I titled the last newsletter “Strange Weather” and I could have made this edition “Part 2.” Since I last wrote it got even colder and we had a little snow. Now things are starting to warm back up again.
WINTER’S LAST GASP. For those who don’t like snow what we had last weekend was ideal. It had been raining all last Friday afternoon and began to change to snow at sunset. It was getting messy enough that Vicki and I debated whether or not we should go to the end of season Upward Basketball party. We decided to go and after it was over we found ourselves driving home on slushy roads. We woke up the next morning to our first significant snowfall of the winter. We had 2-3 inches (which fell short of the 4-6 inch prediction).
The kids had a lot of fun playing in the snow last Saturday morning. We pulled them around the yard on their sleds. The snow was dry and powdery so the snowball fight we tried to start didn’t last too long. It stayed cold all day but the sun came out. Between the sun and the warm ground the roads cleared off pretty quickly. No one around here had any trouble getting about last Sunday. There were only a few hints of the white stuff by Monday.
REMEMBERING BRO. DORRIS. I should mention here the passing of our former pastor, Donald Dorris, as Mom and I went to his funeral last Saturday. He was Bro. Bill’s predecessor and served at Mt. Carmel from 1970 until 1981. I probably got a lot of my love for working with video and other forms of multi-media from him. Bro. Dorris had a large collection of Westerns, cartoons and comedy shorts (the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals) on 16 mm film. This was back in the days before VCRs were available on the consumer market. He had even set up a home theater, complete with theater seating, in the basement of the parsonage--probably the first home theater in Robertson County. Some of my favorite memories of Vacation Bible School are the films he would show during snack time.
Bro. Dorris was a very talented man. Aside from being a good speaker he was a poet, an artist, and a ventriloquist. Sometimes on Sunday night he would set up his easel and tell a Bible story as he drew it on the canvas with colored chalk. He would also plan trips to Fair Park and later Opryland. But more than all that, he demonstrated loving God and loving people before that became a popular catch phrase in Christian circles.
ENTERING THE 21ST CENTURY--FINALLY. We have traveled on the sidewalk of the Information Super Highway long enough. This week we bit the bullet and got satellite broadband. It is so nice to see web pages load in seconds as opposed to minutes! YouTube (which is blocked by our filter at work) has an amazing number of videos on B-29s and steam engines. I can click them and they will actually play--right then! I feel like we’ve left the dark ages.
Ben has discovered Google Earth (well, I showed it to him) and he’s having a blast. We logged into his account (each of the kids have their own account on the computer which will be good for controlling Internet access) and I found our house for him and showed him how to create a place marker. Then he wanted me to find the church and I said, “You find it.” Now he’s finding everything. If he knows the route to get there he can navigate there on Google Earth and put in a place marker. I know this because he keeps yelling for someone to come and type names in for him. It’s amazing because he’s finding things I would never have expected, like Mrs. Ann Morris’ house where Jenna takes piano lessons.
ON THE AIR. Yesterday morning the Tiger Cub Scouts took a field trip to WSGI, our local radio station. This activity was one of the field trip options and since I know Brad Carneal, one of the deejays, I was able to line it up for them. Brad hosts a sports show on Saturday mornings and was happy to have us. He gave the boys a tour of the studio and let them have a chance to be on the air. I was really proud of Ben as he was the only one of the three boys who was brave enough to speak, and he did it like it was the most normal thing in the world to him. Brad asked Ben several questions in his interview. I was especially proud when Brad asked Ben what his favorite thing about being a Cub Scout was and Ben said, “Being together with my friends.”
Joe
