Just Thinking

Sometimes when I think of things to add here, other thoughts come to mind too. The latest one is that I've reach the point in my life where I know I'm not going to do anything anyone is going to remember outside my family and a few close friends. I am not going to cure cancer or step foot on the moon or bring about world peace, and I'm okay with that. However I do think that maybe, just maybe, one of my kids will, or one of their kids will, or someone else down the line will. The reason I say that is someone has been looking out for me all these years, so there must be some plan out there somewhere. Let me give you a few examples.

When I was a kid my brother and I got into a fight and he pushed a poker into my eye. A little to one side and a little harder and it would have gone through the socket, but it didn't.

A year or two later (I'm a slow learner) I got into a fight with the same brother and he broke a brick over my head, literally. (Slow learner = dense, thick skull) All I got was a big bump, but it could have been much worse.

Once I experimented with a paring knife and an electrical outlet. I stuck the knife into one of the little slots and ZAP! The first half inch of the blade was melted away, but thankfully I didn't feel a thing.

Another time we were playing baseball and no one had a bat so we improvised. We used a lead pipe. At one point I clearly remember thinking, "If that pipe slips out of his hand at the wrong time, it could come over here and hit me." Guess what? It slipped and if I had not put my arm up it would have hit my head.

Fast forward a few years. We were behind the baseball field, diving off the big white rocks into Steekee Creek. After one dive I became confused to the point I wasn't sure which way was up and I panicked. I actually thought I might drown, and probably would have if David Ridings had not grabbed my arm and helped me back to the rocks.

Then finally, in 1983, we were driving back to California from spending Christmas with Mom in Tennessee. I had my two oldest kids in the care with me and they were both asleep. I had been driving most of the day and now it was dark and I was fighting sleep myself. I was on Interstate 5 in California, dropping down out of the mountains near Bakersfield on a stretch of road called the Grapevine. At the bottom of the mountain there was a stretch where, at that time, opposing lanes of the interstate didn't have anything between them but a few lines of paint and plastic markers. I recall a diesel coming from the other direction about 50 yards in front of me and then the next thing I know I'm shaken awake by him passing us. I was never so scared in my life. If I had turned the wheel any while I dozed it would have been all over for all of us.

Anyway, there has to be a plan of some sort out there someplace, because some One has been watching over me.