioned in passing conversation that I thought that the manner in which she was paddling was causing us to go round and round. I mentioned that I now understood why she and Micah were having trouble coming down the river. I got the same reaction that a husband would get if he mentioned that his wife’s favorite dress must have shrunk in the dryer because last summer it seemed to be much looser around the waist. “Micah and I might have been having trouble but at least we weren’t going IN CIRCLES!” Thirty-four years of marriage, seven children, job struggles, car wrecks, driving lessons all that and now this marriage is actually going down the river. Zeke paddles three-quarters of a mile upstream to see if we were OK. He thought maybe we found something interesting in the river since we kept circling. Go soak your head Zeke.

God answers prayers. Somehow we got our canoe headed downriver and with little effort we made it to the take out spot. Praise the Lord. Now all we have to do is load up go home and call the marriage counselor. When I get home I graciously accept the fourth position in the shower line by volunteering to go get some extras for supper. Ann said that I could use her gift card, which she gave to me.

I go to the store, get my groceries and checkout. Only as I go to pay with the gift card it registers as being empty. That means it has a zero balance. Above the robotic voice saying, “Please select a payment method now”, I can hear a far off familiar laugh coming from within my shower. Justice served!

Going Batty

Last night Seth and I were sittin' round doing what every red blooded American male should be doing on a hot, humid, sweaty, mid-August night, watching the first pre-season FOOTBALL game of 2009. Sometime during the third quarter (which by the way means something different in August than what it does during the last three months of the calendar year. It's named the 3rd Quarter in August games because that's when the 3rd string players who are earning about $.75 a game get to strap it on and strut their stuff. In October, November and December it means you have less than 30 minutes of playing time to get it together or you only have to hang on for a little bit more. You are now being returned to your regular Blog...) I decided to get it going and announce to my audience, "I'm taking a shower." Several minutes later I rise like the morning fog out of a Blue Ridge Valley and shuffle off to my bedroom to prepare for the cleansing event. Upon entering the bedroom I am immediately snared by the power of my PC, my window to the cyber-world beyond. It sits there singing its Siren song, begging me to "Logon and check Facebook." Pinball machines sang the same song to me when I was in college. They even learned my name and would send it to me across the airwaves with their gentle hardly audible, "tic, tic, tic,tic".

I gave in and sat down. As my fingers were performing their dance across the keyboard conveying user name and password to the keepers of Facebook, I hear Seth moving in the living room. Having left him laying on the couch I knew that only one of two things had happened. He either decide he was going to try and beat me to the bathroom or it was time for him to retrieve nourishment from the kitchen.

Much to my soon to be amazement it was neither. What I heard was, "Where'd this bat come from?" That's not an unusual statement to hear at our house for the simple reason that for 12-months, 52-weeks a year Seth walks around carrying, swinging, or cleaning his baseball bat. The bat can be wood, metal or plastic. Seth will walk into the living room, strikes a pose with his bat and quiz us by saying, "Who stands like this?" At that point we can only hope that our answer is correct because if it isn't he continues with these charades until we get one correct. It is also customary to look before sitting on any of our furniture because one never knows when you may unexpectedly sit on a bat. That could be quite an experience.

Anyhow, Seth walks into my room with this 'Canary-eatin' smile and calmly says, "There's a big bat in the living room." Now Seth is smiling because he already knows that there is no way on God's Earth that I am going to believe him. Several years ago during the summer Seth and a neighbor boy came running out of the basement where they were watching TV saying there was a bat flying around down there. I looked for an hour and never found one. I searched the next day, nothing. To this day, years later, I still search for bat bones tucked away in some small seldom visited corner or crevasse of the basement.

In order to appease the child I cut the duct tape from my head that was holding me to the monitor of my computer and went to the living room. Clement Moore probably says it best when he said, "When what to my wondering eyes should appear...but a big brown bat! This guy was huge. He had close to a nine-foot wing span. His teeth were dripping with blood. He was singing a song only a misdirected fax machine could love. He obviously was drawn to the lights of our house thinking it was some kind of airport or landing strip.

Seth looked to me to get us out of this situation. We both thought, "Where's mom?" Not that we needed the help, we just knew she wasn't going to believe us (please reread two paragraphs back). I quickly assessed the situation and had learned from watching the mid-August football game that I had to defense this guy. Contain, contain, contain. Just like handling a scrambling quarterback, only this time it was an aerial show.

There are three doorways in our living room. One leads to the kitchen but I felt we were OK there as both our side door and basement doors were open thus blocking the living room exit by appearing to be a solid wall to a radar guided mammal. I stood between the bat and the exit to the rest of the living spaces. My concern was that this uninvited nighttime guest would want the 50-cent tour of the house and I'd lose any advantage I now had in securing his eventual capture and release. Seth's job was to go to the front door which exited back to nature and Batland, and hold it open. As I tried to herd our wayward wondering friend towards the door the strangest thought went through my mind. Here I am darting back and forth across the living room, waving a couch pillow above my head, telling Seth to keep the door open, and offering encouraging words to a deaf mammal that's squeaking at me and dripping blood. All of our windows are open, the lights are on and I am sure a crowd is gathering curbside to watch this guy finally loosing his mind.

The bat finally succumbed. He landed on the wall above the front door. I swear I heard heavy breathing. His, mine or Seth's, I don't know for sure at this time but at that time I thought it was his. I shooshed him off the wall with a Kohl's ad and he dropped to the floor. Seth somehow now appeared behind me. Not sure how he got there but he was in the right place at the right time. I mentioned to anyone listening that I need to get something with which to capture him. Seth returned post haste with his net, butterfly or fish didn't really matter at that time it was a net with a long handle. With a little resistance from Mr. Bat he was mine! Only now what do I do. He's trapped under a net on my living room floor. I needed to slide something under the net in order to secure the trap. Seth got a piece of stiff cardboard which I slid under our captive who was under the net. I carefully, oh so carefully, picked up the snare and asked Seth to open the front door so I could release the bat back to whence he came.

As I stepped across the threshold and out onto the porch my mind registered, for that moment at least, a somewhat insignificant event, the sound of a closing tight of our front door. Moving to the edge of our front porch I released the bat. He was shilouetted against the glow the cell phones made from the crowd that had gathered and was now blocking traffic on our street. One thing that is difficult to ascertain about flying objects is being able to tell in which direction they are moving when in a straight line of your vision. Are they going away from you or are they coming right at you. This was the paradox in which I now found myself. The recently released bat seemed to be moving away from me but the Doppler affect of his high pitched song said otherwise. When I realized that he was aiming directly for my face the 'fight or flight' instinct kicked into full gear. As I turned to go back into the house to get away my mind dug up from its short-term memory a certain sound of a certain front door be firmly secured only moment earlier. Duck!

I saw the bat circle and resume the eating of night bugs. I'm sure when he got back to the bat cave or where ever bats return to, he'll have a heck of a story to tell about what all he had to go through just too get the Eagle's score.

Ann walked in and said, "What's going on here while I was away?"

I Know He Knows

One thing I have discovered through out the years is that God will teach you His ways, He will show you His heart. He will bring you to your knees if you allow Him. If you allow Him is the catch phrase. He will not force Himself on you. You must seek His will. You must desire His company. You must want His communication with you. This is not unlike the very relations you have with your parents, your children, your spouse, and your friends.

I try to view my relationship with the Great I Am as a father to son, child to parent relationship. He has met me at that exact spot many, many times through the years.

Recently someone near and dear to me decided that they no longer need the benefit of my counsel or my permission to do something that I knew was not in their best interest. In any case I was flippantly told that I was not needed because they had grown beyond what I could do for them and they were mature enough to make their own decisions.

This hurt me. This hurt deeply. It hurt because it was a rejection. This hurt because I was no longer needed. This hurt because I was confronted with the realization that I no longer had the influence in their life that I previously held.

As the events of the day unfolded things did not go as they were planned. I was asked for the very help, wisdom and counsel earlier rejected. My reaction was anger. I was angry and hurt more deeply than before because now I felt as if I was being used. “Do it your way and come running to me when things aren’t going as planned.” Then when I found out that the counsel of others was being sought at the same time to solve the dilemma, it was too much.

It was at that point, at the time the lions were release into the den, at the time the oven door was slammed shut and the locking bar was slid into place, that God the Father made His presence known in the situation.

He explained to me that now ‘I’ fully understand how ‘He’ feels at times with me when I tell Him through what I think, say, and do, that I don’t need Him. “I can do it myself. I have grown past you.” He let me know how ‘He’ feels when ‘I’ go to the world for answers and not Him. He showed me that the very heartache I suffered is also suffered by Him. The same rejection I felt, I have also inflicted upon Him. I was reminded that He sent His son here to take on the cloak of humanity in order to fully experience everything His creations would experience. I knew He knew.

Gently but firmly he dealt with me. He did not pull any punches as He plowed forward and dealt with the way I reacted to the cry for help from the one who hurt me. “Is that how you want Me to act when you call out My name?”

Whoa! Hoooold on there, Auggie Boy! This is sobering stuff.

I stood before my Judge guilty, convicted of the very crime I was livid over. How many times had I done the same to my Father? Time after time I reject His ways. Time after time I run back to Him when I am in over my head. Driven to my knees in shame and remorse, He started the healing process in me. He forgave me. He has started once again the lessons I need to understand and apply in my life. I am forgiven. I need to forgive.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.” Psalm 84:11-12

Waiting

Samuel spent the day with Ann and Seth today. When I came home from work I walked into our bedroom to find Ann and Seth doing school work at the computer and Samuel rolling around on the bed being a boy. I stopped in the doorway and in my best surprise look and voice I said to Samuel, “Where did you come from?” Without hesitation he replied, “My daddy brought me.” This was a very simple, very innocent exchange of pleasantries between an adult and a child.

After leaving to vote in the primary election, I returned home to dig our garden. I got the tiller out, put on my gloves and began to turn the earth inside out. As I was working on this, Seth and Sam came out into the yard with badminton racquets and shuttlecocks. I was able to watch the boys hit the shuttlecocks back and forth, forth and back as I circled the gardens ever shrinking perimeter with the tiller. About half way through the job at hand I stopped to rest. Ann walked by with a fist full of cuttings for me to dig into the earth. For some reason I was prompted to ask Ann, “Does Samuel ever ask for his mom or dad?” Ann replied, “He speaks of them but doesn’t ask for them.”

As I restarted the tiller to resume my digging the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He left me know that the same innocent confidence that Samuel displays in knowing that his father is coming back for him is the same confidence that I should have, all should have, in knowing that our Father is coming back. Did you catch that? God used Samuel, his innocence and his relationship to his father as a breathtaking object lesson of faith. A faith so simple but yet purposely profound.

This same principle can be found in the book Endurance, a story about the British Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton. In 1912, Shackleton left England on the HMS Endurance to try and be the first explorer to reach the South Pole. After a series of unfortunate events, Shackleton was forced to leave the majority of his exploration party trapped on the Antarctic continent with no ship, no sled dogs, little hope and the promise that he would return for them. He did return and saved his faithfully waiting yet still functioning party of explorers.

Our Father brought us here where we are today. We are to wait patiently and confidently for His return, knowing full-well that His promise is true. He presented this object lesson to me through Samuel. What a blessing! I share it with you so that you may share it with others. I can understand the emptiness and the helplessness you must feel during this season of your life, being separated from those your love and the things you love to do but please be assured that God is using this time and those who are near and dear to you to further His love.

*~*

So I'm waiting for you Jesus, cause I know that those who wait,

They will mount with wings like eagles, they will run and not grow faint,

They will walk and not grow weary, their strength will be renewed,

Coming from You.

So I wait, I'm waiting for you, waiting for you.

So come back soon, I'm waiting for you. - Rich Mullins

Dan

Some names have changed to protect identities.

Greetings - Dawn of time for my blog

Greetings and welcome to my blog.

In the past week I have gone from Facebook to Twitter to where you are right now. I have often thought of having a blog and after listening to Kim Komando explain the simplisity of blogging I decided to give it a try. I will publish things that happen to me, things that I find funny, things that I feel strongly about and things that I am led to share with others. Please feel free to comment on what I write. We may not always agree on things but I pledge that, that will not be a problem.

I already have a few items lined up to publish. Now I just need the time to compose them in a manner in which I will be satisfied.

Dan