JUST SOME POSTS

This one will be a bit different. There is an organization here in Winston-Salem - Trinity Center - that offers counseling services from a faith based perspective. (to read their exact explanation, go here: http://www.trinitycenterinc.org/Ministry.html and/or here: http://www.trinitycenterinc.org/Services.html ) They are in financial trouble. Due to the economic climate, and their policy of working with people regardless of ability to pay, the center is facing severe budgeting issues. These issues have gotten so severe as to cause the board to consider shutting the organization down. My family has involvement with Trinity Center on many levels. My wife has been receiving counseling there for over a year. She has worked/is working with a counselor and a psychologist, as well as a psychiatrist. We both feel this has been very beneficial to her in helping her deal with her own heath issues and life changes that she has faced over the past two years and is still dealing with. I have...

I had trouble spelling "Thoughts" as the title for this one. It was almost " Thoughta " or " Thoughs ". I got the old fingers back on the home row however. I am going to exercise my prerogative as one of the (almost) senior citizen camp - that prerogative that says I can comment and complain about things, and also let everyone else know how they should run their life. First, if you need air in a tire now-a-days, what to do? No one has an air compressor with a tire valve connector on it available anymore. I am talking about a REAL air compressor. One that can blow the paint off the metal if you aim it wrong. You have to use those tiny little boxes you put from $.25 to $1 in (and I NEVER can find the quarters!) and it starts whining. It sounds like a moped for a mouse. The air comes out at about 35 lbs of pressure. Now that would be fine if you were trying to pump up a beach ball, but a tire....no way! I am trying to reach 32 or so pounds of pressure wh...

Well we are entering one of my favorite times of the year - Flu & Cold season! My family tells me (and truth be told, I admit) that I am a bit more germ-a-phobic than I was in my younger days. I am not to the Howard Hughes/Adrian Monk stage, but I find myself very uncomfortable in the presence of someone obviously sick with a cough, cold, or flu. One thing I have never understood is people that go to work deathly ill. That is how we all get sick people! Who are these creatures anyway? Most of the folks I have had working for me or with me over the years would stay home for a sick pet bird, much less for themselves! A scenario - I am traveling down the road and decide to take a bathroom break and maybe pick up a Slim Jim and drink. I stop at the convenience mart at the next exit and head in. Don't even get me started on the condition of most bathrooms, but I'm just saying: germ-avoidance is impossible here. Heading to the counter with my processed meat snack I hear a hackin...

Let's imagine you have a father. Shouldn't be hard for most of you, as you all did by requirement of nature. You did not really know your father that well, as fathers in the 50s and 60s were a bit "stand-offish" in the fathering department. Group participation in a sport or sporting outdoor activity was the interaction of the day. Not being a hunter, fisherman, or golfer would limit your relationship development. This describes my relationship with my father/dad. Most of my memories of my dad are of him leaving for work, golfing, fishing trip, or whatever; or coming home from said journey. Other memories are of him drinking himself into a stupor every night he was home and wondering how he would make it up the stairs to get into bed. We never had a conversation to speak of, and neither of us really knew how to get one started with the other. My dad was an amazing wit and bon vivant with the rest of the town, but with me - not so much. I left my home town of Raeford...

Imagine you and your spouse, or significant other, are on a nice boat ride called life. You are on this inconceivably large boat in a sea of unimaginable size on a trip of indeterminate length. Once in a while, you go through some beautiful. almost indescribable days where birds sing, wonderful angelic music accompanies you in your daily activities , and everything you want is there before you. Then there are the dark and stormy days where all you can do is hold on to the rail and upchuck your lunch into the water. Most of the days, however, are just a boat ride. One day your spouse falls overboard, fully clothed, and for no apparent reason. You quickly toss them a line, and say"hold on, I'll get you out!" There is no reason to panic, people fall into the water all the time. Plus, they are a fairly strong swimmer, we will get them out. So, you start pulling on the rope. After pulling and pulling you notice they are not any closer to the boat. You decide you need help....

I am an optimist at heart. Senator McCain was ridiculed during the campaign for saying the fundamentals of our economy are strong (there is another post a ways back about that, so read it if you care). They are. When allowed to function, the free market economy is the best system devised. Are there inequalities? - Yes. Are there people that will go broke? - Yes. But, if left to be truly free, there will be a much larger number of people that accumulate more wealth. Our problem now is we are being led into a disastrous economic situation by people that think the down times and the "losers" in a capitalistic system can be turned around and/or saved. That is insanity. There can be no good without bad. There can be no winner without losers. To appreciate the light, one must experience darkness. The "feel-good" notion that we can bail out all the downtrodden and speculators that lost, is not only wrong - it is suicidal to our economy. Here is a blog by a business repo...

I have written one post that included some thoughts about perspective. Here's another - I was just reading a book that takes place in Russia. The time frame is after the fall of the Soviet Union, but one gets the feeling that it is not that long after. One of the chapters in the book goes to a elementary school classroom to a history lesson. A question in asked of one of the little girls in the class - "Who was Abraham Lincoln?" Now, we all know Abraham Lincoln was the 16 th President of the U.S. He freed the slaves, wrote the Gettysburg address on an envelope, and preserved the union of the states with his action in and surrounding the Civil War. We also know he was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth. The answer given by a Soviet school educated child was - "Abraham Lincoln was a president of the United States. He led a bloody suppression of a revolt by the southern states of the U.S. seeking freedom." How about that for perspective? I was then thinking...