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Showing posts from January, 2010

Leonia United Methodist Church Now Prayer Conditioned

I posted a picture of this church's sign below in December, 2009, which announced that they were "air conditioned" despite snow on the ground (and frigid temperatures!). I noticed in late January, 2010, that they have changed the sign to announce that they are "prayer conditioned," a clever response.   The original picture, which I think is self-explanatory. You might also be interested in attending Leonia's first Montessori Church .

Living the (Chigger-Free) Good Life

Today I am thankful because I remembered a Calvin Trillin reading on Prairie Home Companion about growing up in Kansas City. He talked about chiggers. Chiggers! One of those "Eureka" moments when I realized that yes, it's true, there are no chiggers in New Jersey. Say what you want about Jersey, but at least there are no chiggers here. What a perplexing pest, the mightiest of the mites, the invisible chigger! Got me good at Mrs. Hunt's in 1988 in Springfield, Missouri when I was weeding her garden for $5 an hour to pay the bills in college. Growing up in Southern Illinois, chiggers wreaked havoc on me so many times, but no more. Not in the past 16 years. I had forgotten all about them until Trillin's essay. I experienced instant gratitude! Even when I joined the Marines, I got sent to Southern California for boot camp. They called us "Hollywood Marines," as opposed to whatever they called the guys who went to Paris Island (PI), South Carolina for boot

What Are You Counting?

I had always wondered why God so harshly judged David after he took the census of Israel to count the fighting men. I think I understand it better now after I started counting things too—like chin-ups. A few years ago, I moved to a new job in my company, so I tried out a new gym down the street. It was a little pricey, though, even though you did get mouthwash in the locker room. So during my lunch hours, I tried going back to a Bally’s gym where I was already a member, but it was a little too far away and you can only take so many two-hour lunches before someone notices. So I started driving to a local park and doing what I had done with some guys in my department when we worked together before my move—lunchtime chin-ups at a playground. During that time, one co-worker taught me “steps” with chin-ups. Start with one chin up, and then stop. Then do two. Then three, four, five and so on until you cannot complete the number. Then you do “steps” back down from that number until you retu

My Performance-Enhancing Confession

Strangely, Mark McGwire's confession to using steroids when he broke the home run record sounded very similar to mine. "Now that I have become a blogger, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able to do nearly thirty years ago. I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It's time for me to talk about the past and confirm what people suspected. I used performance-enhancing coffee during my years at J.L. Buford elementary school, Casey Junior High, and Mount Vernon Township High school. I remember getting up and having a couple of cups of coffee and reading the newspaper while I was in fifth grade, a pattern that continued throughout junior high and high school. Not only did I drink coffee, but I also had cream and sugar. And many of you will remember that my grades shot up in fifth grade to straight A's after I previously had been a mediocre student. I also tried out for the basketball team and made it the next year, even though I could o

An IHOP Kind of Guy Am I

A few years ago, I realized that I was an IHOP kind of guy. We were eating at IHOP (yes, International House of Pancakes ) and it was one of those “aha” moments. I wish it had been a classy Italian restaurant with the white table cloth, the maitre de, the fine glasses. But no, I’m talking IHOP—kids eat free on Fridays IHOP. Lower-middle class IHOP. I relax when I’m there. I don’t feel stuffy, don’t feel like people are going to look at me funny if I forget to put my napkin on my lap or use my salad fork with the main entrée or my regular fork with the salad. I have no clue when it comes to those things. Just now, I realized I don’t even know what to call the main fork to distinguish it from a salad fork. Is there a different word? I don’t even know. That’s why I belong at IHOP. It doesn’t matter there. On that night, I ordered fish n’ chips. I know, a guy my age shouldn’t be eating deep-fried food, but I don’t like Greek salads and olives and cucumbers or cold noodles or any of those