A TALE OF TWO CITIES

A tourist eating (enjoying?) scorpion on a stick in China

For sports junkies, the last couple weeks have been glorious, especially for the locals. The Olympics in China and the American Legion Baseball Regionals/World Series in Shelby occurred simultaneously. Personally I enjoyed both. I suppose comparisons are inevitable. And since I am the one who writes the column, I guess it’s left to me to construct such comparisons.

Let’s start with the opening ceremonies. China’s offering in Beijing was spectacular, but lasted way too long. Due to my short television attention span, I witnessed little of it. The opening ceremony for the Legion World Series was relatively short and remarkably impressive, considering I witnessed it live. How those skydivers land on a target I’ll never know. But they do and they did that night.

A little Chinese girl stole the world’s heart when she sang some sort of patriotic melody at the Olympics opening ceremony. Not so fast. Turns out the powers that be decided the real singer wasn’t cute enough so they inserted a girl with a “pixie smile” and she moved her mouth at the appropriate moments. At a couple Legion games, very young girls Jordan Beaver and Emily Wilson sang live and in color versions of The Star Spangled Banner that brought tears to the eyes of even the hardest of hearts.

I never could figure out the television schedule for the Olympics. Unless you wanted to stay up until 2:30 a.m., tape delay reigned since Beijing is half a world away. I would read online in the morning about the events then watch them 10 hours later, already knowing the results. And you had to tune in for three hours to get ten minutes of the sport that interested you.

Meanwhile, ten minutes from my driveway, I could enjoy some of the best baseball in the country. And when I wasn’t there, I could listen on the radio and watch live on the Webb-Cam. Okay, one of the games lasted until 3:30 a.m., but it was rain delayed, not tape delayed. Plus the locals won.

I threw out the ceremonial first pitch before one of the Legion games. By the way, I thought it was a strike regardless of the opinion of the radio announcer, who had a bad view. Meanwhile, a member of the Chinese national team was being ejected for throwing a baseball at an American’s head during an Olympic game.

How ‘bout the food? Grilled chicken sandwiches, Barbecue ribs, funnel cakes and homemade ice cream tickled taste buds at the Legion games. In China, delicacies such as fried rice balls, mung bean milk, scorpion on a stick, seahorse, and boiled dung beetles are favorites at the local markets.

Let me be clear. I’m not picking on the Chinese. They did a splendid job hosting the Olympics. Nor am I busting on the athletes. The Redeem team (our USA basketballers) impressed me with their patriotism and appreciation of the opportunity they were afforded. And I am extremely proud of how all my countrymen performed.

But I’m just as proud of how well our local boys fared in the baseball regionals, and I won’t soon forget how our community came together for two weeks and put us on the Legion Baseball map for many years to come. If you were involved in any fashion, you deserve a gold medal.

What I Did on Summer Vacation

Time for school to start again. Parents everywhere exhaling sighs of relief. It’s not that we don’t love our children. It’s just that serving as their directors of entertainment for two and a half months drains the parental life out of us. So we’ll pack their little book bags, dress them in their Back to School Sale-purchased clothes, and send them off for another year of educational bliss.

And one of their first assignments will be to write that time-tested beginning of the year essay entitled “What I Did on Summer Vacation.” So to honor these pupils, and to help prod them along, I now share my version of the aforementioned essay with you, the sometimes interested, sometimes bored reading public:

Dear Teacher,

I did lots this summer. You’ll be proud to know I studied History. Me and my family went to Gettysburg. All that Civil War stuff. I’ve been three times now and for the third straight time, the South lost the war. While we were in Pennsylvania, we went to see my favorite baseball team, the Pirates. They won the game but history repeated itself a few days after the game when they traded away their best players to save money like they do every July.

I studied Health and food group stuff this summer. I discovered seedless watermelons taste great and better yet, you don’t run the risk of swallowing the seeds and dealing with melons growing in your stomach like they did when I was little. I also learned that your belly will scream at you if you eat three bowls of homemade banana ice cream at the church picnic.

I learned some stuff about Economics this summer. You can save $50 a month on your power bill if your dryer breaks and your wife has to hang out clothes to dry on the back porch. A family can spend $7 to see a movie at the Drive-In and take our own snacks instead of forking out $50 or so to catch a flick and munch some popcorn at the regular movie house.

I did some Physical Education, too. We played wiffle ball in our front yard and badminton in our backyard, which only needed mowing over the septic lines thanks to the drought. I went parasailing at the beach even though I’m embarrassingly fearful of heights. And I rode some waves even though I have a ridiculously unrealistic expectation of becoming the next recipient of a shark nibble.

I didn’t forget to work on Math this summer. Did you know you can take 3 boys, 1 loaf of stale bread and it will produce 50 or 60 ducks at the lake at Gardner-Webb? And if you’re talking science, I can tell you about our experiment where my kids laid perfectly still on the ground with chunks of bread resting on their noses. Ducks will eat off your nose if you play dead long enough, and interestingly, will flee the scene when kids raise up and chase them like lunatics.

Add to all that a mission trip, baseball All-Stars, Legion baseball, Dad’s heart surgery, Mom and Dad’s 50^th anniversary, and the day I got sick on the Hurler at Carowinds and you have an eventful summer full of educational experiences. I’m glad school’s starting back so I can finally get some rest.

Don't believe everything you read. . . or forward

A picture of a one-legged baseball player. Real or trick photography?

Recent events have led me to conclude that I need to use column space from time to time in a public service capacity. Specifically, I feel the obligation to inform you, the reading public, of the falsehood or truthhood (I know it’s not a word) of various items that make their way into the inbox section of my email server occasionally.

I am fascinated, perturbed, and perplexed all at the same time by these uninvited electronic invaders. So this week I thought I’d share a few from my most recent collection and clarify their authenticity. By the way, the ones I giggle at are the ones that make you feel like you’re eternally damned if you don’t forward them within five minutes. Also by the way, if you’ve sent emails my way, keep them coming. They will provide future column material for me.

And by the way part three, I check out info I get at a website called www.truthorfiction.com and if someone passes along a false one, I usually reply and pass along my findings to them. Here are a few I’ve encountered lately:

YIPPEE FOR YAHOO- Every time I forward a particular email, Yahoo will donate $2 to help pay for surgery for an underprivileged little girl who miraculously survived a Wal-Mart store fire. Fiction. This is an easy one. First of all, there is no procedure in place anywhere to compensate anybody for anything they forward on the internet. Shame on whoever made this up.

YIPPEE FOR BILL GATES- Bill will share $245 of his Microsoft and AOL fortune every time I forward a tracking test email to someone and they continue to forward it. Gotta be true, they say, it was in USA Today and Good Morning America Today Show. Fiction. First, see the Yahoo deal above about internet forwarding compensation. Next, they can’t even track terrorists who send emails- how are they gonna find me to give me my check? By the way part four, there’s no such thing as Good Morning America Today Show. (Two different shows combined.)

RING, RING, IT’S READY- There’s one circulating out there claiming the radiation in a cellphone can make corn pop (popcorn) if you let the cellphone ring over and over. Do I really need to waste your time with this one?

I DREAM OF GENIE- IN A HAT- I can make any wish I wish come true with one catch. I have to scroll down a page that slowly reveals a picture of the Cat in the Hat. Then Dr. Suess will grant my wish, but only if I forward to ten people in ten minutes, or whatever. By the way part five, isn’t Dr. Seuss deceased- rest his soul? Apparently so, my wish of receiving no more chain letter emails was denied.

HOP-A-LONG RECEIVER- A boy plays little league baseball. He is the team catcher. One minor detail. He has only one leg. He throws, hits, runs, and catches with the best of them. Really? It gives me great pleasure to inform you that this one is positively true. He’s from Lexington, Kentucky and his name is Adam Bender. Do a google search on him and enjoy the show.

There you have it. I’ve performed my civic duty for this week. Keep those emails coming. True or not, I need inspiration.

Kids Impressive on Mission Trip

Picture of my group (code-named BRAVO) during my week at Mission Serve. Back row: Me, Garrett, AJ, Kristina, and Melba. Front row: Veronica (whose house we worked on), Cody, Kelsey, Rebecca, and Shelly.

Just as promised- or threatened- this week’s edition is a continuation of last week’s recounting of a recent mission trip I took with a local youth group. As you may remember, we went to upgrade homes of those less fortunate in Macon, Georgia. The week includes hard work, awesome praise and worship experiences, and opportunities to bond with folks from other churches.

Aside from sleep deprivation, 100 degree heat, and the dessert being laced with nuts a couple times (I’m allergic you may remember), it was an incredible experience. I shared a few with you last week and now, for your reading pleasure- or to kill a few minutes of your life, I now present some additional highlights:

UNDIGNIFIED- Based on a verse in the Bible where King David danced in the street during a celebration, one of the praise songs of the week encouraged followers to become even more undignified for the Lord. Inhibitions erased, the kids (and yes, we adults) shouted, jumped, sang, lifted hands, and celebrated the praises of a risen Savior, while the members of the local church in Macon looked on approvingly. The sincerity of these kids and their worship and praise astonished and inspired all in attendance. Worship styles are often the objects of great debate, but I was convinced during these moments that God was well pleased and properly glorified.

LUNCH CLUB- The work group I led consisted of six kids (four girls and two boys) who we all agreed would never have sat together at lunch in the school cafeteria. But as we shared our bag lunches on the work site each day, I noticed these kids warming up to each other. They worked together, laughed together, cried together, and formed deep spiritual and emotional bonds. Like in the movie Breakfast Club, they departed at the end of the week realizing that each person is expressly unique and worthy of respect regardless of their social status or inherent challenges in life.

AMAZING- One of my most memorable moments occurred on a shaded front porch in the process of being given a colorful facelift. Two of the kids in my group- an autistic boy and a young lady- began singing praise songs while they painted. When they started into Amazing Grace, I was suddenly overcome with the realization that I was experiencing a holy moment. A.J. and Kristina sang four verses of the classic, not missing a line. Their duo rendition would never top the billboard charts, but to me it was some of the most beautiful harmony my ears had ever been privileged to hear.

That’s one of the many reasons why you won’t hear me bashing this younger generation. It’s easy to complain about them and criticize them for being lazy, incompetent, and disrespectful. They’re easy targets because they can’t easily defend themselves. Adults control most of the information outlets. Television commentators, writers, teachers, and such are grown-ups. So I’ll take up for the younger generation- at least the ones I served with in Macon- in the space that I have been allotted this week. They’re not perfect and certainly they are undignified at times, but after spending a week watching them in action, I think they’re pretty amazing.

Mission Trip Replaces Vacation

Picture of our entire group at Mission Serve (youth groups and chaperones from 6 different churches)

I could have gone on vacation. Instead, I decided to serve as a chaperone for a local church youth group on a mission trip recently. Through a program called Mission Serve, the kids give a week of their summer to work on homes of those less fortunate than themselves. They scrape, paint, repair, re-roof, and fix up homes in the stifling heat while functioning on little sleep. (Up and at it by 6 a.m. every morning.)

When deciding whether or not to invest a week of your life to engage in such a venture, you must count the costs and ask yourself whether or not it’s worth it. Sweating beneath a scorching sun while painting a house which is not your own. Sleep deprivation on a hard floor in a room with 15 other males- most of them noisy teenagers who make crude noises with their bodies and who don’t want to simmer down once the lights are out.

Fortunately two of my sons were with me but this meant I spent the week minus the company of my lovely wife and my youngest son, who still hugs and kisses me most nights before he goes to bed.

Enough whining. Exploring the brighter points of the week may help answer the question of the value of such a trip. In no particular order:

1. I struck up a conversation with the custodian of the local host church in Georgia and discovered that Lee had lived an incredibly interesting life. Abused by his father, he ran away from home at the age of ten and drifted for nearly forty years. Five years ago, his fifth wife forced him to accompany her to church and ever since, his life has become a testament to the power of a forgiving God. And he makes it a point to tell everyone he meets about his Heavenly Father, who has never abused or let him down. Inspirational.
2. Having no daughters, I was pleased to acquire a sizeable following of mostly pre-teen young girls from other churches, who followed me most everywhere I went. Missing their fathers and viewing me as a cheap but readily available substitute, my “groupies” demanded my attention constantly. I dubbed one little girl “Omnipresent” because every time I turned around, there she stood smiling at me- braces sparkling and eyes shining. Refreshing.
3. From my perch atop a ladder, I witnessed one of the most remarkable scenes a father could ever experience. Most everyone scattered when an obvious drunken fellow appeared on the street of our jobsite. But two kids, one of which was my oldest son, approached the man and started a conversation. Mist filled my eyes when the threesome knelt and engaged in prayer together. A few minutes later, we observed this man being arrested for carrying a lethal weapon, but it did not change the fact that his heart was touched by these two boys who dared to love him unconditionally and who were willing to share their hearts with him. Remarkable.

There’s more but cramming it all into one column would be unjust so be on the lookout for more next week. In the meantime, rest assured that a comparison of costs versus benefits of the trip was a no-brainer in my mind. Vacation can wait.