Funny Stories

The Akron Beacon Journal published a collection of stories from teachers based on actual classroom experiences.  They were really pretty good.

One teacher's story was that the class said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before the day started.  Her students were in the 7th grade.  One boy wasn't doing that.  He was talking to his neighbor.  He was warned and did it again, so he had to write the Pledge of Allegiance.

He wrote it very well until he got to the part, "One nation, under God."  His version was, "One Asian, under God."

The teacher was incredulous.  "You mean," she said, "that you have been saying the Pledge of Allegiance like this for seven years!"  The boy replied, "Well, yeah, and I did think it was a little bit odd."

My niece was one of those kids who slaughtered lyrics.  She could come up with the funniest darn things.  Her version of the Brady Bunch song was always good for a round of laughter (albeit you had to keep a straight face until she left the room). 

Of course, I shouldn't talk.  There's a little bit of my niece in me too.  ONLY a couple of years ago, it occurred to me that I had been saying the name of a very common sandwich wrong.  Really?  I mean, what on earth was I thinking?  The sandwich:  toasted cheese.  My pronunciation:  toast of cheese.

My sister and I really laughed about it.  Why did I finally figure it out?  I saw it printed in a restaurant menu somewhere.  But you try saying "toast of cheese" fairly fast and see if it doesn't sound almost right.  I got by.

We won't get into the adults who say "Valentime's Day," "pitcher (picture)," "liberry," or one of my favorites, "Swedish Day."  Maybe they'll figure it out one of these days.

We as God's creation and people surely aren't perfect, are we?  But one of the best gifts is our sense of humor so at least we can laugh at ourselves when we get it wrong.  And I'm not talking about sin here; that's not so funny.

Today should be another lovely day -- 73 and partly cloudy.  By the weekend, though, we will be back in the 50s.  So the dress for Mothers' Day is going to be much less summery, at least for me it will be.

Have a wonderful Thursday.  I pray that the three girls from Cleveland heal in body, mind, and spirit.  I pray that the monster that took them can't have the satisfaction of knowing that he left his mark on them.  And I pray that they will find their true purpose in this life.

Now Cleveland

Wow.  It has certainly been a spring of horrors -- one right after the other.  The Goznell trial, the Arias trial, the Boston Marathon bombings and now the Cleveland revelations.

And they all have one major thing in common -- a total disregard for human life. 

I bet you remember when Amanda Berry went missing.  They looked everywhere for her, especially since she was a responsible girl who was simply heading home from her job at Burger King.  Burger King gave it that, "It could happen anywhere," feeling.  When Gina Dejesus went missing, it certainly seemed suspicious, and apparently Cleveland detectives thought so too.  But where were the girls?  Were they in the same house the whole time?  Over the next weeks and months we'll learn a great deal more about their ordeal, their humiliations, and their treatment.

We still don't know all of the details of their nightmare, but the school bus driver who took Amanda Berry and probably fathered her six-year-old daughter didn't spend all of his time at home.  He went out to karaoke bars for goodness sake.  And during that whole time even when he called police about a street fight in front of the home, he apparently didn't talk about anything that led others to question his involvement in anything so sinister.  And that is fairly remarkable because it is usually loose lips that lead police to people like this guy.

The neighbors who helped Amanda Berry get out of the house are the kind of neighbors folks ought to have.  And she was absolutely frantic to get out before he got home.  If I think about it, I can feel a taste of panic she must have felt.  It's a little like what I used to feel when my brother chased me up the steps.  I just couldn't get my legs to go fast enough because adrenalin was flooding my nerve pathways.

The three brothers used the girls for a bit more than 10 years!  Jodi Arias apparently saw her boyfriend as a possession and when he showed interest in someone else, she took care of it, and so it certainly wasn't love.  Goznell would argue that he "helped" the poor women who found their way to his clinic, but the one he helped most to the tune of more than $1 a year was himself.  So he used the women and their situations to pad his own pocket.  The Boston Marathon bombers used the spectators and bystanders to make a political statement; they were expendable for the cause. 

I have to admit that I watch Criminal Minds.  Not for the gore or anything like that, but more because of the analysis of criminals which I find fascinating.  What motivates killers to do what they do?  And sometimes I've thought that Criminals Minds went a little too far in the show in terms of believability, but now that they've found Amanda Berry after 10 years, I'm not sure any plot they come up with is over the top.

A referee is hit by a soccer player in Utah and dies of the trauma.  Another complete lack of regard for another person.  Another demonstration of lack of impulse control.

Where is our society going?  The Beatles song, "I wanna hold your hand," seems so nice, so innocent, doesn't it?  Don't you ever think to yourself -- I'm worried about all of this -- but then in the next instant you admit that you don't have a clue as to what to do about it?  Mother Teresa answered a questioner once who asked her, "Mother Teresa, how do you know who to help first?"  And she replied, "Help who is in front of you."  We can all do a little bit of that, can't we? 

The old song, "They'll know we are Christians," tells us that we should stand out because of our love for others.  That's what is in front of us each and every day.  Love others and love will lead us down the right path, the one that leads us straight to God.  Fight the good fight; run the race.

What's in a Name?

Check out the picture!!  This is Drew, my five-year-old grandson wearing his brand new uniform for T-ball.  He has a little room to grow into it which is not a bad thing.  He is probably the youngest member of his team and as a newbie to baseball, he has to find out about grounders, fly balls, bunts, singles, doubles, triples, and home runs.  He has a pitch back device at home, and soon that should help him hone his throwing and catching skills.  And of course, there’s daddy.

When I saw the uniform on Saturday before he had donned it for the game, I remarked, “Drew, you’re a Giant.  And he looked at me with questioning eyes and said, “No, I not.”  In stature, he is most definitely NOT a Giant.

Drew was correct.  Where on earth do we get some of the sports names that have become fixtures in our society?  In the case of the Giants, owner Tim Mara who purchased the team in 1925 for a whopping $500, selected the name Giants because of the giant buildings in New York.  Kind of makes sense.

But then there are the Reds and the White Sox.  No, I’m not going to google them right now, but one of these days I will.

We love to name things, don’t we?  The University of Akron took the name Zips, unique in the country and probably in the world.  Named for a rubber shoe (the zipper) developed by Goodyear, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but Zip also means “nada, nothing, zero.”  So it doesn’t always help the image of teams trying to win.  Hence, the NCAA-winning soccer team a couple of years ago gave the Zips a new lease on life in a sense.  Zippy, the Kangaroo, is a great mascot and also rather unique in a land that has never seen a native species like the kangaroo.  But who doesn’t like Zippy?

In our faith we also have names.  One of my favorites is for Mary – the Morning Star.  The morning star does not shine on its own but is a reflection of the sun’s glory.  Say that again – the morning star (Mary) does not shine on her own but is a reflection of the SON’s glory.  A church in Florida is called Our Lady Star of the Sea because another one of Mary’s names is Stella Mara, Star of the Sea, named as such by sailors.  Our Lady of Perpetual Help is another name for Mary.  Catholics revere Mary to a degree that is uncomfortable sometimes for those of other Christian denominations.  There is one really good reason for that – No Mary, No Jesus.  Her willingness (completely of her own free will) to say YES allowed Jesus to come to this earth to save us.  We all have a teenager to thank for this wonderful gift beyond all telling.

So what’s in a name?  It seems like in certain instances there is plenty.

 

 

Goznell

I hope you watched the Fox News special last night about Dr. Goznell and his clinic of horrors.  It was difficult to view at times, but this is reality. 

One of the most shocking parts of the one-hour special is when we learned that the rows of seats reserved for media were empty, except for the date when the defense attorney for Dr. Goznell gave his closing arguments.  Of course, it also has to be mentioned that his attorney called no witnesses whatsoever, no character witnesses, no expert witnesses, and not Dr. Goznell either.  Still, the media as a whole seemed much more interested in defending Dr. Goznell than in reporting the charges against him.

In case you did miss it, it will be on again on Sunday night at 9:00 p.m.  We are going to DVR it so I can see it again.  Last night I was so tired that without willing it to happen in any way, I fell asleep during part of it.  That happens sometimes, particularly when I stop crocheting and the clock reads somewhere between 9-10.  I should have continued crocheting!!!

The Goznell trial and ensuing discussion has opened the floodgates on the issue of abortion.  The trial has even converted pro-choice advocates to decidedly pro-life advocates.  The gravity of what happened in the clinic is something that one would hope is the exception, but sadly enough, it probably isn't.  Even during testimony to Congress, it became obvious that a pro-choice lobbyist could not grasp the moral issue of a baby born alive during a botched abortion.

In a sense, aren't all abortions botched?  Something is done to interrupt a natural occurrence in life.  The pregnant woman's body is flooded with hormones that guide the process of the baby's growth.  Changes occur so fast after conception that pregnancy tests today are reliable very, very early.  And then it's like the body is slammed against a brick wall.

When I worked at Akron City Hospital (now Summa) many years ago, a co-worker (let's call her Sue) had a younger sister whom she was raising.  My co-worker's father had died of cancer at a young age, but then her mother was killed in a horrific car accident.  Sue went to the hospital and saw a sheet covering the body, and her mother's beautiful red hair spilling out beyond the gurney.  She knew at that moment that their lives were changed forever.

Sue's sister was a bit of a wild child, and she rebelled against Sue's attempts at raising her.  The final straw was when she ran away from their apartment.  Sue was beside herself.  Then her sister finally came home, but something wasn't right.  Her sister was really ill and running a high fever; she was in terrible pain.  Sue took her to the hospital and they began to treat her for massive infection.  Her botched abortion gave them little choice but to perform a complete hysterectomy.  She was maybe 18; I can't remember for sure.  In fact, I had forgotten all about this until I sat down to write this posting.  I've completely lost track of Sue but we were close during the time we worked together.  I can only hope that by being able to talk to someone, it helped Sue with her many burdens.  And I pray that Sue found peace in her life.

My final thought for today is that my heart breaks for all of the victims of abortion, and that includes the women too.  The Rachel Project (hopeafterabortion.com) is one program that recognizes that the end of the pregnancy does not mean an end to the problems for the woman.  Sometimes it is just the beginning of them, and often the longer that it is has been since the abortion, the more that the damage is psychologically layered, making it hard to penetrate.  Forgiveness is there for a woman who chose this route, and how can we not offer that?  God can forgive any sin, no matter how terrible, and make it so that our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west.

And that is peace, the kind that I wish for Sue and her sister.

Journalism

There was a little article I spotted the other day in the newspaper about journalism.  Apparently, the job of being a journalist is now the lowest of the low as far as the public is concerned.

Being a reporter has never been a high paid job for the majority of journalists, and that's a fact.  But, where could you find a position where your best friend is your curiosity?  I'm speaking here of working for the smaller newspapers that give their reporters a little more freedom in developing stories. 

On a much more intensive level, reporters who give their readers the nuts and bolts of local and national happenings, like what Congress is doing or what the Supreme Court is doing, are part of our forefathers' plans for the United States.  The Freedom of the Press stands as one of the most important freedoms because the press is the link between the branches of government and the people.  The press members are supposed to be unbiased, and without an agenda of their own tell the facts so that the people can decide for themselves about what is going on.  Competition between newspapers pushed reporters to get the story first, since selling papers was the objective for the newspaper.

If you decide to go to a local government meeting anywhere around here, you might be surprised to find that there are no press representatives there.  Back in the day when I covered local meetings, there were always three or four representatives, hence there was a press table set up for this purpose because we all sat together.  Tom Ryan would come from the Beacon Journal if he had heard of some possible goings-on.  Then there were reps from the Repository, the Independent, and The Signal (our local paper).  So what happened to the press?  Economics is probably the biggest reason.  Newspapers have had to shrink their pool of reporters in order to turn a profit.  Look at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland that is struggling right now to put out a paper every day.

If a regular reporter (not a stringer) comes to the meetings now, they have a laptop or an iPad or something.  They literally write the story on the fly and send it in.  So you would think that technology would improve the presence of the press, wouldn't you?  But it hasn't. 

So what's a stringer, you ask?  A stringer is a reporter for the newspaper who attends meetings and only gets paid if the story is published.  They get paid by the inch of copy in the paper.  It used to be a decent part-time job for a homemaker, working a couple of evenings a week, and earning a little bit of extra cash.  The cost of gas, the smaller paper, and less advertising that determines the size of the paper have just about put stringers out of work.  There are not that many left.  But on the local level,  stringers helped the public find out what their local government was doing or maybe not doing.

Probably one of the reasons why Americans didn't really understand the affordable health care act is because mainstream media didn't do a very good job of reporting about it.  There were red flags all over the place and people who understand such things were trying to wave them.  However, the true cost of the plan and its one-size-fits-all provisions were never published like they should have been.  So now here we are with a much bigger problem than we had before.  And it isn't like there aren't going to be big losers in all of this because there will be. 

The word that comes to mind about journalism is responsibility.  I can't think of another job where with a bachelor's degree a person can have as much of an impact on society.  But something has happened so that too many journalists today don't embrace the responsibility part of the job.  There have been some who have outright fudged their reporting so as to win a prize or get a promotion or make heads turn.  There are those who report verbatim on whatever a talking head says with no attempt to do a little background work.  There are those who have their own agenda and do very little to rein in their own thoughts, rather than tell both sides of a story.  In short, some of the moral decay that we see in society today is reflected in journalism.  How low do we have to go before we hit bottom and then can start afresh?

There are some rules in journalism that should remain hard and true, because the country needs that person who can observe, assess, research, delve, and write.  And add to that a healthy dose of common sense.

Father Norm Douglas and an attorney in Akron founded Heart to Heart many years ago.  Their goal is to help businesses bring faith into the workplace.  Journalists definitely need God to do their job.  Someone once said that you should work as though your boss is God.  Then it doesn't really matter what your job is because by working for God, your work is upheld.

Well, that's it for today.  Pray for Luke who is very ill in the hospital.  He is only three and has cancer and has how developed pneumonia. 

Undercover Boss

We've watched about six episodes of "Undercover Boss" over the last couple of years.  The last boss was the COO of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.  He'd only been on the job for about six months when he went undercover.

He dealt cards, worked the front desk, and worked the floor selling reward cards.  The three people he was assigned to thought he was vying for a job on a reality show .  The card dealer was an older fellow who served in Vietnam  and still had probably what we now call PTSD.  The front desk woman was a married lady who worked around their new but slower check-in program as best she could.  The woman who worked the floor, cleaned ashtrays and sold reward cards visited folks at a nearby rest home and she took them flowers via a deal she had with Sam's Club.

I found myself touched by each of the three employees who obviously had character and compassion. 

Per the usual pattern of the show, the three employees were asked to visit the corporate offices and then they learned who they were actually working with.  Of course, they were floored.  Especially the woman who worked the floor because she had driven the COO to the rest home in her own car to deliver flowers when he showed such an interest.

Each of the employees were rewarded in a special way.  The lady who worked the front desk was given a vacation for her and her husband.  The gentleman who dealt cards was given a trip to a major league ballgame for he and his brothers to sit in the owner's box, as well as $5,000 donated in his name for Vietnam vets.  And the lady who took the flowers was rewarded when the owner made arrangements for her to get flowers through the hotel's many resources and also a cash gift.

While the COO was staying in a nearby motel for his role, his family came to visit him.  They seemed like a genuinely happy group who likes spending time with each other.  He worries that his kids will be spoiled by everything that he can provide for them, and he doesn't want them to forget to be thankful for everything.  He wants them to start volunteering somewhere, and I hope that he follows through on that. 

The antidote to selfish kids who don't know what to do with all of their time is guiding kids toward some volunteering, and for the benefit of that we will revisit a recent post about Father's sermon.  We find God through loving.  If today's young people struggle with the world that we inhabit and struggle with their purpose in life, then they need to glimpse what such a purpose might be.  Volunteering does that. 

The lady who took flowers to the nursing home started doing so after her own mother was in a nursing home and then passed away.  She wanted to treat the people in the home the way that she would have wanted her mother to be treated.  I was most impressed with her because she really cared and she really went that extra step to serve others. 

Sometimes you watch TV and you come away inspired.  Not all "Undercover Boss" episodes are quite as good as this one was, but for me this one was special. 

When the COO drew all of the employees together for a meeting, his humility and concern for them was obvious.  If he continues along this pathway, he should meet with much success.  But far more than that, he should be able to steer his children down the right pathway too.

Another lovely day is in store for us -- many blessings on you, friends.

The Mud Fight

When I went to Kent State from 1964-68, one of the roughest patches was the big mud fight.  It was spring and a couple of kids must have thought it would be great fun to turn on the spigots behind several dorms in the central part of campus.

They turned it on all right.  That day the grassy area was turned into an enormous mud pit, and pity the unwary student who happened by that day, because the mud fighters would drag them in to join the party.  I walked by there on my way to classes that day, but the main drag was out of sight of the revelers and believe me, I was no mud fighter.

Later that evening was when the reality of the repercussions were felt.  The kids had nearly DRAINED the huge water tower.  Most people, and at that time me included, had no idea what the water tower did.  It wasn't just a storage facility for water; it created water pressure for the whole system.  Since the campus was expanded down the hill to my dorm and others beyond, water pressure was how the faucets worked and the toilets flushed.  So that afternoon, it didn't take long to realize that we didn't have running water in Beall Hall.

The cafeteria people did a great job of warming up dinner and serving it on disposable plates.  We didn't know what they were going to use for cleaning up pots and pans.  There were going to be no showers that night, but the worst of course, was not having a flushing toilet. 

Years later when Katrina hit and the evacuees made their way to the New Orleans Super Dome, my thoughts immediately returned to KSU and the evening of the mud fight.  I won't go into graphic detail, but people became sort of like animals in our part of campus.  My roommate's parents came with water in plastic jugs.  And all night long while we slept, the water tower was being refilled.  By morning, thankfully, the crisis had passed and the water pressure was restored. 

And the cleanup began, especially with the ground floor bathroom normally used by visitors.  Within a couple of days, the mud fight was a distant memory, save for some spectacular pictures that the yearbook staff captured for posterity. 

The capricious stunt had really backfired though, since those of us with the longer walk to class and the farthest from the tower were pretty peeved.  It wasn't all that funny for us.

And so it was another lesson learned for me at a fairly young age of how behavior changes so radically with just the simplest thing, and how quickly it goes downhill.  Recently, the ordeal of the passengers on the Carnival Cruise Lines "Triumph," brought the memory of KSU back to me again and I knew what would happen. 

We are so blessed to have running water.  It might be something that we hardly ever consider, but it is a gift.  And there are SO MANY of them in our lives that we could not possibly list or count them.
So when we turn on the tap today to wash a few dishes or brush our teeth, let's take a few moments to thank God.

Enjoying the spring so far?  I hope so.  It has been beautiful.

Correction -- Father's story from yesterday was NOT about him, as I had thought, but about a priest friend of his.  So I apologize for that error.  But the rest of the story stands true.