Tag: my family

Answered Prayers: Jax the Kitten REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

jaxx and boo now

From November 24, 2017

See that great big black cat sleeping with his best friend, the pit bull, on the sofa?

That big cat, some months ago, was Jax the little kitten, picked up by my stepdaughter Georgia in the middle of a storm, adopted, and found to be at death’s door, due to a serious blood condition requiring immediate treatment–including a transfusion of very rare donor blood, etc.

Many of us prayed for Jax, and now you can see the result.

It’s become fashionable these days, in a fallen world populated by sinners who have free will and atrociously abuse it, to say that prayer is futile, waste of breath, just won’t work–even some who call themselves Christians are saying that prayer is just a waste of time. And who has never had that thought cross his mind?

But this fine healthy cat is here because a woman had compassion on him, and acted on it, and because God heard our prayers and did the rest.

Rejoice, give thanks, and sing.

Memory Lane: ‘Melvin the Moon Man’ Reprint

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Image result for melvin the moon man game

From June 9, 2018

 

Before the advent of video games featuring blood and guts flying all over the screen, children had to be content with benign, peaceful, harmless games–like this one.

Remco put out “Melvin the Moon Man” in 1959, and it was a hit. My parents got it for us for Christmas, and it was simple enough for all three of us to play: my sister, age 4, my brother, 7, and me, 10. If we had had a cat, he probably could’ve played, too.

You spin the handle of the unique Tumblebum dice glass (that, and the colorful graphics, were the game’s big selling points), and your plastic Spaceman traveled around the United Craters of the Moon collecting Moonbucks. The one with the most Moonbucks wins. No tactics or strategy involved. Just follow the map according to the roll of the dice.

I don’t know what Melvin cost in 1959, but it’s selling on eBay today for up to $150. In 1959 anything over $5 was a major expenditure for my father which my mother would have to weigh carefully. They really must have loved us to buy us silly stuff like this.

And that’s what makes this memory so sweet.

A Humorous Exchange

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From February 14, 2018

 

So my wife’s new bra was too tight and she wanted to stretch it. She turned to me–without first explaining the situation–and asked, “Would you please wear my bra?”

“Certainly not! I’d look like a pervert.”

“You can wear it backwards.”

“Then I’ll look like a crazy pervert.”

That was a few years ago, but Patty was laughing about it this morning. Ah, memories!

 

Oh, Grandma!

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Are Weekly Visits With Grandma Enough for Bonding?

My grandma died in the mid-1960s: lived just long enough to be a Mets fan. She was wise, she was gentle, she was good. She raised six daughters (including my mother) who grew up to be good. And one night, her family having just watched the Lawrence Welk Show, she announced, “I think I’ll go to bed now.” And that was the end.

I was only a boy when she died, and it was a long time ago. But yesterday, from out of nowhere, it hit me like a truck.

No Grandma! How could that be? Can she have any idea how much I miss her? I had no idea until just then!

Okay, I’m sick and my emotions are brittle. But dammit, where is everybody? I want my grandma. I need for her to know that.

‘I Need Thee Every Hour’

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My mother used to sing this hymn as she went about her housework; and so did her mother, before her. Oh, it brings them back to me!

I Need Thee Every Hour, sung here by Fernando Ortega. Excuse me while I dry my eyes.

The Die Is Cast

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What a storm we had last night! For 47 years I’ve been slamming our back door shut against the wind and rain. Last night, for the only time in history, it went perfectly into the door frame and then wouldn’t come out. Happily, our neighbor Josh took care of it this morning.

Meanwhile, we have decided to get me a hip replacement before we do anything else. My wife and my sister (nursing student, Advanced Practice Nurse) have the credentials and I’d be a fool not to take their advice. I’m not looking forward to any more time in the hospital–but again, I trust Patty and Alice to steer me right.

At least the murderous heat got washed away last night. A nice day for reading a book and smoking a cigar.

A-Doctorin’ We Will Go!

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Now my thing is dreams about being dragged back to the hospital, no escape. I have another “test” coming up just this week! Following a day of “dieting,” of course. Nothing like having something to look forward to.

It’s been raining all weekend, so I can’t sit in the sun and calm my spirit.

I have just found out today is Father’s Day. Last time we visited my dad for Father’s Day, we played stickball.

Nobody left for that anymore.

Easter Memories

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My grandpa had a double lot–one for the house, one for the garden. And what a garden it was! Black raspberries, red raspberries, roses, tiger lilies, morning glories, hollyhocks–he could grow just about anything.

Our family congregated at Grandpa’s house for Easter, Christmas, and other major holy days. I don’t know how the house held us all–seventeen of us, usually–but of course we could always have our celebration outdoors, weather permitting.

Well, it was a long time ago. Almost everybody’s dead and gone, except for a few who now live hundreds of miles away. Even the house is gone. And the gardens.

Oh, Lord! Will there be a garden for us in Your kingdom? Will all that has been broken be restored?

We think the empty tomb, that very first Easter, says “Yes!”

Memory Lane: ‘The Jones Boy’

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This video of the Mills Brothers is from 1957 (holy cow, the Spike Jones Show!), but I think my memory of the song is older than that: The Whole Town’s Talkin’ About the Jones Boy.

We were visiting Grammie at the old house my father and his brothers grew up in. Dad put the disc on the record player–does anybody still have one?–and launched the song. He also produced two spoons and played them in time to the music. He was awfully good at that. But it must be 65 years since I’ve heard anyone play the spoons.

I sigh. Everyone who was once gathered round that record player–everyone but me–has passed away. I’m the last one left.

But God will restore what’s been lost; Our Lord Jesus Christ has said so.

Easter’s almost here, and we should remember that.

Musk to Germans: ‘It’s OK to Be Proud to Be German’

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Germany, 1945: it still hurts.

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, says the German people should stop hating themselves (https://x.com/brittpettibone/status/1883259366557581348).

Musk seems to be worried, these days, about distinctive national cultures dying out. After a trip to Germany, he concluded that Germans were “conditioned” to blame their country for World War II and hate themselves for it. Is that why the German government does nothing while illegal Muslim immigrants swarm across Germany’s borders?

I don’t know. Half of my family is German. My aunts visited the Germans, and they came over and visited us, when I was a boy. There didn’t seem to be any animosity lingering from World War II. German was sometimes spoken in Grandpa’s house… and occasionally in our own, by my mother.

But we grew up as Americans. It was as simple as that.

Germany had a very rough 20th Century–World War I, World War II, the Cold War (remember the Berlin Wall?)–and healing comes slowly.

Let’s see if Musk can do anything to help.