Yellowriter

The first thing I have to tell you about is my brother.  After numerous phone calls and e-mails, we found him.  He made contact with our 81 year old father and assured him that all was well.   That was a bit of drama.  When a 49 year old professional musician goes missing in Alaska, that’s news!  Actually, it was a minor annoyance for which I am grateful.  It could have been tradgedy.  I’ll take the theatre of the real when there’s no catastrophe waiting behind door number three anyday!  Welcome back, Craig, to the land of the living…or at least to the land where people care about you!

Today is Annie’s birthday.  Yes, my blushing bride is 46 today.  She is a low maintenance person with three exceptions.  She likes nice perfume, gets her nails done, and she prefers expensive jewelry.  The last one I don’t mind for three reasons.  One is that she hardly asks for anything so when she does really want something I can usually afford it.  The second is, and listen to this one fellas, the jewelry she wears is a reflection on you!  Don’t be cheap.  She is the woman of your dreams so don’t be afraid to let the whole world know that this princess can wear some shiny stuff!  The third reason is that she knows that the biggest is not always the best.  I tried to up the size on one diamond and she said, “No, thanks.  It’s too big.”  I wondered about that and she set me straight.  “If it’s too big you’re a mark to be robbed.  Also, many people will think it is cubic zirconia if it’s huge and gawdy.  A medium-sized pristine diamond is classy, won’t be thought to be fake, and is easily hidden in crowds by spinning the ring to one’s palm,” she explained.  And it costs less!  That’s for the boys!

We don’t do birthday presents, but plan time together instead.  Thursday, we are heading over to Seattle for a baseball game.  Yes, there might some sea food for me as well.  Annie will be content with chicken.  Since she saves me on jewelry I can overlook the fact that she depises dinner from the sea.  She can have her chicken and I’ll have the chowder.  I better write faster…that made me hungry!  My birthday is next month, sans presents as well, and we are going to take the ferry to Victoria and go to Butchart Gardens.  Check out their website.  The place is absolutely gorgeous.  www.butchartgardens.com will hook you up.

The kids are gone back home.  Natalie is back in New Haven, Connecticut and David is shipping out of San Diego for Kuwait this week.  It is all quiet and I’m enjoying the lull.  We have some church responsibilities and Annie has some work on the pageant stuff (she is director of the Port Angeles Community Queens), but we are in a bit of a coast right now.  On July 31, I will have been retired one year and I can tell you it has been quite a transition.  Most of the hard stuff is history.

There was a commercial that was on years ago.  I think it was a beer ad and the guy was building his dream house.  While seated next to a pond with one hand in the water and the other holding a cold brew he was asked, “When you finish this place what are you going to do?”  The actor looked at the camera, stirred the water a bit, and then replied, “Just what I’m doing now.”

Maybe you are like us and are “in-between” events.  I would urge you not to be in a hurry at filling the drama gaps.  Take a deep breath and a break.  More drama is on the way…I promise.  All of that talk about stopping to smell the roses is spot on.  Don’t feel guilty to get quiet and stir the pond.  If God is giving you some downtime, take advantage of it.  I have to sign off now.  I was dreaming about the Japanese Garden at Butchart…there’s a pond that’s in need of a stir.  

I realize that I’ve been gone for a bit, but David, my son in the Navy, is visiting from San Diego before he heads off to Kuwait at the end of the month.  Natalie, my daughter who is getting her P.H.D. at Yale, will be here this afternnoon so I had better blog now before the family time really gets moving.

David and I are finding things to do.  Annie, David and I went up to Hurricane Ridge for a picnic last week.  Usually it is too cold up there even in the summertime, but the heat wave last week let us bask in 70 degree sunlight while we dined in style.  We all participated in the Port Angeles 5 and 10 k’s on Sunday.  Dave ran the 10K while we walked the five.  Baby steps, man!  Annie wants to do the half marathon next year so I guess we’ll be training for that.

Yesterday David and I went to Olympic Hot Springs.  We had a great hike and a great time.  The only wierd thing was seeing two people, buck naked, in the throes of passion.  It was pretty strange.  We ate a snack and let them alone to “finish up.”  By the time we got back to the car we were tired and hot.  We drove over the Cresent Lake, got some refreshment at a snack bar type place and drove home.  Thursday we’re planning a picnic by the Dungeness River in Sequim.  We plan to sprinkle Papa Butch’s ashes in the river because Sequim is a place he loved to hunt and fish.  Annie’s dad, Rubbert Erskin Hooker, died January 24, 2002 at the all-too-young age of 58.  My new novel, Specter of an Accident, will be available in August and is dedicated to Papa Butch (Rubbert “Bob” Hooker).

I’m in a search for my brother.  Craig is a 49 year old musician who lives in Alaska.  He is a bit eccentric to say the least.  E-mails and phone calls go un-returned.  I pray my brother is okay, but this is just another chapter with dealing with a professional musician.  That leads me to the 11th Commandment.

If you walk up to Lauren, our youngest daughter, and ask, “What is the 11th Commandment?” she will tell you without batting an eye.  “Thou shalt not date a musician!”  I know it’s a sterotype, but musicians are pretty much bums.  Nothing is as important as “My music!”  A guy I know is getting married next month.  Twenty years old and you guessed it, a musician.  I’ll spare you the details.  In the pondering department, why do most musicians think that they’ll be the next Beyonce, Third Day, or Kenny Chesney?  It’s a cruel joke, but many fall for it.  When David showed up with his guitar I groaned.  He replied, “Dad, I’m teaching myself to play with a computer program.  Don’t worry.  My career goals have nothing to do with music.  It’s just a hobby.”  That calmed my fears.

The point is that most people have a need for creative expression.  I’ll pick on myself here; I love to write, but it’s a hobby.  Could it take off?  It is possible, but if it doesn’t I still have health insurance and I am going to eat today!  I don’t want to tell people not to dream.  All I’m saying is to have a plan B.  Have a fall back position.  The Seattle Times ran a sad story today about the 1999 baseball draft.  10 players from Washington State were taken in that draft in the first two rounds.  That will likely never happen in a state of this size and population again.  Out of the 10, only one is a success and I have to admit that I’ve never heard of the guy.  The back up plans of the other 9 were pretty woeful.  One guy works in a casino, one guy tries to get construction gigs…and on and on it goes.

To all you rock star wannabees I say, good for you.  If you do make it, don’t forget where you came from and always give back.  If you don’t, enjoy your hobby, but get a job, a real job.  Feed your family before your fantasies.  The real world can be a pretty hard place.  Remember the 11th Commandment.  I have to go…my agent is on the phone with Castlerock Entertainment with a huge movie deal offer on Skinware, my first novel.  Ta Ta darlings!  Let’s do lunch sometime!   

My neighbor stopped me for a visit on the way back from my retrieving my morning paper.  Karla, one of the other retired people on our street, asked me if I ever get bored.  I had to be honest and respond that in the ten months of retirement I’ve yet to be bored.  I explained to her that I got my first job at eleven years old and pretty much worked the 39 years before I retired at 50.  I told her that time has always been ultra important to me (maybe because I’m part German) and that I have always been on someone else’s time schedule.  That is the best part of retirement - your own time.

But filling that time can be a huge challenge.  If you watch any of the slick TV ads that talk about great investment strategies, the payoff is usually being super comfortable or downright rich in the golden years.  The motivation is sound; don’t we all want to be a little more than okay after we quit working when it comes to money and comfort?  A friend reminded me that retirement is not in the Bible.  He told me that we can rest when we get to heaven.  The problem is that all of us age and someday we probably won’t be able to work.

So now we are back at the boredom dilemma.  A lot of people who retire go back to work at some point, many part-time.  The reason is that they want to fill their day and that is a good approach.  It also gives some socialization along with the extra money one earns.  I have gotten offers from the FAA to go back as a contract employee.  My answer, in a nice way, is not for all the tea in China!  I’m just not interested in air traffic control any more.

So what am I interested in?  I’m so glad you asked.  I love to write and re-write books!  It sounds like English homework, doesn’t it?  It actually is a lot of fun and there is a bunch of things to learn about this language that I supposedly speak!  Annie reads through with me and we catch typos and mistakes.  We work about two hours a day and that is about right.  We’re completing a re-write of The Covenant Divorce Recovery Leader’s Handbook and it is about to go to press.  Specter of an Accident, a novel, will be finished in less than a month.  We then plan to re-write The Covenant Divorce Recovery Student Workbook.  After that we plan to do a revision on Skinware.  Another novel is in the pipeline after that.

So you can see I keep busy.  The blessings of having a curious mind!  Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “A mind that stretches to grasp a new concept can never return to its original dimensions.”  All of this revision work is stretching my mind.  I’ve also taken to doing word puzzles as a way to increase my vocabulary and challenge my thinking.  It is all part of making your own fun.

Today I told Annie to tell me what she wanted to do.  It was gorgeous today (72, sunny and no wind) so she suggested we walk the path by the beach.  It was a terrific way to spend part of the day.  Tomorrow it will be something else.  A barbeque and a drive.  Maybe we’ll take a detour.  It doesn’t matter because we’re off the clock.  My advice is to invest wisely so that you can be confident in retirement.  But don’t forget to keep it fresh every day.  That’s the key to retirement.  Start out with a goal to find your fun.  Soon your fun will be finding you!

In the Bible there occurs a curious term called “conversation” in many of the translations.  The more modern versions refer to “conversation” as “manner of life.”  What this means is that what we say says who we are as people.  I’ll push the illustration to yet another level and say that what we believe defines who we are.  Yes, that’s right…our heart gives us away.  Not long ago a stand up comedian used a flurry of racial comments while doing a show.  He later apologized, gave excuses, and went on his merry way.  The crux of the issue was that this guy was always a racist and it finally came out because it defined what was in his very soul.  When O.J. was aquitted for murdering Nicole Brown Simpson the outrage was everywhere.  My position was time.  In time, if O.J. was a criminal, his actions would show his true heart.  Now, he’s in prison for probably the rest of his life for more recent crimes.  That was simply who he is, a criminal.  The jury is still out on Michael Vick.  Duped superstar or unrepentant sinner?  Time will tell.

All of these things are worth thinking about.  Are people how they are because of DNA?  What about a rotten childhood?  Is it a combination of the two, nature and nurture?  What about personal choice?  And now the biggie - what about God?  Can the Lord change a person’s heart so that he is no longer a racist?  A crook?  A killer?  I’d like to think so because as the French philosopher Moliere said, “Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature.”  Without God, we’re doomed.

I know my share of God talkers.  I’m a Christian who prays, reads the Bible daily, and tries to tell people about the love of Jesus.  I have issues and DNA that trips me up, but God is there to help me along.  I spend a great deal of my time trying to be more like Christ, and I struggle.  Some of the God talkers I know don’t seem to share my angst. 

When I was in college I met a God talker named Jaque.  He could not get through a sentence without talking about God.  I’d say, “beautiful day” and he’d reply “The Lord God has given you this day so that others will see Jesus in you!”  That’s fine, but it seemed kind of phoney.  Once when I asked him to pass the ketchup in the college cafeteria he made the comparision to the tomatoes being the color of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I held out my hand, told him I was running late and that I’d like some ketchup for my fries.  I got a lecture and had to eat the taters sans the red stuff.  It was later that month that this God talker was arrested for raping a 13 year old girl.  Pass the ketchup please.

Another God talker was Bill.  He loved the Lord and toted a 12 pound Bible with him wherever he went.  He rebuked all of the big sins and was always passing judgment.  Every discussion turned into a theological debate.  He once invited me to his home for New Year’s Day.  The Rose Bowl was on the TV, but we missed most of it because he wanted to talk about limited atonement and election.  He did a three to five stretch for not paying his income taxes.  His life said that he loved God, but his real idol was money.  Prison was the end for this God talker.

I’m frusterated as I write this.  Some dear friends of ours are divorcing.  Yes, they are Christians and yes, this guy is a God talker.  I tried to recommend a novel from an author I like but he only reads Christian material.  He only listens to gospel music and shares his faith with most he meets.  You guessed it; Mr. God talker has a girlfriend.  His wife and two little girls (aged 9 & 11) will have to deal with the leftovers of his mid-life crisis.  Another God talker bites the dust and the happiest person in the universe right now is Satan, the Prince of Darkness.  I think he has a special list for God talkers.

The point of all of this is “but by the grace of God, there go I.”  I have to stay tuned in, as do you.  Don’t give God lip service - give Him your heart.  The book of James tells us to “be doers of the Word.”  The lingo is nice, but what is in your heart of hearts?  Your soul?  Sure, I want my “conversation” to show God, don’t you?  But it has to be who we are.  Don’t take the O.J. Highway.  Give your life to the Lord, not just your verbage.  We already have an abundance of God talkers.   

Okay, so I haven’t exactly been a tower of faithfulness when it comes to blogging.  Do I have excuses?  No good ones, so I’ll spare you.  My last blog was about the arrival of my granddaughter, Lilah.  She lives in a town called Fountain, Colorado, which is about seven miles south of Colorado Springs.  I’ve been a little off kiltre since my second grand kid showed up.  I’m in-betwwen editing two books and lets’ face it; baseball season is also in full swing.  I told you they were lame excuses!

With all of that explained, the issue today is a road trip.  I’ll preface the details about my “road-warriorism” until the next paragraph.  When I was in College at Cal State University Bakerfield and was drawing near to that illusive degree, I confided in one of my Professors.  He told me not to worry about it.  “We’re always a student of something in life - accept that as long as we’re alive that there is always something to learn.”  That’s a good way to look at being on the right side of the turf (versus being six feet under!). 

I’ve learned some things since yesterday.  We woke up and had breakfast in Rexburg, Idaho.  We had lunch in Ogden, Utah and dinner in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Lesson one - Plan your trip better.  Lesson two - Don’t forget your road atlas and “wing it.”  Lesson three - Interstate 80 across the bottom of Wyoming is one boring drive!

So now we are at Grandma Jan’s place in Broomfield, Colorado.  We are planning to spend part of Mother’s Day with her and then head down to see Talon and Lilah.  Oh, their parents will be there too, but the real reason we made this trip was for those little critters.  We brought along the Christmas presents too since they got snowed out trying to get to our place on the 23rd of December.  I learned that having Christmas and Mother’s Day on the same day isn’t such a bad thing (unlike the 1700 mile drive to get here!).  Next time we are flying and renting a car!  Driving from Port Angeles, Washington to Colorado is crazy!  Kids don’t try this at home!  I’m a trained professional!  Yeah, right!

While on the subject of being a student I can’t let Mom’s Day pass without a thought on the subject of my mother.  Monta Earlene Powers (maiden name Willadsen) has been gone six years now and I wish I could tell you that it hurts less.  The truth is that it hurts different.  Instead of crying and listening to One More Day by Diamond Rio, over and over, I think about all of the great memories I have about my mom.  Annie knew I was missing my mom on the anniversary of her death, April 7th, and cooked me up a batch of my mom’s world famous sloppy joes.  I ate, got stuff on both cheeks and thought about how this humble woman from a farm family in Nebraska raised five kids with a love and a stubborness that I am only now at age fifty beginning to understand.  I miss you, mom, but you didn’t get cheated.  You had a good life and I’m still benefiting by your example in so many ways.  I hope you’re in heaven and that we’ll see each other again.  But until that time I plan to keep my focus on being an astute pupil.  I’ll always be a student of something and learning to love others like my mother loved me is a lifetime assignment…and I promise to do my homework.   

Life comes at you in spurts.  At least for me, it does.  What I mean to say is that so much of this thing we refer to as life can separated into segments or boxes.  The term “compartmentalization” is the psychological ditty that means that, mentally, we box up things, people, events, and responsibilities.  For me it usually means putting the yard work in a different place than going up in the Space Needle or taking a drive up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.  The key is in the compartments!

Mundane is a word that describes many of the things we simply have to do.  I was at a mixer tonight for the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a woman asked me about my twenty-seven years as an air traffic controller.  I told her “it is hours of boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror.”  Much like life.  Going to the grocery store, cooking dinner and doing the science project with your kid (who told you about it the day before it was due) all have their place in the Mundane Hall of Fame, or do they?

On Monday, Lilah Jasmine Powers Arcebuche entered this world.  My granddaughter was born at 8:03 A.M. Mountain Time on Monday, April 13, 2009.  Mom and baby are fine.  Dad and big brother are hanging in there.  This event ranks above shampooing the carpet and washing the car.  It is a “wow” moment.  Way to go Brenna and Vince.  Those grandchildren are a blessing in my otherwise mundane life.  But my life is not so mundane.  I’ve discovered that it is all about attitude.

The yard work turns into an opportunity to do a project with my wife and may lead to a conversation with a neighbor.  Washing the car exercises muscles that I don’t work with alot, even when I’m lifting weights at the YMCA or running on the treadmill.  It also makes me thankful that I have a cool little Mazda3.  Thanx Lord.  It’s all about attitude.

Annie’s mom came to visit for 5 days.  Their relationship was rocky for many years and I’m glad to see them both working things out.  It could have been mundane with tears and confessions, but it wasn’t.  It was fun because the attitude of everyone was positive and healing.  We took grandma Gigi (what Annie’s nephew Grant named her - GG stands for Grant’s Grandma) around the Olympic Peninsula and showed her the northwest way of doing things.  We don’t know much as we are still new-bees ourselves.  It was unseasonably cold so we altered some of our plans.  Life is like that - be flexible.

I can’t say that I have a crystal ball.  I don’t know the future.  Life is designed that way.  So I suppose I’ll just keep trying to make mundane moments magical.  When I break down the compartments something wonderful happens.  On Monday it was the news that I had a granddaughter and that she is well and whole.  I wonder what surprise the gift of tomorrow may hold?  Maybe it is mundane or perhaps it may be magic…just like Lilah.

If you haven’t noticed, people like to complain.  The worst used to be GI’s.  They’d moan and complain all day long.  That was only topped by air traffic controllers.  When I was in the Federal Aviation Administration I heard enough grumbling to last me for the rest of my life!  I did enjoy those 23 years with the Feds, but retirement is oh so sweet!

I’m not a gadgets guy.  It takes me a while to warm up to a new bit of hardware.  I balked at computers and now, I’m hooked.  I wondered about the benefits of a microwave oven and now it would be hard to live without one!  Automatic garage door openers are another staple.  I resisted using an ATM machine when they were new, but you know the story…I love the convenience!  I still don’t see the benefit of texting.  I guess if you need to be sneaky.  When we were visiting our daughter and boyfriend I could hear them texting back and forth on their phones in the back seat while I drove with my wife in the passenger seat - translation: they wanted to communicate things about us (my wife and I) that they didn’t want us to hear.  Sneaky.  I came to the conclusion that two of the goals in my life are 1) never to kill anyone, and 2) never to send a text message.  Why not just call?  The sneaky angle may be off, but isn’t it easier to just call?  My other daughter’s ex-boyfriend in California keeps texting her.  It troubles her greatly that his new girlfriend does not know about his attempt to contact her.  I call it for what it is, Cyber-cheating.  Oh, the sneakiness.  I suggested that she contact his new girlfriend and say, “please tell your boyfriend to leave me alone!”  That would close a door or two!

Back to the technology of the day.  You must ask, “why?”  We develop these devices because they are cool, in the long run they save money, and hopefully they save time.  That is my concern.  With all of these time saving machines, it seems that  Americans have less time than ever before.  Odd, isn’t it?

That brings me to my father’s friend, Merv Gangsted.  Merv was an Air Force engineer who was great friend of my dad’s back in the seventies.  The stone age.  Merv was a precise, scientific guy, and he had a saying that I have used in countless counseling sessions with friends and family.  When anyone complained about how busy they were or tried to offer excuses about why things were not done Merv would spout his line.  “Everybody gets twenty-four hours a day.  What are you going to do with yours?”  No excuses.  No complaining.  You did this to you!  Shut your pie hole and do a better job tomorrow, because tomorrow you get twenty-four new hours!  See the pattern?  Complain less and plan more.  If you fail to plan you plan to fail.  Maybe the new technology can help or hinder you, as the case may be, but the time for whining is not to be tolerated.  This has got me thinking about some yard work that I’m planning to do tomorrow.  I don’t intend to let it slip.  I’ll plan and think about my personal 24, the one without Kiefer Sutherland.  And that my friend is the wisdom of Merv.

Let me assure you that the decision to retire and move from the Mojave Desert to the Pacific Northwest was not a light one.  There are an array of differences, but the main one is the weather.  We had our first summer last year and it was called “June-u-ary” in the local paper.  Suffice it to say that we had a nice, cool summer.  We did get two hot days (in the 80 degree-plus range) and we had to use the air conditioning for the first time since we bought the place in 2006.  We were relieved that it worked - in fact, it got too cold so we had to shut it down.

But the problem of late has been the non-stop winter.  It was the coldest winter in 40 years and I was especially glad to see Spring on the calendar.  It still isn’t balmy, but I was able to take the dogs out last night and I didn’t need a coat.  That hasn’t happened since October, 2008.  The time to plant flowers and mow the grass is right around the corner.  Home Depot is on our “Things to do” list.

We were on a mini-vacation up until yesterday.  In February, we planned a trip for March to take Lauren to five  Universities in our state.  Western Washington, the University of Washington, Central Washington, Washington State and Eastern Washington University were all on our radar.  Lauren confirmed around Valentine’s Day that the trip was a go for March 22nd as a launch date.  I did the cheap, I mean er…thrifty thing, and booked two of our hotel rooms on a prepaid basis.  The problem with that is because Lauren no longer wants to be a student.

On March 6th Lauren told us that college is not a goal right now.  She told us that she wanted to join the Air Force.  I humored her and she called the recruiter on the 7th and left a message.  On the 9th, a Monday, she called again.  On Tuesday, the 10th, we met the recruiter in Silverdale.  On Wednesday she took the ASVAB aptitude test.  On Thursday morning she had her physical and by 3:30 in the afternoon on March 12th she was sworn in.  The entire process of disclosure to contact to enlistment took less than six days!  She chose 5 jobs in the medical field and is waiting for one of those career fields to open up before they take her off to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.  The reason she had to choose 5 jobs is that the Air Force is overmanned by 30,000 people and can pretty much pick and choose whom they want.  The recruiter told me that in 2008 the Air Force had NO RECRUITING GOAL.  When I asked why he said, “We are engaged in two wars and we have been for many years.  The Air Force has lost a total of 67 people and many of them were accidents (not the result of being killed by the enemy).  Stack that up against the Army and Marine Corp who lose that many people in a week!”  Crunch the numbers and it makes sense to be one of the folks in blue.

Back to the hotels - Annie and I took advantage of the prepaid and went to the tulip farms near Mount Vernon, Washington.  The tulips were late this year because of the unseasonably cold winter so we are going back the middle of April.  We took the underground tour of Seattle, which was really cool.  Maybe you didn’t know that Seattle is a city on a city!  We shopped, site-saw (past tense of sight-seeing) and just had a great time plodding along.  It was great not to have to follow a shedule.   And I ended up not getting taken by the prepaid hotel syndicate!

So spring has sprung.  I’m looking foward to our first summer without tons of work attached to it.  And it doesn’t matter if we have a cool/cold summer.  That’s what fireplaces are for.    

Remember the ditty Into each life some rain must fall?  I have an adaptation to that idiom which I will share later in the broadcast.  I know I haven’t blogged in a while so if you are a regular subscriber, I apologize.  Ten days on the road put me a tad off kilter and I got a little behind the power curve.  Any more trite comparisons?  I’m all out.

The trip to the southeast part of the country was interesting.  I connected with my mom’s side of the family, the Willadsens, and Annie finally got to meet all these folks that I have dropped the ball communicating with for 18 years.  It went great.  The usual happened though.  The usual is that my relatives end up liking Annie a whole lot better than they like me!  I should be expecting it by now.

Visiting with Jenna and her live-in significant other went well too.  Rich Secrist is a quiet guy, but is fun to talk to once the dialogue opens up.  He is intelligent, driven and seems to know what he wants.  He works in the Army as a mechanic, but is doing a lot of office work too.  We went to the Mammoth Caves with them and caught a movie.  Jenna is looking for a job and we are praying she gets the one she is interviewing for today.

 We then drove from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to Severville, Tennessee and discovered that to go from that part of the Bluegrass state to Tennessee, we had to drive through southern Illinois for about 2 miles!  I never expected that…and I’m a map guy!  Anyway, the drive was scenic and relaxing.

The Sumeriskis (our ex-neighbors) are doing fine down by Dollywood.  We toured tha Smoky Mountain National Park with Allan, who is a wheel at the park.  Kim, his wife, is still pretty as a picture, and the girls, Casey and Alecia were fantastic.  It snowed the whole time we were there.  Then it was time to come home.

Remember the little rain ditty?  Two days after we got home, Lauren clouded up.  She cried, we argued, and then she cried some more.  Lauren hates college and wants to drop out!  Get this - it gets better!  She told us she wanted to join the Air Force and get out of town!  That wasn’t rain…it was a a bunker-buster!

The Air Force of 2009 is different than it was in 1977 when I was in (circa the stone age).  Lauren got to choose 5 jobs: the Air Force can assign her any one of the 5.  The days of one guaranteed job are over.  The Air Force has over 30,000 more people than it is allotted by congress.  Last year, the recruiter told me, the Air Force did not have a goal.  The reason was that they were flooded with applicants.  It seems that serving your country and not getting killed in combat are good things.  Only 67 airmen have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Marines and Army have lost thousands.  So safe is good. 

So by Thursday night (6 days after the first ordinance) Lauren swore into the United States Air Force.  When she leaves for San Antonio is anyone’s guess.  So the fourth of our kids is off to the service.  In retrospect, starting out in government service (like Israel does mandatorily) is not such a bad deal.  Maybe now I get to run aroud the house naked.  Like I said, into each life some bombs must fall!  

We finished our driving tour of some of the South today, ending up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  During the 2486 mile, 9 day trip, we covered Oklahoma, Missouri, a small piece of Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  On Sunday we went into Smoky Mountain National Park with our friend, Allan Sumeriski, who works at the park.  We stayed with him, his wife Kim, and their two super-cool daughters, Casey and Alecia.  They showed us some of that good old southern hospitality!

We enjoyed our time in Kentucky with Jenna and Rich, but the Mammoth Caves were pretty weak compared to Carlsbad Caverns.  We drove alot, visited, went out to dinner and caught a movie.  We got to know Rich and was sad to say goodbye.  Maybe they won’t get snowed out this Christmas!

The last two days had us driving from Knoxville, Tennessee to OKC and boy, was it a haul!  Little Rock was a nice stopping point, but the highlight was a little town in Oklahoma called Sallisaw.  We went to the Western Sizzling Restaurant for lunch and feasted on the best tasting fried chicken ever!  We sought out the chef, who turned out to be a seventy-year-old woman named Mae.  She told us of her homemade chicken recipe and how she “ruffled some feathers” (excuse the pun) when she used her special ingredients in their kitchen.  The result was heaven to the taste buds!  She said they call her “Miss Messy Mae” because she always makes a mess in the kitchen (as any great cook would)!  She does, however, clean it up after the magic has been performed. 

We are flying back to Seattle tomorrow, but we’ll be back…hopefully, for some of Messy Mae’s fried chicken!