Author: leeduigon(patty)

I have lived in Metuchen, NJ, all my life. I have been married to my wife Patricia since 1977. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I was also the owner-operator of my own small business for several years. I wrote various novels and short stories published during 1980s and 1990s. I am a long-time student of judo and Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu). I also play chess, basketball, and military and sports simulations.

By Request, ‘In Christ Alone’

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“The White Rabbit” asked for this one–In Christ Alone, performed by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

You may remember this as the hymn the Presbyterian Church USA refused to include in its hymnal unless the authors got rid of that line about the wrath of God being satisfied, because the PCUSA doesn’t think God has anything to be wrathful about–and they want to protect your “choice” to kill your baby, but take away your choice to sing this hymn at one of their church services.

Well, anyway, it’s beautiful, it’s reverent, and it’s here.

When Cats Want Your Attention

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It can’t be denied: when cats want your attention, they know how to get it. Lie down on the book while you’re reading it. Walk on the keyboard while you’re typing. Drape themselves across your arm while you’re playing chess. If a human were to do any of these things, we’d think him ill-mannered; but cats get away with it.

‘Sink the Bismarck!’

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Image result for images of sink the bismarck movie

We’ve just watched Sink the Bismarck! (starring Kenneth More, 1960), and it’s, like, y’know, so full of Teutonophobia! I mean, what were they thinking when they made that movie?

You would’ve thought that, once the Germans started bombing London every day, and shooting people all over Europe, that at least some part of the British public would’ve embraced the Third Reich, and asked soul-searching questions like “Why do they hate us, and how can we get them to like us, what can we give them?”–oh, wait, they already tried that for eight or nine years and it didn’t work. They practically gave away the store to the Nazis, and still they got bombed.

Does the Western world suffer from amnesia? They all very nearly went down for the count, Hitler very nearly won the war–and they could have stopped him seven or eight years sooner with relatively little expenditure of effort.

But that’s the question that history asks us all the time: “Have you already forgotten? Have you lost all the lessons taught you by experience?”

I’m afraid that if Hitler came back for a second try today, he’d find it pretty easy going.

 

Memory Lane: Your Cavemen Gotta Have Caves

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Image result for images of marx toy caveman

It’s 1958 and you’ve just acquired a Marx Dinosaur set, complete with an assortment of cavemen. The little fellow pictured above is one of them. There are also cavemen throwing rocks, walking around with clubs and grinning placidly, making stone tools, and cavewomen preparing supper. It was 1958 and we were not required to show transgender cave-bipeds. etc.

Anyway, you’ve got cavemen and they ought to have a cave. Otherwise the dinosaurs will get them. No cave came with the set, so you had to provide your own.

My cavemen lived in caves made of my mother’s books, Grandpa’s beautiful stone building blocks, upside-down shoeboxes… and sand. The sandbox was the best place for caves, mountains, volcanoes, and forts. You did run the risk of losing a caveman or two, because these figurines were really quite small: that determined-looking spearman up there is only about an inch tall, albeit he’d be taller if he’d only stand up straight. I know exactly how tall everybody is because I still have my cavemen, except for those few who, for all I know, are still somewhere at the bottom of the sandbox in the playground next door. Uh, no, wait–they’ve expanded the school to swallow up the playground, and there is no more sandbox. Kids don’t play there anymore.

Is it already too late to teach children to use their imaginations?

I think God will help us if we try.

Help Me Stay Awake

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Image result for images of monster's hand

The cats started agitating for food before the sun came up today, so I groped my way downstairs and fed them because I didn’t want my wife to have to get up, didn’t want them to wake her.

Now getting up before the day itself gets up is the worst possible thing in the world for me. It’s on a par with reaching out to turn on my bed lamp in the dark and encountering, instead, a hairy hand with claws eagerly fumbling for your own. It’s hard to get back to sleep, after a thing like that.

And after my grim errand is concluded, she gets up anyway.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Getting up.”

“Well, don’t! Go back to sleep at once!”

“But I’ve had my sleep.”

So, sigh, there I was, and I’ll bet it took me two hours to get back to sleep.

Now I’ve got to go to the nursing home, then to Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription, and by then I ought to be ready for the glue factory.

Some of you may want to check from time to time to make sure I’m not lying face-down on the floor.

U.N. Ninnie: Communism Can Save the World from Global Warming

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Source: U.N. Ninnie: Communism Can Save the World from Global Warming

‘Days of Elijah’ (Oo-Rah!)

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There is no God like Jehovah, and there’s no one sings His praises louder than these U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton–Days of Elijah. These are good words and good men to remember as we watch the darkening swirl of today’s current events.

If you’re new to this blog, we take hymn requests whenever we get any. So if there’s a hymn you’d like to see posted here, just let us know.

Rated “R”… for Dogs

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They say dogs don’t understand what they see on TV. Well, that could be said of more than a few humans, too. So here is somebody’s bulldog attentively watching TV. In fact, he’s watching Cujo, the Stephen King horror movie about a rabid… well, dog. You won’t be left in any doubt of what the bulldog thinks of that!

Still Image Test, Take 1

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Image result for images of freddy the pig

Freddy the Pig is here because my wife devised a method of posting still images, after the method I used successfully thousands of times suddenly stopped working, for no discernible reason. As you can see, her method works. That means I won’t have to set up the laptop every time I want to post an image.

Freddy was pretty smart. I wonder if he could’ve figured out computers. I know I can’t.

Critter Video Test, Take 1

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Why won’t this computer let me post still images today, but videos are okay? I can’t figure it out. You readers get the benefit of this nice little Uintatherium video (which, alas, is also a soup commercial), but all I’m getting is confusion. If I want to post an image, I have to go over to the laptop. This is not efficient.

Enough of this. For the time being, I retreat to Obann.