Tag Archives: Christian bloggers

Parachute Man

27 Aug

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

Bill

 

When I was six years old (1944) WWII was still raging and most everyone in America was trying to do their part to support the war effort. Children’s toys were among the many things that were slanted toward the war and my parents bought me a small stuffed Parachute Man. My Parachute Man was decked out in a camouflaged battle outfit with a cloth parachute attached to his back. I could wrap the parachute and shroud lines around his body, and then when I threw him high in the air, the parachute would unwind and he would come floating down just like a real U.S. Army Paratrooper. Boy, did I have fun with that Parachute Man! I repeated the sequence over and over, day after day, trying to see how high I could throw him. As you can imagine, the higher I could throw him the longer it took him to float back down to me. I can’t remember how long this went on, but I had gotten pretty good at lofting my Parachute Man way up there.

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 Our house in Dallas, TX was on a corner lot, and the side street was usually fairly busy with traffic, going both ways, and I had been instructed to play on the other side of our yard. One day as I was playing with my Parachute Man, and having so much fun, I didn’t notice that the wind had shifted and was now blowing across our yard from the west. On one of the highest lofts I had ever thrown, when the parachute opened, the wind caught my Parachute Man and he drifted across our yard and out into the cross street, right in front of a car. I held my breath. Was he going to be run over and crushed? I ran to the edge of our yard to see what had happened to my Parachute Man. But, he wasn’t there! Where was he? I looked up and down the street, but he was nowhere in sight. Then I realized… he had gotten caught on the front of that car and I would never see him again. I was a sad little boy for a long time after that, but my parents didn’t buy me another Parachute Man; probably thinking it would end up the same way or worse, if I were to run out into the street after him.

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The next year, our family flew to our new home in Albuquerque, NM in a beautiful shiny American Air Lines DC-3, and I’ve been hooked on airplanes ever since. I had planned to be a fighter pilot when I grew up, but my astigmatism ended that dream. I even took flying lessons, and soloed a couple times, but ran out of money before I got my license.   Now that I’m retired, the # 1 item on my “Bucket List” is to attend as many Airshows and visit as many Aviation Museums as I can while I can still walk.

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Just last October I was at an airshow in Addison, TX to see “FIFI” the only flying B-29 in the world, and happened to run into Bob Bearden. Bob was a sergeant in the 507th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, who parachuted into France on June 6, 1944 as part of the Normandy invasion during WWII. Bob was dressed in his jump gear and boots and he reminded me of my Parachute Man. It was my privilege to meet and talk with Bob and have my picture taken with him, in front of a C-47, painted with invasion stripes, just like the plane he and his fellow paratroopers jumped from on that infamous day so many years ago.

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         “Thank you Bob and all those many other Parachute Men for your service to our country.”

 

 

 

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Gunnison Adventure~Part 2

26 Aug

A Few Thoughts

Patricia Franklin

One of the most beautiful trips we took, and one I always anticipate, was up to Paradise Divide above Crested Butte at about 11,500 feet. This is one of our favorite places to go, and we hid a geocache up here years ago, which is still there. We get many great comments about the Paradise area on our geocaching site.

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There are several rare flowers on this trip and some of them only bloom for a very short time, if conditions are right. For instance we saw Glacier Lilies that only grow near the snow banks for a short time after the snow melts;

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Moss Campion (moss in bloom, with the sweetest smelling little pink flowers you have ever seen); Monument Plants which only bloom once, then are dormant for 20 – 60 years, then will bloom again. Rosy Paint Brush with its different shades of bright pink to pale pink, grows at this altitude. We saw a multitude of Lemon Paint Brush and the bright red Indian Paint Brush, too. Then there is the fluffy little Bistort that is soft and pleasing to the eye, but smells like dirty socks. These are just a few of my favorite flowers. There is a wonderful waterfall on the road up that cascades down 1000 feet this time of year, and a beautiful pristine Mirror Lake at the top. Also at the top, a large red mountain above timberline dominates the scene. You never see a lot of people up here.

Going down the other side, a few miles down you see many more people, as it is a popular area. You pass the Biology Research Center located in beautiful Gothic. They established research plots in this area years ago to study the gorgeous flora here. It looks like they are expanding their research, as they are building a huge new building up here. Also as you come down this side, you pass Emerald Lake, which is very deep and is the color of emeralds. This is a favorite fishing, hiking and biking area, with many bicycle trails in use here in the summer. One popular trail passes the famous Maroon Bells and leads you into Aspen on the other side of the mountain to the east.

We saw a lot of wildlife during our stay in the area this year, including several deer, a couple of herds of elk (mamas and babies),a family of raccoons climbing a tree to spend the night, and 3 deer being stalked by a coyote.

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We were parked by the road watching the deer right above us. They were not spooked by us, but kept looking over our heads into the meadow below. So we looked down there and saw the coyote. He was watching them and looked like he was going to try to go around and maybe get behind them. However, we don’t think he would attack on his own. We also had our own little resident doe that stays close to our condo

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Transition to Maine~Part 3

24 Aug

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

In addition to setting up house at Loring AFB, we started looking for a church home. There weren’t very many Southern Baptist Churches in that area – actually only one – so we scoped it out. They didn’t have their own building, and were meeting in the Odd Fellows hall in Caribou. It wasn’t ideal, especially on the Sundays after the Odd Fellows had been having a party on Saturday night with beer flowing freely. We frequently had to clean up the hall before we could hold our services on Sunday. (Fred and I were only in Maine for 13 months, and after we left, the church rented space on Sundays from the Knights of Columbus. Several years after that, they built their own building). However, the church was strong and the fellowship was tremendous. One of the best things we found in the churches we were in that had a large military membership – the rank came off when we walked through the door. We were all just fellow believers in Christ. We met many people there who became good friends, and some we’ve even retained contact with throughout the years. We’ve also had the pleasure of meeting up with them when they have come down to Orlando for their time at Disney. That’s such a joy!

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The Weather Detachment that Fred was assigned to was a fairly cohesive group, as well. He started in working right away. Loring AFB was a first-defense base with bombers, aerial refueling and interceptor aircraft stationed there. One section of the base was on constant alert. Loring was the closest U.S. base to Europe and U.S.S.R.

Loring AFB was named in 1954 posthumously for Major Charles J. Loring, Jr., USAF, a Medal of Honor recipient during the Korean War. During the morning of 22 November 1952, he led a flight of F-80 Shooting Stars on patrol over Kunwha. After beginning a dive bombing run and getting hit, he entered into a controlled dive and destroyed a Chinese gun emplacement on Sniper Ridge which was harassing United Nations troops, by deliberately crashing his aircraft into the emplacement.

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Public schools in Aroostock County started in August. They were in session for three weeks then broke for two or three weeks for the potato harvest. Local farmers hired students and airmen looking for some extra money to help with the harvest. Then school resumed.

There was only pre-kindergarten through elementary grades on base – other grades/schools are in town. Karen was able to attend a part-time pre-k there. She got to ride a bus to school and was thrilled. Unfortunately, Fred and I were in tears to see her go!

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The Little Girl Down the Street

20 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

 

When I was 5 or 6 years old my girlfriend from down the street and I enjoyed playing together most of the time. One of our favorite past times was making mud pies and eating them. I know, that sounds yucky now, but as I remember, that Texas mud was delicious. And I read, not too long ago, that the dirt kids eat somehow helps build their immune system to fight off unwanted diseases later in life.

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Well anyway one day, as I remember it, Patsy and I got in an argument over which mud pies belonged to who, and when Patsy couldn’t get her way, she grabbed my arm and bit me. I was shocked, and ran home crying. When I told my grandmother what had happened, she looked me in the eye and said, “The next time Patsy bites you, you just bite her back”. I told her I would do that, but I wasn’t so sure that was going to work, as Patsy could get really mad, and I could end up with many more and much na stier bites.

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Patsy was the only other kid my age in the neighborhood, and we were still friends, so I soon forgot all about the incident. The next time we had an argument about something (I can’t remember about what), Patsy got really mad, and it ended up with her biting me. She was surprised when I didn’t turn and run home crying. But, she was even more surprised when I grabbed her arm and bit her back. Now she was the one running home crying. I was kinda proud of myself for not being a wimp, and went home to tell my grandmother of my victory.

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Well, the celebration didn’t last long, because Patsy’s mother soon came storming down to our house wanting to know what kind of a “Little Brat” my mother and grandmother were raising anyway. Didn’t they know that boys biting little girls was “Barbaric” and not at all nice. After my grandmother related the whole story to Patsy’s mother, she just couldn’t believe “Her Little Princess” could have done such a thing. When she asked Patsy if the story was true, Patsy admitted it was, and her mother was shocked. After that, she calmed down and was actually embarrassed about the whole matter.

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I’m sure a lot of talk went on between the adults, once the whole story was out in the open, but by then Patsy and I were ready to be friends again, and we were sent outside to play. After that incident, Patsy and I must have had other arguments, but to my knowledge, none of them ended in us biting each other. It’s amazing for me to think back to that incident and realize how easy it is for a child to become a bully, when not confronted about their actions. Moreover, just how quickly a young bully can be diverted from continuing that bullying into adulthood, when they receive a dose of what they have been handing out to others.

 

—–The End—–

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The Gunnison Adventures~Part 1

19 Aug

A Few Thoughts

Patricia Franklin

We will try to fill you in on our latest adventures in gorgeous Gunnison. While everyone here was baking in the July heat, we were relaxing in the nice cool mountains in the glorious Gunnison Country… truly God’s country… and half-way to heaven. We spent about half the time in town and the rest driving all over the mountains.

The flowers were gorgeous this year because of the moisture and we were there at just the right time. A couple of outings were particularly fun and beautiful.  We had a day trip to Powderhorn, Lake City and up Slumgullion Pass — half-way to Creede. We stopped and took a picture of the beautiful waterfall that you would never know is there unless you knew about it. Although they finally did post a sign pointing to it. The land looks flat, but about 1/4 mile off the main road a creek runs through the mountain meadow, widens out a little and then drops off 100 feet or more into a ravine cut into the flat land.. a beautiful hidden waterfall.

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We then went back to the old mining town of Lake City with its wooden sidewalks, dirt streets and old buildings. It is not real touristy there, just a small old-fashioned community surrounded by mountains. We had lunch there and some ice cream at the ice cream parlor, then took an old side road back to Gunnison. The guys thought they remembered how to get there, but after coming to a dead-end and trying a couple of roads, we finally found the back way home. Luckily we missed the downpours that were just ahead of us or behind us in that area. We have had many violent thunderstorms with flash floods, hail and tornado-like winds this summer.

Several miles out in the high country we discovered a huge summer sheep camp in a large mountain meadow. There must have been 1000 sheep, a shepherd with his camper and four dogs tending the sheep. We did not stop to talk to him but regretted it later, as just about 1 – 2 miles from the camp, before we got to it, a mountain lion streaked across the road and was headed in that direction. We were sorry we had not warned the shepherd. Anyway, we made it back

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Head Up and Locked

18 Aug

Author, Poet and ArtistBill is an airplane buff. We have a standard joke when someone isn’t paying attention. “He’s got his head up and locked,” we say. The saying is taken from faulty landings where the retractable tires don’t come down to support the plane when it lands. It’s a malfunction that can, and usually does, cause a disaster.

This morning, friends from our church needed a ride to the doctor. The pastor usually hauls people around, but he had conflicting appointments. He would have asked Bill to take them, but Bill was out of town, so he asked me. He wanted to give me directions to their home on Pine St., but we had taken them home once and I knew where it was. Besides, years ago, I drove to Pine frequently because a woman in my Sunday School class lived there. But as I drove without coming to Pine, I realized something was wrong.

My friends were going to a drop-in clinic and didn’t have an actual appointment, so I didn’t panic. I decided to call the friend who used to live on Pine. She said I had to take a street with another name in order to get to Pine. I don’t know what else she might have been going to say, though, because I cut her off, saying, “Oh yes, I have a perfect picture of it in my mind, thanks, goodbye.” So I went back up the road looking for the street she mentioned. I saw the street I remembered, but the name was different. I turned anyway and then turned again. Nope it wasn’t Pine. I knew though that I was within inches. I asked a workman that looked sort of like my grandson, and he was kind enough to look it up on his GPS. He showed me that I had turned one block too soon.

Finally, we made it to the doctor. And what did I learn from the experience? I learned that I have a bad habit of knowing I know things when I don’t know at all. I’m praying that Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Way, the TRUTH and the Life, will wipe out all the thoughts that I think are right and show me His way. One of my most fervent prayers is that He will continue to remind me that in order to know I must not assume that I know, I must ask. I think today will be a great reminder and although I’m not proud of myself, I thank Him for it.

keep asking

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Transition to Maine~Part 2

17 Aug

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

Finally assigned quarters on the base (Loring AFB), we began the process of arranging our lives to this new place. We lived in a two-story row house (18 “houses” or apartments, within each row – directly across from another set of row houses), and ours had been added on – giving us a half-bath and a laundry room downstairs, right off the kitchen. We considered ourselves fortunate for that addition – the houses on either side of us did not have the add-on, and the only bathroom was upstairs.

The base housing was not in very good repair – especially on the outside, and was scheduled for refurbishment the summer we arrived. Here are some before and after pictures.

 

Before
After

 

The military had contracted with a Canadian company to do the work. Nothing wrong with that – except they were on Atlantic time, and arrived about 6:00 a.m. local time. We kept hearing stories about people asleep in their upstairs apartment, awakened to find Canadian faces looking in their windows!   We made sure we had the windows covered.

Of course, just covering the windows didn’t help with the sound. They were removing the old siding in preparation for new siding. It looked really nice when they were done, but BOY! was it loud in the mean time!

Since we had only been able to ship 2,000 pounds to Germany, we had left a lot of our household goods at my mother’s house in New Mexico. Now was the time to collect everything that was ours, and start using it all. So we had to find a place for all the china, crystal and sterling we had been given as wedding presents. The apartment was partially furnished, so we only had to purchase a minimum of furniture. We were furnished a dining room table and chairs, sideboard and two beds. Fred built a “hutch” for the sideboard, and we stored the crystal there.

We purchased a sofa (110″ long) in electric blue, with a matching high-back swivel rocker. We also purchased a 12′ X 15′ rug to go in the living room. It was such fun arranging all that stuff.

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Fred’s parents and an aunt and uncle arrived the middle of October, hoping to see all the gorgeous fall colors – but they were about a month too late. Fall hits in early September in northern Maine. But we had a nice visit with them, anyway, taking them to our favorite restaurant in Canada, York’s. York’s had a set menu – only five items. But they had corn fritters the size of a baseball, served with real maple syrup – as many as you wanted to eat. You could have one serving of any of the five entrees, and if you were still hungry, you could have a half-order of anything except the steak. I really learned to love lobster there! And what was neat was that they split the lobster in half, and all you had to do was pick out the meat! No cracking there! Unfortunately, they closed down mid-October and didn’t open again until Mother’s Day. The roads were just too impassable, so they had no customers.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~To be continued~~~~~~~~~~~

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You Are the Answer to Someone’s Prayer

15 Aug

From My Heart

Louise Gibson

author of Window Wonders

 

 

Someone prayed for a miracle-

Maybe that miracle is YOU.

A task, difficult for one-

Is so much easier with two!

 

Open the door of your heart-

Don’t you hear the cry?

“Will someone please help me?

I have no other measure to try.”

 

Reach out with compassion-

One day that plea may be yours.

God has created us in His own image.

We are the blessed who endures.

 

Some people can be difficult to love,

and so we don’t even try to care.

But God says, “Love them as I have loved you.

You’ll bring me glory as My love you share.”

 

“For we are His workmanship. created in

Christ Jesus for good works,

which God has prepared beforehand

that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10

helping_hands1

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A Bean Canning Fiasco

14 Aug

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

This week started well. I was busy with #MondayBlogs (if you are on Twitter check this out on Monday) and Mike went out to pick the green beans on our extremely tall green bean bushes, more like trees. As an aside, we learned from this and will NOT use ten foot poles again. Monday Blogs tend to make me anxious, so many blogs and tweets, so little time, so I took a break and helped Mike string and snap our unexpectedly large picking. We had a grand time sitting on the back porch, rocking, snapping and talking. By the time we finished I decided it was too late to can them and popped them into the refrigerator to work on the next morning.

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Tuesday morning, I cleaned my kitchen making sure I had plenty of room to wash the beans and then began the canning process. I was expecting around eight pints but by the end of nine pints I had a lot of beans left. No worries. I decided to  start the others in the pressure canner then jar up the rest in quarts. I had five quarts!

I can outside using a Coleman stove and my husband set it all up for me. In my haste, I neglected to look at the pressure gauge. It was new last year so I assumed it was fine. We waited for the canner to vent, put the jiggler on and sat down to wait for it to work it’s magic.  I was dreaming of bragging about my beautiful green beans.  All was good until my husband said, why is the pressure gauge on fifteen? I, of course, suggested he had the flame turned up too high. After much “fiddling” we decided the pressure gauge was bad.

I was distraught? No, frustrated is a better word. I called the Macon County Agricultural Extension Office for advice. ( Surely there is an acronym for that?) and was told that Debbie the canning girl was not in, call tomorrow. Tomorrow? I had two canners of beans NOW. In the end, I cooled the pints(and myself) and put them in the refrigerator. I  froze the quarts. (That is a long  tale too traumatic to speak of at this time)

I am happy to say, that Wednesday, my husband was able to tinker with the gauge and zero it out and the MCAEC ^^^^ confirmed it was now accurate. I didn’t trust it though, so I pulled out one of my mother’s old canners with a weighted jiggler and finally canned the beans. The next time we pick, I think we may just eat them all week and share with whomever will take them!

9 pints

I totally forgot to tell you about Gus. We call him the best porch dog ever. He belongs to the neighbors but comes to visit while they work. He was with us the whole time, faithfully offering his head for a pat and ears to scratch.

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My Western Trip Part~15

13 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

 Heading back west from Meteor Crater, I passed signs for roads leading to some of the most unique sounding towns, such as Two Guns and Twin Arrows. Then a little ways farther down the road, I passed a man carrying a cross with wheels on the long end. What a sight that was. It reminded me of Arthur Blessitt, who carried a cross from the west coast to the east coast of the U.S. back in the late 1960s. When I got to Williams, AZ I took another little side trip, north on S.R. 64 to Valle, AZ to visit the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This museum has a couple of the planes that are special to me, one being General Douglas MacArthur’s Lockheed C-121A Constellation (N422NA) that he named “Bataan.” The other is a Pacific Air Lines Martin 4-0-4 (N636X) that I worked on at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1958-1960s while I was attending Northrop University.

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Next door to the POF Air Museum is the Grand Canyon Valle Airport, which has a very nice collection of vintage aircraft and vehicles. Their movie and airline famous1929 5-AT-C Ford Tri-motor (N414H) is painted in the colors of Scenic Airways (predecessor to Grand Canyon Airlines), and among its many other awards, won the National Aviation Heritage Invitational (NAHI) Howard Hughes Trophy at the 2012 Reno Air Races.

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Then I headed west on I-40 again, this time toward Las Vegas, my beginning and ending destination for this trip. I passed thru Ash Fork and Seligman before stopping at the Airport in Kingman, AZ to visit the Kingman Army Airfield Museum. But again, they were closed that day, so I continued on into Kingman to visit the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum and the Kingman Railroad Museum.

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Since time was beginning to get a little tight, I didn’t spend a lot of time in those two museums, but got back on the road for Las Vegas. I made it into town in time to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum, which documents the history of U.S. nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), which was originally called The Nevada Proving Grounds. The NTS is located in the desert only 65 miles north of Las Vegas, and has been the location for 928 nuclear tests of all types and sizes, since the first detonation on January 27, 1951. This includes above-ground, underground and atmospheric tests.

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I began the next morning by turning in the rental car (3356 miles), and then it was stand in line for baggage check-in, Security checks, and wait for my Southwest flight back to the “Green” of Orlando, FL and home. We had made arrangements for my sister Judy and her husband Fred to meet DiVoran and me at Sonny’s BBQ for dinner upon my arrival, so we had a great dinner of Baby Back Ribs, with all the trimmings. Then it was onto S.R. 528 and east to Titusville for a good night’s sleep in my own bed. Boy did that feel good! I really enjoyed this trip, and am looking forward to the next one, but DiVoran says I will need to cut back a little on that one. I hope you have enjoyed reading about “My Western Trip” as much as I have enjoyed writing about it.

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—–The End—–

 

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