DEDICATED TO THIS WORLD’S BIGGEST THIEF - TIME

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DEDICATED TO THIS WORLD’S BIGGEST THIEF - TIME

How quickly our time on earth flies by. This past week I celebrated my 72nd birthday and I now find It hard to believe that there was a time when I looked on anyone over thirty and thought of them as being really "old"! And maybe, just maybe …someone reading these words remembers another day and time (as I do) when life was a far cry from the world of today. Let me invite you to come back with me on a journey through time to a different day, one that may strike a chord of sentimental remembrance with many of you.

Close your eyes.....and let us travel back in time......before 911 before the Internet, and before semi-automatics and crack cocaine...before Sega or Super Nintendo.....way back.....to the time when I was still a boy.

A TIME WHEN . . .

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot, and water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeney-minee-mo."
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly."
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up, if you even had one?
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
When any parent or school teacher could discipline any kid when he needed it.
When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.

A TIME WHEN

Nobody was prettier than Mom or smarter than Dad.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.
Ooly-ooly-ocean-free" made perfect sense.
Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
When the sound of a bell ringing or music playing was to let you know the ice cream-man's truck was coming.
When crystal sets were the cool thing.
When the ice truck would make rounds and you put a card in the window to let the ice man know how large a chunk of ice you wanted him to bring and place in the icebox.
When the only signs along the highway were "Visit Rock City", See "Ruby Falls", and "Burma Shave"!
When everyone was singing "Use Wildroot Cream Oil Charlie!"
Do you remember the first Frigidaires?
Everyone used a hand pump to spray for mosquitoes before bedtime.
When "Aspirin", "Castor Oil", "Cod Liver Oil", and "Carter's Little Liver Pills" were the top medications for whatever ailed you.

A TIME WHEN

When Sears and Roebuck catalogues were free … and no outhouse was without one.
When doctors made house calls.
When all the kids were listening on the radio to "Superman", "The Lone Ranger", "Tom Mix", "Captain Midnight", and "Jack Armstrong the All American Boy"!
When the adults wouldn't miss "The Hermit's Cave", "The Squeaking Door", "The Green Hornet", "Fibber McGee and Molly" and "Red Skelton's "Mean Little Kid".
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, gas pumped, and tires aired for free and without having to ask, and you even got trading stamps to boot!
When gas was twenty cents per gallon.
When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed...and actually did!
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.
Basically, the thing we dreaded the most wasn't drive by shootings, drugs, gangs, guns at school etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat....and some of us are still afraid of 'em!
When TV first came out and the whole neighborhood came over to the house of whoever had one and packed out their living room for the evening.
When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
When a quarter was a decent allowance.
When girls neither dated nor kissed until late high school, if then.
When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces.
When all of your male teachers wore neckties, and female teachers had their hair done every day.
When policemen were not permitted to be overweight, wear a moustache, or smoke.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

Howdy Doody, the Mickey Mouse Club, and Mr. Rogers?
When all up and down the street families were just sitting on the front porch at dusk.
Mom's hot, fresh baked bread and butter.
Playin' Hopscotch, Jacks, Dodgeball, Mother May I? Kick-the-can, Red Rover, Hula Hoops and Red light/Green light?
Sunflower Seeds, Moon Pies, Wax Lips and Mustaches?
Running through the sprinkler?
Watchin' Saturday Morning cartoons, "Pop Eye", "Road Runner", "Donald Duck", "The Three Stooges", "Daffy Duck", "Bugs Bunny", and "the Mickey Mouse Club".
Catchin' lightning bugs in a jar.

AND DO YOU REMEMBER?

A time when going downtown seemed like something to get excited about?
Driving miles at Christmas time to see the big Christmas tree set up downtown?
A cherry coke from the fountain at the corner drug store?
Playing Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Hide and Go Seek?
Sittin' on the curb?
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt?
Eating Kool-aid powder with sugar?
Remember when the only time you wore sneakers was for "gym" at school?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have really LIVED!!!!!! Don't those things stir something inside......at least for those of you who can think back and say, "Yeah, I sure do remember those things! Those were the good old days. Yes they were! And the things most folks take for granted now, they'll one day look back on and feel the same way about!

24 Signs You're Getting Older

The gleam in your eyes is from the sun hitting your bi-focals.
You feel like the morning after and you haven't been anywhere.
Your children begin to look middle aged.
You turn out the lights for economic rather than romantic reasons.
You sit in a rocking chair and can't get it going.
Your knees buckle, and your belt won't.
You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
Your Pacemaker makes the garage door go up when you see a pretty girl.
The little old gray haired lady you helped across the street … is your wife.
You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.
You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
You reach down to straighten out the wrinkles in your socks and suddenly realize that you're not wearing any.
You sing along with the elevator music.
You answer a question with, "because I said so, that's why".
You wear black socks with sandals.
You can't remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch TV.
Your ears are hairier than your head.
When you were a kid, a personal computer was called a slide rule.

And...... I found some really good party games for you to play since you're too old to do anything else now! Try these out:

Top Old Folks Party Games

Sag - You're It!
Pin the Toupee on the Bald Guy
20 Questions Shouted into your Good Ear
Kick the Bucket
Doc, Doc, Goose
Simon Says… Something Incoherent
Hide and Go Sleep
Spin the Bottle of Mylanta
Musical Recliners

Please indulge me on the next part of this entry. I decided to check back through my personal journals at ten year intervals to see how I spent my birthdays at those times in my life. Here's what I found recorded in 1983, 1993, and this month.

OCTOBER 5TH, 1983 – Atlin, British Columbia

Today I climbed the steep slope of Table Mountain, up near the pass, and Flint [my teen-age son] went near it's base. I tried to call a moose in by imitating a cow that was yearning for some serious romance. Several times a bull answered from way across the valley; he even came a good part of the way toward where I was concealed, but try as I might, I couldn't entice him to come in all the way. Finally, I moved on and hunted all the way to what we call "Hidden Lake", but had no luck. We did, however, find tracks, beds and droppings of black bear, and caribou. Flint also came across the fresh tracks of a huge grizzly but we knew he was downwind from us and headed higher up the mountain so we gave up on trying to follow him.

The day was a clear sunny day, and this evening the night sky is glittering with a magnificent display of stars. And to top it all off, the Northern lights are flashing and dancing in a luminous green band that arches all the way across the heavens. It's a great time and place to be alive! As of today, the Lord has given me fifty years of life, and I'm grateful that they have been, and still are, years of robust health and strength. On this my fiftieth birthday I hiked for miles through virgin wilderness, climbed a tough mountain, and paddled quite a distance by canoe. God has indeed been good.

I am also most thankful for my wonderful family. I know the time approaches when the children will be spreading their wings and leaving the nest, but I am enjoying them to the fullest while I still have them at home. They are a source of pleasure and pride to their Dad and to their Mom as well.

I only wish that the ministry here was stronger. I feel that I am accomplishing so little ----- less than ever before. I must be careful that my faith does not waver

Somehow I must get the job done.

The older I grow the more I see that serving God is the only thing in life that really matters. All else is fleeting and transitory. At the end of life's path the only things that will really matter are: (1) Have I become the loving and selfless person that I should be? (2) Have I served others and helped as many people as I could? (3) Have I done all I could to witness and reach out to a lost world with the gospel of Christ? (4) Have I given God the place He should have in my life? (5) Have I reared my family as I should have done, training them to live godly lives and preparing them to cope with this life as a Christian should? (6) Have I been a source of love and spiritual encouragement to my mate? (7) Is the world a better place for my having passed this way? (8) And how many lives have I uplifted and pointed toward Heaven?

These are the only things that make up a life that will one day prove worthwhile.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5TH, 1993 – Mandarin, Florida

NOTE: To clarify the following entries it may help to understand that during the following period of time that my journal covers, I had returned from the Yukon Territory, and my son and I had begun a small church in Florida. In order to supplement our limited incomes we began a business in which we taught self-defense to a cross section of law enforcement officers, undercover agents, special forces personnel, martial artist instructors, and a select group of business executives. In conjunction with that work we also engaged in certain crime research projects; consequently my journal entry read:

"Today I was taken totally by surprise. I arrived early for Sunday services and when I walked in the door the entire church was waiting and began singing Happy Birthday! They had caught me completely off-guard. Usually I've been able to pick up signs tipping me off that they are up to something. But this time I was totally unaware. They'd even parked their cars where I couldn't see them.

It all began with a special time of testimonies from people I'd had a small part in helping over the years, and from different ones that I'd been privileged to lead to Christ. It really was a time of what I felt was undeserved praise from those folks. I know they were trying to say "Thank you, Pastor", but I really hadn't done that much. I did appreciate their kind remarks, still it made me feel very small and overrated.

[My daughters] Kendra and Elena sang the song "Daddy's Hands", and Flint emceed the rest of the program. (He and Kay, had engineered the whole thing).

After the opening Flint had me do a totally unexpected round of kicks and punches on the heavy work out bag [our church services were held in the gym where we conducted training classes during part of the week. Following that I was given a baton, and three men from the congregation rushed to take me down in a sudden simulated attack. With a baton in my hand it was, of course, a simple matter to quickly dispatch all three.

Cake and ice cream were then served prior to entering into our regular morning church service. It was a memorable occasion for me, and certainly the most unusual church birthday celebration I've ever had. I appreciated their thoughtfulness much more than they realized."

On the following day, as a means of further accenting my sixtieth birthday, Flint arranged to bring in to the training center, a professional wrestler who wrestles under the names of "Thor", "the Masked Maniac", and the "Super Destroyer". The man has not only wrestled all across the world, but for seven years he has been an official trainer for the WCWF (World Champion Wrestling Federation).

We got on the mats and Flint gave the signal to grapple! We were to fight until one of us gave up and signaled by tapping three times. It only lasted approximately 10 to 15 seconds; Thor tapped out as I managed to obtain and apply a Jujitsu choke hold. Five seconds longer and he would have been rendered unconscious.

To make sure it was no accident, we fought another match. This one too ended in about the same span of time and the same way."

OCTOBER 5TH, 2005

"All this week has been given over to preparing for a series of meetings at a church in North Carolina. I spoke seven times in three days, and it proved to be a time of great blessing."

Looking back over the past seventy-three years there are some things that become increasingly apparent. For one thing you are made aware of how quickly the years really do fly past, and one morning you awaken and suddenly realize that your life is nearly over. The finish line is no longer way up the road! And you are astonished to grasp that it's really happening to YOU … not somebody else.

Another thing that occurs is that you are able to see and distinguish more clearly than ever those things in life that are of real importance, and the things that actually matter very little. The words of Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary, are made immeasurably clear: "That man is no fool who gives up that which he can never keep in order to gain that which he can never lose."

More than ever we are emphatically reminded that we pass this way but once, and we cannot come back to relive or change one iota of how we have spent our allotted time on earth. Omar Khayam, the ancient Persian Poet, once wrote:

"THE MOVING FINGER WRITES, AND HAVING
WRIT, MOVES ON: NOR ALL YOUR PIETY NOR WIT
SHALL LURE IT BACK TO CANCEL HALF A LINE,
NOR ALL YOUR TEARS WASH OUT A WORD OF IT."
From the "Rubaiyat"

They are a reminder and a warning that no wise man or woman will
forget nor pass by without giving them careful thought and reflection.

Posted by cdrnorth at November 7, 2005 4:36 PM