One Too Many Potatoes

The Thanksgiving Runt Buns

2011-11-25T20:51:00.008-06:00

My wife cried out in desperation, “Why are they not rising?!?”

“Why are what not rising?” I asked as I looked at the obviously deformed buns in the bun pan. I was trying to quell my wife’s consternation over the “Now what are we gonna do about the bread for the Thanksgiving meal” problem.

Bread is an important part of most of our meals. Not having bread is like…well it’s like not having snow at Christmas or not having Hank Williams, Jr. sing “Are You Ready For Some Football?” on Monday nights.

We were heading to my daughter’s for Thanksgiving and my wife’s assignment was to bring a couple pies and THE BREAD.

So the other day she hollered down to me, “Will fifteen buns be enough?”

“Yep,” said I, “Ten for me, three for you, and two for Amber oughta do it.”

So she plopped 15 little frozen premade bun dough hockey pucks into the bun pan and put it into the fridge so that they could thaw and rise in unison.

But alas, when she pulled them out of the fridge, the nine toward the fridge door were bigger than the six toward the back of the fridge. After some scientific investigation, we could only surmise that it was like 20 degrees colder at the back end of the 18” pan than it was at the front. Maybe global warming was creeping into the fridge.

So she put them on the stove to see if that would snap the runt buns out of the doldrums.

But regrettably, when we got home from work, they were still smaller!

The nine toward the front of normal size (heretofore known simply as “The Nine”) were noticeably bigger than the abnormal six (heretofore known simply as “The Six”). We were both peering into the pan like bug scientists gazing at a new species.

I asked her if this had ever happened before. With a furrowed brow and a look of “Thanksgiving is ruint!” she said simply, “THIS has NEVER happened before!”

I asked her if she could just mix the runtbuns in with the normalbuns and perhaps that would inspire them to say, “Hey, I can rise to higher heights, look at that guy!”

But she wasn’t listening. And for the life of me I honestly couldn’t see the problem. Like Big Hairy Deal if the smaller buns are somewhat smaller than the others. It’s not like we are baking bread for Sean Connery or Tom Cruise or something. I would still eat them. Consider the six runts as part of my allotted ten. Good gravey! And besides, we’ll save on butter.

She grabbed another baking pan and dropped in some frozen premade dough nuggets. (I sorta remember an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" where Pa worked hard all day in the field harvesting dough balls and then gave them to Ma where she in turn froze them so that they could have bread in the winter.)

I didn’t ask, but I just assumed that my wife was going to somehow get 15 buns of proportional size so that her daughter wouldn’t think she was a total failure.

I thought about just getting up real early Thanksgiving Day and replacing the six dough balls in the new pan with six miniature marshmallows.

On the other hand, I wanted to be able to see the football game out of both eyes.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving :>)
Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved

A Ninny In An Audi, A Big Tall Flappy Monster, And Other Totally Unrelated Random Thoughts

2011-11-25T20:46:00.000-06:00

A few months ago my wife went to check the mail. As she rummaged through the bills she suddenly started laughing uncontrollably. I mean “milk-coming-out-your-nose” type of laughter. She hollered down the stairs to me, “Honey, you’re officially old!” At first I couldn’t understand what she was saying because she was laughing so hard. “You got a letter from “The Scooter Store!” Well that’s just swell…now I don’t have to call in sick anymore, I can just call in “old.”

On our way home from work each day we pass through some pretty busy intersections. At the corner of Michigan Street and 27th Avenue, a guy in an Audi cut right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it! What Audiacity! Kay fired a verbal barb out the windshield, “What a Ninny!” Then I fired my verbal laser beam, “Yeah, he’s a Ninny in an Audi!” We both laughed.

Often on our way to work we see the guy in the Duluth Police Parking Enforcement Vehicle. Its sort of a modified three-wheeler with an enclosure so the Enforcer won’t get cold or rained on. And it says “Interceptor” on the bumper (I am not making that up). I wonder if he’s ever been on any high speed chases? Maybe when a toddler is trying to escape on his Big Wheels.

A while back when I went to fill up our car with almost $4.00 per gallon gas, about a cup full spilled onto the ground when I put the nozzle in. I almost threw my sweatshirt on the ground to try to soak it up so I could squeeze it into the tank. When the travel center attendant gave me my credit card receipt, I thanked him for my copy of the loan. He didn’t laugh.

And when did they stop calling them gas stations and start calling them travel plazas?

When I was watching the Daytona 500 this past February I noticed the peculiar way those guys were drafting off from each other. The announcers marveled at the way the drivers could pair up at speeds of up to 200 mph – front bumper actually touching the rear bumper – and push/pull each other around the track. I thought to myself, “Hey that’s not so special – that looks like my daughter Amber driving down Highway 2!”

When we went to the Big Box Department store, as we were checking out they asked me to input my zip code. I keyed in 90210.

My grandson and I went to Best Buy a while back to look at really cool stuff (we could spend all day in there). When I got out of my truck I pointed out to him a pretty impressive looking Ford F150. His dad is a Ford guy, so I figured he was gonna be a Ford guy. So I asked him, “I suppose when you get old enough to drive you’re gonna be a Ford guy, huh?”
His reply? Noah, age 9, replied with a grin, “I’m gonna be a What-I-can-afFord” guy.

You know those really tall, skinny inflatable things that you see in front of car dealers and other businesses? They flap up and down like a rag doll attempting to find a backbone as they try to stay inflated. I wonder how much business they really bring in? Or how many kids have nightmares from those things and are permanently scarred for life. “No no no Daddy!!! I don’t want to go to that place with the tall creepy flappy monster!”

When our daughters stayed at my mom and dad’s place, we always had to take the two dolls (with faces made from dried apples) off the dresser and put them in the closet so that they could sleep at night. I guess the heads did look pretty creepy – blackened dried apples molded into the shape of faces. They looked like some Amazon shrunken heads.

I wonder what’s more damaging for kids….creepy dried apple face people or creepy tall flappy monsters?

Kay has a lot of her cosmetics in a very colorful plastic box that looks an awful lot like a tackle box. I am not sure why I typed that, I guess I just thought you should know. One of these days I’m gonna a put a Rapala in it. Or a Power Worm.

I want to drive around town sometime dressed in a gorilla suit with the window down. And when someone pulls up along side of me at the stop light, I’ll just look over and give them a “Yo, whazzup?” That would be funny.

I got a John Deere letter the other day from my tractor. Seems its leaving me for a bigger farm.

A few months ago I bought a magazine at Barnes and Noble. The lady at the checkout asked if I wanted a bag. I was only halfway paying attention to her question because I was trying to figure out if I had enough cash of if I should use my credit card or if I should ask my wife to pay for it. I was looking at my billfold and said to her, “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” When I looked up she was sort of grinning and giving me a “this isn’t that hard of question” look. When we got in the car, Kay said I should have asked her to repeat the question.

At my wife’s place of employment someone brought in several bouquets of lilacs to sit around the office area. They looked beautiful (she brought one home) and smelled wonderful. But they were aggravating someone’s allergies so they had to put all the lilacs in the men’s room (don’t ask me why the men’s room). A couple days later as we headed to work I commented to my wife on how great her perfume smelled.
“It’s lilacs!” she replied.
I asked with great concern in my voice, “They’re not going to make you sit in the men’s room all day are they?”

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved

Death By Frisbee

2011-09-05T19:59:00.008-05:00

Our daughter Courtney volunteered to host a Wednesday night “Grill and Chill” for our church at the Burnett ball field, so after work we hustled home, changed and headed out. We got to the picnic, visited for a little bit and then ate. I was hungry so I had two plates full of fried chicken, potato salad and other really good stuff.

Then Pastor Mike asked if anyone wanted to play Ultimate Frisbee. I loved tossing the Frisbee and had heard about Frisbee Golf, but had never heard about the “Ultimate” part.

A few years ago at work three of us tossed the Frisbee around during break. And when the weather was bad we went into the warehouse -- we got halfway good at tossing it around this pole or through that shelf. We even tried hitting the back wall of the warehouse from the mezzanine. Mine always fell short of that mark, but it was a lot of fun.

So at the Burnett ball field, all the guys gathered in the outfield to pick teams. There were I guess 14-16 of us ranging from the young (my grandson) to the not so young (me and a couple other guys). The captains started choosing sides and when it was down to about 6 of us and I hadn’t been drafted yet, I began to have flashbacks of the drafts at grade school kickball when I wasn’t taken till about the 49th round. Fortunately they just split us up so we wouldn’t have any self-esteem issues: “Ok, you three leftovers go to this side and you three go to that side.”

So the sides were chosen. The problem was though that in the melee you couldn’t really remember who was on your side. It’s just a good thing they didn’t call for skins and shirts. Me and six pack abs……………NOT!

But just to be helpful (and as a kind gesture), in the midst of the scramble when the guys on the other team hollered, “Who’s on my side?” I raised my hand. Just to be helpful.

Ultimate Frisbee is fashioned after soccer – you have to pass the Frisbee to someone on your side and are only permitted to take three steps once you catch it, then you have to attempt to pass it to another teammate as you work your way toward the football-like end zone (not a goal as in soccer). If the guy on your team doesn’t catch it or you throw just your normal horrible pass or the enemy knocks it down or intercepts it – then the other team gets the plastic saucer and back you go the other way.

(The day after Death-By-Frisbee I Googled “Ultimate Frisbee” on the internet just to see what I could find out about the sport. I soon learned that Ultimate Frisbee is used to winnow the really tough Navy Seals trainees from the not quite really tough Navy Seal trainees. One trainee wrote, “I didn’t mind holding that 200 pound log over my head all morning, but Ultimate Frisbee…now THAT was hard!)

So back and forth we went.

And I soon discovered – I could go back ok, but I had trouble going forth. I had been doing a fair amount of walking so I didn’t think I was in too bad of shape. But I thought wrong. And those two helpings of potato salad? A couple of times I thought I was going to have to eat them again.

And have you ever seen that original Star Trek series episode where Captain Kirk and Spock and others on the bridge of the Enterprise hear what sounds like just a really loud mosquito – but they never see anything? Then (if I remember correctly) they slow down the ship’s video log to super super slo mo and lo and behold they discover that there are aliens on their ship that move at incredible speeds compared to the molasses-like speed of the humanoids.

Well, I was the humanoid and Pastor Mike and several others and Gene “The Difference Maker” were the aliens. I compare my speed to that of a turtle being shot out of marshmallow shooter – incredibly fast for about 12 inches and then incredibly slow. I swear one time I had a good 20 yards of clean air to throw the Frisbee to a team mate. But suddenly one of the aliens (Teenage Mutant Ninja Non-Turtle Jacob) intercepted it! Where did he come from?

I was sweating and panting so bad after the first 20 minutes I was just longing for half-time. SURELY there would be a church-lady marching band halftime show so we could get a break and get some Gatorade and IV’s or SOMETHING!

But they just kept playing.

After what seemed like eons, Pastor Mike mercifully announced, “OK, whoever scores the next two points wins.”

Can I get an “Amen!?”

Within 13 seconds the other team scored twice and we walked off the field.

It was really a lot of fun, but I was really winded. I sat down for a little bit, visited for a while with the sweat rolling off from me. I was so hot from running and it was so humid that my glasses kept fogging up. I wondered, “Did I wander into a sauna or is it just like really really foggy out here?”

When I got home it took a lot longer than normal to walk up the stairs. My thigh muscles had had enough and just decided (WITHOUT my permission) to disconnect from me!

“Wow! How come my legs ain’t working?!?! My brain is commanding my legs to move, but they aren't following orders!!!"

I begged and cajoled and threatened my thigh muscles but they just didn’t want to have anything to do with the rest of my body for the rest of the night.

And my calf muscles were seriously thinking of joining their rebellion.

For a while I thought that I might not be able to go to work the next day. But how would I explain it to my boss?

“Hey Boss, I won’t be in today.”
“Hey Dan, what’s the matter? Are you calling in sick? And why are you mumbling stuff about death and Frisbee and thigh muscle rebellion?”
“No boss, I’m not sick……………………………I’m just calling in ‘old’”

Why Minnesota Is Better Than Arizona

2011-08-07T18:36:00.025-05:00

About a month ago my brother emailed me a picture of his thermometer at his house. He and his wife live in Chandler, Arizona (next to Phoenix). The outdoor temperature read 121.9 degrees.

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE POINT NINE DEGREES!

At least it wasn’t 122!

In Minnesota that’s what ovens are preheated to when lutefisk is cooked. (Lutefisk was originally invented by the Norwegians to glue their boats together and was never meant to be eaten. But tradition has it that Sven and Ole were out fishing in one of the fjords one day and when they got really hungry, Ole said to Sven, “Hey Sven, this glue doesn’t taste too bad!” Whereupon Sven answered, “Well den maybe you should have Lena cook you up a batch for breakfast!”)

When I saw that picture of my brother’s thermometer I began to think about the ways that Minnesota is better than Arizona. Here are the top twenty:

1. Your state’s name comes from the Spanish “Arid Zona,” meaning “But Bob, it’s a dry heat!” Our state name means “Land of Sky-Tinted Water.” Doesn’t that just sound calming and soothing?

2. We have spiders that look like puppies and eat flies and mosquitoes so we can sit outside in the evening.

You have giant spiders that eat people! This big one was hiding under my brother’s pillow and was intending to embalm him that very night!

3. You have maybe 200 lakes; we have 10,000 plus. And some of your lakes are classified as “intermittent.” Do you know what that means? Simply that sometimes they don’t look any different than the desert around them! (“Hey honey, it’s so hot, let’s take the kids out to the lake.” “Well ok, but call first to see if there’s water in it.”).Plus our lakes were made by Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Moreover, we can drive on our lakes in winter – bet you can’t do that! And we have………… (drum roll please)……………..Lake Superior!

4. Your big city of Phoenix has at least 100 days of 100 degrees above zero every year whereas our little town of Tower had just one day of 60 degrees below zero one time. And just because in winter we can freeze a banana so hard we can use it to hammer a nail into a board or just because we can create a little snowstorm by throwing a cup of boiling water into the air doesn’t mean we can’t live here.

(With the oven preheated to 300 degrees)
Bullhead City, AZ resident wife: Honey why is your head in the oven?
Bullhead City, AZ resident husband: Don’t bother me! I’m trying to cool off!

5. You have to wear asbestos oven mitts and asbestos shorts when you go to start your car in the summer lest you become a victim of spontaneous combustion. (“Oh hi Harriet, whose ashes are those in the urn?” “Oh hi Sally, those are Bob’s, he tried to start the car without wearing his asbestos underwear.”) We on the other hand can run out to the garage in our PJ’s even when its 20 below, start the car, and run back in and not be on fire!

6. In baseball, you have the Diamondbacks and we have the Minnesota Twins. Now doesn’t “Twins” just sound so much nicer? Don’t believe me? Well just listen to these two sentences:
“Oh honey, did you hear that the Andersons had TWINS! Isn’t that WONDERFUL?”
or
“Oh honey, did you hear that the Andersons had SNAKES ON THEIR PLANE! Isn’t that horrible?”

7. And speaking of snakes, you have poisonous ones; we just have little green garter snakes. But maybe we do have a couple of venomous snakes, I’m not sure. There might be some Water Moccasins in Little Cormorant Lake where my mom lives. I think one was chasing me one time when I was waterskiing as a kid. And you guys even have a website dedicated to snakes called www.snakesofarizona.com (whereas we don’t have one dedicated to lutefisk).

8. You speak a funny language called English; everyone in Minnesota has a strong Norwegian brogue and punctuates every sentence with “Uff Dah!” (According to Wikipedia “Uff Dah” is an all-purpose expression and is often used as a term for sensory overload. For example you often hear this expression when you are walking down the street in Ulen or Hitterdahl, “Uff Dah! Luftputefartøyet mitt er fullt av ål! (which means, “I have sensory overload because my hovercraft is full of eels!”)

9. We have grass…you have sand. And we mow our grass…you paint yours.

10. You have scorpions that hide in your shoes and wait to bite you; we used to have Scorpion Snowmobiles.

This is a picture of my brother fighting a scorpion in his backyard this past June before they could have a barbecue.

11. You have dust storms, we have snowstorms. (Newsflash – snow melts, dirt doesn’t!)

12. We can build a snowman in the winter (which is like September through June); you can build what? A sandcastle on the beach of one your “intermittent lakes?”

13. You have cactus…we have trees. You can’t build houses out of cacti...or is it cactusseses?

14. We have iron ore – lots of it; you just have gold and silver and copper and cactus. Ok, I’ll give you that one.

15. We have icy roads in the winter, you have….non-icy roads in the winter. Ok, so that one goes to you also. But you haven’t really lived until you’ve had the opportunity to slide down the highway backwards so that you can see where you’ve been.

16. You have lots of swimming pools that you have to chlorinate and clean, we have lots of swimming holes that God keeps clean for us.

17. You have snowbirds that live in little metal containers lined up in neat little rows; we have robins and blue birds and geese and ducks and eagles and blackbirds and pelicans and herons ….need I say more?

18. You have Superstition Mountain, we have….well ok let’s skip this one. Although in Duluth we have Spirit Mountain and Spirit Valley! But it’s really more like Spirit Bump and Spirit Dip, but don’t tell anyone.

19. We have “Minnesota Nice.” You have “Gila MONSTERS!!!” (That just gives me the heebeegeebees.)

20. And finally, we have HOTDISH ON A STICK! (It’s held together with Lutefisk Super Glue.) You don’t have ANYTHING that even compares to that, not even tacos and burritos. (Although I might rethink that one)

Ok Arizona, here’s your chance to reply to this. Just email me or post to this blog and I’ll put your replies on here. Unless of course you come up with good reasons why Arizona is better than Minnesota, then I’ll just ignore them :>)

(By the way Arizona…you really do have a wonderful state with beautiful desert scenery)

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved

Honey, Do You Think We Should Bolt the Pig Down?

2011-08-07T18:18:00.004-05:00

A few months ago during my normal rush-to-get-ready-for-work routine, my wife asked (as we headed out the door), “Honey, do you think we should bolt the pig down?”

The question stopped me dead in my tracks. I really didn’t know how to answer that.

As a husband/father/halfway-mature adult I’ve pondered some weighty matters in life.

Questions like:
“Daddy, are we there yet?”
“Why am I bowlegged?”
“If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will 24 chickens lay in 24 days?”
“Grampa, where did your hair go?”

From childhood to adulthood we find it difficult trying to answer these and other perplexities.

And now I was baffled once again. Not quite as puzzled as on the “1.5 Chicken” question, but perplexed nonetheless.

We had bolted down Gunslinger Frog a couple years ago, and so it just seemed reasonable to Kay that we should bolt the pig down.

My wife was of course referring to the small metal sculptured flying pig that we have sitting on the backyard steps.

Of course.

Why bolt the frog and pig down? The answer is simple: wind and thieves – we don’t want them blowing around and we don’t want them going home with strangers. A couple of years ago I argued forcibly to have Gunslinger mounted on the deck in the front of the house so he could be readily visible to all of the people on our busy residential street. I so much wanted them to be able to enjoy the redneck flea market artwork also.

But I lost the argument. “The Frog,” Kay said with a fervor rarely seen in a Norwegian, “Stays in the back!”

And speaking of high-brow art (if I may digress for a moment). At my daughter and son-in-law’s place in the country they just remodeled their bathroom. And for a while they had the old toilet sitting between the house and hot tub room, waiting to be hauled to the landfill. A friend of our 8 year old grandson (Noah) came over to their place to play one day. As our daughter and Noah and his friend Ricky drove into their driveway and parked not too far from the toilet, Noah deadpanned, “Hey Ricky, we’re remodeling the bathroom so you have to go out here.” His friend replied with a look of horror, “NO WAY!”

I mentioned to my wife that we could put that toilet in our front yard for a planter, but she declined. I thought that geraniums would look real nice in it. I then suggested to our son-in-law that he put it in their little pond where the sump pump shoots out like Old Faithful every few minutes. They could place the toilet directly over the protruding sump pump line. And every few minutes – the seat would fly up and water would come gushing out of the bowl like a geyser.

I ask you, what’s cooler than that? Who WOULDN’T want one of those in their yard?

Back to the pig and frog.

So each evening when I come home from work, I greet the frog. “Yo Gunslinger, whazzup?”

And the pig…well the pig never did get bolted down. He hasn’t gone home with strangers yet – apparently there’s not much of a call among thieves in our area for flying pigs. And as for flying? Well he sits lower to the ground than the frog and thus is more stable than Gunslinger, so he’s less likely to get airborne in the wind. Although he does have little wings.

HOLD IT! Come to think of it, I hope I DO see him flying! Why? Because it would be an answer to one of the most disconcerting and baffling questions I’ve faced in my entire life.

Whether I ask friends or family or coworkers or acquaintances or neighbors, the answer I inevitably get to my life-long question is simply, “When pigs fly!”

And the question?

“Will the Minnesota Vikings ever win the Super Bowl?”

The Nightmare Scenario (A Doctoral Dissertation On The Meaning Of Life During The 2010 Minnesota Vikings Season)

2011-02-02T18:30:00.048-06:00

I came up the stairs from the basement family room into the kitchen. My face was just drained of color.
“Honey! What’s wrong? Why is your face so ashen?”
“It’s the nightmare scenario,” I mumbled.
“What?!?! Something horrible happened?!?!” Why are you so incoherent? Your words are all garbled!”
She knows I watch the news all of the time so she figured some world tragedy had just taken place.
“It’s the sum of all fears!” I muttered.
“What? What happened? Did California fall into the ocean???”
I grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.
“No, its worse than that! It’s just horrible!”
“DAN, WHAT HAPPENED?” she demanded.
“The Packers…” It was so painful to get the words out. I struggled to continue, “The Packers…(gulp)…are going to the Super Bowl!”
She stared at me for a moment, then rolled her eyes and walked away. I heard her mumbling something about men and football and “I’m going shopping.”

I breed pulple.
Hold it, I typed that wrong. I’m still a little distraught.
Let me try that again.
I…bleed…purple.

I am a Minnesota Viking fan – I’ve been a Viking fan since kindergarten. I was actually born in Reedsburg, Wisconsin and lived in Beloit but we only stayed a few months. Sometime during our stay in Beloit my dad had a vision in the middle of the night that forever changed our lives.
A ghostly apparition appeared at the end of my mom and dad’s bed at 1:03AM.
“VAN!” the apparition hollered through the bullhorn.
My dad awoke with a fright, “Wh…wh…whoo are you?”
“Are you Van of the Vander Ark Tribe?”
“Y-y-y-yessss I am,” my dad said with his eyes bugging out, “Who are y-y-y-you?”
“I am the Angel of Bud Grant!”
“Old Stone Face Himself? Wow, this is so cool!!!” My dad woke up my mom, “Hey honey, ITS BUD GRANT! RIGHT HERE IN OUR BEDROOM!!!”
“Van, I am not Bud Grant per se; I am the angel of Bud Grant, I just look like him; now pay attention!”
“Yes Sir.”
“Van, you and your young wife Dorothy and your son Jan must arise immediately and take your Valiant Purple Warrior Son Dan to the land of Sky-Blue-Water!”
My dad looked puzzled, “Are you sure you have the right house? Danny has red hair?”
“Yes I have the right house!!!” the angel bellowed through the bull horn.
“Oh, ok, that’s it? Just take the kid to Minnesota? And we just go west on highway 10, right?”
“Yup, that’s right….just settle in the Village of Sauk Rapids for the time being.”
“Ok Bud-Angel….ummmm before you go can I ask you a couple of questions?"
“Yes but hurry, I must go.”
“First, why the purple tutu? In the future aren’t we always gonna see old Stone Face pacing the sidelines at Met Stadium with -20 degree temps dressed in just a shortsleeve shirt?”
“The tutu is just for this story, OK? And this NEVER gets out, got that?”
“Ok, got it….and I know nobody’s even thought about it yet, but will the Vikings ever win the Super Bowl?”
Bud-Angel turned a little sullen. He then gathered up his tutu, sat next to my father on the edge of the bed and put his hand on my dad’s shoulder.
“Van, I gotta level with you. This century doesn’t look to good for you and the Vikes.”
Even though the Vikings didn’t exist yet, my dad’s shoulders slumped.
My dad asked with a twinkle of hope in his eyes, “How about the 21st century???”
“Welllllll, all I’m gonna say is...the first decade is kinda down the tubes…..sorry.”

When our two little girls were born I was determined to bring them up right. So when I tucked them into bed at night I would read to them from Grimm’s Fairy Tales about a Wonderful Land called Minnesota with thousands of taxes….excuse me…I mean thousands of lakes. It’s a Beautiful Land where all of the potholes are filled with gold. It’s a land of valiant Viking Warriors called Purple People Eaters like Alan the Page and Carl the Eller that would protect them from all harm.

And the fairy tale went on…”But there is a Dark Land, a land west of the Lake called Michigan. And there is a Town called The Bay of Green where the sun never shines. It is a land made out of limburger cheese, a land where the evil Packerites live. It is the Foreboding Land of Lambeau and their evil king Lombardi the Vince.”

“Daddy?”
“Yes honey, what is it?”
“Daddy, Timmy at preschool said that the Great Treasure at the end of the football rainbow is called the Lombardi Trophy. Why is it named after such an evil king, Daddy?”
“Well honey, let me just finish the story, ok? We’ll talk about that when you’re older.”
I continued, “And the evil Packerites have one big yellow eye in the middle of their foreheads and they have (I paused just a moment for theatrical effect)…….GREEN TEETH!!!” In the dark I shined the flashlight under my chin toward my face to project a scene of horror.
“Daddy?”
“Yes honey?”
“Mommy said green tea is good for you.”
“Not green tea, honey, GREEN TEETH. Now pay attention, ok? And just remember, if you and your three year old sister want to go out and play, both of you first have to write a 1,000 word essay on the benefits of the 3-4 defense versus the 4-3.”
I continued, “And they have……”
“Daddy, what is that really big game called – the one with the really cool commercials?”
“Well, honey, it’s a wonderful game called…THE SUPER BOWL!” Both of my daughter’s eyes filled with wonder as I explained to them about that great game called…THE SUPER BOWL!
“Wow daddy, and I bet those great Viking Warriors have won a bunch of those Lombardi trophies, huh daddy, right????”
“Well, ummm…..lets just continue with the story about those evil Packerites, ok? You can ask questions later.”
“OK daddy…and I bet those evil Packerites haven’t won any of those Lumbar trophies, have they daddy?.............Right Daddy?”
“Daddy, why are you starting to turn purple? Is that how the Purple People Eaters looked?”
“Ok, that’s enough of that story tonight; lights out…time to go to sleep.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Daddy, can I have a glass of lime Kool-Aid in my yellow sippy cup?”
“NO!”
“But Daddy I’m thirsty!”
“GO TO SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I walked into the living room. “Kay, how many times do I have to tell you we only allow grape Kool-Aid in this house!”

But alas, the Fairy Tale Indoctrination Program failed. One of my daughters has become a Green Bay Packer fan.
I haven’t spoken to her since the third grade.

I emailed a Packer friend after Green Bay lost to Detroit on December 12th, “Hey, it looks all of us in the NFC North stink!”
But guess what? They became stink free whilst we withered away into total stinkdom.

Even though we had a remarkable season during 2009 with Brett Farve, to be honest with you, I was never quite in favor of having the Bertmeister come to the Vikings. Don't get me wrong -- I think he's a fantastic quarterback and exciting to watch. But I just figured we’d have a good quarterback (make that "Great" quarterback) for two years at most, but then we'd be back to square one.

Thanks for the memories Brett...I guess you've submitted your official retirement papers with the NFL.

(Hold everything! Maybe things ain't gonna be so bad in 2011 -- I just heard on ESPN that James Cameron has created an Avatar for Brett!)

My mom grew up during the Great Depression and was a welder on the Liberty ships in California during WWII and has a lot of wisdom and grit. She used to tell us kids when we were growing up that (when we go through trials) whatever doesn’t kill us would make us stronger. But my mom was never a Viking fan.

People that know me probably won’t believe this but I actually cheered for the Packers back in the 90’s when they played the Patriots in the Super Bowl. And when I pastored the church out at Hawthorne, Wisconsin, more often than not I wanted the Packers to win for the sake of the kids (I never told the grownups that) – I just hated seeing the pain on their faces when their team lost.

I tell ya the last couple of years have just been Susan Boyle/ Les Misérables: “I Dreamed A Dream”…..but Tracy Porter of the Aints intercepted it.

This year in Vikingdom the season has culminated in the nightmare scenario. Our stadium collapsed on December 12th and the game had to be cancelled due to snow in Minnesota in December.

What?

Which resulted in playing a home game in Detroit.

What?

And then we played a Monday night game versus Chicago at the Gophers stadium.

Vikings and Gophers and Bears, oh my!!!

(Gophers…now that’s one team mascot name that sure strikes fear into the opposing teams. I know when I see a gopher out in the wild I make a run for it! That’s why I wear those little bells when I go hiking.)

Well, at least we aren’t Detroit…nobody ever finishes behind Detroit.

Hold it…I just looked at the standings…we are behind Detroit! How did that happen???

I gotta admit, the Packers have been on quite a run – winning their last five must-win games and it all started in late December versus the Giants:

Ok, so maybe they slaughtered the Giants, but they’re probably gonna lose to the Bears.
Ok, so maybe they beat the Bears, but they’re probably gonna lose to the Eagles.
Ok, so the Packers were kryptonite to SuperVick and they beat the Eagles, but for sure they’re gonna lose to top-ranked Atlanta and “Matty Ice.”
Ok, so maybe Matt Ryan frosted up, but they’re probably gonna lose to the Bears and their really durable quarterback Jay Cutler.
Ok, so maybe Cutler aint as durable as Favre and they beat the Bears, but they’re probably gonna lose to.....hold it! They’re in the _____ ____! (I can’t even write those words.)

I came to work Monday following the victory of the Packers over da Bears. My eyesight isn’t the greatest and at first I thought I was seeing a giant ad for General Mills Cereal & Cheerios (Remember? “Big G, little o…”). But it wasn’t. It was an 80 X 120 foot Packer banner at the end of the corridor next to Darth Nancy’s cubicle. Even though she’s just on the other side of the cubicle wall, I didn’t say good morning or anything to her. My cube was a bit of a mess so I decided take out some of my frustrations and turn my keyboard over and bang it on the desk to try to knock loose some of the fungus (or is it funguy?) and trees that were starting to grow on the QWERTY row. That’s when Darth Nancy spoke, “Now Dan, you don’t have to beat your head on your desk, its not that bad.”

Oh yes it is, Darth!

Just a few moments later Darth Annie of the Lake Nebagamon Sith sent me an email. It had the picture of the 4+4+4 (Favre jerseys) = 12 (Rodgers jersey) with this comment, “Who would have thought we would be going to the Super Bowl? You really should have moved to this side of the border. It’s just better over here. Of course, some Minnesota people have come to their senses and thrown their lot in with the Packers. Are you ready for a conversion?”

My reply? “This is what I feared…the nightmare scenario.” I later emailed something like, “Got any more of these? You might as well just get them all out now, or is it gonna be drip drip drip over the next two weeks?”

It was drip, drip, drip…

The next day she sent me the email/picture of the Bears new quarterback….Brett Favre!
Then an email about all those teams that have championship rings with diamonds…and a picture of onion rings with a caption, “Viking’s rings.” It was around noon time and I was hungry and they actually looked kind of good. I could almost smell those Vikings Rings.
Then she forwarded an email from some Green Bay organization asking if I wanted to help the Packers get as many people to the Big Game as possible.
I guess she sent 7,498 emails the past few days to try to cheer me up, but most didn’t make it through our company’s spam filter.

I have hated the Steelers ever since Super Bowl IX, but now I’m kinda liking those guys. With Troy P_________ (I have no clue how to spell his last name - and I sure like his hair – but then I like anybody’s hair) and Ben Ruthlessburger – who knows what might happen. My good friend Adnaw lives in Packer land but she’s a big Steeler fan (I spelled her name backwards to protect her identity). I left a message for her the other night, “Wanda….excuse me…Adnaw, I am praying for you that you will have strength to stand against those evil Packer hordes!”

Well, I gotta go. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist – he’s the same guy that’s on that Geico commercial. You know, the former drill sergeant turned psychiatrist. And I kinda think the patient in that commercial probably wasn't a Packer fan because he says something like, “That’s why the colors yellow and green make me sad…” But he obviously wasn't a Viking fan, he's too wimpy for that. With everything we've gone through, you have to be super tough to be root for the Norsemen. I just read that on the first mission to Mars NASA will be recruiting Vikings fans...we know how to endure hardship. So here's to the toughest (and BEST!) fans in the NFL...Vi skal slå dag og vinne Super Bowl!!!

Oh, just a note to my boss. If by the slimmest of chances the Packers lose, I’ll be in Monday at my regular time of 5:30 to lend moral support to you and the others in the office. (Turns out my boss is a Packer fan. My mouth just dropped open when I learned that. I mentioned to my boss’s boss, “I thought Human Resources was going to filter out those applicants?”)

But if they win (I guess I should say “when they win”), I put in a PTO request…so I’ll be in on Tuesday………………………………..July 5th.

Finally, I have just one other thing to say to you Packer fans… (This section is for Packer fans only!).
(Scroll down)

Just a little more….

Just a little more…

Hey you Viking Fans! Scroll up NOW!..........(Packer fans keep going).

Just a little more…

Congratulations to the Packers on a wonderful season and good luck in the Super Bowl.
(But you DIDN’T hear that from me!)
Life is good……………:>)

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved

Adventures In Dishwashing (Ode To The Dishwasher)

2011-01-15T19:16:00.000-06:00

Our new dishwasher is now almost 2 years old.
Its birthday is December 9th.
It’s been used twice. Three times tops.
For a bunch of years we actually had three dishwashers, but two of them graduated from high school and moved out. And the third one came with the house when we moved in back in 1994. No, no, no, it wasn’t a leftover teenager from the previous owner or anything like that. The third one was the mechanical kind. But it didn’t work, so we just used it to store air for 14 years.

Therefore since 1994 the dishes were always washed by hand; and for about the last decade it’s been just my wife and I (although I guess the dog helped some, but don’t tell that to our friends or family).

To tell you the truth, I feel that washing the dishes together gives us a time to talk and catch up on the news of the day. And it has definitely helped to cement our relationship together.

Here is a sample of one of our more intimate conversations:
Me: “How was your day?”
Kay: “Fine.”
Kay: “And how was your day?”
Me: “Fine.”

Those deep exchanges of emotion over a sink full of dishes have helped us both to face the trials of life.
But sometimes the conversations aren’t quite that intimate; on occasion we just stare out the window and watch the squirrels fight over the sunflower seeds. Or occasionally I guess we do talk about some pretty serious stuff. You know, like “Was Yogi Berra the catcher for the New York Yankees or the cartoon bear that lived in Jellystone National Park?” Or, “Hey Honey, the neighbors aren’t burning furniture in their backyard again are they?”

Even though most of the time the dishwashing-conversations are about problem solving global issues, every now and then we get to laughing so hard that Joy soap bubbles come out our nose. And occasionally I guess we just goof around. Like the other night – I washed the big pizza pan, she dried it and then held it up to her face like a shield and was peaking at me through the millions of little holes to see if I still looked the same. And I’ve been known to put the spaghetti strainer on my head and pretend to be contacting Mars or Iowa. And Kay does a pretty good job of imitating the sound that the garbage disposal makes.

If we are washing the dishes between 5-7 on Saturday evenings, we try to listen to Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” When we told that to my nephew David and his wife-to-be Katie (would that be your niece-in-law?), they thought it was just so romantic.

I always wash, and Kay always dries. And it always goes from right to left – that whole process never changes. But if I time it right (and pretend to be busy) she will actually start washing the dishes. Then I will suddenly race into the kitchen, and while trying to catch my breath, say something like, “Oh Honey, I am sooooo sooorrrryy!!! Here let me help! I got distracted watching Ice Road Truckers on TV.” I then commence to washing the remaining dishes while she has to dry all of them.

And she often reminds me that I put in too much soap. Every night its, “Dan, its CONCENTRATED! You don’t need that much soap!” My reply? “What did you say? Sorry, I was concentrating.” I then, in a Moses-at-the-Red-Sea fashion, part the enormous mountain of soap so that I can see the dishes.

As Kay was putting the dishes into the cupboard one evening after she dried them, it was only natural that during one of our dishwashing conversations we pondered just why the cupboard is called the “cupboard.” We figured it must have originated from medieval days when the cups were simply placed on a rough hewn oak board to dry. After supper the wife would say to the husband, “Put the cups up on that rough hewn oak board.” But when Monday Night Football rolled around a few years later (I think Howard Cosell started in like 1869), the husband was suddenly in a big hurry so the wife would simply say, “Put the dishes on the cupboard before you even THINK about sitting down in front of the TV!” And later on, hickory doors and pewter door pulls were added so that’s how come we now say, “Put the dishes IN the cupboard.”

Anyway, back to the dishwasher. We run the dishwasher through a wash cycle about every other month just so it doesn’t get rusty or full of cobwebs. And every once in a great while we even put dishes into it so that it doesn’t lose its sense of dish-esteem.

Maybe I would be more in favor of actually using the dishwasher more often if in fact it put the dishes away. To be perfectly honest with you, I was more than a little aghast when I opened the dishwasher door after the first time we washed the dishes and found that they were STILL IN THE DISHWASHER! I guess maybe we need to buy the companion Kenmore Dishputterawayer.

Or maybe we could raise a couple more dishwashers in our old age. And the boy would be named Ken More Vander Ark. And the girl would be called May Tag Vander Ark.

Ode To The Dishwasher:
Oh dishwasher Oh dishwasher
O Giant piece of Kenmore plastic
(That’s all I have – it’s a work in progress)

Or I guess it could be a limerick:
There once was a dishwasher named Kenmore
It didn’t know why it was here for
It never got used
It felt so abused
It just fills up the space on the floor

(Please submit your favorite dishwashing limerick to me [email danno.diakonos.duluth@juno.com]. The best one will be put on the blog and you will receive a signed picture of me with a spaghetti strainer on my head)

==========================================================

From my friend Ron...

Hi Dan,

I loved the dishwasher column. - I think anyone who was married in the 60s has their own dishwashing machine stories...including the flooded floors - HA!

I have one for you in honor of T-Bone...by the way it was great to see him on your blog! - Here it is...

We used to wash dishes alone,
But then along came our T-Bone
He never came late...
He licked every plate
'til the last scrap of food was all gone!

Have a great day,
Ron
Jer. 10:23 NIV

A Flying Black Lab and Other Misadventures in Snowmobiling

2011-01-08T11:00:00.000-06:00

We ran into the house and yelled, "Mom's going to try it!" My dad and two brothers and sister and I watched as we saw a flash go by the dining room window, across the lawn and over the dead end gravel road of our rural Moorhead, Minnesota home. We ran outside but all we could see was one handle bar and a boot on the far side of the road. Mom had tipped over and caught the laces of her boot on the handle bar and was laughing about her mishap. She was later dubbed “Snoopy” by someone in the family because of the way she looked when she rode the snowmobile.

As teenagers there were two things we lived for – duck hunting in the fall and snowmobiling in the winter. They were just about as greatly anticipated as that of the appearance of St. Nick. We couldn’t wait for the duck hunting season to open the first part of October and we couldn’t wait for it to snow in November so we could ride the snowmobiles. To quote my mom, “Once snowmobiling started, NOTHING else got done around the house.”

Our addiction to snowmobiling began in December of 1968. On Christmas Eve to be exact. My dad and brothers and I drove up to Roseau, Minnesota to pick up a brand new 1969 Polaris Colt. It had a steel frame, a 300cc single cylinder JLO engine, and bogey wheel suspension. We were in heaven! (A guy on EBay just recently sold a ’69 Colt, still in the crate, for $6500!)

But there was just one problem – we couldn’t get it started. Until Polaris came out with the twin cylinder Star engines in about 1970, the JLO engines were just about the most temperamental starting things on the planet. So that Christmas Day we actually took the back door of the house off the hinges, brought the snowmobile INSIDE to warm it up (bless my mom’s heart – I don’t think Martha Stewart would have ever allowed that). It was flooded and we didn’t know about the magical little drain plug at the bottom of the crankcase. I will always remember the site of spark plugs warming themselves on the burner on the stove. That still brings a tear to my eye.

When my dad and brothers finally got it started there was joy in the Vander Ark household! We drove it at least 10 miles around the yard and down the ditches before it broke down. The first couple of years the snowmobiles were in the garage shop getting fixed just as much as they were being ridden. The next year we got a 1970 Charger and that had its share of flaws also. I remember welding the foot rests on either the Colt or Charger – I had the back propped up and didn’t realize there was a slight gasoline leak (the gas tank was on the back) which ran down the snow covered running board and toward where I was welding. I flipped up the welding mask only to see the running board on fire. Snow works really well to put out a fire.

It wasn’t until the fall of 1970 when we got the first TX that things really changed. It had the Polaris Star engine and slide rail suspension. But the coolest part was that the engine stuck out of the hood. I think it was in late February of 1971 that my brother and I planned to ride the sleds to our grandparents in Madison, Minnesota – 150 miles away! In our teenager minds an even greater achievement than the Plaisted Polar Expedition that rode snowmobiles to the North Pole in 1968. They had to battle 474 miles across towering ice ridges, open water leads, and the drifting ice pack on their way to the pole. But hey, we had to battle the rock hard ditches of the Red River Valley on the way to Grandma’s house! And they may have had the backing of the Canadian Air Force, but we had far more important backing – that of our mom and dad! We planned and packed and planned and packed. No support vehicles – just a bunch of tools, tape, wire and a can of quick start. We got halfway when the motor mounts on the Charger broke and we had to leave it with a farmer by Wheaton, MN. We rode the rest of the way on the TX and finally made it to grandma’s about 6:00. Somewhere near Ortonville, Minnesota we heard a loud boom in the back of the snowmobile. The can of quick start had exploded from the bumpy day-long ride. But we finally made it. That’s one small step for two teenagers, one giant leap for snowmobilekind.

A couple of years later a bunch of us actually rode snowmobiles from Fargo to Winnipeg -- 240 miles – in one day! My biggest memory of that trip was hitting a manure spreader north of the border. I think my dad had sort of kind of told us to ride together but, as a typical lead-footed teenager, I wanted to be out front. A few miles into Canada I encountered a farmer on his tractor – he was headed south, was pulling a manure spreader and I was heading north and was not pulling anything. The farmer turned east off the highway directly in front of me. I hit the brakes on the TX, slid the machine sideways and slammed into the wheel of the manure spreader. My ankle was caught between the sled and the wheel of the spreader. It was like a fly hitting the side of an elephant. I got off the machine, limped up to the guy on the tractor, and asked, “Are you all right?” Maybe he swore at me in Canadian, I can’t remember.

For Christmas one year I wanted a new snowmobile helmet lettered with the words, “The Flying Dutchman.” After some gifts were opened on Christmas Eve my family said, "Danny, why don’t you open up your gift?" I knew it was the helmet. I ripped off the paper ripped open the box. It was just a horrible looking old white helmet that was dreadfully lettered with a black permanent marker. They asked me how I liked it. “Well, uh, it’s nice.” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Santa. They all laughed and then gave me the real thing. My dad was always the practical joker. (Like when my younger brother got married. He was a lieutenant in the Army and, after the wedding, was given a couple of weeks to get to his duty station in Virginia. My dad had someone from the radio station pretend that he was a sergeant in the Army with a change in orders for my brother. The imposter called my brother the NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING to inform him that he had to leave immediately for the WEST COAST! We all had a good laugh from that).

A couple of months ago, my mom mentioned that our sister Lisa, the youngest of the four kids, would never hang her snowmobile suit with us three boys. Something about the fact that ours were icky. I emailed her about that and this was her exact reply, “Yes, she's right. You got it. In fact I still have my suit. It's in a box in the garage and it still looks like new.” That’s just sick.

The late 60’s and early 70’s was the first golden era of snowmobiling. And it seemed that everyone was manufacturing snowmobiles. Not only did you have the biggies, but there were also a zillion other makes: Massey Ferguson, John Deere, Rupp, Scorpion, Yukon King, Viking, Mercury, and Evinrude. There was one (I can’t remember the name of it) but you rode side-by-side in sort of a cockpit. There was Alouette, Ariens, and Suzuki. There was Boa Ski, Chaparral, Homelite and Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson? There was Kawasaki, Montgomery Ward, Sears (did JC Penney make a snowmobile?), Moto-Ski, Northway, Mallard, Roll-O-Flex, and Silverline. There was Ski-Bee, Ski-Daddler, Ski-Doo, Ski-Jet, Skiroule, Ski-Whiz and Ski-Zoom… There was Sno Cub, Sno Flite, Sno Fury, Sno Ghia, Sno-Pac, Sno-Pony, Sno-Prince and even a Snow Flake. My high school friend Mark had a Sno Jet. He thought they were so cool because the track left the word “Sno Jet” imprinted in the snow. A couple of times we wanted to leave him imprinted in the snow. The “Snowmobile Service Manual 11th Edition (1962-1986)" lists 75 snowmobile manufacturers. 75! But as a Polaris family, we hated both Ski-Doo and Arctic Cat. To us, they were Ski-Don’t and Arctic Rat. A friend from Hayward, Wisconsin read this story and emailed me: “You don’t want to know what we called Polaris, it wasn’t very nice!” I asked where she grew up. “Thief River Falls.” No wonder :>). Today, the site of a vintage snowmobile ride and the thick blue haze of two-cycle exhaust brings back some great memories.

In about 1969 I went with my dad to a snowmobile race in Brainerd. I saw the Rupp Dragster up close. It was a really cool twin track snowmobile in the shape of a dragster. The track announcer said Mickey Rupp would be driving the dragster that day. I had a black and white 8x10 glossy photo of this amazing machine and took it up to the Rupp team for Mickey to sign it. “Don’t let ‘em snow job ya kid!” one of the guys said. Meaning this – Mickey ain’t anywhere close to Minnesota. Someone signed his name for me though.

My brothers and I also did the racing thing. They may not admit it, but I have actually won the most money in the family from snowmobiling racing. An amazing $35.00 for winning a junior race in Madison, Minnesota. A while back I asked my older brother if he remembers how much he made. He said he thought about $15.00. I gleefully informed him that I had doubled his earnings. But he disputes it, he thinks I just have a better memory. Once at the Glyndon Speedway I was on the starting line with the old 69 Colt which had a megaphone exhaust pipe. It didn’t actually go real fast but it sounded fast. The flag dropped, I hit the throttle and the engine died. I looked over at the sidelines and a high school classmate was laughing at me.

One of the highlights of winter was going with our dad when he covered the Winnipeg to St. Paul I-500 Snowmobile Race for KFGO radio station. That was huge for us. My brothers and I would keep the stats and we would stop every so often so my dad could phone in a report. “This is Van Vander Ark reporting from Pembina,” or Karlstad, or Crookston, or Ada, or Alexandria or St. Paul. He tried covering the race one year with a small plane, but got stuck at a little airport in Ada and wound up using a car anyway. So that was the end of covering the I-500 by air. And one year he entered the I-500 as a press entrant. He loved telling the story of passing Stan Hayes, one of the pro drivers for Polaris, on the lakes north of Alexandria, Minnesota. Unfortunately though, on that day Stan ran out of gas a mile short of the finish line. A high school classmate of mine rode in the I-500, and when he left Winnipeg it was about -30 and his goggles had broken. When he came back to school he kind of looked like Rory Raccoon with the frost bitten area around his eyes. He was the same guy that laughed at me at the starting line when my snowmobile died. That’s what he gets.

I got married at age 18 and then at 19 joined the Army so I wasn’t around Minnesota much after 1974. When I told my family I was going to get married, my younger brother Kevin said, “Danny, what about snowmobiling?” Kevin did most of the snowmobile racing later on. He entered several cross country races and also entered the I-500 twice and did real well. He was up with the lead pack one year but he hadn’t reinforced the front suspension like the pro’s had and eventually broke down from the brutal ride. One of the racers said that the I-500 wasn’t so much a race as it was an ordeal.

In 1969 our dad was invited by Ted Otto from Polaris to cover the Midnight Sun 600 which ran from Anchorage to Fairbanks. At one spot along the way (Tok) it was -71 and at another spot the National Guard had recorded a wind-chill of -145. At the finish line in Fairbanks it was -43. The conditions must have just been simply too vicious because I think they only ran that race one year.

A few days ago I emailed Ken Kjelvik, one of my high school friends, about vintage snowmobiles. At the end of his email reply he said this, “Man, we put a lot of miles on back then, never to cold, never to sore to ride, it was just plain fun.” It certainly was.

My dad’s sister in Florida and my mom’s sister in California couldn’t understand why our mom and dad chose to live in northern Minnesota. But for them (and us) there were many reasons to live in this wonderful area – the four seasons, the 10,000 lakes, the brilliant fall colors, the beauty of freshly snow-covered landscape, the sound of geese heading south in the winter. And perhaps a small part of that choice was the joy of snowmobiling in the winter. Our dad, who passed away in 2002, simply loved the sport and we are grateful for all of the wonderful memories he and our mom provided us.

But I will leave you with a little story that my dad wrote in about 1999. I chuckle every time I read it. The following is in his own words: “Over the years I continued enjoying the sport, but had a close call one day after an early season snowfall. I had purchased a 1978 Polaris liquid cooled machine and took it out for a ride along the mile long dead end gravel road where we lived east of Moorhead. After riding in the ditch for a little bit I decided to try it out on the road. I took a good look to make sure that Max, our big black lab (that liked to ride with me on the snowmobile) had gone back to the house. I didn't see him and so I decided to try it out as fast as I could go down the hardpacked road. Taking a quick look at the speedometer as it passed 75mph, I was horrified when I looked up and saw Max coming out of the ditch directly in front of me. He ran right down the middle of the road! I tried to turn to miss him, but couldn’t – I was going to fast. I caught sight of him flying through the air after I scooped him up with the front of the snowmobile. My machine started sliding sideways and finally caught hold of the rough gravel on the side of the road and flipped over. I remember seeing the machine flying over me upside down and I prayed quickly that it wouldn't fall on me. It cleared the road ditch and landed right side up in the field. Amazingly, only the windshield was broken! I slid down the road for some distance and finally into the ditch near a neighbor's house. With wobbly knees I ran onto the road expecting to find Max dead or badly injured. But at first I couldn’t find him. I then looked toward our house and saw him running at break neck speed down the long driveway. I ran after him and caught up with him at the back door. We were both shaking. I checked him over carefully and found only a small cut on one of his feet. Later, I went back to the spot where we impacted and where Max the Wonder Dog had landed. At the landing spot you could clearly see his high-speed dog tracks on the edge of the road. From the point of impact to where Max landed it was a distance of some 75 feet. That has to be a world record for a Flying Black Labrador!”

Heart Transplant At Age 19!

2011-01-04T11:30:00.000-06:00

Most people aren’t aware of the fact that I had a heart transplant when I was 19 years old. Our family physician had matter-of-factly informed me that although I looked fairly healthy on the outside, my heart was ravaged by disease and was desperately sick. I had my whole life ahead of me, but now it was in jeopardy.

I grew up in Minnesota and lived for the first 12 years in St. Cloud, our family then moved to Moorhead in 1969. In my growing up years we (my two brothers and one sister) did the normal kid stuff. Living in the country gave us the opportunity to play in the sandpit and go squirrel hunting. I was a young “mad scientist” – I loved chemistry sets and attempted making rocket fuel and other weird concoctions. We went rabbit and pheasant hunting, we lived for duck hunting, we couldn’t wait for it to snow so we could go snowmobiling, and we looked forward to spending time at a resort in the summer so we could go swimming, skiing and fishing. Our parents expected us to work hard (we must have considered it “inhumane treatment”) but they also entrusted us with responsibilities that most kids today don’t have the privilege of experiencing. We drove the boat, we raced snowmobiles ($35.00 was my total life’s winnings), my brother and I had purchased six cars by the time we were out of high school and we overhauled some them. As teenagers we were allowed to make the 150 mile trip by ourselves to our grandparents’ house for hunting trips.

I was the type of kid that didn’t get into major trouble or become addicted to drugs. But even though I was quieter and pretty much non-rebellious, somewhere in my junior year of high school I sort of lost it for awhile. My hair got long (pony tail long), my grades went down some and I even got drunk a couple of times. My older brother and I took a course in high school in “Transcendental Meditation” and for awhile I did the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi chanting thing. I had the typical teenager lead-foot syndrome and got a couple of speeding tickets. The worst thing I can remember doing? One Sunday morning a few of us went to the place where I was employed and we ripped off a bunch of car parts. My friend and I were trying to pull the tires off one of the vehicles – we loosened the lug nuts and I pulled – but when I pulled the car fell down and my wrist was clamped between the tire and the fender. But my friend was strong enough to lift up the car just enough for me to pull my hand out.

In 1973 I graduated from Moorhead High. Our team mascot was a potato – we were the Spuds! (When other teams played us their posters read, “Mash the Spuds!”) In the fall of that year I married Kay and she was working in a nursing home as an aide and I was working at Dayton’s department store in Fargo as a stock clerk. Our little upstairs apartment was small but it was ours – the rent was $88.00 per month. Our car was a 1960 Ford Falcon – painted canary yellow with one of those sprayed-on black vinyl tops. The gas pedal was held on with a coat hanger wire and when you hit a bump too hard the driver’s window would go “kerthunk!” and fall off the track and down into the door (you always carried a pair of pliers with you so you could pull it back up). Not really knowing what to do with our lives, sometime in the early summer of 1974 Kay and I joined the Uncle Sam’s Army. Kay wanted to go into dentistry and I wanted to go into computers – but Army schooling would have split us up for too long, so we compromised – we became military police! (If you ever want to challenge my wife to a marksmanship contest with an M-16, you might just lose). If I remember correctly, we officially enlisted sometime in June of 1974, but we did not have to go to basic training until September 22nd, so we had most of the summer to be with family and friends. (We would spend our first anniversary apart – me at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Kay at Ft McClellan, Alabama. The day we got back together in Fort Gordon Georgia after 2 months of basic training was like a scene right out of Hollywood – but no time to tell that story now.)

But it became very apparent that summer of ’74 that I was sick and I began to realize that something was not right inside of me and that I needed help desperately. But the disease that was ravaging my heart was a special type of malady and needed the attention of an extraordinary doctor. You see, my sickness was not physical in nature, but spiritual. And our family physician was none other than the Great Physician, Jesus Christ Himself. Sometime in the summer of 1974 I had been reading a best-seller written by Hal Lindsey titled, “The Late Great Planet Earth.” On the front cover it said, “A penetrating look at the incredible prophecies (of the Bible) involving this generation.” I was captivated by the fact that the Bible, written so many centuries before, could have implication in the generation in which we were then living. At the end of one of the chapters in “The Late Great Planet Earth,” the author wrote, “As you read this book you may have reached the point where you recognize your inability to live in a way that would cause God to accept you. If this is the case, you may speak to God right now and accept the gift of Christ's forgiveness. It’s so simple. Ask Christ to come into your life and make your life pleasing to God by His power.” I don’t exactly remember where it was or what month it was, but I remember praying that simple prayer and how, for the very first time, Jesus became so very real to me. He took out my diseased heart of sin and gave me a brand new heart! We had attended church regularly when I was growing up but, as most kids did, I found it boring and I hated it. But suddenly I couldn’t get enough of church and I still remember going out to my parents and asking them for a Bible.

I am now 52 years old. I have never ever regretted making that decision to ask Jesus to come into my life. Although many times I have stumbled and fallen along the way, He has never ceased to pour out His mercy and love and joy into my life. His grace truly is amazing! I am still dealing with many shortcomings in my life (I call them "warts"), and believe me, I have plenty of them! At times I can get moody and depressed (ask my wife), I can be sarcastic and unforgiving (ask my mom and brothers and sister), I can do some stupid things (ask my co-workers), I can be impatient and sometimes a little uncaring of sheep (ask my church congregation), and there have been many times when I have had to ask people for their forgiveness. But Jesus has patiently changed me from the inside out and my life is dramatically different from what it used to be. And I owe it all to the One Who suffered the horrors of Calvary for my sin.

My friend Ken H. was wearing a T-Shirt at church one Sunday and I loved the simple saying on the front. “I am the wretch the song refers to.” The familiar church hymn “Amazing Grace” was written by John Newton, a slave ship captain, who was radically transformed in 1748 by the immeasurable love of God. He then went on to testify for the rest of his life about the One Who “saved a wretch like me.” The word “wretch” is defined as “someone who is deplorably unfortunate or an unhappy person.” I, Dan Vander Ark, was the wretch the song refers to! The same Jesus that turned around the life of John Newton is the same Jesus that changed my life – and He is the same Savior that can bring joy and peace and purpose to your life! He is alive today and is still in the business of transforming lives!

Is your life empty? If you were to die tonight do you have a certainty in your heart that you would go to heaven? Is your heart ravaged by the disease called “sin?” Simply ask Jesus to come into your heart today and forgive you of your sins – He loves YOU more than you will ever know!

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Rescue from the Red (Angels on Assignment)

2011-01-02T07:00:00.001-06:00

Introduction: My dad, Van Vander Ark, wrote a couple of rough drafts of this article in 2000, 2 years before he passed away. He had been an avid snowmobiler for a good portion of his life and covered (for the press) both the I-500 Winnipeg to St. Paul snowmobile race and the Midnight Sun 600 from Anchorage to Fairbanks, Alaska. He loved snowmobiling and told our family this story many years ago. I didn’t know until a couple of years ago that those rough drafts existed. To honor him I tried my best to piece this account together. So the following is the recounting of this amazing rescue…

******************************************************************************

The years have passed quickly since that January day in 1986, but I can still see the terrified look in the eyes of then 14 year old Stephanie of Fargo, ND. For some time her step-father Shawn had struggled to pull her out of the raging current in the open water below a spillway on the Red River of the North, but he was unable to. The “Red” forms the border between most of North Dakota and a large portion of Minnesota as it winds its way past Winnipeg, Manitoba and into Lake Winnipeg, the world's 12th largest inland lake.

The two had decided to take a snowmobile ride on the Red River, starting south of Fargo-Moorhead in a tree-lined sheltered area. The area was new to them and they were not aware of the unmarked spillway and the open water below it. In later years this spillway and one further north and closer to downtown Fargo-Moorhead became known as the “drowning machines”— anything that was caught in the deathly grip of the whirlpool rarely survived.

The two rode north with Shawn in the lead. Shawn noticed a trail on the Fargo side of the river and followed it to see where it went. When he saw the spillway he raced back to stop Stephanie, but arrived too late as she rode her machine down the center of the wide river and sailed off the edge of the spillway. Her snowmobile sunk below her and the strong current pushed her body into a V-shaped area of ice on the far side of the open water. Shawn abandoned his machine close to the edge of the spillway and ran around it and onto the ice to try to pull Stephanie out. But as strong as he was, he couldn't overcome the force of the water that held most of her body under the ice’s edge. In fact the current was so strong that it actually pulled off her snowmobile boots. The two struggled without success and the roar of the spillway drowned out their cries for help. The normally busy winter recreational area was void of anyone coming by, perhaps because of the somewhat adverse weather conditions and also the fact that it was time for an NFL football playoff game.

That morning something seemed to be nagging at me to take a ride on my old cross country racer. It was an older 1978 Polaris TXL 340 with a somewhat smaller engine that would top out at about 75 mph. And it was a rough riding snowmobile made before the much smoother independent suspension machines. The day was far from desirable for a ride as the preceding day had been very warm and melted the wind-swept drifts in the flat fields and ditches. The snow had frozen rock hard overnight and so I kept telling myself it would be foolish to ride on such a day. It was overcast, which meant the hardened drifts would be more difficult to see, a fairly strong wind was blowing. Plus the clutch on my machine had just been repaired by the dealer but still appeared to be misaligned.

Given all of that I still couldn't get over the feeling that I had to go to the Red. Finally, I suited up and told my wife Dorothy that I just wanted to check out the clutch and not to worry as I might ride all of the way to the river. We lived several miles east of Moorhead on the south side of Interstate 94. I was then a 56 year old salesman for KFGO radio station in Fargo where I had worked for the past 24 years. My wife asked me if I wouldn't rather stay home and sit by the fireplace and watch the football game. Normally I would have taken her up on it, but I mumbled some sort of excuse and fired up the old TX. When I got to the end of the driveway I then remembered that I had left a rope in the garage that I usually carried in my snowmobile. Just in case I needed it, I went back and tucked it into the storage compartment.

The ditch drifts were hard and jarring. About half way to the Red I stopped by a group of trees to warm my hands under the exhaust of the snowmobile. I debated about continuing on -- the lure to return to the fireside was strong, but I decided to keep going. I finally reached the Red at what was known as the Monastery Bridge where I would usually stop to rest my arms. But this time I decided not to stop and so I kept riding south just a short distance. As I continued on the twisting river the lack of the normal traffic became obvious. I was always careful to watch out for snowmobilers riding on the wrong side in the sharp corners, but seeing only one person in the highway-wide stretch of the river that went north toward the spillway, I began to push the old racer to see what it could still do. The machine went wide open into the corner, and then backed off for a moment, then full throttle again. The speed and the thrill of riding reminded me of the time I rode as a press entrant several years prior in the Winnipeg-St. Paul I-500 snowmobile race.

The last corner before the spillway was broad and I held the throttle wide open. The track studs finally caught in the hard-pack and the old machine seemed to leap ahead. The side of the high windshield folded back telling me without looking at the speedometer that I was doing at least 75 mph.

I slowed for the unmarked spillway and saw a snowmobile parked close to its edge, wondering why anyone would leave it there. Stopping further back, I ran up and looked over the edge and saw Shawn lying spread eagle on the ice and appearing to be trying to retrieve a helmet in the water. But when I looked closer I could see that someone was in the water! I waved my arms and shouted that I was coming, but they couldn't hear me over the roar of the spillway. I raced back to my snowmobile that was still idling and drove as fast as I could around the spillway on the trail. I grabbed my rope (that I had nearly forgotten to bring along) and ran out onto the ice.

It was then I looked into the terrified eyes of Stephanie. Shawn would later tell me that they had been struggling for about 15 minutes and that their cries for help to the nearby homes were drowned out by the roar of the spillway. And he didn't know if his numbed hands could hold her much longer. He would also later tell me that when he saw me run back from the spillway's edge that he thought I didn't want to get involved. They had both prayed that God would hear their cries and send someone to help them in their desperate situation.

Shawn couldn’t bear the thought of how he would ever explain to Stephanie's mother that he simply couldn't hold onto her any longer and that she was swept away by the violence of the current and was lost under the ice.

We both pulled on Stephanie but to no avail. I then yelled at Shawn to take the end of my rope and throw it out into the current so it could circle her and then tie it under her arms. With his remaining strength he was able to do it, holding on to her with one hand and tying the rope with the other.

But we both pulled without success. The current wedged her body tightly under the ice. I yelled at Shawn that when I yelled "go" to reach over Stephanie as far as he could, grab her by the seat and pull her up against the current. I backed away from the water’s edge to the end of the rope and was able to get leverage when I found a little bump on the ice. I held the rope tightly, braced my feet against the bump and I yelled for him to “GO!” Shawn grabbed Stephanie as I pulled, and she finally slid out onto the ice past both of us. The force of the current had ripped off her boots and her long black stockings were hanging far below her feet when she was finally popped out onto the ice.

After a quick look to make sure Shawn was OK, I got Stephanie on the back of my machine and told her to hang on tight. We raced back up the trail, across the river, up a steep bank and skidded into the front yard where a young college student looked at us in surprise. I told him she had been in the river for some time and we needed help fast. He yelled at his sister as we took off Stephanie’s snowmobile suit. The young lady put her in a warm shower. Stephanie was going to be alright.

I don't know how Shawn and Stephanie are doing today, but I assume they are both fine. She will be about 28 and I will be 70. But, at times I still wonder why I felt so compelled to ride to the Red River of the North on a day when I knew the ride would be so difficult. And why had I returned for the rope? And why had I decided (after stopping half way) to continue? And why didn't I stop to rest under the bridge as I normally did? And why had I changed direction to go back to the spillway? And why was the rope was just long enough to reach a little bump in the ice where I was able to get the needed leverage to help pull Stephanie out of the icy water?

I believe God answered their prayers for help -- and sent an "Angel on Assignment."

Proper Falling Etiquette And The Hotdish Angel

2011-01-01T17:26:00.000-06:00

We were almost on our way to church. The kids and I were waiting in the car for my wife as she took care of the last minute preparations with the Au Gratin potatoes. There was going to be a potluck meal following the morning service.
The sidewalk was icy.
When she came out the front door in a rather hurried fashion I quickly got out of the car to help her down the sidewalk.
But she motored out the door and toward the car faster than I thought and so I didn’t get to her side in time to help.
She was clutching the not-yet-cooked Au Gratin potato hotdish (which meant it was still pretty watery) with both hands.
Then it happened.
She slipped. Her feet went right out from under her in sort of a cartoonish fashion and she landed on her back.
In slow motion I uttered, “OHHHHH NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!
In just a split second she was in the prone position lying flat on her back on the icy sidewalk.
But!
I don’t know if everyone does (I probably slept through that class in Bible school), but for sure my wife has some sort of hotdish guardian angel. And that hotdish angel must have taken an elective in “How to catch the hotdish casserole in mid air and make it land without spilling a drop.”
Because the hotdish landed on her JUST AS IF IT HAD BEEN GENTLY SET ON THE TABLE! And not one single drop of those watery Au Gratins was spilled!
She got up as though nothing had happened, got in the car, and said, “Let’s Go!”
I could hardly believe what I had just seen. A few people have witnessed firsthand a genuine miracle of someone rising from the dead, but I’ll bet no one has ever witnessed a greater hotdish miracle!

I have fallen on numerous occasions, but never with such class and grace.

When I was about 14 or 15 I slipped and fell down the entire flight of stairs that went into the lower level of the old White Drug in downtown Fargo. That’s where the restaurant was and I guess that’s where I needed to get to in a big hurry. I am guessing the patrons thought, “Wow, is that kid hungry!”

Several years ago three of my coworkers and I made a day long tour of the regional clinics that we ordered supplies for. When we stopped to fill up with gas, I got out and began to work the pump. The pavement was a little icy where the water dripped off the canopy over the pumps (make that -- right where I was standing).

Whoosh…Kersplat! Down I went. I think my coworker said something like, “I was looking out the car window…you were there…and then you were gone!” I didn’t get too dirty, but I landed smack dab on my ego.

Another time I fell getting out of the car at work. Again, it was that dreaded invisible ice. Down I went. And when I fall, my first reaction isn’t, “Is blood spurting from my head?” Or, “Is my arm supposed to be in this weird angle?” Its, “DID ANYONE SEE ME?!” I just want to make sure nobody witnessed my triple klutz sow kow (or whatever that figure skating term is). I quickly surveyed the parking lot and it didn’t seem like anyone was looking. But I lay perfectly motionless for a few moments just to make sure the coast was clear. And if someone had seen me and said, “Sir, sir, sir!!! Is this a piece of your arm? Are you OK?” I was just gonna crawl partway under the car and talk in a real loud voice, “Yep, the muffler bearings appear to be ok!”

But perhaps my most dramatic fall occurred on a cold wintry evening one winter. The snow was pretty deep on the roof of our double-wide mobile home and I needed to shovel some off and make sure the vents were clear. I leaned the top of the ladder against the roof edge but the bottom was positioned on the rather slippery deck surface. (Note the word “slippery.”)

I got onto the roof and shoveled off some snow and cleared off the vents. On my way down the ladder it happened. The bottom slipped out away from the house and toward the edge of the deck. That motion allowed just enough clearance for the top of the ladder to move rapidly past the roof edge and toward the side of the mobile home. And that motion caused one side of the top of the ladder to crash through the kitchen window. And that motion caused me to flip upside down with one of my snowmobile boots stuck on a ladder rung. (Read that again very slowly…”I flipped upside down!”)

Gravity seems to be stronger in northern Minnesota in the winter because during my rather rapid swing to upsidedowndom, I severely bruised my arm.

My wife came outside to see if I was ok. “You broke the kitchen window!” were the VERY FIRST WORDS out of her mouth as I hung upside down on the ladder.

By the time I got unhooked from dangling upside down on the ladder on that cold wintry night, I was one mad preacher. My form of retribution? I went inside and didn’t speak one single word to her…I just showed her my ginormous black and blue contusion. (That sounds a lot more dramatic than when I first wrote this story and typed, "...my ginormous black and blue owie").

I have often wondered since then, “How come my wife gets a really gifted hotdish angel, but my ladder angel seemed to be a bit of a klutz?”

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12)

Sleep In Heavenly Peas (Honey, Why Are The Cattle Are Glowing?)

2010-12-19T21:04:00.003-06:00

On numerous occasions my wife has said to me, “That’s NOT the way that song goes!” I am notorious for singing (make that – trying to sing) the wrong lyrics to songs.

More than once I’ve been flabbergasted to find that the lyrics floating around in my head are the wrong ones. And apparently a lot of people get the words kind of goofy. When you do a quick Google search of “misheard lyrics” or “Mondegreens” (more on the meaning of that word in a moment), you get quite a few hits.

For instance, we may sing, "She's got a chicken to ride," but that is not what John, Paul, George and Ringo had in mind when they wrote “Ticket to Ride.”

And when Bachman-Turner Overdrive sang “Taking Care of Business,” they had no idea that some little old lady in a bakery would be singing, "Baking carrot biscuits, everyday!"

And did Crystal Gayle have any idea that her song “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” would be sung as “Donuts make my brown eyes blue?" (Was probably the same bakery lady that sang the previous song).

And who would have ever dreamed that “There’s a bathroom on the right” isn’t exactly how Creedence Clearwater’s song “Bad Moon Rising” goes. “There’s a bathroom on the right” is a lot more comforting than knowing "there's a bad moon on the rise." That sounds a little spooky.

And titles can get discombobulated and come out a little comical too. It was my friend Jim at church who, with a bit of a grin, talked about “"Gladly, The Cross-Eyed Bear." I’ll let you figure that one out.

But it’s primarily during the Christmas season that lyrics get jumbled and mumbled, mangled and bangled and come out down right funny. Wrong words run rampant!

So when I try to sing that song made famous by Bing Crosby, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” its:

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
I’ll be there, with some fake hair
I won’t even look like me

(I guess deep down inside I don’t want snow or mistletoe or presents under the tree, I want hair on top of my head!)

Because of our ignorance of some of the phraseology of the old Christmas songs and with the limited vocabulary of little kids, misheard lyrics flourish. The website “http://wordinfo.info” gives the origin of the term “Mondegreen”:

The term 'mondegreen;' representing a series of words resulting from the mishearing of a statement or song lyric, is generally attributed to Sylvia Wright, who is credited with coining the term in a 1954 Harper's column. Ms. Wright was not pleased to discover that for many years she had misunderstood the last line of the first stanza in the Scottish folk ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray," which is written as:

Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands,
Oh! Where ha'e ye been:
They ha'e slain the Earl of Murray,
And they laid him on the Green.

Ms. Wright misheard this stanza as:

Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands,
Oh! Where ha'e ye been:
They ha'e slain the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

So I guess I pull a Mondegreen when I start the second verse of “Away in A Manger” with, “The cattle are glowing…” Although I guess some people think that “The cattle are lonely…”

And why on earth would you want to, during a “Silent Night,” sleep in heavenly peas? I hate peas. I’ve always hated peas, I will always hate peas, and heaven won’t change my mind about peas.

And for all the gentlemen out there? Well…

Get dressed ye married gentlemen,
Let nothing through this May.

Someone wants to “Deck the halls with Buddy Holly,” and after falalalalalalalalalling, they will “see the blazing Yulbie Forest!” That’s so gnarly. But what’s a yulbie?

And you know that big, purple dinosaur called Barney? Some kindergartner, obviously in love with that brontosaurus, sang “The First Noel” and turned Barney into royalty:

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Barney's the King of Israel!

And either the shepherds washed their socks by night or they walked their fox by night…maybe both. Perhaps after walking their foxes they had to wash their soxes.

And New York may not know it, but they have a king:

Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the New York King.

And that old hymn continues (from the mind of a 6 year old):

Joyful oily nations rise;
Join the triumph of disguise.
With the jelly toast proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Burl Ives (in the form of a jolly snowman) sang “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” on that animated “Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer” movie. But somebody from Wisconsin must have altered the lyrics:

Have a holly jolly Christmas,
It's the best time of the year.
Well, I don't know if there'll be snow,
But have a cup of cheese.

And can’t you just see some little red haired girl with pigtails and freckles singing her heart out (albeit off key):

Joy to the world!
The Lord has gum.

(Maybe she was looking at little Johnny over in the next pew chewing on some Bazooka Bubblegum.)

And when Santa shows up in town, we better watch out because “he’s making a list of chicken and rice” (He’s evidently on a diet).

And who knows who came up with this form of “Silent Night”:

Silent night, holy night;
All is calm, all is bright.
Round John Virgin, margarine child;
Holey and lint, sewed tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peas;
Sleep in heavenly peace!

(Someone else besides me was thinking about peas!)

And who hasn’t heard a whole season full of Mondgreens when it comes to “The Twelve Days of Christmas?”

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
My tulip sent to me:
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lawyers leaving,
Nine lazy Hansons,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven warts on women,
Six geezers ailing,
Five gold Onions!
Four colanders,
Three French hens,
Two turtle gloves,
And a cartridge in a pantry.

I’ve always felt they should just start that song on the twelfth day and call it quits. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. Kind of like “Father Abraham” in children’s church: right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot, right elbow, left elbow, turn around, sit down, fall down. And does Miss Piggy grate on anybody else besides me when the Muppets sing this song???

I love winter, I love hiking in the woods and meadows on a really cold day and beholding the beauty of God’s creation. But I never knew that you had to watch out for spiders and alligators and a creepy circus clown snowman. Note these Mondgreens from “Winter Wonderland”:

In the meadow we can build a snowman;
Then pretend that he is sparse and brown.
He'll say, "Are you merry?"
We'll say, "Nomad!
But you can do the job when you're in town!"

Later on we'll count spiders
As we think by the fire
To face, I'm afraid,
The plans that we made
Walkin' in a winter wonderland!

Here’s the clown/alligator variation:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he's a circus clown.
We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the alligators knock him down.

(Must be some of those Arctic Alligators you see on the internet)

Well, I hope you got a chuckle out these. Have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas. Don’t get stressed out…if you do, just go take a nap in some heavenly peas. And remember: Jesus is the Reason for the Season! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

My Car Don’t Have No Manly Horn

2010-12-19T20:40:00.004-06:00

I was sitting at the intersection of 1st street and 5th avenue west in Duluth waiting for the stop sign to turn green. I had just dropped my wife off for work and was headed to work in CubicleLand and my thoughts were apparently in a galaxy far far away. I suddenly heard the car behind me honk its horn and I was pulled back to reality and realized then that the stop sign wasn’t going to turn green (or any color for that matter). I proceeded through the intersection like I knew exactly what I was doing and eventually made it to work.

When the car behind me honked its horn, it’s then that I thought, “Wow, I hope my car horn doesn’t sound like that!”

But it does.

My car don’t have no manly horn.

I have an older Chevy S-10 pickup and that horn sounds fine. But my wife’s car is the one we usually drive to and from work each day. It’s a Hyundai Elantra.

And as the commercial instructs, it’s pronounced “Hyundai like Sunday.” It’s not “high-yun-die” or “hi-ya-yippe-ki-yeah!” or “hey-you-lookin-at-me?” It’s just “Hyundai like Sunday.”

And “Elantra” is French for “I may not be a Honda, but at least I’m not a Yugo.”

The other day we were stopped behind one other car at a stop light where our neighborhood street (44th avenue) meets the main business district street (Grand Avenue). We turn left so we always have to wait for the light. And it’s usually about a half an hour before we get the green light so I eat breakfast and Kay puts on her make-up. When the person in the car in front of us started to creep out into the intersection while the light was still red (she obviously finished her pancakes and sausage), I knew immediately what she was going to do – SHE WAS PLANNING ON TURNING LEFT ONTO A TWO WAY BUSY STREET ON A RED LIGHT!

Kay and I both just sat aghast at such brazen and anti-societal behavior.

But I was ready for her.

Shaking off my aghastness (and after giving my bowl of Wheaties to Kay), I honked the horn with determination.

It sounded just like the horn on my trike when I was three, or like a deathly-ill Road Runner cartoon figure. It was obviously Hyundai like Sunday’s attempt at imitating Tiny Tim’s falsetto voice.

I wanted it to sound like the horn that went off when those monster Mar’s machines came up out of the earth on “War of the Worlds.” (Where Tom Cruise and his family ran for their lives while people around them turned to baking powder). Or I so wanted it to sound like, you know, a Kenworth or a Peterbuilt or a Mack Truck. Or maybe something like the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge horn. Now THAT’S a horn.

But it was just a sickly “bep.” Not even loud enough or scary enough for me to add the second "e" to beep.

It obviously didn’t scare her because she just kept right on going. And I think I saw her laughing! (By the way, if I tried that, even though you couldn’t see any law enforcement vehicles for miles, as soon as I got out into the intersection a SWAT helicopter would be swooping down on me.)

And before I finish, on that “me-waiting-for-the-stop-sign-to-change-colors” thing. A few years back I stopped for a stop sign where no stop sign was! The one that marked the intersection of 40th and 6th got moved to 40th and 8th. But one day on my way home from work (while I was day dreaming) I just stopped at the corner of 40th and 6th. 40th Avenue West is a real busy street and for whatever reason the guy behind me didn’t like it that I had stopped where no stop sign was! Go figure. He just zoomed around me like I was some kind of an idiot.

I’ll never figure out why some drivers get so mad at me.

Our Government, Which Art in Washington, Hallowed be Thy Legislation…

2010-10-30T16:39:00.006-05:00

I don’t know, maybe its time for the peasants to pick up the pitchforks.

Why do I say that? Because our government seems to be so sorely out of touch with Mr. & Mrs. Average American.

The professional politicians enact law after law and program after program. And yet if they ran a Fortune 500 company the way they run the government; it would soon make the Fortune-less 500 listing.

The same accounting practices that got Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff in deep legal trouble with the Feds are being practiced by Congress at this very hour.

We’ve taken a sledge hammer to our grandchildren’s piggy banks. You don’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to see that our spending and national debt is simply unsustainable.

And yet “We The People”, the ones who work hard, pay the bills on time, live within our means, fix up our houses, and don’t expect a handout every time something bad happens, are viewed as incapable of knowing what is best for our country. “We The People” are thought of by Washington and Hollywood as “Fly-Over Country” -- that great center of the nation sometimes so disdained by politicians from the east and performers from the west. Fly-Over Country to them is “Hicktown USA.”

When the healthcare bill passed last March I called my mom. She’s 84 years old and grew up during the Great Depression. Both my mom and I were pretty disappointed the way that things had gone with the vote on that 2,000 plus page bill. When the chips were down, Congressman Stupak of Michigan folded like a tent and his Pro-Life stand didn’t prove to be much of a stand after all.

I mentioned to someone how disappointed I was that the bill had passed. The reply? “Well, at least it’s moving.” (The “it” they referred to was the decades-long legislative battle of trying to enact national healthcare.)

It’s moving alright. It’s a ginormous boulder of economic ruin gathering steam as it rolls downhill directly toward my children’s and grandchildren’s future.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally understand that something has to be done about the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. I have worked for 20 years in the supply chain operations department of a large healthcare facility and see the rising costs. Something has to be done. But that “something” is not to nationalize healthcare. When has a federal program ever brought down the cost of anything? The government is collecting 10 years of taxes to pay for 7 years of the program – and they say it’s going to lower the cost of healthcare? There is no such thing as a free lunch and there is no such thing as free healthcare…somebody somewhere has to pay for it.

To paraphrase William Kristol, "This legislation puts the government in the driver’s seat of a giant, poorly-constructed bus in which we are simply helpless passengers.”

Matthew Continetti wrote this, “The people voiced their opposition in rambunctious town hall meetings and at a massive march on Washington in early September (2009). (But) they were mocked and vilified for their efforts.”

No wonder the Tea Party political phenomenon has taken the country by storm and astonished the Washington insiders.

It is my belief that in 10-20 years we will look back at the good old days of 2010 Healthcare. We definitely have some things to fix but let’s not vilify all of healthcare for political gain. The advances being made today in medicine are incredible. A few months ago one of my coworkers was helping with the supply chain process in the Special Procedure’s lab (where they put in stents and coils and do other amazing feats). He emailed and said he was watching on a monitor as they were shooting glue into a guy’s brain to stop an aneurysm. I probably didn’t put that in the correct medical terminology, but wow, what incredible progress is being made in medicine today!

And all we do is complain because we have to sit for an extra 30 minutes in the waiting room. Go on a trip next summer with my boss’s boss to Cameroon (West Africa) and have a good look at their healthcare. If you do, I bet the next time you visit your doctor here in the states you’ll give him or her a big hug!

Here’s my really rough plan on how to improve healthcare:

1. If you lay around watching TV and eating Doritos all day you pay a higher premium.

2. If you exercise and get a physical and eat well you pay a lower premium.

3. Require ALL elected officials and federal employees to have the same health care plan we have.

4. Health insurance is only used for big stuff, otherwise its pay as you go (I don’t have car insurance so that it will pay for my headlights or battery to be replaced).

5. Instead of wasting a trillion dollars on a stimulus package, just give every American family $10,000.00 – they then choose either to spend it or put it away for healthcare needs. If they blow it on other stuff, they then have to pay their medical costs out of their own pocket.

Did you know that the healthcare legislation passed this spring, which is perhaps the greatest loss of freedom enacted by our government, was signed into law on the anniversary of Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me liberty or give me death speech?”

Congressman Jim Jordan articulated America’s wonderful place in history so well, “Every other country started with a top-down model…God gave power to the elite, to the kings and the queen…and (finally) it trickled down to ‘we the people.’ In America we said, ‘No. It's different. God gave power and fundamental rights and liberties to 'we the people.’ We started with a bottom-up model. We started with a ‘we the people’ model as our Constitution goes. That is so unique. No other country has started on that premise and it's that premise that makes us special…” (From www.aproundtable.org)

There is an entrepreneurial spirit that runs through our backbone. We want small government and we want to be left alone. We don’t want to contact the government to find out if we can cut down a tree on our property. We want freedom, not a soft tyranny of endless regulations. To quote from Lady Libertas, “The American People have the DNA of Liberty in their veins.”

That is why I found it so appalling when I received the American Community Survey this past spring and found out that I could be fined up to $5,000.00 for not answering such questions as, “What time do you leave for work in the morning?”

My mom and dad worked really hard and never expected Uncle Sam to bail them out when life got tough. My mom related how my grandfather would rant (in his very colorful language) about Roosevelt’s government give-aways and how it was going to ruin the nation. And just like my grandfather, my parents weren’t in favor of government give-aways either. Neither my mom nor my dad had a college education. And yet their common sense far exceeded the college sense of most Washingtonians.

And they pretty much believed in “The Ten Cannots” of Abraham Lincoln:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich (socialism is just trickle up poverty)
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred
You cannot establish security on borrowed money
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves

Doesn’t it just make good sense to:

1. Require legislators to have actually had a real job.
2. Require legislators to live under the same laws they enact
3. Require that each wasted tax dollar means one dollar less in the legislator’s paycheck (Brian Darling wrote an article titled, “I See Dead People and They Have Stimulus Checks.” I think that’s such a neat title)
4. Reward hard work.
5. Require that the government should support the nuclear family (fatherlessness is a BIG problem in America today…remember to pray for kids who don’t have their dads around)
6. Give unemployment bennies for one year at the most – then require that people have to get some sort of a job, even if it’s sweeping out parking lots or doing the highway clean up thing (I have a four year college degree and both my wife and I, when things got tough financially, washed dishes, cleaned houses and delivered phone books to make ends meet).
7. Require those that have a job that is being subsidized by Uncle Sam to be to work on time or it’s a $100.00 fine every time they are late. Laziness is not a medical condition.

Big Government has become Big Unsustainable Government. One of the cable news channels showed people lined up by the 100’s when they heard that some government program was giving out money. Said one of the people in line, “I came for some of that free Government money!”

Say what?

Our coins have the inscription, “In God We Trust.” But do we?

Sometimes the Lord’s Prayer becomes:
Our Government which art in Washington
Hallowed be Thy Legislation
Thy Great Society come
Thy Bills be done
In Fly-Over Country as they are on Pennsylvania Avenue
Give us each day our tiny tax breaks
And forgive us our tax debts the same way that you forgave the Secretary of the Treasury
And lead us not into the temptation of thinking that what we work hard for all of our lives is actually ours
But deliver us from those evil Tea Party people
For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory and our 1st and 2nd Amendment Rights and our Property Rights and our Freedom of Speech and so on and so forth.
Amen.

I don’t really think its time for the peasants to pick up the pitchforks. But I do believe its time for us to be on our knees in prayer for this wonderful country. (Besides – there’s a lot more power in prayer than in pitchforks.)

Both my wife and I served in the military and we both deeply love this nation. No matter where I am at or what I am doing, when I hear our National Anthem sung or I see the flag waving or pass by in a parade I get a lump in my throat.

I am forever indebted to those who have given their lives for America.

This is the land where heroes are born. You know, heroes like my mom and dad and your mom and dad.

Pray that revival would sweep throughout our land from sea to shining sea.
Ask for a tremendous compassion for the poor and the less fortunate.
Find a way to carry out a “Random Act of Kindness” on one of your neighbors.

And Vote November 2nd

***********************************

America The Beautiful (by Katherine Lee Bates)

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain;
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

A River Runs Through It… (Our Campsite That Is)

2010-10-10T19:00:00.010-05:00

Webster defines “camping” as “sleeping on the ground during the rain while fighting ginormous mosquitoes.” A secondary definition is “walking 600 yards to the bathroom in the pitch blackness while aliens stare at you from the woods.”

I love to camp…camping is fun! But my wife got enough of it in the Army, and as a result she doesn’t view it as something enjoyable (unless it’s camping in the mall). So when our daughter asked a couple of months ago, “Hey, lets all go camping together!” my wife was a real trooper and agreed. Our daughter then emailed and asked if we had any requirements. My wife had just one – there just has to be a shower! My requirement? I just wanted a mint placed on my sleeping bag pillow each morning by tent service.

When a lot of people say, “We went camping this weekend!” they really mean that they brought their house with them -- a 32 foot “camper” with a satellite dish on top and where you can push a button and the living room extends out of the side.

In my mind the term “camping” should be limited to:
1. Sleeping under the stars with just your sleeping bag
2. Sleeping in a tent
3. Sleeping in a pop-up camper
4. And maybe you can include those really small travel
trailers like “Scamps”

Anything else is just…well…I don’t know what it is, but it sure isn’t camping. And just one other thing. I recently saw an advertisement in a catalog for a tent WITH CLOSETS! The DNR should have a sign at all state parks that says, “Don’t even think about camping here if your tent has a closet!”

I packed in about 13 minutes…from Friday noon till Sunday noon I needed just one pair of shorts and one pair of underwear and one pair of socks and a sweatshirt. And an extra hat. Extra underwear, not so important. But you always need an extra hat. You never know when a bear might run off with the only one you have and then your weekend is ruined. But I guess the bear would be happy (“Hey hey Boo Boo!” says Yogi, “How do I look in my new Viking hat?”).

My wife packed all her stuff PLUS her blow dryer. I told her that blow dryers were outlawed by section 1, paragraph 6, subsection 12 of the US Camping Code, but she took it along anyway.

We got to Oak Lake campground around noon, or about 30 minutes after our daughter and son-in-law and the three grandkiddies and their dog Auggie. Their pop-up camper was all set up, and we just had to get our tent up before the rain hit. It’s advertised as a “6 man tent” but in fine print it says, “6 Gulliver’s Travels Lilliputian sized men.”

We got the tent up just in time. Because it rained REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HARD for about 2 hours or more. So much so that the little drainage ditch between our campsites looked like the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi. The ground became so saturated that when you went into the tent it felt like you were on a water bed. But it didn’t leak! And despite the rain we had a great time. The youngest granddaughter loved wading in the stream and the grandkiddies and Kay played games in the tent.

Some of my fondest memories of family vacations as a kid were when the weather was bad and we had to sit in the cabin and play cards and other games (I’ll call your 3 match stick and raise you 5 match sticks!)

The weather finally cleared about 7 that evening – we built a campfire, my son-in-law Gus valiantly fought off Godzilla the crazed crayfish that invaded our campsite; we had smores, looked at the stars, found the big dipper, and had flaming meteor marshmallows. I love when they are burnt to a crisp on the outside and then you just plop the blackened layer of carbon and the white gooey center into your mouth.

Sometime that night my wife had to make a trip to the bathroom. When my peaceful slumber was interrupted by her struggle to untie the flashlight hanging from the center of the tent, I got a little irritated. So I untied it for her so on her 100 yard dash she could spot the raccoons and skunks and lions and tigers and bears, oh MY!

The next morning we had pancakes and then we went fishing on the pontoon. And that’s when my daughter latched onto just a monster of a fish! It weighted maybe 2 ounces. We thought about filleting it, but couldn’t find a knife that small. She also caught a little sunfish and she says she latched onto a northern pike or something (she “claims” she saw it jump) but it got away. I personally think she was just hallucinating from the gas fumes from the boat motor.

All I caught was some green bass.

That night we had hotdogs and brats and cooked a can of beans in the fire. It could have been just burned bologna sandwiches, but for some reason food just tastes better around a campfire.

At times I try to attach a Bible verse to some of these little stories so that they have at least some sort of redeeming value. I searched and searched and searched and finally found one from II Corinthians 5:4 (New American Standard Version) that fits just perfectly:

“…in this tent we groan…” :>)

What Do Cows Think About All Day? (The Meaning of Moo)

2010-07-25T20:29:00.005-05:00

After doing the pulpit fill-in thing for a pastor friend who was gone on vacation, my wife and I were invited by a couple from the church to stop by their home on our way back to Duluth. They were very gracious and we had a wonderful visit (and some magnificent strawberry shortcake). They had a beautiful home and farm that was situated amongst the rolling hills

And they had a herd of cows.

Which got me to thinking when I drove to work the next day, “I wonder what cows think about all day? And why do cows go, ‘Moo?’”

The little I know about cows I learned from my wife who spent part of her summers as a child on her grandparent’s farm near Beltrami, Minnesota. A lot of what follows may be a little made up, but this is one thing that isn’t: She loved (and I quote) “to walk barefoot through the cow pies when they were all squishy and warm.” Now my wife is very beautiful and talented and we’ve been married for almost 40 years. Perhaps it was the summer strolls through the cow pies as a kid that helped shape her inner and outer beauty.

And who knows, maybe someday cucumber & cow-pie pedicures will become the rage in famous spas throughout Europe.

Or not.

The noun ‘cow’ comes from the old Middle English word “cow” which is the transliteration of the Latin term “cow” meaning “the source of hamburgers and milkshakes.” On the other hand, the verb “cow” means “to frighten with threats and violence; to intimidate and oppress.” Are you kidding me? Cows?

Cows basically fall into two categories:
The ones made out of beef: those are used for grilling
The ones made out of ice-cream: those are used for milk products.

(Perhaps there is a third category…the ones made out of soy: those are the ones that produce “Silk” which is imitation milk and used primarily by yuppies in Seattle.)

Millions of people have read Steven Hawkins best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time.” But very few people ever read his sequel, “A Brief History of Cows.” In it he theorized that at the core of a black hole…was a Black Angus.

There are simply an amazing amount of bovine breeds. The true stuff in the following list is from www.bovinebazaar.com:

The Angus breed came from the highlands of northern Scotland. Originally they wore kilts and played the bagpipes.

The Beefalo is a cross between a cow and a buffalo (or bison). Originally known as the Cowbuff breed, the name was changed when the American Car Buff Association filed suit because it infringed on their name.

The American Brahman is the first breed developed in the United States. They have achieved acceptance for their environmental adaptability, longevity, and mothering ability. Really? Have you ever seen one? They don’t look too motherly to me!

The American Brown Swiss was declared a dairy breed in the late 1800s. Prior to that they were slices of cheese.

Dexters are one of the smallest breeds of cattle and are believed to have originated in Ireland. They developed into a breed of shoes.

The Isle of Guernsey, a tiny island in the English Channel off the coast of France, is the birthplace of the Guernsey cow. About 960 A.D., besieged by buccaneers and sea rovers, the Island came to the attention of Robert Duke of Normandy. He sent a group of militant monks to educate the natives as to how to cultivate the soil and defend the land. The monks brought with them the best bloodlines of French cattle – thus was born the Guernsey cow. (Militant Monks??? Are you kidding me?).

The Hereford breed was established near Hereford, county of Herefordshire, England, nearly 300 years ago as a product of necessity. (McDonalds was branching out in Europe and needed hamburgers big-time).

The Holstein originated in the Netherlands close to 2,000 years ago. The Dutch created this black and white breed. Originally they wore wooden shoes.

Jersey cattle originated from the island of Jersey which was just some 14 miles away from the French coast. They later migrated to New Jersey (and New York) and became known for their really bad attitude (Are you looking at me?!?!). They also make lousy cab drivers.

The Limousin breed originated in the high, rocky Aquitaine region of France. They are an extremely long breed and don’t fit well in the average barn stall.

The Shetland Breed has an ancient lineage, thought to date back to the cattle that the Vikings brought to the Shetlands Islands in the period 700-1100 AD. (The fierce Vikings are responsible for such tiny cows? No wonder we haven’t won any Super Bowls.)

The Texas Longhorn Cattle Breed became the foundation of the University of Texas football team (and later the American cattle industry). Their horns are highly prized for hood ornaments on Volkswagen Beetles.

Many mysteries surround this fascinating animal:

Do they sleep standing up?

When they laugh does milk shoot out there nose?

Do cow magnets really increase gas mileage? That was a rumor back during the gas shortage of the 70’s. Cows swallowed these small sausage shaped magnets to attract any metal pieces they might have ingested while grazing (which proved fortunate for my wife). But if you took them out of the cow and taped them to both sides of your gas line it was supposed to increase your gas mileage. If I remember correctly, I tried it and it didn’t work.

And why do cows go moo? A couple of answers need to be weighed seriously:

“Because if they said ‘Shazam’ no one would take them seriously.”
(Jez on http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061101104328AAhjKAH)

“So they can be herd!”
SOTHC on http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question78852.html

“The reason why COWS GO MOO is because they have trouble getting their tongue around saying the letter N. If it weren't for this unfortunate speech impediment we'd understand that they were trying to say MOON…Cows, or COSMOCOWS as they prefer to be known, have been exploring the lunar surface for years. Their hooves are perfectly adapted to the dusty lunar surface…Everyone knows the MOON is made of CHEESE and that the cow JUMPED over the MOON but few are aware that today a herd of about 6,000 COSMOCOWS live on the GREEN crater, close to the Mendeleev crater on the FAR SIDE. They are quite independent and wander around looking for things to chew.” (www.cowsgomoo.co.uk/)

So just what is the meaning of moo? To us it may sound silly, but it’s as important to them as “What is the meaning of life?” is to us. After a recent exhaustive study at the University of Wisconsin, scientists came up with the world’s first bovine translator (The Bovilator). And after analyzing thousands and thousands of cows from hundreds of breeds across the US, they discovered that “Moo!” is simply the equivalent to our, “Yo Adrian!”

And what do cows think about all day? They probably aren’t thinking about where the stock market is at or how much oil is gushing into the gulf or the state of the economy or what’s gonna happen tomorrow. They are probably just chewing the Philippians 4:11-13 cud, “Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever pasture I am in. I know how to get along with very little hay, and I also know how to live in lush green pastures; in any and every state (whether North Dakota or Texas or California or Wisconsin), I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

At least those contented Kemps cows are thinking that. :>)

Double Nickles

2010-04-25T17:19:00.001-05:00

I just turned 55 in February. I would have been 56 but I was sick a year. (I can still see the twinkle in my dad’s eye when he would use that line).

My grandson Noah called me the morning of my birthday and said, “Hey Grampa, you’re the speed limit!!!” I thought that was pretty funny until one of my coworkers said, “Which speed limit?”

I am exactly one week older than my wife. But while I look years beyond my age, she looks year prior to her age. More than once when my wife and I and two daughters have all been together, a stranger has said something like, “Oh, and these must be your three daughters!”

Several years ago I pulled into the sort-of-fast food place for a breakfast sandwich on my way to work. When I drove up to the window to pay, the young woman mentioned a price that I knew was lower than what it normally should have been. When I mentioned that to her, she said, “Oh…I gave you the senior citizen discount!” With my happy balloon deflated, I just drove off to work.

I have had many wonderful birthdays, but there are two that, for some reason, have been hard-wired into my neurons – the 21st and the 40th. On my 21st birthday (or around my 21st) our very good Army friends (Doc and Lila) took my wife and I out to eat at Three Thieves Restaurant in Colorado Springs. The steak was wonderful (it almost melted in your mouth), and at the end of the meal they surprised us with a birthday cake.

On my 40th birthday all three of my daughters presented me with a peanut butter flavored cake with all 40 candles lit! My wife is a wonderful cook and thought that, because I like peanut butter so much, she would try a peanut butter flavored cake. But for some reason the flavor of peanut butter doesn’t translate too well into a birthday cake. And it was a mad scramble to get all forty candles lit before some melted down to a puddle on the frosting. I think it was after that birthday they just started using the wax candle numbers so that the smoke alarm wouldn’t go off.

Some people are bothered by their 20th birthday (I’m like so old!) or their 30th (I’m like so dead!) or their 40th (I’m like so bald!) or their 50th birthday (I’m like so old, dead, and bald!). Those milestones didn’t bother me. But I honestly can’t believe I’m approaching 60. By the time I retire at 65, cell phones will be the size of a grain of sand and Bret Favre will be the first 50 year old quarterback starting in the NFL!

All seriousness aside, time really does fly by. You turn around and you are graduating from high school. You turn around again and your kids are graduating from high school. And you turn around again and your grandkids are graduating from high school! Peter mentions that “a thousand years is as one day, and one day as a thousand years” (II Peter 3:8). The one day equaling a thousand years certainly seems like that when you are 8 years old and wanting Santa Claus to speed things up a little bit.

But life really is short. Whether we live 20 years or 120 years, it’s a little blip on a scale of an eternity past and an eternity future. Someday (unless the rapture comes first) your body will return to dust. On the old TV sitcom “The Danny Thomas Show,” the son asked his father, “Dad, where do people come from?” Danny Thomas replied, “From dust.” His son followed up, “And where do they go when they die?” “Well,” said Danny, “they return to dust.” His son responded wryly, “Well dad, you better look under your bed, because someone’s either coming or going!”

Maybe you have plans for tomorrow or next week or next month or next year or even for the next decade. But (and I certainly don’t want to sound morbid here)…you don’t have tomorrow! James admonishes us, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a fog that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” (James 4:13-14).

Perhaps you’ve seen the little video called “The Dash Movie” (www.thedashmovie.com).The decisions we make during the “dash” of our lives (and sometimes it goes by as fast as the 100 meter dash) are important. Because we are “just a fog that appears for awhile” we shouldn’t gamble with tomorrow (http://nothingstoohardforgod.org/).

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com

How To Have A Successful Sunday (Even If You Are The Pastor)

2010-02-21T18:42:00.002-06:00

Some things I have learned from approximately 25 years of pastoring...

When your church sanctuary is filled with a swarm of bees on Saturday, don’t even think of canceling church on Sunday – a “buzzing” church is good.

If the LCD projector suddenly flips the words to the songs upside down, don’t have a cow. The next Sunday just use the hymnal or chorus book (and have the congregation hold the hymnal upside down for just one song in memory of the demon possessed LCD projector).

Count it a good Sunday if you don’t trip or fall off the platform when walking up to the pulpit. This never happened to me but it did happen to a pastor acquaintance, so I was aware of the possibility. Practice that maneuver throughout the week if necessary – draw a little map and take notes.

If it’s like 95 degrees outside and you’re having a July wedding inside with no air conditioning and the bride’s family doesn’t want the ceiling fans going because it will blow out the candles, make sure your notes have been laminated so the giant puddle of sweat running off your face and onto your notes won’t obliterate the words. And wear swimmer’s goggles so the sweat doesn’t cause your eyes to burn.

Make sure your zipper is up.

It’s the book of Revelation, not the book of Revelations. If you think otherwise, talk to my wife.

If you put your foot through the ceiling directly above the front pew on Saturday, just be honest with the people on Sunday – point heavenward and say, “Yep I did that!” (I really did do that – but I don’t have time to explain it right now).

Try not to laugh when your young daughters stand on the back pew and practice their smiling paper bag puppets when you are preaching. On second thought…go ahead and laugh.

Don’t sing hymns with really high notes – I find that you get light-headed and almost faint when you do. Also pay attention to which verse you’re on when leading worship – if you forget, just sort of mumble something when the next verse starts and listen to where the congregation is at. A good leader always follows.

Don’t not allow dogs to visit your church. And make sure you send them a letter thanking them for visiting.

If you are having people write their prayer requests on a piece of paper and then you want them (like on a New Year’s Eve service) to put that piece of paper on the big nail on the big old rugged cross that you have leaning on a wobbly pulpit at the front of the church; if you do that then make sure you don’t have the cross leaning on a wobbly pulpit at the front of the church. It WILL come crashing down and ruin the solemnity of the evening.

Pay attention to the kids – talk to them at least as much as the adults.

If your really young daughter (sitting with her mother) is like all fidgeting and won’t sit still and stands up on the pew a few minutes before the big wedding starts that you are officiating at and states loudly (after her mother says firmly, “Sit still!), “But mommy my panties are stuck in my butt!" Then (as the pastor's wife) don’t be embarrassed. Just crawl under the pew and pretend you are looking for spilled Cheerios.

Young kids in the church will put your picture on their bedroom door right next to Superman…make sure you don’t let them down.

Kids take better sermon notes than adults – and they’re funnier. And make sure you save those notes and pictures if they give them to you. They are more important than business meeting notes.

Try not to hate Green Bay Packer fans. Remember, God’s grace is sufficient for you! Hate the sin, but not the sinner. :>)

Love people. A lot of them have had a really rough week.

If a couple of little girls come to visit your church and ask if you are the manager, just say, “Yep” and make them feel welcome.

BE YOURSELF! If you don’t act churchy, that’s probably a good thing.

Oh, when you have communion and you give each of the four deacons a tray of cups, but then when you go to give each of them a tray of bread… Well, when you take the cover off from the stack of four bread trays and look in horror at the top tray of bread and nothing is there… So you figure, well, it must be on the next tray. So you take off that top empty tray, but nothing is on tray #two, so you figure, well, it MUST all be on tray #3 directly beneath. But when you open door #3, excuse me, I mean uncover tray #3 and lo and behold NOTHING is there either! (And you begin to sweat big-time while the congregation is watching their pastor search in vain for the bread). So you figure, IT JUST HAS TO ALL BE ON TRAY #4!!! OH PLEASE LORD, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HEAR THE CRY OF MY HEART!!! But to your chagrin, IT’S EMPTY ALSO! Then what do you do? (This is a test): A) Look around for Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother and have him testify, “There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but I doubt this will bail you out, Pastor!” B) Have one of the ladies sprint to the kitchen and grab a loaf of Wonder Bread? Or C) Crawl into the pulpit and wait till everyone leaves?....I prefer C.

Don’t be afraid to jump rope with the kids. They think it’s cool that some old preacher guy can do that, and it does your heart good.

Don’t be impatient with sheep. Remember, its natural for sheep to stink. It’s why they need a shepherd.

In the winter, go sledding with the kids before the Wednesday night adult Bible study. Even if you do get cold and wet and the Bible study starts 15 minutes late. The adults have probably heard about Romans a zillion times anyway.

Work really hard at remembering people’s names. When you remember their name you are telling them that they are important to you.

Make sure you are especially patient with young moms who care enough to bring their kids to church and are struggling with them in the service. Don’t get all hot and bothered if the ruckus or crying baby interrupts your sermon. They’re more important than you anyway.

If you said something wrong or stupid from the pulpit, just admit it and don’t make excuses. And ask the congregation for their forgiveness. They don’t expect their preachers to be perfect. They just want them real and honest and transparent.

Listen well and talk little (except when you’re preaching).

Preach with a rainbow colored clown wig on. Its nice preaching with hair, even if it is polyester.

Don’t beat up the sheep on Sunday morning. The world works hard at doing that all week long. They come for healing and encouragement. If you’re a sheep-beater, find another occupation.

Love people. Put your arm around them and pray for them. Let them know God cares about them.

Don’t be ashamed to cry for lost souls from the pulpit. And don’t be embarrassed to shed tears for people who are hurting.

Don’t give up! There are too many people out there that need your kind words, your sincere prayers, a gentle hug or a firm handshake. Tear up your letter of resignation. Remember, Jesus loves shepherds! And besides, something funny might happen next Sunday...:>)

(And sheep...remember to pray daily for your shepherd)

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2010
All Rights Reserved
http://onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com
www.ourdogtbone.com

So Close...And Yet So Favre

2010-02-01T19:21:00.015-06:00

A Brief Theological Perspective on the 2010 NFC Championship Game, #4, Lutefisk, Adrian’s Woes and the Meaning of Life
*************************************************
Well…in case you haven’t heard….we lost.

31-28 in overtime in the biggest game of the year.

I wasn’t able to watch the war – I certainly planned on it but when I got home Sunday at noon the overhead garage door busted and the basement family room dehumidifier was all iced up. So by the time I fixed those two things the article I planned on writing in the afternoon (and that had to be finished that day) got pushed into the evening.

So every 30 minutes or so I cringed, hit the button on the remote to see the score, and then turned it off. Toward the end of the game my wife just hollered down the updates. And when she came downstairs and told me that Favre had just thrown an interception and it was going into overtime I covered my ears, said “LALALALALALALALALALA” real loud and just ignored her. She could tell I was upset and was visiting the State of Denial so she just snuck back upstairs.

Perhaps the broken garage door and the iced up dehumidifier were signs of things to come. For sure the Vikings’ anti-turnover machine was either broken or frozen or something.

I have been a Minnesota Viking fan since the 7th grade and the Bud “Stone Face” Grant days of old Met Stadium. The first quarterback I remember was Joe Kapp who was with the Vikings from 1967-1969 AD.

Speaking of Joe Kapp (hang on for just a moment of college football trivia), he may have lost Super Bowl IV but did you know that he was the coach of the University of California Golden Bears for that really crazy “BIG PLAY” in November of 1982? It is probably one of the top two greatest college football plays ever (right up there with Doug Flutie’s Boston College Hail Mary pass that defeated the Miami Hurricanes). The BIG PLAY was that wild five-lateral kickoff return with 4 seconds left that beat John Elway’s Stanford Team. With Stanford thinking they had won and with one hundred and forty-four members of their Stanford marching band streaming onto the field midway through the kickoff return, they were suddenly met by the advancing Cal Bears at about the Stanford 20 yard line! Kevin Moen, the last Cal player to get a lateral, ran the ball through the scattering Stanford band members and into the end zone for the incredible touchdown. Moen finished off the touchdown by running into Stanford band trombone player Gary Tyrrell. His smashed trombone is now displayed in the college football hall of fame!!! Joe Kapp was probably on the sidelines thinking, “Why couldn’t that have been Super Bowl IV?”

This was the lead in to an article written by Tex Maule in Sports Illustrated in November of 1969: “The Vikings, with Joe Kapp on the beam and the four Norsemen lowering the boom on opposing quarterbacks, are not only leading the NFL's Central Division but may be building a dynasty. Color it purple.”

How about we just color it “heart-breaking” instead:

January 4, 1970 - NFL Championship - MN 27, Cleveland 7
(This was before the AFL and the NFL merged to become the No Fun League)
January 11, 1970 - Super Bowl IV - Kansas City 23, MN 7
December 30, 1973 - NFC Championship - MN 27, Dallas 10
January 13, 1974 - Super Bowl VIII - Miami 24, MN 7
December 29, 1974 - NFC Championship - MN 14, L.A. Rams 10
January 12, 1975 - Super Bowl IX - Pittsburgh 16, MN 6
December 26, 1976 - NFC Championship - MN 24, L.A. Rams 13
(I guess we didn’t learn our lesson in 1974 and decided to beat them again)
January 9, 1977 - Super Bowl XI - Oakland 32, MN 14
January 1, 1978 - NFC Championship - Dallas 23, MN 6
January 17, 1988 - NFC Championship - Washington 17, MN 10
January 17, 1999 - NFC Championship - Atlanta 30, MN 27 (OT)
January 14, 2001 - NFC Championship - N.Y. Giants 41, MN 0
(Two days later the Giants were still scoring)
January 24, 2010 - NFC Championship – Aints 31, MN 28, (OT)

But there’s one infamous divisional playoff game that’s not listed above. It was that December 28, 1975 game against the Dallas Cowboys in which the notorious “Hail Mary” pass took place. Roger Staubuch hit Drew Pearson with a really long pass with just a few seconds to go. But Pearson clearly pushed off on Nate Wright and should have been penalized and the winning touchdown nullified. How can I say that with such conviction and certainty? Because when you play CBS’s post game interview with Drew Pearson and the celebrating Dallas Cowboys backwards and listen real close you can clearly hear Tom Landry saying, “Pearson Pushed Off, Pearson Pushed Off, Pearson Pushed off.”

We may be 0 and 4 in the Super Bowl, but we have the only team mascot in the NFL (Ragnar Juranitch) that has the world record for shaving himself with an axe…under 9 minutes!

My Green Bay Packer friend Tom tried to console me the other night. “Hey Dan,” he said, “Did you know that Perkins now has a new Vikings meal? It’s called the Five Turnover Special.” Friends like him are hard to find.

And he tried to cheer me up a day later when he emailed me an updated American Medical Association poster on choking hazards. The international symbol of choking (a little picture of a guy choking) was being replaced with that Minnesota Viking profile emblem. He is truly a thoughtful friend! He should create sympathy cards for Hallmark.

Which reminds me about another one of my Green Bay Packer friends. A few years back Grant Gonyo tried to cheer me up when we lost to Atlanta in the 1999 NFC championship. Grant called me 2 ½ seconds after Morten Anderson kicked the game winner for the Falcons. “Hi!” he said gleefully, “I wanted to wait at least until the ball landed in the stands before I called (hahahaha) just to say (hahahaha) that I feel your pain (hahahaha).” He (along with Tom) has the gift of empathy.

I heard on the radio about a Minnesota Viking fan that, sometime in the 1970’s, decided not to shave again until the Vikings win the Super Bowl. His kids have never seen him without a beard. I don’t think his grandkids will either.

I remember when the New Orleans Saints were the “Aints” and some of the fans actually sat in the stands with paper bags on their heads. And when Bum Phillips came from the Houston Oilers to become the new Aints head coach, Houston fans lamented by sitting in the stands with bags on their heads and saying, “They got the Bum, and we got the bags!” (Just a little Bum Phillips humor: when asked about Earl Campbell -- his very gifted running back – and his inability to finish a one mile run in training camp, he said, "When it's first and a mile, I won't give it to him!")

But unfortunately for us, the Saints certainly ain’t no longer the Aints.

My feelings about #4? I like him. But whether you love him or hate him, you can’t deny Favre’s passion and enthusiasm for the game. When he played for the Packers, I hated the CheeseHeads but actually liked Favre. And I think his Sears commercials are really funny. Thanks Brett for a truly wonderful season. But just make up your mind before next October as to whether or not you will play in 2010.

Hold it…I changed my mind…I guess I’m not sure if I do like him…I’ll get back to you on that.

And here’s my suggestion for a cure for Adrian’s fumbleticulitis. NASA uses a secret concoction of Lutefisk and Lefsa to glue the heat shield tiles onto the underside of the space shuttle in an environmentally friendly way. Adrian, just smear your hands with the stuff before heading into the game. Its NFL legal and it will work wonders. And the noxious aroma will drive the defense bonkers (what IS that awful smell?!?!?).

In the Bible the number 40 is a very significant number and appears quite often. It’s related to a time of trial or testing. And do you know what else is theologically significant about the number 40? Each period of 40 is followed by a time of blessing!

Brett turned 40 this year.

It’s been like three weeks over 40 years since our first Super Bowl loss.

I have 40 hairs left on the top of my head.

Are you putting two and two together?

So I pretty much figured that Favre was Joshua and we were on our way out of the wilderness and headed for the Promised Land! Can I get an “Amen!” brother?

And when we defeated the heathen Dallasites and their young king TonyRomeo by 317 points, I thought, “Could it be?????”

Nope. 4 points to few nope. Coach Childress must have forgotten his “How to Defeat Jericho” manual and had the Vikings march around the Superdome only six times instead of the required seven. Or maybe they forgot to blow the trumpets or something.

Someone asked me in a meeting last week if we are under some sort of curse. (And by the way, is it the same one that Buffalo is under? I don’t think we are under the same one. Buffalo’s curse is….well it’s just that…they’re Buffalo). I think we are. Back on June 8, 793 somewhere near England the Norsemen sacked the entire island of Lindisfarne. I figure if a bunch of us fly over there this summer and buy each islander a Helga hat, that should cure our Super Bowl woes.

My former friend Tom made one final attempt at consolation and again tried to relieve my pain and bring some sort of meaning to my life. So he emailed me some trivia about Favre. Seems that Brett’s last pass with the Atlanta Falcons, the Green Bay Packers, the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings was an interception. I replied by email and said that if he saw it on the internet then it had to be true. (And I guess it’s mostly true except that the interception with the Jets was his second to last pass. Like that makes a difference).

So close.................................and yet so Favre.

Oh well…life is good…and there’s always next year! :>)

Copyright 2010
All Rights Reserved
Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Frisky Business

2010-02-01T19:05:00.004-06:00

(By Courtney Brewer, daughter of Dan & Kay)

For our sixth wedding anniversary my parents gave my husband and I the cutest card (my mom just seems to have a knack for finding the perfect one.) On the front was a picture of two chocolate lab puppies – and one of the puppies was kind of chewing on the other puppy’s mouth. The heading on the card read, “You may not be newlyweds anymore…” And when you opened it, the inside read, “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be frisky. Happy Anniversary!” I loved the card and so I placed it on the kitchen table to display it for all to see.

A few days later my seven year old son (who at times seems to be able to read way beyond his age level) and I were having breakfast together. He was eating his bowl of Cheerios with a mountain of sugar on them. And I was eating an English muffin with peanut butter, still sort of groggy, waiting for those first few gulps of coffee to help awaken my brain cells.

My son picked up the anniversary card and read it out loud to me. He then looked over at me and said, “Mom, what does “FRISKY” mean?”

I didn’t need the caffeine anymore – because instantly my heart began to race! This is one of those difficult questions that kids ask. The type that parents normally think about for awhile and have well-thought-out answers prepared for. You know, like “How does Santa deliver all those toys around the world in one night?” I was most definitely not prepared to answer this question...especially at 6:00 in the morning!!! So I took a giant gulp of coffee and began to tell my son what “FRISKY” meant.

“Well Bug, it means that when a mommy and daddy love each a lot that they hold hands and cuddle and kiss a lot.”

“Oh………….ok” was all my son said!

Whew…that was a LOT easier than I expected.

My son then looked over at me and said, “Mom, I am NEVER getting married!!!”

All I could do was laugh and be thankful for my son’s innocence…And also thankful that his wedding plans were on hold until at least the third grade.
***************************************************************
Hold it…Update by Dan/Dad – February 1, 2010: Courtney emailed me and said that Noah is sharing his markers with a little red-haired girl in the first grade…perhaps there is going to be a 3rd grade wedding!

Copyright 2010
All Rights Reserved
Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

It Is What It Is!

2010-02-01T18:08:00.012-06:00

Charlton Hesston, played by Moses, was on the verge of leading 2 million slaves out of the iron grip of Egypt. The Israelites had been enslaved for 400 years (which by the way is about as long as its been since the Minnesota Vikings have been to the Super Bowl), and desperately needed a deliverer.

For forty years Chuck, excuse me – I mean Moses, had been a shepherd in the land of the Midian (which I think is about 200 miles south of Kadesh-Barnea on I-63).

But one day he happened to see a bush on fire on the side of the mountain and for some reason it wasn’t being consumed by the fire! He figured that it must have been like one of those fake gas fireplaces where the logs never burn up. So upon witnessing the miraculous sight, he drew nearer to see if he could spot any sort of gas line.

And when he did…God spoke to him.

“Moses! Moses! Take off the flip-flops from your feet – for you are standing on Holy Ground!”

Moses did so, but he was immediately embarrassed when he noticed a big hole in the bottom of one of his argyle socks.

Jehovah then proceeded to commission him to be the leader of a slave nation who would deliver God’s people from the world’s foremost superpower.

Moses argued with the Lord for a little while (I can’t speak, I’m too old, my socks don’t match, I don’t like Manna Burgers, etc, etc) but God slammed the door shut on all of those excuses. (Just so you know….I tend to avoid these chapters because I’m inclined to make a lot of excuses also).

Finally, Moses said, “If they ask Who sent little old me….what shall I tell them?”

(Pause here for just a moment to let the suspense build. Close your eyes. Listen! In the background you can begin to hear the slowly building crescendo of kettle drums and cymbals and whales singing).

Suddenly, God thundered with His Majestic Voice, “Go and tell them this: “IT IS….WHAT IT IS!!!”

Moses: Ummmmm…say what?

God (even louder and with the drums thundering even more and the whales humming “I Dreamed A Dream”): “IT IS…WHAT IT IS!!!”

Moses: Ah Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but just what does THAT mean? And I don’t mean to nitpick, but I’ve got 2 million complainers that somehow I have to get past Yul Brynner’s chariots. I was hoping for something a just little more inspirational…you know, like Winston Churchill’s WWII speech, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!” Or Martin Luther King's “I Have A Dream!” speech. But “It is what it is?” Doesn’t that just mean that we can’t change anything and that we’re stuck in our circumstances? That’s pretty depressing! You don’t have any other speeches do you? That’s just not gonna inspire anyone.

God: Ummmm…well OK, I guess you’re right. Not too much faith-building pizzazz in that. How about this, “Save the Earth! It's the only planet I created with Chocolate!”

Ok, so Exodus chapters 3-4 didn’t really go like that. But Moses did want something to bring back to the people. They were desperate for a Deliverer. And this is what’s recorded for us in chapter 3 verses 13-14: Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

Those five words, I AM WHO I AM, were all Moses needed to hear. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! He provided miraculously for His people in the past and He will do so in the present and in the future. He is not the “Great I Was” or the “Great I Will Be.” He is the Great I AM! His miracles are not just for Sunday morning church services, they are for working people in working places on working days! He is TODAY’s God Who cares intensely about your bills, your health, your family members and your soul! He is the ever-present God Who cares for you where you are at right now. What He did in the past He will do in the future and in the present! He cares for you…bring Him your problems today (I Peter 5:7).

God is able to change the unchangeable. It is what it is…but only if you take God out of the equation!

Copyright 2010
All Rights Reserved
Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Dad, the Basement Wall Collapsed!

2009-10-18T19:34:00.000-05:00

Looking a little grim my wife handed me the phone. Our youngest daughter Courtney was on the line. “Dad, the basement wall collapsed – but everyone is safe!”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. It was about 9:00 on a Wednesday night in the middle of August. It had rained buckets that day. In fact it had been raining heavily off and on for several weeks. I asked her to repeat what she had just said. In more detail she explained that the entire 30 foot length of their basement wall had collapsed but that everyone was ok and that they were going to be staying in the fifth wheel camper that night.

The next day I took off from work and went out to see what had happened. It was just an ugly sight. Broken concrete blocks, mud, dirt, and debris partially filled their basement. A 30’ span of their home was now unsupported, the freezer was blown over on its face; the plumbing was ripped off from the bottom of the toilet. On top of all of that it was still raining – the cloudy and gloomy day seemed to mirror our spirits.

The insurance adjuster showed up at about 6:00 on Thursday night, a day after the collapse. He was pretty frank in his assessment that he didn’t think their policy would cover what had happened. As soon as he was gone my son-in-law Gus and I began to brace up the floor with some landscape timbers. Amazingly the now unsupported span of their home did not collapse or even drop down. We dug out the freezer, set it upright and plugged it in. Remarkably it still seemed to work.

I took off that Friday also and went out to help brace up the floor some more and begin the task of digging out. The insurance company sent out an engineer to check out the collapse – and probably to validate why they were going to deny their claim. (A few days later our daughter was told that if the entire house had collapsed the insurance company would have paid……say what?)

Over those first few days we braced up the floor so that it was safe to be in the basement, we pulled out as many of the concrete blocks as we could and just tried to clean things up as best we could. On Tuesday (6 days after the collapse) that portion of the basement was excavated, the debris was hauled out and a good sized trench was dug so that we could begin rebuilding the basement wall (Gus and Courtney decided to go with a plywood basement). While the rebuilding was going on, our daughter and son-in-law and their three children (ages 3 months to 7 years) and their yellow lab Auggie lived in the fifth wheel trailer camper next to their house.

Sometimes it’s really hard to see how God is working. Really hard. Gus had been furloughed from his job at the ore docks for several months and was working very little. Courtney was a stay at home mom with the three little ones. And now this. How were we going to get all of this done? How were we going to rebuild the basement? On one of the Saturday’s before we began work we all gathered in their makeshift home for prayer. I read from Matthew 6:25-34 – the passage that talks about not worrying about where your food and clothes and housing are going to come from. That’s kinda hard to do sometimes. And then in verse 33 it says this, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” I got a little choked up when I read that. And I changed it around just a little bit. The Vander Ark version of Matthew 6:33 reads this way, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the pieces of your basement will be added unto you!”

That Wednesday night when we found out the wall had collapsed I sent out prayer requests to as many people as I could think of. You may disagree with me, but I believe that God cares about basements! Prayers for the basement collapse went up across Minnesota and Wisconsin and North Dakota. I even received an email from a missionary friend in Germany that they were praying. We needed God’s help! Over the next couple of weeks we saw how God could bring things together and give Gus and Courtney a new basement. Volunteers came from a church in Hawthorne, Wisconsin and a church in Floodwood, Minnesota to lend a hand. People just “seemed” to show up just when they were needed. Family members worked hard; my son-in-law Gus and his dad George worked especially hard.

I guess when something like this happens you have a choice: you can curl up into a ball or close the window shades and sort of ignore the mess. Or start digging. God can perform wonders, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to work our fingers to the bone. Miracles can start by just picking up a shovel or a hammer.

Remarkably, about three weeks after the wall had collapsed and about two weeks after the site was excavated, the basement wall was rebuilt and the big hole in their backyard was all filled in!

Sometime during the rebuilding process Gus turned to me and said, “You know, Courtney was praying for a dry basement.” I think I replied with something like, “So she’s responsible for this?!?!?” God answers prayer in some pretty unconventional ways. And so when our daughter prayed for her basement, God probably thought, “OK, you asked for it!” and sent one of His angels to give that old concrete block wall just a little bit of a push.

I later asked Courtney, “There isn’t anything else you’re praying about that I should be aware of, is there?”

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com
www.ourdogtbone.com

My Cholesterol is OK, But My Rhubarb is a Little High

2009-10-17T18:17:00.000-05:00

It was time for my annual physical. I was feeling OK but I knew that I should just get checked out. Or checked up I guess it is.

After waiting for a few minutes in the family clinic waiting room in our end of town, my doctor’s nurse came out and hollered, “DAN, GET IN HERE, NOW!” Not really. The nurse was nice and asked me to come back to the exam room. However, we first had to stop by the dreaded scale. I knew my weight had gone up a couple ounces since my last physical, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the number that flashed on the huge digital scoreboard out in the lobby. “Hey everyone in the waiting area, Dan’s weight has gone way, weigh up!!!” Maybe in the future that’s what they’ll do to motivate us to lose weight.

I thought it must have been showing kilograms, but when I squinted to read the fine print it said, “Sorry buddy, this is America, these are POUNDS!” With the breakneck speed of developing technology I am sure that in a couple of years the scale will be equipped with a face detection camera and will be interfaced to your kitchen’s refrigerator. In a 2001-Space-Odyssey scenario, the HAL voice will soothingly say something like, “Hello Dave, er I mean Dan. Here is a printout of the dates and times that you ate those 27 Dove bars last week. If you were living on Mercury your weight would be OK. But try to remember – this is Earth.”

In the exam room the nurse asked if I was on any meds. “Why yes I am. I eat one Dove bar once a day ½ hour before breakfast.” She also asked if I had any howitzers in the home and if I ever felt threatened. “Only if I leave my socks in the middle of the floor,” was my reply. She then took my blood pressure. It was actually pretty good – like 129 over 80 or something. If I remember correctly – for the ideal blood pressure the first number should be approximately twice your age. And for the last number you should add your telephone number to your age, divide by 6 and then multiply by the number of Dove bars you had that day.

She then instructed me to put on one of those really fashionable Tommy Hilfiger looking gowns. I work in the purchasing department of the hospital/clinic system that I went to the physical at and it never dawned on me that I should order some really really good gowns that actually have ties on them (and in the front!) and that cover more than 50 percent of your body. I got the gown on and somehow got it tied. I bet those guys on Cirque Du Soleil can’t tie those things.

While I waited for the doctor I read a couple of magazines. The oldest, Popular Science, had a really interesting article on the development of the printing press. And National Geographic had an article by Lewis and Clark on how they met Sacagawea. And Life had a cool article about how we landed on the moon. I didn’t know that.

When the doctor came in we chatted briefly. I have been going to him for about 20 years (or about 7 “annual” physicals I think it is). He is a really good doctor and very personable. He checked my heart (it was still beating), he checked my lungs (I was still breathing), he checked my reflexes (I still had some), and he checked my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the light from the otoscope coming OUT THE OTHER EAR created a silhouette of Mickey Mouse on the wall. “That’s odd,” the doctor remarked. And finally he asked me to say “Aaaahhhhhhh.” I guess that was to check out the little hangy down thing in the back of my throat to see if it was still there.

When he was done he mentioned I still needed to do the lab work stuff. So off I went to find the lab. When I went by the scale I swore I could hear it snickering.

I got to the lab and was greeted by the lab tech (more technically known as the “phlebotomist”). A phlebotomist is one who practices phlebotomy – which is the art of bloodletting. Bloodletting has been around for about 2000 years and has been practiced by the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Lutherans. And to quote from www.reference.com/fleabotomy: The popularity of bloodletting in Greece was reinforced by the ideas of Galen, after he discovered the veins and arteries were filled with blood, not air as was commonly believed…” Maybe they were first called “airteries.” Galen also believed that “humoral balance was the basis of illness or health, the four humours being blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.” Now I’m no doctor, but to me the four humors are guffawing, chortling, chuckling, and side-splitting-milk-coming-out-your-nose laughing.

And get this – and again I am quoting from www.reference.com/fleabotomy: “…the practice was continued by surgeons and BARBER-SURGEONS! Though the bloodletting was often recommended by physicians, it was carried out by BARBERS…the red-and-white-striped pole of the barbershop, still in use today, is derived from this practice: the red represents the blood being drawn, the white represents the tourniquet used, and the pole itself represents the stick squeezed in the patient's hand to dilate the veins.” Can you believe that?

And how about this: Leeches became especially popular in bloodletting in the early nineteenth century. In the first half of the 19th century hundreds of millions of leeches were used throughout Europe. And that doesn’t include those used for fishing! In 1824 a French sergeant was stabbed in the chest in combat. They took him to the local BloodLetAtorium. During his treatment over the next couple of weeks they “let” more than half of his blood supply and applied more than 70 leeches! And he survived! And we complain because the hospital Jell-O tastes like a Goodyear tire.
(Note to my congressman and senators: Have you guys read this? This is one sure way to lower medical costs! Leeches at Bill’s Bait and Barbecues are only $2.95 per dozen. But then again, once you guys start managing leeches they will probably cost $637.12 a dozen).

And just a couple other little tidbits about phlebotomitizing. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a phlebotomist. Or at least believed in bloodletting. And George Washington was treated with bloodletting following a horseback riding accident. Almost 4 pounds of blood was withdrawn which contributed to his death in 1799. Shouldn’t the Secret Service have said something?

Back to my physical.

The lab tech filled the mason jar with blood, removed the leeches and I was done (except for filling that other little container).

A few days later I got the lab results back. But before I give you those results I have to confess something. About 17 days before my physical I ate a rhubarb pie. In one day. And not just a piece of rhubarb pie, an ENTIRE rhubarb pie. And about 2 days before my physical I ate ANOTHER rhubarb pie (except for one piece – I knew the dreaded “Scale” was waiting for me so I had to cut back).

So when I got the lab results back they read like this:

Dear Mr. Vander Ark
We have determined that you are still alive. The bad cholesterol is just a tad high, but it’s ok and the good cholesterol is just a little low but it’s ok so you won’t need to eat Lipitor or oatmeal or pine needles. But your rhubarb is a little high. Please watch the sweets.

And I always thought rhubarb pie was a vegetable.

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com
www.ourdogtbone.com

An A-Mail From T-Bone: Swimming Lessons

2009-10-16T17:58:00.000-05:00

Introduction: For 13 years T-Bone, our Lab/Irish Setter mix canine companion lived with us. But in May of 2006 we had to put him to sleep due to a losing battle with separation anxiety and his old age issues (his story is available in book form: “Our Dog T-Bone: A Heart Warming Story of One Really Nervous Dog” or out on the web at www.ourdogtbone.com). So the following is what I call “An A-mail (Angel Mail) from T-Bone;” sort of “heaven from a dog’s point of view.”

Hey master…I am up to typing 5 words a minute now! They have a huge keyboard by one of the pearly gates of the city that is made just for dogs – it fits our paws perfectly! I guess it’s what they call dogernomic. It takes me awhile to type these, but hey, I gots lots of time! The angels help us (the younger angels-in-training); they help us spell somewhat and then we can pull up anyone’s name on planet earth and just hit the send button and they say somehow it gets to you. So that’s kool. I guess my email address is tbone@heavenisreallycool.dog if you want to try replying. There’s a young (and big) Newfoundland pup up here I met the other day. He can only type one word a minute so I am helping the Angel-In-Training help him. Ain’t you proud of me?

And guess what Master? I CAN SWIM! You know how scared I was of the water when I was down there with you? And you tried so many times to get me to swim but I would only go up to my chest? I do remember the one time you tossed me in off the dock at your mom’s lake and I went under for a couple moments and pretended I was a submarine. But I forgives you Master. Up here – I ain’t afraid of the water! I went swimming in the River of Life the other day and was floating on my back even. It’s kind of comical to see. But we had a great time!

We wuz watching HDTV the other day (Heavenly Days TV that is) and me and the other dogs who couldn’t swim too good on earth watched the story of when Peter tried walking on water. It was way cool! Its in the Bible in the New Testament (you DO know where the New Testament is, don’t you Master? Just kidding ), in Matthew chapter 14. Remember the story? Jesus had just fed over 5,000 people with just 5 loaves of Wonder Bread and two little walleyes. Then he told the disciples to get into the boat and cross the Sea of Galilee, but He went up into the mountain to pray. That night a really big storm came up and those big brave disciples were straining at the oars and weren’t making any headway. But all of a sudden, somewhere around 4:00 in the morning, they saw someone WALKING ON THE WATER! ON TOP OF THE WAVES! And Jesus said something like, “Hi guys, how’s it going? Don’t be scared!!!”

But with the wind still blowing and the waves still raging and Jesus still walking on the water, Mr. Bigmouth Peter said, “If it really is you Jesus, tell me to come to you on the water!” And guess what? Jesus told him “Well come on down!” Peter very cautiously got out of the boat, sort of testing his weight on the water (kind of like when you used to put me into the tub Master). And it was just like walking on Jell-O for him! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! He looked like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon! He was having a great time as was walking on top of the water and the waves just like Jesus! But all of a sudden, when he began to get scared (I knowz the feeling) and he took his eyes off from Jesus, he began to sink……reallllly sloooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwllllllllllllllllllllllllly. It was so bizarre. I remember when you told the funny story of how you and your brothers were tubing down the Ottertail River and you came to a spot in the river and wanted to see how deep it was. So you rolled off the innertube – and fashooom! You sank like a rock to about 15 feet deep. Just your hat was floating on the water! Your brother was laughing so hard when you came up he almost shot minnows out his nose. Anyway Peter didn’t do that (hold it – I gotta connect my doggy thoughts – I don’t mean Peter didn’t shoot minnows out his nose, I mean he didn’t sink fast)…He went down really slowly! But when he cried out for help, Jesus grabbed his hand and pulled him up. That was so cool. And Peter just walked non-chalantly back to the boat on the water like nothing happened. But Thomas, Mr. No-Faith, said, “Yo Petey, wuz up with all your wet clothes? I told you not to get out of the boat.”

You know what Master? That story taught me too things. Hold it, I mean two things. First, Jesus helps us out in the storms of life. Big-time. Jesus comes in a way we don’t think He will and at a time we don’t think He will. When we are in storms, He loves us and can help us! Next, I would rather be a wet water walker than a dry boat sitter. We gives Pete a lot of grief because he sank, but hey Master – he was the ONLY ONE WHO HAD THE GUTS TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT! So we need to have faith and get out of our boat named “ComfortZone” and see what God can do in our lives. And next….no wait…hold it a moment…let me count on my doggy paws for a second…..nope that was two.

Well Master I gotta go. Hey you know what!? The Taco Bell dog is up here now! And he is a she! She just got here and her name is Gidget and she was 15 earth years or like about 105 dog years. She is teaching me Spanish, like "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" and ¿Es usted todavía calvo? (Are you still bald?). Sorry Master, I couldn’t resist.

Well, me and Bob and Maggie and Ghost and Xander and Alfie and Kegger and Guiness and several Max’s and Tomack are getting together for sort of a Vander Ark extended dog family reunion. The twins are putting it all together for us. Oh, and Gidget is coming as a special guest (I think I love her Master, maybe it’s the way she speaks Spanish).

I miss your wife scratching me behind my ears and hugging me. The angels up here do it, but its just not the same.

Hey Master, one last thing. I still look for you every day by the gate they say someday you will be coming through. I just lay out there for awhile and sort of think about you. Heaven’s real nice, but it ain’t the same without you and Mrs. Ark.

Love,
Yer Dog T-Bone

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

God is....a Toaster

2009-10-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

I just joined FaceBook. A couple of people invited me quite awhile ago but I always hesitated to bring myself into the 21st century (my two son-in-laws teased me a few months ago when I said I needed to get batteries for my Walkman…”that’s so last century” was their response). Our computer at the house is just connected to the internet via dial-up so needless to say it sometimes takes a few minutes to motor around and download or upload stuff, have pillow fights, give and accept hugs, view photo albums and generally just do “stuff.” Maybe we are the Dialup-Dinosaurs-of-Duluth; am guessing there are a few more of us out there, but we are definitely becoming extinct.

Anyway when I signed up I came to the Pink Floyd, excuse me, I mean the Wall, and noticed a friend had posted this fill-in the blank statement: God is ______________. A few people commented and someone had filled in the blank by posting this comment “…Good!”

Now my theological education and 25 plus years of pastoral experience kicked in and I wanted to put something rather profound on there. So after I thought for awhile (well ok, so it was only 3 seconds), I came up with “God is…a Toaster!” I knew that would sort of stir things up a little and my friends would wonder what had happened to their Dutchman preacher friend:

“Has he been reading the wrong version of the Bible again?”
“Has he been a Viking fan too long?”
“Have all the cloudy & cold days in Duluth caused his brain to mold over?”

But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. This was my FIRST day on FaceBook and I didn’t want a couple of missionaries who had approved me as a friend to like, you know, call the district superintendent or something. “Hey that preacher guy Vander Ark up in Duluth thinks God is a toaster. I don’t think that’s one of the 16 Fundamental Truths!”

But to a lot of people (and in all practicality) God IS no more than a toaster.

Think about it:

1. A toaster sits on the counter or in the cupboard and stays pretty much out of the way until needed.
2. A toaster is pretty manageable in size and we can control it: we take it out, we plug it in, we set the buttons, we put in the bread, and when we are done, we put it away.
3. We put in something and we expect something in return; we put in fresh bread slices; set the shade of darkness and expect it to produce a perfect slice of toast.
4. If the toaster doesn’t produce or doesn’t work right and it burns the bread, then we get upset and throw it out and buy a new one.

The parallel?

1. We sometimes want a god that will just sit on the counter and pretty much stay out of our way and not upset our lives or disturb our sleep or make any demands upon us until he is needed. We certainly don’t want a god that will ask us to bring cookies to our neighbor that just mowed over our flowers or ask us to forgive someone that has hurt us very deeply. We just want a god for funerals and job losses or severe illnesses and similar life-is-tough situations. In other words, we want a convenient god.

2. And we want a manageable god. We want a god whose theology we have figured out and packed away in our nice little theological box. And we want to be able to unplug our god and put him back in the cupboard when we don’t need him or if he should start to bother us.

3. And if we give something to our god, we certainly expect some sort of return on our investment. It’s only fair. “I gave my tithes, so now I shouldn't have any more financial problems.” “I read my Bible, so now I shouldn't have any problems at work today.” “I go to church regularly, so now I shouldn't have any problems with my teenage children.” “I memorize and study Scripture, so now I should always be filled with joy.” I put the bread in, shouldn't I expect a perfect slice of toast?

4. Finally, if our god "burns my toast" and does not work things out like we think he should (my relationship fell apart; that job promotion didn’t come through; I am still battling this chronic illness), we get in a huff and look for another church or another god or another theology. Or even a non-theology.

Wilbur Rees penned this very biting poem (I am not sure when it was written and it may not be politically correct in this day and age; but it speaks to our innate desire to obtain just enough of a theology to soothe our conscience):

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God please.”

God is Eternal and defies description. When we have been in heaven for 10,000 X’s 10,000 years, we will still only have just begun to know the depths of His love and His beauty. We will only have just begun to touch the fringes of His ways. He is the Almighty, the Creator of the Universe and the One Who holds the oceans in the palm of His hand. The nations are a speck of dust on His scales. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is worthy of all of my time, all of my energy, all of my talents, and all of my life. Were He to never answer one single prayer of yours or mine, He would still be good and holy and just in everything that He does. (But He does answer prayer, just try it!). Were I to lose everything, He would still be The Faithful One. And He has such an intense love for people that He sent His only Son to die an excruciatingly painful death on Calvary for us.

Even though you may not think so or believe so, God has an incredible love for you as an individual and cares deeply about you and the struggles you face and the questions you have. At times we do unfortunately treat Him like our toaster – we tuck Him away in the cupboard and ignore Him until we are hurt or in trouble. But He is abundantly ready to forgive our wrong concept of Him and our wrong attitudes toward Him. To find out how to know more about His purpose and plan and love for you, read the last chapter on www.ourdogtbone.com (The Face of the Master).

Dan Vander Ark
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2009
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com
transformationthroughintercession.blogspot.com
www.ourdogtbone.com

The Haunted House on Little Cormorant

2009-10-14T21:13:00.000-05:00

For many years my brothers and sister and I had seen “something” in the old abandoned farm house on Little Cormorant Lake. Big Cormorant, Middle Cormorant and Little Cormorant were three lakes just west and south of Detroit Lakes in northwestern Minnesota. Trolling for Northern Pike would often take us to the back side of Sugar Island and into the little bay where the vacant house stood. Although now almost completely veiled by trees and other foliage, back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s you could see the house fairly easily. And whenever good fishing, sunset, and a perfectly still evening intersected on that portion of the lake, as your eyes scanned the bay they always seemed to be drawn to the upstairs windows. And it was then that you swore something or someone was looking back at you. Even though it had been abandoned decades earlier, some sort of ethereal light invariably flickered through those window eyes once the sun had gone down. More than once when we had given up fishing for the evening and motored away from the bay, your eyes were convinced that you could see someone standing in the upstairs window. And they were looking back at you.

In July of 1997 my older brother Jan, my younger brother Kevin, our youngest sibling Lisa and myself were all together for a couple of days of relaxation at my parent’s lake home on Little Cormorant. Dad and Mom had first built a little cottage on the southeast corner of Sugar Island in the mid 70’s, but in the 80’s they turned it into a year-round home and sold their home in rural Moorhead. There are few things in life more beautiful and enjoyable than being on a Minnesota lake in the summer. The laughter of kids swimming and diving off the raft, fishing, water skiing, the July 4th boat parade, the smells of the lake and the sound of Loons were all elements that contributed to sort of a Terry Redlin Americana scene on the island.

Sitting on the deck after supper the talk always turned to how the boat was running, was the beaver dam across Cty Road 6 causing the lake level to rise again, and who’s doing what on the island. But that night it turned to the old abandoned farm house. We had always talked about checking it out after the sun had gone down to see what might be causing the ghostly light and shadowy figure in the upstairs window. Whether it was the fact that we four kids were rarely at my parent’s home at the same time or that we finally just figured we had to know what was going on, we somehow mustered up the courage to investigate the house…at night. We had gone to the house a number of times during the day to explore and look around. Mostly under decay, it was just a simple small two story house. When you pried open the front door you were very careful where you walked. The floor was rotting and sagging terribly. The stairway went about 8 steps and then turned immediately to the right. Upstairs were three bedrooms – with two of the bedrooms using a single adjoining closet (you could go from one bedroom to the other through the closet). Throughout the house plaster was falling down. The stale smell of oldness pervaded the entire dwelling. The basement was earthen and I can’t remember if you entered it through a trap door in the kitchen or through a cellar door outside. Maybe we should have, but we never did go down there

I remember that July night as though it were yesterday. It was perfectly still and warm. And it was a new moon which meant that there would be no light from the blackened sky to help illumine the bay and abandoned farmstead. The four of us were slathered with bug spray to try to at least repel a portion of the mosquito onslaught we knew would be awaiting us in the tall grass and bulrushes. My folk’s old black lab Max accompanied us. The five of us got into the boat and we began to motor the small aluminum fishing boat from the southeast corner of the island. Following the shoreline we made our way around the island and then to the bay to the northwest. About 100 yards from shore we killed the motor and began to silently paddle toward shore. The Navy Seals would have been proud of us. As I mentioned earlier I absolutely love the sounds and smells and sights of a Minnesota summer on the lake. Toward evening you could hear the Loons or see an occasional muskrat or beaver swimming or hear a distant boat trolling for pike. But this night I didn’t seem to notice any of that. About 20 yards out we all had to push with the oars against the thick mat of weeds to get close to the shore. It became darker and darker and a Londonish fog settled over the bay. When we reached the shoreline all four of us heard a low guttural growl coming from Max. Her hair on her back bristled as she stared toward the farmhouse. We were about 75 yards from the house but almost entirely hidden by the tall reeds. Jan whispered, “I see the light!” Each of us had flashlights but we didn’t use them. Kevin firmly gripped Max’s collar. My heart was hammering inside my chest and I am sure that my goose bumps had goose bumps.

For whatever reason we made our way toward the house in birth order order -- which meant Jan led, I was in the middle, Kevin was next, and Lisa followed. We didn’t do a military type low-crawl, but we kept as low as possible. Once we got within 50 feet of the house we stopped and sat down on the weeds and the brush. An owl hooted in the trees just to our right. It was dark but our eyes had adjusted enough so that we could see each other and we could see the whitish farmhouse. We looked into each other’s eyes. We were all terrified. Not only was Max’s hair still bristled, but I think our hair was standing on end also. Without talking we communicated that “I’m scared but I want to go in” look to each other.

Even though the hinges were laden with years of rust, the door actually opened pretty silently. Your eyes always play tricks on you; shadows can become a million different monsters. But something or someone was definitely upstairs. We clicked on one flashlight for the briefest of moments and quickly scanned the main floor. It was just the parlor/living room and the kitchen. Nothing. But as our Little Cormorant Navy Seals Team stood there petrified on the main floor, you could see the faintest of glows coming from somewhere upstairs.

In a slow compacted huddle we made our way to the second floor. We had to be exceptionally careful in the dark and on those creaking (and rotting) stairs. Kevin still had a good grip on Max. And we decided to stay together. I for one had seen to many scary movies where one of the actors decided to peel off on his or her own. And that’s the last you ever saw of them. We decided to work our way toward the bedroom that faced the lake – the one that we had seen the light in. The top of the stairs emptied into a short stubby hallway; to the right was one bedroom and to the left the other two. All three bedroom doors were closed. Nothing but blackness could be seen spilling out from under the doors of bedroom number one and bedroom number two.

But under the third doorway.

Frozen with fear all four of us just stared at the bottom of that door. Make that five of us. In the creepy darkness you could feel Max’s hair bristling on her neck. Again we heard her guttural growl, only it was louder. The ghostly light flickered as “something” moved across that path of light on the other side of the door. You could hear each of our hearts pounding with horror.

Jan hurriedly turned on the flashlight and pointed it toward the doorknob. It began to turn!

That was enough for us! Not worrying about any rotting boards, Kevin and Max tumbled down the stairs first, followed closely by Lisa and then Jan. I wanted to flee faster than they did but I was frozen and too terrified to turn away. I felt like I was living a nightmare. Jan yelled to me, “Danny, come on!”

I was shaking uncontrollably and in my fear had actually thrown my flashlight.

Jan came back up the stairs. “Danny…let’s go…NOWI

Somehow I forced myself to start to turn to go down the stairs when the door began to open! I knew I should have run but my eyes fixed in horror on that opening door. When I backed up into the darkened hallway and turned to go down the stairs I tripped and fell.

The door creaked open. The ghostly light spilled into the hallway. A silhouette moved toward the doorway.

I was scrambling to get to my feet and to the stairs when “something” grabbed my ankle.

“Jan! Kevin! Lisa!” Something’s grabbed my foot! It felt like the cold iron grip of a boney hand.

In the mayhem and terror and blackness I couldn’t believe this was happening.

I screamed to them again, “Help Me!”

Jan raced upstairs again, smashing his shin against one of the steps when he crashed through a rotted board. Kevin and Lisa flew back up the stairs with Max.

I was now sliding back toward the bedroom. “Something’s pulling my leg!” Something’s pulling my leg!

“Danny, what is it??”

“JAN, KEVIN, LISA – HELP ME!!! SOMETHING’S PULLING MY LEG!!!”

Just like I’m pulling yours :>)

Ok so most of this kinda sorta didn’t really happen that way. But there really was an abandoned farm house in that northwest bay on my folk’s lake. And even though it’s gone now, it was creepy! We went there a few times during the day to look around, and even then in the broad daylight it gave you the heebie geebies! (At least it did me anyway). I would not have spent the night there for a thousand dollars. And remember when I mentioned that the two bedrooms had an adjoining closet? One time when we went to explore the haunted house I went upstairs and so did my brother Kevin. He saw me go into one bedroom – and he went into the other. I made my way through the closet and hid just on the other side of the closed closet door in the OTHER bedroom. When he opened the door I went “Boo!” And he ALMOST fainted.

Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Boo!
Boo Who?
Don’t cry (over this pathetic story)

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Dr. Amber Frankensteen

2009-10-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

My oldest daughter is going back to school to get her degree in Accounting. So it only made total sense to me, in order to fulfill one of her prerequisite classes, that she had to dissect a piglet. And it was an online piglet dissecting biology class that she was taking, so the surgery had to be performed in her own home.
She ordered the kit that contained all of the items she needed for her dissection but had it shipped to her sister’s home in the country. Seems people have been stealing UPS shipments off from her home-in-the-city front porch, so she had them sent to the sister’s country home.
I was fortunate to be at our daughter’s country home when Amber opened the UPS package. And we were all under the assumption that she had ordered a piglet to dissect. You know, Babe’s younger relative. When we opened the box we found that that box contained two smaller boxes. I assumed it was one box for the bacon and one box for the porkchops. But alas, when we opened the first box we found that it contained some miscellaneous dissection items and A COW EYE! That’s like totally gross. (And it seemed to me that wherever I stood by the table, the eye was looking at me.) So we figured the piggy must be in the second carton. She began to open that box. I pointed out that the writing on the box showed she was opening it upside down. Good thing we caught it. My younger daughter matter-of-factly mentioned that we could have been mooned by the piggy! She continued to carefully open the second carton.
No piggy. Just a sheep brain and some more dissecting stuff. I found a box of microscope slides amidst the packing stuff. I opened the little box of slides and held one up to the light.
“Oh look!” I said excitedly, “It’s the Eiffel Tower! Must be when the sheep brain was in Paris!”
I am not sure if Amber has done the home cow-eye-sheep-brain dissection thing yet, but if not I am guessing it may go something like this:

(Her husband’s name is Kevin)
Kevin: Oh hi honey. What are you cooking for supper?

Dr. FrankenAmber: DON’T EAT THAT! IT’S FOR SCHOOL!

Kevin: OhhhhhKaaayyyyy…..and what’s up with the goggles?

Dr. FrankenAmber: I am working on my accounting degree.

Kevin: OhhhhhKayayyyyy…..you’re cooking for accounting?

Dr. FrankenAmber: I have to dissect a pig but it turned out to be a sheep brain and a cow eye. Please! I must have silence! – I have to make an incision along the medulla oblongata.

Kevin: What’s the brain’s name? Abbie Normal?

Dr. FrankenAmber: OK, ve are now taking ze brain out to ze garage; faithful assistant Kevin, go hook up the jumper cables to ze Zubaru…AND DON’T FORGET ZE COW EYE!

(In the garage)
Kevin: Ok Dr., ze jumper cables are now hooked up to ze brain! Hold it, why am I talking in zis stupid Transylvanian accent?

Dr. FrankenAmber: Ok – go start ze Zubara and rev it to 8,000 RPM and hold it there for 30 seconds. AND I VILL FLIP ZE SWITCH!

(With ze Zubaru revving)
Kevin: Dr., ve now has 8,000 RPM’s!!!!

Dr. FrankenAmber: Kevin, I AM FLIPPING ZE SWITCH!
(With a greenish ghostly light and ozone and the stench of overcooked sheep brain filling the garage)
ZZXVVVVVVVYYEEERRRRGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGVVVVVVVYIIIPPPPPPPPKKERRRRRRRRBLANGBUMP!

Suddenly there is an eerie silence.

Both Dr. FrankenAmber and her faithful assistant Kevin peer closely at ze brain.

The quivering mass is quivering.

Dr. FrankenAmber: IT’S ALIVE!

Kevin: OK, I’m outta here

Dr. FrankenAmber: Vait! Before you go, hook up ze cow eye to ze new Ford F150 crew cab!

Kevin: Ve kan't do zat! I mean, We can’t do that! The car salesman told me that will void the warranty on your new truck…3 years or 36,000 miles or jump starting one cow eye, whichever comes first…

Dr. FrankenAmber: Vell…I guess…ok. Come on sheep brain, let’s go watch “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader”….

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com
www.ourdogtbone.com

The Universe Must Be Spinning Backwards or Something: Thoughts About the Possible Unretirement of a Certain NFL Quarterback

2009-06-07T20:40:00.000-05:00

I emailed a few friends the other day, “The universe must be spinning backwards or something.” In the email I included a picture from ESPN that explained what I was talking about. It involved a certain retired hall-of-famer quarterback named Bert Favrey and his possible unretirement from his formerly retired unretirement. I think I said that right.

I am a Minnesota Viking fan. I bleed purple. I have knitted Viking socks hanging in my cubicle and a foam Viking brick on top of my monitor at work to prove it. And to think that the dreaded Bert Favrey might actually be wearing purple and gold was just….well it was like totally bizzaro!

One of my cheesehead friends named Mot replied to my email thusly, “Randy Moss almost became a Packer a few years ago ... the heroes go to villains and the villains to heroes ... its like watching "wrastling". We hate Moss ... then he puts on green & gold and we love him. You hate Favre ... he puts on purple and you love him. Like Seinfeld says, ‘We're rooting for laundry.’”
Have a great day.
Mot
(Because my friend wanted to remain unanimous, I spelled his name backwards).

“We’re rooting for laundry.” I love that line!

Basically, everyone wants to be a winner. But the problem is the Vikings haven’t won the big one since the 11th century where they reigned supreme for three centuries in Northern European Football. Their playoff string began dramatically in England on June 8, 793 when the Norsemen sacked the entire island of Lindisfarne and won their first title. And they were meaner than Mean Joe Greene.
A lot meaner – Vikings were portrayed as “bloodthirsty, uncivilized barbarians.” (Is there such a thing as a civilized barbarian?) The Oakland Raiders became the uncivilized barbarians of the 20th century however when they refused to wear ties and sport coats and had long hair and beards. But somewhere along the line public perceptions of the Vikings as “bloodthirsty, uncivilized barbarians” changed. By the 1900’s they became simply known as “thirsty uncivilized barbarians.” And according to historians the cultural rehabilitation of the Norsemen was completed when a winged-helmeted Viking figurine became a radiator cap on a new car in Britain. I am NOT making this up! A radiator cap marked the cultural rehabilitation of the Vikings? No wonder we’re zippo in the Big Game.

And just a little historical trivia here. Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red and Thjodhild the Blonde, was the second most famous Viking ever. The most famous Viking ever? Why that would be Joseph RAGNAR Juranitch, mascot of the Minnesota Vikings, who holds the world record for shaving his beard WITH AN AXE in less than 9 minutes! Take that you Cheeseheads. Leif Eriksson later became known as “Leif the Lucky” for his daring exploits as an explorer. Fran Tarkenton on the other hand became known as “No Tears Tark” for his Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo commercials.

I for one am going to appeal to the Commish Roger Goodell to have our 3 century reign recognized in some format. Perhaps they could give us the Leif Eriksson Trophy or something. I know it doesn’t have quite the ring of the coveted Lombardi Trophy. But I personally think it should have its own room at the Hall of Fame in Canton. The very least that should be done is to give it a place next to the Kensington Rhunestone or Ole the Viking in Alexandria, Minnesota. (A little more historical trivia: there was a line on the Rhunestone that had never been translated until just a couple of years ago. Once translated, it read simply: "Leif Eriksson Bowl XXXVII -- Vikings 42, Saxons 0.”)

Back to the email replies.

Another friend replied with just this, “At this point, Minnesota can have him!” Seven words that sum up an ardent Packer fan’s feelings about perhaps the greatest gunslinger to ever grace the gridiron. Galloping gonzo gorillas gramma!

And another emailed this, “He so needs to get over himself…” Ok, Ok, I totally agree. But if he leads us to a Super Bowl victory, is it ok if he gets over himself next year?

And I think Bert will be 40 years old come October of ‘09. Forty. That compares to 97 years old in any other occupation, including kangaroo boxing and cake baking.

I honestly don’t have a clue how he would do, but it would be pretty neat seeing him under center AGAINST those no-good-lousy-rotten-Cheeseheads (whom I dearly love and admire). The Vikings at Lambeau and Bert Favrey is our quarterback?!?!?! That’s like Rommel commanding Patton’s army in Germany or something. Wow, would that game get the ratings!

And what about the game at the dome? It’s October 5th, 2009. And it’s a MONDAY NIGHT GAME!
The public address announcer comes on -- his words echoing throughout the stadium:

And Now now now now

Number number number number

Four four four four

Bert Bert Bert Bert

Favrey Favrey Favrey Favrey

The fans at the dome just go absolutely nuts! YEAH! BOOYA! WHOLETTHEDOGSOUT!!! WE LOVE YOU BERT! NUMBER FOUR FOREVER! Tears stream down the faces of hardened and bitter 0-4 Viking fans everywhere you look. Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX and XI become distant memories. Visions of sugarplums dance in their heads!

But then all of a sudden the cheers begin to fade. The dome becomes so silent you could almost hear another Tarvaris Jackson pass hit the turf far short of its intended mark.

The crowd looks toward the tunnel in anguished anticipation.

But all you hear is a methodical and rusty “Screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek, screeek..”

Hope fades to horror.

Yep…it’s Number Four all right.

Pushing a walker.

********************************************************************************
Hold It! Newsflash! May 2009. Reports say that Bert will for now remain retired.
Translation: “I would like to avoid those icky sticky hot days in training camp in Mankato…is it ok if I start like say the day before the regular season begins?”

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Hand Dryer Technology

2009-06-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

According to various scientific experiments, numerous government studies, and my mom, washing your hands when you use the restroom is important. Very important. In fact it is so important that there are now a multitude of state regulations that mandate that employees must wash their hands before they return to work. I am guessing that somewhere along the line a generation grew up that didn’t have moms like mine; thus it fell to the government to enact the CINTG (Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness) Statute.

Back in the Middle Ages people dried their hands on weathered buffalo skins and/or papyrus mats. But those always seemed to jam up the dispensers. So dispensers were dispensed with until a better way to dry your hands was invented.

Cloth or linen towel dispensers were invented somewhere about the same time that cars and roads were concocted and people needed to stop and “use the facilities” (it proved too difficult to tow the family outhouse). So when you went into the gas station and used the bathroom you just pulled down on the towel until you came to a clean spot and then wiped your hands. I think the giant towel was unfortunately on a loop, so after about a day or so it was pretty dirty looking. Eventually you just looked for a little white spot between the grease and other crud to dry your hands.

(Just a little regional trivia here: in North Dakota I had a friend that would say “I am going to see a man about a horse” when nature called.)

Next on the dry-your-hands-at-the-gas-station-timeline were paper towel dispensers. Brown paper towels made out of recycled newspaper, algae and duck feathers. But more often than not the paper towel dispensers were jammed so full that all you were able to get out were ripped little shreds of a paper towel. You then proceeded to dry little itsy bitsy portions of your hands until you were done (or the gas station closed, whichever came first).

Also somewhere along this dispenser timeline were the type with cranks, but we don’t have time in this doctoral thesis to discuss those contraptions.

Next came wall mounted blow dryers. Those were pretty good – you weren’t wiping your hands on relooped greasy rags or tiny flecks of brown paper anymore. Your hands were blasted with hot air for about 30 seconds or until you just decided to wipe them on your pants. I usually let the blast go for about 10 seconds – and then wiped them on my pants. However, there was one wall-mounted blow dryer in a store we went into recently that blew so violently you wondered if your skin would peel off. I am not making this up. It reminded me of how the faces of Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase looked after being spun in that astronaut centrifuge thing in the movie “Spies Like Us.”

The latest trend in bathroom technology is toward infrared sensor towel dispensers. They seem to work pretty well – except when you actually need a towel. I have been standing by the sink several feet away from the dispenser when it has mysteriously dispensed a towel all by itself! Its spooky – those paranormal ghost hunters on one of those cable TV channels should do some investigating. I bet if they did some audio recording at night in one of those infrared sensor equipped bathrooms and then played the recording backwards, you would hear this, “!sgnikiV atosenniM eht rof yalp lliw yervaF treB.”

But there is one thing you really need to be aware of with those infrared sensor dispensers. And that is simply this: Where does the motion need to be at?” On most, the sensor is on the front, so you just wave your hand a little and out comes a towel. But at the church we have just begun visiting I couldn’t get the dispenser to dispense and I was feeling a little embarrassed. I waved my hands up and down – nothing happened. I then waved them sideways – but still no towel. Was I supposed to do jumping jacks? I backed up and waited for the restroom poltergeist to have at it. But still nothing.

I was just about ready to dry them on my pants when I decided at the last moment to slowly wave my hand underneath the front of the dispenser. To my delight I heard the familiar JSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSZZZSHSDSSHSHSZZATTTT – and out came a towel! I was giddy that I didn’t have to do jumping jacks!

Now if you could just get out of there without having to touch that germ infested door.

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

From Boils to Blessings…What A Difference a Year Makes

2009-06-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

The man was just a repulsive wreck of humanity. His friends had heard about his illness but when they came to visit him he was so disfigured from his disease that they didn’t recognize him. A few months prior to his hospitalization, all of his children had died in a freak accident and all of his businesses had collapsed under peculiar circumstances. One moment he was enjoying the laughter of his sons and daughters, the next he was overwhelmed with grief from the sight of his children’s coffins. One moment he was dreaming about where he and his wife would travel during retirement, the next he was wondering how he would provide for his spouse.

And the disease spread rapidly throughout his body. Carpeted from head to toe with a horrific mass of boils, the man was in abject misery and despair. Pus would run from the open sores and some of the ulcers festered with maggots and worms. His skin became blackened and fell off in flakes. The itching was continuous and unbearable. Scratching only increased his misery. His hair was gone, his breath was putrid, and any type of food was nauseating to him. His clothes were resown to match the deformity of his body.

Sleep fled from him, but when he could sleep nightmares haunted him. Most of his acquaintances gave up on him and most family members never bothered to visit him. The hospital visitors he did have pelted him with platitudes – he wanted them to just sit with him silently.

Depression haunted him; in the morning he longed for the night and at night he longed for the day

One of his friends implied, “You’re kids got what they deserved;” another said obliquely, “Bad things only happen to bad people.”

He became bitter and broken.

And yet a young man had the courage to say to him while he was in this pathetic circumstance, “I know things are tough, really tough! But God is doing great things which we cannot comprehend!”

That young man was right. In a short while the man’s health was restored and his businesses again flourished. And in a few years he was once more surrounded by the joy and laughter of his children.

The story of Job in the Bible is a remarkable story of faith and patience and hope in God. God is able to turn around the worst of circumstances.

In the spring of 2003 I came close to dieing from an illness I had battled for 20 years. In the spring of 2004 my health was remarkably better and my wife and I were sitting in one of the world’s finest resorts – all expenses paid!

At the lowest of lows Job dared not dream about the future, his circumstances were too dark and depressing. And yet God had a plan for him. If someone had said to me as I lay in the hospital bed, “See this picture of the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas? This is where you will be next year at this time!” I would have thought it impossible.

No matter how dark it is or how depressed you are, God can turn things around for you! Don't ever give up! Don't even think about suicide -- your life has tremendous value and God has a plan for your life! Read the Gospel of John or Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" (www.purposedrivenlife.com) to gain an understanding as to why you are here.

"God thunders with His voice wondrously, doing great things which we cannot comprehend."
Job 37:5

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Kitchen Archeology

2009-03-19T18:55:00.000-05:00

We survived!

We remodeled our kitchen this September through December of 2008 and my wife and I are still married! (Although there was about a 24 hour period where we didn’t speak to each other. But more on that later.)

Most of the rooms in our 1924 home have been remodeled but we just kept putting off doing the kitchen. It was going to take several bags of $100.00 bills; and this fall, with the government “kitchen bailout program,” we finally had enough!

And it wasn’t that the kitchen wasn’t in too bad of shape and just needed a superficial cosmetic job. The kitchen was awful. Plaid carpeting from the 70’s, a dishwasher that hadn’t worked since the last century (honest – I’m not making that up), cabinets from the 50’s (one door was warped and wouldn’t close and a couple of the drawer fronts were held on with sheetrock screws). And the wiring was just plain ghastly; some of it was the old knob and tube stuff (you know, the same wiring technology used by Pharaoh Ramses the Second when he updated his wife’s kitchen).

So we lined up a cabinet guy, lined up a sheetrocker friend, and then had a couple of electricians give us a bid. I asked one of them if this was a one bag-o-money job or a two bag-o-money job. He didn’t laugh.

We started the end of September by ripping out the old flooring. And I am not embellishing this story for literary effect – there were actually 4 LAYERS of old flooring!

The top layer (as I mentioned earlier) was plaid. PLAID! Carpeting that was carbon dated back to the 1970’s – officially known as Plaideozolic Period when normally sane Americans actually put carpeting in the kitchen. This was apparently designed to hide smashed Fruit Loops and dried out chunks of pot roast. There actually was black mold growing underneath this layer – it sort of encircled the fridge. Probably a long forgotten junior high science experiment from some previous family’s mad scientist kid.

Secondly, and directly underneath the Plaideozolic layer was a layer from the 1960’s Hippie Generation called the Vinylozoidian Period. It was sort of a hospital white with a light texture. I think it was meant to offset any psychedelic LSD trips to no-where-land.

Underneath that was a ¼” layer of underlayment from the Plywoodcambrian Period – that layer was held in place 12 gazillion staples that had to be removed ONE AT A TIME!

Underneath that was a layer from the Linoleumiuminum Period dating back to somewhere in the 1940’s. Really cool looking And it actually had (in front of the sink, in front of the pantry, and by the dining room and kitchen entrances) inlaid black and red arrow-like directional pointers (sort of in the shape of sergeant stripes). I guess these were to help you if your mom was like a really bad cook and always burned stuff. You could survive by just hitting the floor and low-crawling your way out of the 10x15 smoke-filled room by following the inlaid directional arrows.

Underneath that was a thin layer of black-felt-tar-glue-like substance that was impregnable to everything just short of dynamite. One night when we were cleaning up our archeological dig I could sorta kinda clearly see imbedded in this layer a set of human foot prints heading toward the fridge from the north and a set of Velociraptor prints heading toward the same spot from the south. It wasn’t real clear but it looks as if they converged right in front of the ancient icebox area. And it looked like quite a struggle ensued. I realize this may be disputed, but in my mind this categorically proves that dinosaurs and humans lived during the same period of time – at least in northern Minnesota.

Finally, under all those layers, we discovered the original flooring that dated back to the 1920’s – the Mapletreesmakegoodfloorium Period. We wanted to restore that floor, but alas, after all that digging it couldn’t be saved.

We tore out the old plaster and lathe (or is it lathter and plath) and carried it out bucket by bucket. The old cabinets were sawzalled and smashed and chucked out the window. We pulled out a lot of the old insulation and prepped the walls for the electrician. He roughed in the electrical in a couple of days. We moved the ceiling fan light fixture over about a foot just because we didn’t have anything else to do. I then ripped out the old windows (three of them) and put in new ones (three of them). You know you live close to your neighbor when you can make sure your new windows are level by lining them up with his siding!

Oh, I almost forgot, I tried to make one small plumbing repair. The part cost 50 cents and I told my wife the water would be turned off for about a ½ hour. This was Sunday afternoon. One day, three trips to Menards, one broken pipe with water shooting to the ceiling, brown icky water flowing into the basement, and a plumber later, it was fixed. Me and plumbing do not get along.

The sheetrocker guy did a great job and was done in about a week (I have learned the hard way that taping and mudding is more complicated than rocket surgery or brain science). We painted the walls and ceiling a color that would best hide any sort of exploding meat loaf (just kidding -- actually my wife is a GREAT cook; in our 35 years of marriage she has NEVER exploded ANYTHING in the kitchen that I am aware of).

Then came flooring weekend. We went with the old style tongue and really groovey flooring (red oak) so I went to the local Rent-A-Weapon store and reserved one of those flooring nailers. After 2 days of preparation and some precise mathematical calculations I was ready to start. My wife laid out the random pattern of flooring lengths (she was the Randomnator), my daughter made sure all the flooring pieces fit together nice and tight (she was the Hammerchiselsnuggelator), and I was the Bossinator/Nailerator. That nail gun was really cool – you lined it up and hit with a mallet. That set off a miniature nuclear explosion that could drive a 2” staple through steel.

After that the floor was sanded, stained and varnished. I applied the varnish with a mop-like sort of thing that was highly recommended by a person at the local home improvement store. When it was dry it looked like the floor had a bad case of P.A. (polyurethane acne). Note to self: if you ask an “Associate” for advice at one of those home improvement stores, always ask to see their “I’ve actually done a home remodeling job” card.

A couple days later the cabinet guys came and got their part done. Wow what a difference! (If you’re looking for a good cabinet guy, call me).

I installed the sink, hooked up the garbage disposal and connected the dishwasher. We turned on the water and I held my breath. NOT A SINGLE DRIP! I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT! IT WAS A MIRACLE! I actually called my mom, turned on the garbage disposal, and said, “Hey mom, listen to this!” (I recently read in one of those handyman magazines where a guy wanted to save a few bucks by fixing the hinge on his dishwasher door. He got that fixed but when he pushed the dishwasher back into place he didn’t realize that he had knocked the water line loose. The next morning his wife came into the bedroom screaming. The basement ceiling was falling down! Water had run through the floor/ceiling and saturated the ceiling tile all night long. It finally collapsed! That’s not a good way to start your day).

The appliance guys delivered the appliances (not a single scratch anywhere – again another minor miracle) and I leveled the fridge and stove and dishwasher and installed the microwave. The plumber guy that I had met during my earlier “How plumbing can turn 50 cents into 15,000 cents” adventure came and hooked up the gas to the gas stove.

Over the next couple of weeks my wife unpacked all the dishes and I finished up a couple of small detail jobs.

What a great feeling of accomplishment when it was done.

But as I mentioned at the beginning, there was about a 24 hour period where neither my wife nor I talked to each other (but now that I think about it – it was actually more like 48 hours). OK, I guess there were a few other times that it got a little tense, but at least we talked to each other…for example:

Kay: Dan, WHERE IS YOUR BRAIN?
Dan: I LEFT IT AT MENARDS IN THE PLUMBING DEPARTMENT!!!

It turns out that our city electrical code demands that a smoke detector must be installed somewhere on the same floor that any remodeling job is being done on. The electrician explained that it couldn’t be put in a corner, couldn’t be put too near the ceiling, couldn’t be put too near the floor, couldn’t be put anywhere that was inconspicuous, and was to be installed directly in the middle of any wall where the homeowner wanted to hang stuff. Period. Which in our case meant installing it in our newly remodeled dining room SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL DIRECTLY ABOVE THE ANTIQUE HUTCH! I had to admit it was horrid looking. I thought and thought and thought and thought about how we could disguise it. My mom is a very talented painter and had painted quaint country scenes on an old shovel of ours and an old lumberjack saw and an old ironing board and an old cheesebox and other stuff. Maybe she could do sort of a really tiny Terry Redlin Americana scene on it. I thought and thought and thought some more. Finally, after much prayer and deliberation and reflection, I came up with a solution.

“Honey, lets just hang a hubcap over it!”

And that’s when the 48 hour period of silence began.

The Theology of a Stapler

2009-03-18T18:59:00.000-05:00

My brother sent me an email a couple of months ago titled “Through A Child’s Eyes.” It was simply a compilation of short letters that kids had written to God. Among them was one by Nan that said, “Dear God, I bet it is very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.” And Larry wrote, “Dear God, maybe Cain and Able would not kill each other so much if they had their own room – it works for me and my brother.” Robert wrote, “Dear God, I am an American, what are you?” Denise said, “Dear God if we come back as something, please don’t let me be Jennifer Horton because I hate her.” And another by Joyce said, “Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy.” They all brought a smile to your face as you pictured each child, deep in thought, penning their deepest questions to God.

But there was one that caught my attention. It was written by Ruth and said simply, “Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions. “ Can’t you just see some little red haired, pig-tailed 5 year old watching her dad staple a bunch of papers together and thinking, “Wow!" How does that work?” I was a pretty inquisitive kid and took a lot of things apart to see how they worked. But much to my parents chagrin I rarely put them back together correctly.

As adults we immediately dismiss Ruth’s conclusion. We know that the lowly desk stapler was invented by and constructed by man. It’s a pretty simple machine – am guessing maybe around 20 parts. And yet when Apollo 11 landed on the moon in the summer 1969 if they had found a stapler laying in the dusty lunar surface, the immediate conclusion would not be, “Pretty cool how this evolved.” It would rather be, “Hey, how did Swingline get here first?” (That’s one small staple for a man, one giant Stapler for mankind!”). Or maybe NASA would hold a news conference and say, “We have concluded that the only feasible way that a stapler would find its way to the moon is that it was planted there by intelligent life from the Swingline Spiral Galaxy!”

For a machine as simple and basic as a stapler to come into existence, it takes intelligent design. That’s a given. Even if you placed the raw materials in a room full of 6th graders for an entire year, you would probably still not get a functioning stapler. And yet when astronomers peer into the outer reaches of space or microbiologists examine the immense complexity of a single cell, the conclusion that “it just sort of randomly happened without any purpose” seems to go against the evidence before us.

There is design everywhere we look. You witness design in the spiral pattern of a sunflower head (the Fibonacci number sequence), in the heavenly beauty of a spiral galaxy, and even in a Ford Galaxy! (I think Chevy guys would disagree right about now).

In fact every cell in the human body seems to cry out, “Designed!” Within each of the about 2 trillion cells in the human body there is contained a microfine five foot long strand of DNA -- our genetic code. EVERY CELL! And each of those strands contains as much information as is contained in a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica – about 44 million words. Now if Jodi Foster suddenly hollered, “CONTACT!” (Get it?) – and began downloading 44 million words from the Vega System, wouldn’t the immediate conclusion be that SETI had encountered an extraterrestrial civilization? And yet each of our cells is sending us a message, “Yo Adrian! It’s me, God! You are fearfully and wonderfully designed for a purpose. (Psalm 139).

A prominent critic of intelligent design and creation, Richard Dawkins says, “A key feature of evolution is its gradualness. This is a matter of principle rather than fact. . . . Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation. —*Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, p. 83 (1995) quoted on www.answersingenesis.org.

Charles Darwin said in his “Origin of the Species": “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Perhaps the “simple” cell is just such an example. The following is quoted from www.ideacenter.org: “Michael Denton, in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, states "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10^-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." In a word, the cell is complicated. Very complicated.”

I believe it was Michael Behe, a biochemist from Lehigh University and author of the book, “Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, that penned the concept of “irreducible complexity.” Behe believes that evolution could explain the later development of animals, but he gravely doubts if evolution can explain the existence of the cell. That term “irreducible complexity” basically means that a cell can only function as a complete unit and could not have come into existence through the process of “gradualness.” To illustrate he uses the example of a simple mousetrap. If any of the parts are missing (I think a total of 7 parts) the mousetrap ceases to function smoothly. Thus with the cell: unless all of the parts are there, the cell will not function. Another example that is given to refute the theory of evolution and gradualness is the amazing process through which blood clots – if any of the steps are missing the process will not work. There are those that refute this idea of “irreducible complexity” and point out that Behe’s mousetrap could indeed function with less parts. But it seems that what they fail to point out is that a) they begin with a full set of parts already in existence and work backward from that, and b) they are using “intelligent design” to reduce and rearrange the parts and still be able to catch a mouse!

To illustrate this enormous complexity and mind-boggling intricacy of the cell, an example that is sometimes given is the bacterial flagella. (Or is it flagellum? I never get that singular/plural Latin thing right). Behe points out, "In 1973 it was discovered that some bacteria swim by rotating their flagella. So the bacterial flagellum acts as a rotary propeller — in contrast to the cilium, which acts more like an oar."—Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, p. 70.

But the flagellum (or flagella ) tail doesn’t just simply rotate – it spins at an amazing 10,000+ RPM! And not only that, it can stop in ¼ turn and reverse direction. There is NO (NONE, ZILCH, NYET) engine on planet earth designed by any car/plane/motorcycle manufacturer that can do that! (Very few can even rev past 10,000 RPM). To suddenly stop an engine spinning at that velocity would really really mess up your garage. David J. DeRosier says, “More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human" (David J. DeRosier, Cell 93, 17 (1998)). Quoted from www.ideacenter.org)

If you Google “rotating flagellum” (or flagella) you can find a mammoth amount of information about this fascinating microscopic machine. There are also some amazing artistic renditions of this thing. It looks like something out of a futuristic Chilton’s Car Repair Manual or something that George Lucas designed for Jar Jar Binks to ride around in Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clowns (or maybe it was Star Wars I, I can’t remember…I was just glad when Jar Jar went bye bye).

In his book “Darwin’s Black Box” Behe makes the following statement, “In summary, as biochemists have begun to examine apparently simple structures like cilia and flagella, they have discovered staggering complexity, with dozens or even hundreds of precisely tailored parts. It is very likely that many of the parts we have not considered here are required for any cilium to function in a cell. As the number of required parts increases, the difficulty of gradually putting the system together skyrockets, and the likelihood of indirect scenarios plummets. Darwin looks more and more forlorn. New research on the roles of the auxiliary proteins cannot simplify the irreducibly complex system. The intransigence of the problem cannot be alleviated; it will only get worse. Darwinian Theory has given no explanation for the cilium or flagellum. The overwhelming complexity of the swimming systems push us to think it may never give an explanation. (p. 73)” quoted on www.veritas-ucsb.org

Back to our lowly stapler and little Ruthie’s statement, “Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions.“ I don’t have a degree in biology. I don’t have a degree in astronomy. I don’t have a degree in philosophy. And if I were to debate Richard Dawkins or another eminent evolutionist I would probably wind up as a blithering glob of goo. But I do have a degree in Common Sense (or at least my wife does). And it just seems utterly absurd to me that we can look at something as simple as a stapler and draw the conclusion of intelligent design, and yet we can view the Ferrari of the cell world and think, “It just sort of happened.” Perhaps we think Ruthie’s statement as cute and funny and amusing. But I think in her innocence she strikes closer to the truth than those who, after viewing the intricacy of the cell (and in particular the little flagellum/flagella), conclude, “Wow! It sure has the appearance of being designed. But I guess it’s just some random forces at work through the magical potion of natural selection and gradualness.”

Alvin Allison wrote a book titled “From Monkeys to Men and Back: A Preposterously Essential Science Lesson According To A Darn Good Ex Chicken Farmer. In it he said something like, “If a giraffe can evolve a longer neck by stretching, what might yawning end up doing to us humans?” But he also says this about his reason for writing the book, “I wrote From Monkeys to Men and Back in hopes that those who feel as I do about the teaching of evolution might get a laugh out of it while at the same time receiving even more reason to continue believing that the only possible way humans could’ve gotten here is not because some monkey lost practically his entire ability to scamper up a tree, but because of an intentional creative act by a loving Creator.” (Found on www.authorhouse.com”)

Psalm 139:14-17
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

Dan Vander Ark
2009 All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com
onetoomanypotatoes.blogspot.com

Looking For The R & S Bookstore And Other Mysteries Of Las Vegas (Subtitle: We Don’t Get Out Much)

2009-03-01T22:00:00.000-06:00

From 1977 until 2004 my wife and I didn’t fly on one single commercial jet. Its not that we were afraid to fly, it’s just that, well, I guess we didn’t have any place to go. Although I did fly a couple times on a de Havilland Beaver on our way to a couple of fishing trips in Canada – I sat next to the fuel drums and you had to YELL REAL LOUD TO TALK TO THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU SO THEY COULD HEAR. So in 2004 when my wife was awarded a trip to the Bahamas we went. When I told my mom we would be flying she said (and I quote), “Yeah Danny, they even have jets now!”

In 2005 she was awarded another trip to Hawaii and we flew there too (dah).

And we flew to Phoenix a couple times to visit my brother.

So this past February when we flew to Las Vegas to attend my nephew’s wedding, we figured we were pretty seasoned world travelers. And for those who know us, “Dan and Kay are going to Las Vegas” is almost as ludicrous of a statement as “the Vikings have won the Super Bowl!”

We left O’Dark Early on Friday. The ticket lady at the Duluth Airport was really nice. I brought along some cookies my daughter had made and I asked if she wanted one. “No thanks!” she replied politely. Was probably one of those post 911 regulation things – am guessing Homeland Security was on the lookout for a Dutchman wearing suspenders carrying a baggie full of Spritz cookies.

When we went through security we made sure we didn’t have any axes or scissors with us and that we had all of our carry on liquid stuff in a quart sized baggie.
“Pay attention!” my wife said, “Your baggie is in here!”
“OK I said,” noticing how crumbled my cookies had become.
When I went through the Stargate Metal Detector portal it started beeping.
It was my suspenders. I had an inkling they might set off the alarm, but I wasn’t too alarmed
The security guy asked if I wanted a) to take them off (No thank you! They just happen to hold my shirt down!) or b) go through added security. Much to my wife’s dismay I chose door number two. The security guard directed me to go back to the private room that EVERYONE coming through security could see into. As directed I placed my feet on the inlaid footprints and stretched out my arms with the palms up. I felt like I should close my eyes and start chanting or something. After about 10 minutes he determined that I was not a terrorist, just some sort of suspendered geek with a baggie full of cookie crumbs.

My wife and I made it to Las Vegas about 11:00. One of the flight attendants directed everyone to go to carousel C to get their luggage. So off we went in search of carousel C with a zillion other people who were coming to Las Vegas for the weekend.

Turns out carousel C was in another building that you had to take a tram to. A tram it turns out is similar to a train, except that it rams you back and forth as you ride it…thus the name: tram.

But it turned out that one of the trams was not running, so for crowd control the airport people filtered us through one of those zig zag stockyard cattle rope things. You know – where you want to get to point B which is like 10 feet away but first you have to go 100’ this way and then 100’ that way and then 100’ this way and then 100’ that way.

MOOOOOOOOOO!

One of airport guys hollered (and I am not making this up), “Floor Space! I don’t want to see any floor space!” Apparently you are only allotted one square foot per person.

MOOOOOOOOOO!

At last we waddled our way onto the tram and proceeded at the speed of light to the suitcase building. We finally found carousel C, got our luggage but didn’t know where we were supposed to catch the bus to the hotel/casino. So I asked some guy that looked like he worked for the airport.
.
“Excuse me sir, could you tell me where to catch this bus?” I showed him the voucher.

“Door #12!” he said, obviously irritated.

“And where’s door #12?” I asked.

He pointed. “See! Door #9, door #10, door #11, door #12!”

I felt like saying, “Thanks Doorknob.” But I didn’t. It seemed as though “Minnesota Nice” was about 1500 miles east and north.

When we got to the casino/hotel and walked in, it was then that I realized, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore Toto!”

We registered but had to wait about 3 hours before we could check in so I called my brother. “Hey Bro, we is here!” They headed toward us from the Paris and we ventured out and headed toward them from the Imperial.

We really did have a great time visiting with my brother and his wife, seeing Scott and Lindsey get married, going to the Hoover Dam and just seeing the sites. And I was taking more pictures than Jacques Cousteau on the bottom of the ocean.

However, as we walked through one of the casinos I happened to notice a sign that read “R & S Book.” Now I love killing time in a bookstore. “Hey honey, let’s go find this place.” We meandered around for awhile in the casino but never did find the R & S bookstore. The next day I noticed the same sign in a different casino, but we never found that bookstore either.

That was puzzling to me. When we got home I emailed my sister-in-law.

“Moe, does ‘R & S Book’ mean something like Race and Sports Betting?”

“You got it!” she replied.

We don’t get out much. ;>)

Praying With A Lonely Lady on the Vegas Strip

2009-03-01T17:24:00.000-06:00

To those who know me, using the words “Dan” and “Las Vegas” in the same sentence seems like some sort of weird anomaly. “YOU’RE going to Las Vegas?!?!” My nephew was getting married and we wanted to be there for Scott and Lindsey’s wedding. So we flew out on Friday, attended the Wedding Saturday, went to the Hoover Dam on Sunday, and flew back on Monday. And I didn’t dance at the reception. I told my wife if they had a slow dance I would dance, but they didn’t so I didn’t. My brother and sister-in-law tried to get me to dance, but I am only extroverted on the inside. Maybe you’ve heard of the movie, “White Men Can’t Jump”? Well this Dutchman can’t dance. I did however tap my foot to the beat…at least I think it was the beat.

It was a really nice wedding and we had a really great time.

I took a bazillian pictures. However, we didn’t gamble a single penny. If there is anyone else out there that has PURPOSELY flown to Las Vegas and NOT gambled, please raise your right hand.

We walked the strip, saw the water show at the Bellagio, witnessed the volcano going off at the Mirage and almost bumped into Elvis. My wife had her picture taken with a rather waxy Nicolas Cage and I did with a paraffin Don King. Even though some spots were shoulder to shoulder people, it was fun. I like the people watching thing. On Sunday night we were to meet my brother and his wife at the Paris for supper but had some time to kill so we just wandered around for a while and did some window shopping.

On our way out of the Bellagio we just “happened” to bump into an older lady (I don’t know – 65 maybe?) that was nicely dressed but a little tipsy. She just sorta started talking with us and asked where we were going. She kind of volunteered to show us how to get to where we needed to go. Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” was the song at the water show and she stopped, put her glass down, raised her hands and cheered when it was done. (I get a lump in my throat whenever I hear that song). As we kept going and either we followed her or she followed us we continued our conversation. We paused within half a block of the Paris; she put her packages down and just kept on talking. She shared about some of the problems in her family – I knew that we had to meet my brother but I resisted the temptation to look at my watch. After she talked some more I put my arm around her and told her that Jesus loved her and cared about her problems. I then asked her for just her first name and said that we would pray for her and her husband. She said, “Are you a minister?” I said, “Yes I am.” Her immediate reply was, “I thought you said you worked at a medical facility?” (This and a couple other of her comments made us realize that, even though she had been drinking, she was more than sort of with it) I quickly explained to her that I do both but in order not to scare people away by immediately telling them I am a preacher I usually just tell them I work in a purchasing department of a large medical facility. I mentioned we would pray for her and her husband and family. That’s when she grabbed our hands and said, “Lets pray RIGHT NOW!” Pretty much surrounded by people the three of us bowed our heads on a really busy corner just down from the Paris. She prayed a little and then abruptly said, “OK, it’s your turn!” Kay and I both prayed for her. I felt the love of God well up in my heart for her as we prayed and I became immune to the crowds and the need to meet my brother. We finished, chatted a little more and then went our separate ways.

She headed back to her time-share apartment. I honestly have no idea if any of our conversation sunk in or how much of our prayer she grasped. Her doctor-husband had flown out earlier and she was alone. Maybe she just fell asleep, maybe she drank some more, maybe she wished some friends were with her. Or maybe she wondered if God really does love her.

God cares intensely about people. Read the Gospel of John chapters three, four and five. In chapter three Jesus met at night with a VIP of Jerusalem named Nicodemus. To this outstanding and upright citizen (who knows, maybe he was voted the husband and father of the year) Jesus said, “You have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God.” In chapter four Jesus just “happened” to run into a woman at a dusty well just outside of Drunktown. She was hardly your model citizen. Five failed marriages, living with number 6 and the social outcast of Sychar. Yet Jesus took the initiative to gently break through her hardened exterior and extend to her the gift of eternal life. In chapter five he found a man at the pool of Bethesda that was paralyzed for 38 years. You get the feeling that maybe he blamed everyone and everything for his problems. Yet Jesus stopped, healed the man, and lifted him out of his paralyzed condition.

Maybe you are a leader of your community like Nicodemus or maybe you feel like a social outcast like the woman at the well. Or maybe you are lying paralyzed in your problems like the man beside the pool, or maybe you are just like the lonely lady on the Vegas strip. Whatever your situation, Jesus cares for you. John 3:16 reminds us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever (YOU!) believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!”

Help! I’m Taking Care of a Six Year Old!

2008-09-01T15:30:00.000-05:00

About a month ago I asked my daughter if it would be ok if I took Noah with me back to my mom’s for the weekend (about a 200 mile trip to her lake home in western Minnesota).

I am 53.
My grandson is 6.

“Sure,” she said, “He would like that.”

I picked him up at about 10:00 AM on Friday and promised to have him back at about 4:00 PM on Sunday. That’s about 54 hours; I figured I ought to be able to survive that.

Before I left my wife gave me some very explicit instructions. Like, “Make sure you don’t lose Noah!” And “If he’s down by the water make sure he has his lifejacket on!” And this, “Make sure you put plenty of sunscreen on him.” And this reminder, “Make sure you feed him!” Now like I’m gonna forget that. And finally this, “Remember, he’s a six year old!”

We made the trip there in about 5 hours. Noah brought along his portable DVD player. Wow, are those cool…it’s like having a Nanny riding along with you. As I was driving my S-10 Pickup, he pretty much just watched a couple of movies on the way there. When I glanced at him watching the video I began to wonder. I wondered how, when our kids were young, we ever made it across the Dakotas in the old 63 Plymo Limo Belvedere with no radio, no tape player, no seat belts, no air conditioning, no air bags and a steel dashboard.

Anyway, back to the trip.

When we got there Friday the weather was a little cool but I took him for a ride on my brother’s jet ski. I cranked the throttle wide open on a calm portion of the lake and we were suddenly thrust backward with about 4G’s of force. Noah hollered, “Wow! That’s why they call it a JET ski!”

A long time ago Charles Dickens wrote a novel titled “A Tale of Two Cities.” He began the novel by saying, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That summed up Saturday.

About 11:00 we went to play miniature golf and then we went go-carting. That was the best of times.

Around 2:00 Noah began to get sick, he slept a couple of hours and then got really sick about 5:00. That was the worst of times.

About 7:00 he began feeling better and we went for a long jet ski ride. It was a gorgeous evening. That was the best of times.

After the jet ski ride he fished for a few minutes off the end of the dock. He was dressed in shorts, sandals, t-shirt, sweatshirt and a lifejacket. When he went to get the worms and bring them to me he fell off the dock and was soaked. That was the worst of times.

I dried him off, had him put his pajamas on and got him a bowl of ice-cream. That was the best of times.

When I came back into the bedroom I couldn’t figure out why there was a white flakey substance all over the bed. And in his hair. The ceiling slopes in that bedroom, and yep, you figured it out. He started jumping on the bed and must have smacked his head pretty hard against the ceiling to knock loose all that white ceiling texture. I asked him if it hurt. He said, “Yep Grampa, it did.” That was the worst of times.

He played some computer games on my laptop and then we went to bed. That was the best of times.

The next day we left my mom’s about 11:00 and made it back in plenty of time

I thought about the checklist my wife had given me:

#1...Don’t lose Noah! Mission accomplished.
#2...Make sure he has his lifejacket on! Mission accomplished. And good thing – when he fell off the dock he floated just like the styrofoam container the worms were in.
#3...Put plenty of sunscreen on him! Mission accomplished.
#4...Make sure you feed him! Mission accomplished. My mom’s cooking, especially her pancakes, did the trick.
#5...Remember he’s a six year old. I remembered.

I also remembered I’m 53.

Note to self: to prepare yourself for next year’s adventure, first…go through Navy Seals Training.

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved

Oh Two Sensors, A Kitty-Litter Converter, and Other Mysteries About My Wife’s Car

2008-09-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

My wife’s car isn’t quite a lemon, but it’s close. Whatever fruit comes just before lemon in the “how reliable is your car?” fruit rating system, that’s where our car is at (kumquat maybe?) In fact, it seems abnormal NOT to have the check engine light on. We have replaced the crank sensor, 3 coil packs, one head gasket, the wheels (not the tires, but the WHEELS), and a multitude of other million dollar parts. When the head gasket started going bad I tried to sell the car to one of my coworkers, but he didn’t bite. I told him it didn’t really run that bad – all you had to do was replace the number 3 sparkplug each morning and then you were good for the day! I even said I would throw in some spark plugs, but for whatever reason, he didn’t want to buy it.

So this past week when the check engine light came on just four days after having it “fixed” (and I use the term “fixed” in the loosest possible meaning of the word), I again had to contact the mechanic. His response? “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Not really, he’s a very good mechanic, but he just can’t figure out why I should be having so much trouble with this make and model of car. “I have never heard of this happening before” is a common expression he uses whenever I tell him about the newest car problem.

But this time I decided to first try one other thing before I took it to the mechanic. I knew that the local auto parts store loaned out tools so I thought maybe they would loan out one of those mysterious Auto DaVinci Code readers (you know…one of those little hand-held “check engine light” gadgets). And perhaps they would also help me interpret the code. So I asked if they loaned them out for normal citizens to use. They didn’t but one of their employees would gladly hook it up and read the code out in the parking lot (and help decipher it).

And all this for free! I will have the “check engine light” code read for less than the cost of the car itself.

So out she came with the magical instrument to read the check engine light code. And I guess it’s not really a “Check Engine NOW” light.” When mine comes on it simply says this, “Service Engine Soon.” And I have to confess – I see it more as a suggestion light rather than a warning light. If it really was a warning light, wouldn’t it shout out in big bold red letters something like, “HEY! ARE YOU AN AMOEBA? GET TO THE MECHANIC NOW! Instead, it’s just sort of a warm and friendly sunset golden color light that softly whispers in a Minnesota nice tone, “I know you’re having a hard day, but maybe you should think about taking your car in to your mechanic whenever it fits into your schedule.” And another thing…how do you interpret “soon?” Is that “soon” as in “Your Engine is going to Explode in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 KABOOM!” soon? Or “soon” as in “The Minnesota Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl soon!” soon? (Meaning your car will have long since returned to iron ore before you have to worry about it).

She plugged it in, and under her instructions I turned the ignition to “ON.”
I thought I heard her say, “Oh my, Oh dear! Whoa…I’ve never seen that before!”
I quickly stepped out of the car to look. “What? Never seen what?”
It was probably just the glare of the sun but I thought I saw the screen say “EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE REPLACED! With the picture of lemon next to it.

“Aha! Its saying your O2 Sensors are bad.”
“Oh, Two Sensors? I have two sensors for what?” I asked
“Not “Oh-Two” sensors,” she replied, “O2 sensors – oxygen sensors.”
Now I was starting to think, “What do I have oxygen sensors for? Like when I go through Beartooth Pass in Montana or Wyoming or wherever that mountain pass is located…it senses the lack of air and O2 masks will drop down from the head liner?”

She continued, “I think you have one in the engine compartment and one underneath by the kitty-litter converter.” Now I am like totally befuddled. My car converts kitty litter to energy? No wonder the Japanese have moved ahead of Ford and GM. But I later learned it’s not a kitty-litter converter, it’s a catalytic converter. Sometimes I don’t hear so good. Like all these decades I thought Julie Andrews in the movie "Mary Poppins" was singing, “Super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.” I just recently learned IT’S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL! I always wondered why she would be singing about a bitter and brittle old wiseman that had bad breath.

“You have one in the engine compartment and one under the car, and this first one is saying that your left bank is lean?”
Now I am somewhat overweight according to the governmental standards, but I NEVER thought it was causing my car to lean.
“And,” she continued, “Your right bank is also lean.”
Lean to the left, Lean to the right, stand up, sit down, my car ain’t right!”

She then asked if I wanted the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light cleared out so it would turn off.
“You can just clear it out without me having it fixed? I asked in an astonished tone.
“Yep,” she replied.
I wanted to hug her.
“Yes!!! By all means…Clear it out!”

Because I prefer denial over reality, I just put a piece of duct tape over the SERVICE ENGINE SOON message board area. I am guessing the light is on. And I guess I will service the engine soon…as soon as the Vikings win the Super Bowl.

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved

Gutter Blaster

2008-09-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

I made a trip to my local home improvement store the other day to try to improve my home. While I was there buying cool stuff I will never use, I saw something on sale that I thought might actually come in handy. And it was only $3.00. It was a “Gutter Blaster.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of finicky the way my yard looks. If even a single blade of grass so much as looks like its going to get out of place I am there to trim it. Sometimes me-thinks the neighbors just roll there eyes over my finickiness. And I especially don’t want stuff growing in my gutters!

Anyway some of the gutters are really high off the ground so it’s hard to get at them. So when I saw the gutter blaster I thought to myself, “Someone else on the planet must be sick of trying to get to really high gutters to clean out all the junk in them.”

When I got home I hurriedly opened the box to get a first hand look at the “Blaster.” My heart sank a little as it was in about 3 pieces – I had to put it together. I stuck the aluminum part A with the down spout blaster nozzle into part C, only to realize I had forgotten part B so I stuck that on (who needs directions), and then hurriedly hooked it to the hose. (Oh, by the way, at another local home improvement store I was looking at hoses and wanted a really nice one and saw a couple that said, “Professional Garden Hose.” I came really close to asking the clerk if they had any “Amateur Garden Hoses”.)

With the blaster in hand I headed to the first gutter – the low lying ones on the garage to test it out.

I flipped the little lever thingy to turn the water on full throttle and, ummmm, (I am searching for words right here.) Well I guess all I can say is, “WOW!!!” Doouble WWOOWW!! My arm almost wound up in my neighbors yard!!! That thing had enough pressure to pulverize granite! If you aren’t careful it will almost peal the gutters OFF FROM THE HOUSE!

Against all of my manly instincts, I raced back to the house and read the directions. And they said this under the section called “Safety and Maintenance”: DON’T TURN THE WATER LINE ON TO FULL PRESSURE THE FIRST TIME YOU USE YOUR GUTTER BLASTER!” I am totally serious; I am not making that up. And it also said this (again under safety and maintenance): Do not point the nozzle toward any living creature!” I can see why. I wonder if the Army knows about this thing.

So I went back to my gutter blasting (making sure to use both arms while leaning into the gutter to offset the blast pressure) and got those gutters so clean you could almost eat off from them.

But here’s the real kicker. At the bottom of the directions (again I am not making this up) it says this: “Your gutter junk blaster and HANGING PLANTS WATER SPRINKLER!”

Hanging plants water sprinkler? I can just see it now. You take your gutter blaster out to your wife’s hanging plants on the deck and turn it on. With dirt and debris flying everywhere and green stuff whizzing by at the speed of sound like its being shot out of salad shooter, your wife asks (in the cool, calm and collected voice of a basic training drill sergeant), “WHAT ARE YOU DOING VANDER-ARK??? WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING MY PLANTS!!!!”????

And your answer?

“Oh hi honey, I’m just following the directions…”

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved

Tear Bottles

2008-09-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

Does God care about your problems?

There’s a very interesting verse in the middle of Psalm 56 that indicates that He does, and in a much closer and more passionate way than you and I may think. Psalm 56:8 says this, “Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy book?”

This Psalm is a recounting by King David of a very stressful time in his life when he had been wrongly accused and found himself to be a fugitive in his own country (remember the TV series and the movie remake “The Fugitive” in which Dr. Richard Kimble was wrongly accused of murdering his wife and had to flee for his life?). David was innocent and was trying to stay one step ahead of the “Law” (King Saul). He was fleeing for his life and even sought shelter in remote caves.

Afterward, when David thought about what he had gone through, he wrote, “Thou hast taken account of my wanderings…” The New Living Translation puts it this way, “You keep track of all my sorrows.” And the version of the Bible called The Message puts it this way, “You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights.” You (God) are profoundly concerned about me as I am driven from one place to another. Adam Clarke paraphrases it this way, “I am hunted everywhere; but You number all my hiding-places, and see how often I am in danger of losing my life.”

Then David continues in this verse by making this remarkable statement, “Put my tears in Thy bottle, are they not in Thy book?” The New Living Translation says, “You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book.” And The Message says this, “Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.”

What was David referring to and what did he mean when he said, “You put my tears in Your bottle?”

To best describe what this portion of verse 8 is saying let me quote from a commentary called Barnes Notes. Albert Barnes says this, “It is possible, and, indeed, it seems probable, that there is an allusion here to the custom of collecting tears shed in a time of calamity and sorrow, and preserving them in a small bottle or "lachrymatory" as a memorial of the grief. (A “lachrymatory” was a very small bottle, like a perfume bottle, sometimes made out of simple clay and sometimes made out of agate or other precious stone.) The Romans had a custom, that in a time of mourning (for instance, on a funeral occasion) a friend went to one in sorrow, and wiped away the tears from the eyes with a piece of cloth, and squeezed the tears into a small bottle of glass or earth, which was carefully preserved as a memorial of friendship and sorrow…these lachrymatories are still found in great numbers on opening ancient tombs. A sepulchre lately discovered in one of the gardens of our city had scores of them in it. They are made of thin glass, or more generally of simple pottery, often not even baked or glazed, with a slender body, a broad bottom, and a funnel-shaped top. They have nothing in them but dust at present.”

So to sum up this short passage, when David had time to reflect about that period in his life when he was literally one step ahead of death, he said essentially this, “God you care so deeply for me that You literally have taken account of every single one of my tears. And you not only notice them, but you also treasure them up Your divine Tear Bottle and record them in Your book!”

God notices, treasures, and records your tears!

There is a verse in Revelation that amplifies this astonishing love and care. The last part of Revelation 7:17 says this, “…God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Does God care about your problems? The answer is absolutely YES!

You may at times feel like you are being hounded and harassed by problem after problem. Or maybe your heart has been broken through the loss of a loved one. Or it may seem that there is no way out of your financial predicament. Or perhaps you are having difficulty in your marriage or other family relationships.

God cares for you!

There is a God that notes every single one of your tears. Pour out your heart before Him today, take all of your cares and concerns to Him and watch Him answer in remarkable ways.

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Things I Think Are Funny

2008-09-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

Back in the last millennium a former coworker and I got into an argument about whether hot water or cold water made ice cubes faster. She had heard (and so did I but I didn’t tell her that) that hot water in ice cube trays turns into ice faster than cold water in ice cube trays. I think the article was in Reader’s Digest, so it had to be true. We made a bet. Out in the warehouse was a refrigerator with a small freezer on top. I filled my tray with cold water, Jane filled hers with steaming hot water and we put them in the freezer. I think we decided to give it 3 hours and then check on the trays. She worked in the office and I worked in the warehouse. After about 2 hours and 50 minutes I took her tray out, snuck it into the bathroom and filled it up with really hot water and put it back in the freezer. At the 3 hour mark we went together and checked the trays. I think mine actually started to ice over, but the water in hers was still hot! And steam was rolling off her tray. She sort of shrugged her shoulders and said something like, “Well I guess it doesn’t work.” Her faith in Reader’s Digest was shattered. I didn’t tell her what I had done and just said with a straight face, “Yep.” She went back into the office, but only moments later she yelled, “DAN!” Someone told her what I had done. I thought that was funny.

I think it would be funny to mow the lawn in the winter – maybe right after the first snowfall of about 6” of fluffy snow. Our house is on a busy residential street with a yard only 29 feet wide. Just crank up the mower and watch the snow fly! And then rake it when you’re done…that would be funny. Once we did see a guy after a snowstorm clearing the sidewalk with his snowblower while just wearing shorts. That was funny. Only in Duluth.

When we were fishing on the Bloodvein River in Canada my brothers and I thought it would be funny to put on bear suits and sit on the river bank in lawn chairs with fishing poles and wave at any boats that went by. We would have to be prepared to run like crazy though in case anybody wanted to shoot at us. And I think it would be funny to drive around town in a gorilla suit and wave at people. That would be funny.

My friend at work thought it would be funny to replace my hand lotion with Elmer’s Glue. I couldn’t figure out why my hands were so sticky when I went to use the hand lotion. Another coworker happened to walk by just as this was happening. She said the look on my face was priceless. She was the same coworker that usually parked crooked in the parking lot at work. So me and the Elmer’s Glue Coworker (henceforth known as “GlueMan”) went down to the print shop, asked them to cut some long strips of yellow paper for portable parking lines. We went out into the parking lot and just rolled out the parking lines right where she was crookedly parked. We gave them to her so she could just park whichever way she wanted wherever she wanted – all she had to do was just park and roll out the lines. We thought that was funny. Although I hesitated telling this as I have noticed how crooked I park.

My wife and I went to a rummage sale the other day. There was an old wooden kitchen chair that was priced at 25 cents. I asked if they would take 24 cents. I thought that was funny, and so did the rummage owner. I bought the chair for the full quarter.

I saw a young woman at the mall going up the up escalator (dah) while talking on her cell phone. We were going down the down escalator. I thought it would be funny if I had her cell number, called her and said, “Hey, I see you’re moving up in the world!”

I think it would be funny to have one of those big old Army walkie-talkies from WWII (you’ve seen them – they’re about as big as a horses leg), go walking down the sidewalk in our busy residential area, and talk on it just like a normal cell phone. That would be funny. Or hang an old rotary desk phone from your waist and use the handset just like the cell phone. That might be funny too.

Oh…and you know when your plane lands at the airport and then comes the moment when you can use your cell phone again? With 99% of the people calling home, calling their friends, calling the people waiting for them in the airport, or calling Mars, I think it would be funny to call someone, anyone, and say, “Oh hi kids how’s it going?......(and then really loud) WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ELEPHANT GOT OUT AGAIN??? GO GET HIM AND PUT HIM BACK IN THE BASEMENT RIGHT NOW!” Then hang up, shake your head, and just mumble “Teenagers!” to the person next to you.

Somewhere in the 1960’s my dad thought it would be funny to, as a publicity stunt for radio station WJON, announce that an elderly lady would be learning how to water ski at Lake George (a really really REALLY small lake in the middle of St. Cloud, I think less than 700 ft by 700 ft). An excellent water skier, my dad dressed up as the elderly lady and “pretended” to learn how to water ski! We thought that was funny.

Back in about 1993, Gary (the maintenance guy) wanted to play a joke on Randy (the warehouse truck driver guy). We meticulously planned it out so that when Randy came to pick up supplies to go back from the clinic to the warehouse, that Gary would hide inside a rather large box on a flatbed cart. And with Randy rolling the cart out of the storage room and toward the dock, when Gary felt the cart hit the little bump where the tile ended and the carpeting began, that was his clue to leap out of the box and scare Randy. A whole bunch of people knew what we were planning and just “happened” to be sort of standing around when Randy showed up. After chatting for a few moments Randy took “THE CART”, and began to push it out the door. Inside-the-box-Gary could not have timed it better. He leaped up and scared Randy half to death – maybe even ¾’s to death. Randy flew backwards a good 10 feet, landed on a pile of laundry or supplies and grabbed his chest! When we realized he was NOT having a heart attack we laughed and laughed. We all thought that was funny.

About five years ago my former boss and GlueMan conspired against me. Just as I was beginning to teach a class on how to use the materials management software system, they did something that caused me to have what I believe to be an out of body experience. Just minutes before the class began, the boss and GlueMan phoned me to let me know that my job was getting advertised in the paper (they emailed me the ad) and that I would have to reapply for it! With my body in front of the class mumbling stuff about how to order syringes correctly, the lighter-than-helium-inner-part of me floated above the classroom trying to figure out how they could possibly do this to me! (While I was up there I also noticed how bald I was getting.) I was furious! After the class I floated back down and rejoined my 48 year old body. I immediately phoned GlueMan and told him to tell the boss we were going to have a meeting ASAP. He then informed me it was just a joke. My helium self was still sort of disconnected from my balding self and I just hung up the phone. Now however, we all really laugh about that. That was funny.

Just the other day I received a call from a nurse in one of the units at the hospital – she needed to order a special commode for a patient. After she gave me the basic information, I needed to verify the manufacturer’s number that she had given me so that I had all of my ducks in a row when I called the vendor (over the phone the person may be saying “that’s part number BMGT,” and you may be writing down “DNPE” so you have to read the part number back to them to verify). Nurse Diane gave me the part number of TFI-3225. It was a busy morning and a bunch of stuff was on my mind, so when I repeated it back to her I was looking at the first letter but my brain (which is usually attached to my eyes by way of the optic nerve) was already on the second letter. So I said, “So that’s “T” as in “Frank”….???” There was sort of a pause, and then I realized what I had just asked. It took everything for me to not laugh out loud and continue my professional, although disconnected with the alphabet, reality. I just kept on going like I hadn’t said anything stupid and verified the rest of the information. That was funny.

A while back someone in the building where I work discovered that her cheese cake had been stolen out of the fridge. She fired off an email to the entire building (more than a hundred people) about the impropriety of permanently borrowing other people’s food. You could tell she was angry because everything was in capital letters and the grammar and punctuation were all mangled. My email reply went something like this, “If you ever want to see your cheesecake again, please leave a dollar in an unmarked bag out by the picnic table…” I thought that was funny. And no, I didn’t take the cheesecake.

And finally, this. I overheard a coworker make this statement the other day, ““My family isn’t known for good looking toes.” I thought that statement was hilarious (okay, maybe you had to be there). So three of us began telling, “My toe story is more horrible than your toe story!” stories. When I got back to my cube I emailed the coworker whose family is not known for good looking toes and said, “Our conversation almost sounded like that scene in Jaws where the cranky fisherman guy Quint and Richard Dreyfuss Hooper start comparing scars.” I told her that sometime I may write an article titled, “My Family isn’t Known for Good Looking Toes and other Funny Things at Work.”
I guess this is it.

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

I’m Not an Amateur-Crastinator, I’m a Pro-Crastinator

2008-09-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

“What are you doing, Honey?” I asked my wife one evening.
“Making my lunch for tomorrow,” she replied.
“Making your lunch for tomorrow, why?” I asked. “Its 14 hours before you have to be to work…why not wait till 7:25 tomorrow morning, like me?”
My name is Dan -- and I am a procrastinator.
When I was in college I usually started my term papers the night before they were due and then stayed up all night to type them (usually by sitting in the bathtub with a board across the tub for the typewriter to sit on. Seriously, I’m not making that up…I didn’t want to keep my wife and daughters awake. And of course I had my clothes on). A friend named Lee had his done a couple weeks before they were due. How he did that I will never know.

I have discovered that I put off doing a lot of stuff:
Taxes
Packing for a trip
Filling the car up with gas
Going through the mail
Shoveling snow
Filling out reports
Christmas shopping

Some guys do their Christmas shopping for their wives at about 2:00 on Christmas Eve. I told a friend one time that I was different from all of them – I PLAN to do my shopping at 2:00 on Christmas Eve.

I put off going to the dentist, doing my exercises, raking the yard, even writing this article.

A while back I was reading through the Gospel of Mark and one word seemed to keep popping up. It was the word “immediately.” In the Greek it’s the adverb “euthus.” It’s used 53 times in the NT, but 39 of those are found in Mark! So that’s just 14 times for the remaining 26 books of the NT. And the word appears 11 times in chapter one alone.

Immediately, immediately, immediately. When I saw that, it spoke to my heart about the fact that not only was Jesus’ life filled with a sense of mission, but there was also a tremendous sense of urgency to that mission.

The dictionary defines procrastination this way:
1) To defer action, delay until an opportunity is lost
2) To put off till another day or time
3) To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness
4) To postpone or delay needlessly

Habitual laziness? That can’t possibly be the reason why I defer, dally, dawdle, delay, and drag my feet! You mean at the root of me being Procrastinator Extraordinaire is laziness? That can’t possibly be true.

But there simply are some things though that you CANNOT put off.

Like:
Saying “I love you” to your wife each day. I bet some of the husbands in the Twin Towers on 9/11 wished they had said, “Honey I just want you to know I love you” before they left the house that ill-fated morning.

Hugging your kids (and your grandkids).

Calling your mom.

Calling your dad.

Giving your heart to Jesus. A teenage boy named Teddy mowed the church lawn where I used to be the pastor. He was about 16 and was such a nice kid. But late one Saturday I received a heart-rending phone call. Teddy was driving his car down highway B but when he went to cross the four lane highway, he never made it. Paul said in II Corinthians 6:2, “Behold, now is the day of salvation.” You may think you have tomorrow, but you don’t.

“To delay until an opportunity is lost.” That should sober us up a little bit concerning the precious commodity of “time.” Your life can change forever in just a moment. Don’t delay, defer and drag your feet in spiritual things. Make every day count!

Dan Vander Ark
Copyright 2008
All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

ChickenOccoli is Alive!

2008-09-01T12:30:00.000-05:00

A few days ago my wife Kay had to be gone for the evening -- she was going to help the kids mark rummage sale items. “You’re on your own for supper,” she shouted as she headed out the door for the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle. Other than grilling, the only thing I can cook is French Toast. But I had some things I needed to get done on this Friday night so I just threw a couple of frozen chicken and broccoli things in the toaster oven and cranked it up to 30 minutes.

I got involved in doing some stuff and forgot about supper. When I realized my food was now getting cold I went up to the kitchen to get them. I figured I’d just pop them into the microwave and reheat the recooked precooked chicken&broccolithingys.

I grabbed the STEEL tray lined with TINFOIL that they were on and, without thinking, opened up the microwave oven (which is directly above the toaster oven) and threw them in. I punched in one minute on the timer, turned on the microwave, and started thinking about other stuff.

With my mind on another planet I could hear the microwave going bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz shzhzhhhzhzhzhhhhhhhhhhhs zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh. Or maybe it was zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh bbbbbbbbbbbbb gzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgzgz rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr whpwhpwhpwhpwhp. I can’t quite remember.

I looked up, and there, directly in front of my eyes, was an elongated spark or blue flame going across the entire front of the chicken patty tray.
WOW! It looked like a tiny aurora borealis right there in my kitchen! A brilliant northern Minnesota Northern Lights display in my microwave!
I was so wishing my brothers were there to see it.
And I wanted so much just to keep the microwave going. Just to see, in the name of science and the interaction of broccoli electrons with chicken electrons and all that’s good about America, what would happen. But my wife would be back from the front lines of the Great Rummage Sale Battle preparations and I didn’t want the microwave to be just a puddle of plastic and metal.
So I panicked and hit the cancel button.
I very, very s l o w l y opened the door.
I halfway expected the chicken&broccoli things to get up and walk. Sort of a microwave version of Young Chicken Frankenstein.
CHICKENOCCOLI IS ALIVE!!!
Nope…they were still dead…and they smelled like ozone…but tasted like chicken.

Dan Vander Ark
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Stressed Out About High Gas Prices?

2008-09-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

I remember my dad saying, “I never thought I would see gas at $1.00 per gallon.” Of course that was many years ago. But now, wow! $2.00 per gallon…then $3.00 per gallon…now where I live its on the verge of $4.00 (and might just be there by the time this is out on the web). And the price of diesel has skyrocketed. I talked to a trucker friend of mine and asked him how he’s making it. He just said it’s really tough when it costs $1,000.00 to fill up. Unless you’ve won the lottery, for the average Joe out there you almost want to close your eyes when you pull up to the pump.

I obviously don’t have a magic cure for high gas prices. I haven’t figured out how to make that Mr. Fusion thing they had in “Back to the Future.” We tried cow magnets back in the 70’s, but that didn’t work. And I emailed my brother about a contraption out on the internet that is supposed to give you a big increase in gas mileage. He said our uncle Bruce tried that back in the 70’s also and it didn’t work.

Yes there are some things we can do to conserve, but if you have a fairly long commute or maybe you and your wife work separate shifts, or you can’t afford to buy a hybrid or higher mileage car right now, filling up at the pump can be pretty stressful. You sometimes feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, between filling up the tank or putting your money somewhere else very necessary. And at times you feel like there is no solution and no where to turn when you’re so squeezed financially.

Stress. If you were to ask 10 people to define “stress” you may get 10 different answers. Hans Selye first coined the phrase back in 1936 but wrestled all his life to find a satisfactory definition. Eventually he redefined it as “the rate of wear and tear on the body.” In 1983 Time magazine’s cover story called stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties”; it has been estimated that anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of all doctor visits can be attributable to stress.

There is an encyclopedia worth of information available to anyone about the definition, causes and cure for stress. This short article will focus on one little aspect of coping with stressful situations in general. One of the reasons I like reading the Bible is because there is so much practical information that helps us out in our every day world. The Bible isn’t meant just for seminaries or just for Sunday sermons, it’s meant to give help and wisdom to working people on working days in working places.

David (the Old Testament character David) had to deal with stress a multitude of times in his life. Whether it was fighting giants, hiding in caves, fleeing from enemies, facing political storms, or being hounded by family members who wanted to kill him, all of these events brought terrific times of stress to his life. The deepest feelings of David’s heart during these struggles have been recorded for us in the book of Psalms.

One such passage is in Psalm 18. Let me point out something interesting in verse 6 and verse 19. Verse six says, “In my distress (or stress) I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.” And verse 19 says, “He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He delighted in me.”

The word that’s used in verse 6 for distress is the Hebrew word “tsar.” It literally means this: a narrow or tight place.” It is used in Numbers 22:26 in an interesting way that gives us some insight into what stress is all about. “And the angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place (our word “tsar”) where there was NO WAY TO TURN TO THE RIGHT OR TO THE LEFT. That graphically displays what stress is all about – being in a narrow place (a tight spot) without being able to turn to the right or left. In other words – I am stuck between a rock and a hard place, I don’t have an avenue of escape, and I don’t see any way out of my predicament!

Strained relationships, raising children, financial problems, trying to find a job, high gas prices, illnesses, the loss of a loved one, the list goes on and on. All things that can bring terrific stress to our lives. And sometimes it seems like there is NO WAY OUT of our dilemma (which is a cause of depression).

But King David didn’t just say, “I’m Stressed!” and leave it there. He said, “In my stress…I called to the Lord, and cried to my God for help!” One of the reasons why David was so successful in his life was because he was always praying about his problems (and he had lots of them). God cares about you and the difficulties you are going through! Bring your problems, your concerns, your worries, your unbearable situations, and your stress to Him in prayer. He is genuinely concerned about the “stuff” you are going through!

This is the progression that’s recorded for us in Psalm 18: First, “I was in distress” – I couldn’t find a way out of my problems, I was stressed out. Secondly, “So I prayed about it” –I called to Him in prayer. Thirdly, “He listened to me” – He heard my prayer! (The second part of verse 6). Do you realize that the God of the Universe longs to listen to your prayer? And fourthly, “He gave me an answer.” David was stressed, he prayed, God heard, God gave him an answer!

And part of the answer is recorded for us in verse 19, “He brought me forth into a wide open field, He rescued me because He delighted in me.” Being “brought forth into a wide open field” in the Bible is the opposite of the “distress” (the “tsar”) -- the narrow place or choke point of verse 6.

Have you ever been in a large crowd where you were so constricted that you almost felt claustrophobic? And how did you feel once you were free from the crowd and had plenty of room and were able to relax and breathe freely again? This is exactly the scenario that is spelled out in verses 6 and 19. In verse 6 problems are pressing in upon David to the point where he has no where to turn – he is at a choke point and feels claustrophobic in the midst of his difficulties. But then God answers and brings him into a “broad place.” Spiritually speaking, he is taken from the crush of people in an overcrowded subway to the wide open spaces a Dakota prairie! He now can see multiple avenues of escape from his problems and can see a way out of his predicament.

Again, I obviously don’t have a magic bullet solution to the high price of gas and diesel. High gas prices are probably here to stay. And I am obviously not saying that if you begin to pray that your SUV is going to suddenly start getting 50 miles to the gallon. But this one thing I do know with certainty – God cares about the smallest details of your life! He is concerned about your stress, distress, and worry. Take your problems to Him in prayer. You will be amazed at what He can do in you, through you and for you!

Dan Vander Ark
All Rights Reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Dental Checkup

2008-09-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

I received a really nice postcard in the mail the other day. It was from my dentist. And it was time for my 6 month checkup. Now I don’t know about you, but I usually go to my 6 month dental checkups about once a year.

The hygienist, Debbie, was very nice. She invited me to sit in the dental version of a La-Z-Boy, and then proceeded to tilt the chair back until I was sure I was going to slide off onto my head. I held on tight to the arm rests and wished for a seat belt.

After a quick glance at my records, the hygienist informed me that I should have my x-rays updated.

“OK,” I replied gleefully. I was then draped in 20 lbs of lead and a couple of little pieces of cardboard with film in them were placed as far back in my mouth as possible. I think even farther. The ray gun of death was pointed at my mouth and the pictures were taken.

Debbie then gazed down at my mouth through what looked like a pair of night vision goggles. After a preliminary check by her and an examination by the dentist, I was informed that I needed a crown. Not just a tiara, but a full blown gold crown. Apparently tooth #31 was rotting away.

Knowing that the price of gold is now at about $1,000,000.00 per fleck, I immediately wondered how much that was going to cost. When they informed me that my dental plan would probably cover at least 50% of the cost, I asked if I could just get the 50% portion done that the insurance would cover and call it even. There was a little bit of silence and then laughter when they figured out I was kidding. They don’t know me.

I was then informed that my teeth looked pretty good except that my gums were receding. Recession can be caused by brushing too hard, they told me. (And I always thought it was caused by us not maxing out our credit cards). Now I knew my hair had been receding for quite some time (all the way to the back of my head), but I didn’t know that your gums could recede. I asked my dental dream team, “Is there a connection between the receding hair and the receding gums?” They are both located in the head, so I figured there was. (This is a good spot for a little science lesson: You know that law of physics that says, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?” So if something is receding on my body, then shouldn’t something be advancing? Maybe that’s where the weight gain comes from. The gums and hair recede, the age and weight advances.)

The dentist said something like, “Maybe there is Rogaine for your gums!”

I mentioned I was going to do some research on the internet about this as soon as possible. And if I couldn’t find a cure then I think this might work: Take your wife’s colander (you know, that spaghetti strainer thingy), your daughter’s Ipod, and a 9 volt battery from your grandson’s remote control Humvee. Oh, and some duct tape and wire. Duct tape the Ipod to the colander on the right side, cut off the ear phone/buds and attach a couple of alligator clips to the end of the wires. Duct tape the 9 volt battery to the left side of the colander and attach a couple of wires to the battery and have a couple of alligator clips on those wires as well. Place the colander on your head – attach one Ipod wire and one 9 volt battery wire to the right side molars (one top and one bottom) and one Ipod wire and one 9volt battery wire to the left side molars (one top and one bottom). Oh yeah, make sure you put a dimmer switch somewhere along those battery wires or you’ll regret it. Start with a very low voltage setting (dimmer switch almost to “dim”) and some Barry Manilow music at low volume (the earphones are gone but don’t sweat it, your teeth will crank out the song). Try that for one hour before bed each night. If after 6 months your hair and gums are still receding then crank up the voltage and switch to some heavy metal music like Metallica.

After the hygienist was finished cleaning my teeth, she did the floss thing.
She then asked the dreaded question…..”How often do you floss?”

I was trapped. “Well, I am thinking how I should answer that question.” She laughed.

But the guilt was just overwhelming, so I finally blurted out, “Once a year! At my 6 month checkup! When I come to see you!“ Although I guess I have flossed a couple of times when I’ve had something like whale blubber stuck between my teeth. (Perhaps in the future if you want to get a job with the government, there will just be two questions at the job interview: Them: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Applicant: Uh, No. Them: Do you floss? Applicant: Ummmmm, well, uh not really. Them: NEXT!)

Then she asked about the fluoride treatment. That’s the part I hate the most. Those two little trays smooshing on your teeth with the little suction instrument stuck between them. I think the CIA uses the “fluoride treatment” to try to get the truth out of people; and if that doesn’t work then they use water surfboarding or whatever that is.

She asked me what flavor I wanted. I wanted coffee flavored but they didn’t have that. There was banana, strawberry, chocolate, pine and I think cement flavored. I chose strawberry.

She put the trays in and I inserted the little suction thing. I noticed the suction thingy had a small knob on it to either increase or decrease the suctivity. I wanted so bad to crank it wide open, but was afraid my head might collapse. Or worse yet, create an orthodontic version of a black hole right there in the dentist office causing everything not fastened down to come toward my head at the speed of suction.

I was so relieved when that was done.

As I left she handed me a new toothbrush and a thing of floss.

“Oh thanks!” I said, “I will add this to my collection! And I will see you in a year at my next 6 month checkup!”

Squeezing Razorblades

2008-09-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

Two elderly ladies in the nursing home were seated next to each other in their wheelchairs. Suddenly they began to argue and fight and the aides had to break up their seasoned citizen altercation. When I asked Vicki what the fight was about, her answer was both comical and tragic. “They were in grade school together, she said, “and they were fighting about something that had happened on the playground during recess!”

Winkie Pratney tells the following story: In the 1960’s a teenage boy went up to an elderly man in a New York City park, pulled out a huge knife and stabbed the man more than 100 times. When the police pressed him to find out why he had so senselessly killed the old man that he had never seen before, the answer shocked the officers. “My mom kept comparing me to my brother and badgering me as to why I couldn’t be like him – an excellent athlete, smart, talented, good looking and famous. I knew I could never be like him or famous…so I thought of the worst thing I could do and I went out and did it. At least my mom will remember me now…” (1)

If you do a search on the internet, a few different items pop up as the number one health problem in America today. Substance abuse, heart disease, obesity, AIDS, lack of sleep, even poverty are included in the mix.

But there is one disease that perhaps cripples more people, ruins more lives, and troubles more families than any other. It begins almost imperceptibly and is sometimes hard to diagnose. Those left in its wake are found in every age group, every ethnic background and in every country. If you were to ask me what the number one health problem is I would have to say that this ranks at least in the top ten...bitterness. However you term it – a sour spirit, a sore in the soul, holding a grudge – it is something that can, in the least, rob an individual of joy, and at the worst, destroy lives. I am convinced that people suffer emotionally, physically, spiritually, and sometimes financially, because of a bitter, unforgiving spirit. It is conceivably THE number one robber of contentment in life.

When I was a pastor I enjoyed visiting with the older people in the congregation. Two elderly ladies (one in one congregation and one at another church) come to mind when I think about attitudes and the different choices that people can make. When you visited with M. you left drained and emotionally “down.” To put it simply, she was just a bitter old lady. But when you visited Helen, you left feeling like this, “When I grow old, I want to be like Helen!” At 99, even though her husband had passed away years ago and even though her eyesight and hearing were failing, she was simply a joyful person. “I am so blessed!” she would often say. Bitterness was not allowed to flourish in her life.

When we live a life poisoned with bitterness or a sour spirit, that unforgiving attitude is going to manifest itself some way. It cannot be otherwise. Whether it is the smallest slight (like someone forgetting an anniversary or a birthday or failing to say, “Hi!” when we see them at a store) or the most painful and egregious memory (a broken family relationship or a spouse killed by a drunk driver), if we don’t forgive, then that mindset will sooner or later find its way to the surface. Most people won’t do as the teenage boy did to that elderly man in the above story, but we find our own way to deal with sour situations and the bitter pools in our lives. Perhaps we walk on the other side of the street when we see “that person” coming. Or maybe we no longer include the person when we email a funny joke to our coworkers, or maybe it’s just a cutting comment that we make about a friend. It’s our own form of revenge.

An article on CBN.com says this, “When you are offended or disappointed by others and allow the hurt to germinate in your heart, bitterness and resentment will take root. Characterized by an unforgiving spirit and generally negative, critical attitudes, bitterness and resentment are sinful and self-defeating. They will color your conscious and unconscious thoughts and actions. Allowed to fester, they will destroy and kill…”

It’s interesting how bitterness can develop over time. Beginning with the smallest of offenses, if left unchecked, it can eventually result in the total dissolution of relationships. It may sound funny, but leaving the cap off the toothpaste or leaving your socks in the middle of floor and not picking them up can sometimes tragically develop into “irreconcilable differences.”

I think one of the reasons that Jesus was so emphatic about our responsibility to forgive is that He knew the end result of a life spent in this disease. Plus, believe it or not, He wants us to be happy! And so He said, “These things (i.e. have a forgiving spirit) I have spoken unto you that…your joy might be full.” (John 15:11).

In my own life I first became aware of how bitterness could creep into your spirit and rob you of joy when I was in the Army. I was a military policeman and was part of a unit that patrolled the NCO and the officer’s housing area. Unlike the other road patrol units in our company that had to ride in jeeps, we drove a Chevelle and received some special treatment from the Colonel in charge of the MP battalion. Sometimes the dispatcher or other units would say something or do something that ticked me off and made me angry. At the time I was reading a book by Merlin R. Carothers titled “Bringing Heaven into Hell.” He was talking about the necessity to forgive and a verse found in Colossians 3:13 penetrated my spirit like a bolt of lightning, “Forbearing one another and forgiving one another, whoever has a valid complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you!” It changed me almost instantaneously. To put it simply, if you want to be a happy person, FORGIVE! Totally and unconditionally! And don’t bury the hatchet but leave the handle exposed so that you can find it again. Toss the hatchet into the ocean of God’s love! Make a conscious choice to forgive and to treat the offending party as though they had never offended you. There have been other occasions in my life where I have again allowed bitterness to creep in, but God is faithful to reveal my heart’s true condition. There have been times when I have had to ask people to forgive me and there have also been a handful of times when I have had to have a “Joseph-and-his-brothers” type of meeting (“You did me wrong…” Genesis 50:20).

There is so much more that could be written about this subject. If you are interested in reading more I would point you to these websites as a resource (just do a search under the word “bitterness”): www.troubledwith.com; www.lastdaysministries.org; www.cbn.com.

The title, “Squeezing Razorblades,” comes from a story I heard by a guest speaker at the church I was attending a few years ago. I don’t remember many of the details of the story other than that it was (I think) a young woman who had suffered something terrible and very painful in her life and was having a very difficult time forgiving the “offender.” One night she had a dream and in her dream she had in her hand some razorblades and was squeezing them. It was obviously self-destructive agonizingly painful. In the dream the Lord spoke to her and said, “This is you and your bitterness and unforgiveness. Your choice not to forgive is only hurting yourself.” She forgave the wrong and found herself released from the prison of her bitterness.

One story that so marvelously illustrates overcoming bitterness and hatred and the tremendous power of God’s forgiveness is that of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman who was arrested and imprisoned during WWII for her family’s involvement in concealing Jews in their home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. Members of her family died as a result of what the Germans had done. But through the incredible compassion of God their horrific circumstances in Ravensbruck were turned into “their finest hour.” Corrie’s sister Betsie died in the concentration camp on December 16, 1944. Among her last words to her sister were these, “We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still."

After the war (1947) Corrie was speaking at a church in Munich. When her message was done she found herself face to face with one of the guards from Ravensbruck. He had become a Christian and came to her asking her to forgive him for what he had done. In her testimony, Corrie tells about the struggle she had, at that moment, to forgive. It was the first time since her release that she found herself in contact with one of her captors. Her blood froze and coldness enveloped her heart. But she made the decision to forgive. Corrie’s story on www.tlogical.net/bioboom relates this:

"And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. "I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!" For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."

Has your life been robbed of joy? Is there a nagging “depression” in your life? Perhaps there is someone that you need to forgive for the wrong that they have done to you. You can become free from the prison of bitterness – this sore in the soul – by asking Jesus to forgive you for anything that you have done wrong and then asking Him to give you the desire and ability to unconditionally and totally forgive those who have wronged you.

(1) www.lastdaysministries.org/articles/hurtandbitterness.html

When Fast Food is Not Fast Enough

2008-09-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I usually stop at one of those fast food places on my weigh, excuse me, I mean on my way to work. And I always get the same thing – one sausageeggbiscuit with lots of stuff that’s one molecule away from eating plastic. The voice comes out of the little speaker: “Thank you for stopping at the Breakfast-Biscuit-Barn, how may I help you?” I ask for the usual. And the answer is always the same: “That will be $2.13 at the first window. Please pull ahead.” I usually say “Thanks” and follow orders (trying to beat the person in the other lane – more on that in a moment). One time I thought I would throw a little wrinkle into the morning fast food breakfast routine. When the person in the speaker said, “That will be $2.13 at the first window,” I asked, “How much at the second window?” The Speaker of the Breakfast said a little louder and a little firmer, “THAT WILL BE $2.13 AT THE FIRST WINDOW.” One time at Hardees I asked if they took McDonald’s coupons – they didn’t think it was funny.

At the Breakfast-Biscuit-Barn (the BBB) I never go inside – I always use the drive-through, and the drive-through has two lanes. Most of the time, if you are there first, then you get to pull ahead first, get to pay first, and get your food first. And people are polite – if it’s a tie and you both give your order at the exact same moment and you both slam the gas pedal to the floor at the same instant, one driver generally waits for the other. It’s that Minnesota Nice thing. But there have been a couple of times when I have pulled into one of the lanes and there is no one else in the other lane and I wait and wait for the little speaker person to say something. A couple of times I have backed up and come in again to see if I can fool the Speaker of the Breakfast, and that has worked. But sometimes, while you are waiting very patiently, SOMEONE ELSE PULLS IN WAY AFTER YOU DID AND THE SPEAKER PERSON TALKS TO THEM FIRST! That’s where Minnesota Nice ends. “Oh yooooohoooo,” I call out in a stern but friendly voice, “I WAS HERE FIRST!” The other person pulls ahead to pay their money and get their food and I only have 78 seconds left to get to work. I have thought about calling 911 when this has happened.

“This is 911, please state your emergency!”
“Someone at the Breakfast-Biscuit-Barn drive-through who came in after me got to go first! Can you send a SWAT team?”
Click

But then the next day, the very day after you had your morning ruined, you pull in after some little old lady who can barely see over the dashboard, go into the open lane, and BINGO! The Speaker of the Breakfast talks to you first! You slam down the gas pedal, beat her to the window and YOU ARE THERE FIRST! You’re gonna have a really good day!

I am so pathetic.

One time I lost a bet with a Packer fan and had to wear Packer earrings taped to my ears all day. When I went through the drive-through, the Giver-of-the-Coffee just stared. I thought that was funny.

And I have tried to time it so that I don’t even have to stop after they take my order and money. One time when the coast was clear I have actually rolled through without having to stop! I did ask the Hander-Over-of the-Food person one time just to throw it in. However, that doesn’t work with coffee.

I have thought very seriously about how they could speed things up and I think I have it figured out. You could buy a phone (or it would free if you committed to 365 sausageeggbiscuits in the next year – however if you opt out before the contract is up, there would be an additional charge of $2,000.00). It would be shaped like a cheeseburger and have a French Fry for an antenna and you would flip the bun-cover to open it. The phone would have a GPS chip and one of the menu options would be a menu. Touch the screen for what you want and on the giant plasma satellite tracking screen at the Breakfast-Biscuit-Barn they would get your order and follow your vehicle. Once you pull out of the garage it would trigger a siren and light. The crew chief would holler out, “Vander Ark has left the garage! Get a sausageeggbiscuit ready! Load the PVC Breakfast Biscuit Shooter. (You know how you can build a potato gun out of PVC pipe? That’s what I think they should use. Just fire the sausageeggbiscuit into the pickup through the open window. And for the napkins – maybe they would have to wrap them around a little piece of lead or something. We put a man on the moon – they should be able to fire napkins 6 feet through an open vehicle window.)

They would follow a little GPS blip across a map of West Duluth. Beep……...….beep……….beep…... beep…...beep…beep..beepbeepbeepbeep! He’s pulling across Grand Avenue…PREPARE TO FIRE! And besides the regular drive-through, there would be the Race-Through – a superfast express lane for not just fast food, but for Really-Fast food. Your vehicle would have a huge barcode on the side to debit your BBB account automatically – you would get scanned, the worker would prepare the biscuit gun and kawam! Blap! You have made it through in a mere 9 seconds!

Of course your breakfastbiscuit is splattered against the passenger window. But hey! It’s still edible and you aren’t gonna be late for work. Just make sure to duck when they fire the napkins.

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

The Day I had to Wear the Packer Earrings

2008-09-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

(Just a note of introduction...I work in the purchasing office of a large medical facility and there are about 20 of us in cubicleville and this is just a snapshot of what took place in Purchasing Land this past football season (2007). I live in Duluth, MN and my coworker lives in Superior, WI -- two sister cities that sit next to each other at the tip of Lake Superior. But they are divided by a friendly (if not fierce) football rivalry between the MN Vikings and the Green Bay Packers.) Dan :>)
"A joyful heart does good like medicine" Proverbs 17:22)

****************************
I had had enough. My coworker came over to my cube to show me her Packer Shirt and Packer Bracelet and Packer Earrings. It was Friday – two days before the “Showdown” part two. The 7-1 Green Bay Packers versus the 3-5 Minnesota Vikings. She lives in Superior, I live in Duluth. She has green blood, I have purple blood. She is from the Darth Vader side, I am from the Luke Skywalker side. Her team has had one quarterback since the last Millennium, my team has had 67. Her team has won 3 Super Bowls, my team has...well just skip that part. She has a Packer football hanging in her cube. I have a stuffed 12” tall Viking guy and a pair of hand knitted Viking socks (who knows why). Oh, and a foam rubber Viking Brick sits on the top of my monitor. And she was feeling pretty good about her team, and I was feeling, well, like, ummmmm, well, forget it. When she was done parading her Packer stuff in front of my face, I disengaged my brain and quickly composed an email and sent it out to the entire office:

Go Vikings!
Down with the Packers!
And if the Packers win I will wear Nancy’s earrings for like say an hour from like 6:30-7:30.
And if the Vikings win she has to carry around my Viking doll for the whole day: well it’s not really a Viking doll because I don’t play with dolls, its more like a Viking Action Figure; but come to think of it it’s not really an action figure – it’s more like a “3-downs-and-punt” non-action figure.

She fired an email back and copied everyone: “If I have to carry around the Viking non-action figure ALL day you have to wear the earrings ALL day. Bet is on! P.S. Dan... What is that stuff falling from the dolls nose anyway?”

I fired back and copied everyone (my brain still being disengaged): “Ok – deal – And that’s not stuff falling from out of his nose – his moustache is just in the wrong place – I think.

Now stop the truck for just a moment. Did you ever have one those moments when you wanted just to hop into your HG Wells Time Machine and reverse time for like say the last five minutes and UNDO SOMETHING REALLY STUPID THAT YOU’VE JUST DONE?

I just stared at my computer monitor for the next several hours. “What have I done?” I began to bang my head the desk. The office grew pretty silent – not a single person responded to this exchange. I was hoping they were thinking, “Wow, Dan is really brave!” But they weren’t. They were thinking, “Wow, Dan’s really not that smart, is he?!”

A couple of the female type coworkers, purposely talking loud enough to make sure I heard, began to wonder out loud, “Gee, I wonder if Dan will make sure his clothes coordinate with the earrings?” Now, exactly what does that mean, “Coordinate what you wear?” I have a hard enough time making sure my socks match so I do the Garanimals thing. And the only thing I really care about “coordinating” is to make sure the color of the duct tape patched console in my rusty old truck doesn’t clash with the color of the seat covers.

When I got home Friday I asked my wife if she knew where my rivet gun was.
“Why?” she asked.
“I have to pierce my ears,” was my response.
“Ok, what did you do at work today?” she asked. Come to think of it, she asks that question quite often. And sometimes it’s followed by, “You’re not gonna get fired are you?”
I informed her, “I challenged a Cheesehead to a duel! Sort of. And I am just preparing for the inevitable.”
“The game hasn’t even been played yet!” was her response. She hasn’t watched the Mighty Purple and Gold much lately.

I hadn’t had a pierced ear since my wannabe hippie days when I did it with a potato and a needle. And I made sure the potato was sterilized.

Its not that I don’t like the Packers. It’s that, well, I DON’T LIKE THE PACKERS. And with my coworker, the feeling is mutual. She would rather have a cavity filled without Novocain than cheer for the Vikings. And don’t tell anyone, especially my Viking fan friends, but I actually like Brett Favre. I’ll just be really really really glad when he retires. Sometimes I wake up at night in a cold sweat from having the same bad dream. In my recurring nightmare it’s the year 2017, it’s a Sunday night game between the Packers and Vikings, and Brett Favre is still playing! The voice of Al Michaels: Well John, can you believe it? This will be Brett Favre’s 6,785 consecutive start. And he has thrown more touchdown passes than Dan Marino, John Elway, Payton Manning and Tom Brady combined! The voice of John Madden: Yeah, it’s amazing, and he just signed a contract to play ten more years!

Well, my team lost. The Vikings actually looked pretty good for awhile…but then the game started. It was painful to watch. 34-0 painful. I thought about calling my coworker and telling her I wouldn’t be in because my home was leveled by a meteor, but she would demand pictures and I didn’t have time to photoshop anything. Monday was the longest day of my life. I kept my word – I wore the earrings – they were taped to my ears. I now know what Superman feels like around Kryptonite.

Note to self: Next year, ICKSNAY ON THE EWELRYJAY! Just tell her that if her team wins you’ll buy her a really fancy lunch…like at McDonald’s…off the dollar menu…at the drive-through…in the truck with the duct-tape color coordinated interior.

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

The Backside of the Tapestry

2008-09-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

In big, cheerful font, the email to my family simply read, “OUR DAUGHTER IS HAVING TWINS!” But about two months later I found myself officiating at the small funeral service for George and Gwendolyn – the twins who would do their growing up in heaven. On the Saturday night before Mother’s day we received a call from our son-in-law that he had to take our daughter to the hospital. On Sunday morning little George passed away and on Wednesday little Gwendolyn went to heaven. Even though both were very premature, other babies their size had survived. The following Monday the funeral service was held. I had asked our daughter to have another pastor conduct the service, but she wanted me to do it and so I consented. Just several months prior to this memorial service I had had the privilege and joy of officiating at their wedding – now I was officiating at the funeral for their two children.

In preparing for the funeral service I began to think about a true story that I had read. The story related how in one day a father of 10 lost all of his children in a tragic car accident. And on the same day, and under some very peculiar circumstances, every one of his multi-million dollar businesses failed. All of them! So in one day he and his wife were left childless and penniless. And it was hard to reconcile the type of life he lived with what had happened so suddenly to his family. He was widely respected as a great family man and also as an honest and fair businessman. Besides serving on the city council, he also taught Sunday School at their local church. He was a man of great integrity – what he was in public he was in private. What he was in church he was in the car on the way to church. He cared for the less fortunate in his community and if an employee of one of his companies needed financial help, he made sure the money was there.

And even though his heart was broken, on the afternoon that they were to meet with the funeral director to pick out the caskets, he first stopped at the church to meet with the pastor and to spend some time worshipping God. The pastor put in a CD by the group “Casting Crowns.” As the music of “I Will Praise You in The Storm” filled the air, the brokenhearted man raised his hands in worship. Tears filled his eyes when he heard these words, “…and though my heart is torn, I will praise You in this storm!” After about an hour they left the church and made the agonizing trip to the funeral home.

But their ordeal didn’t end there. Shortly after the funeral with he and his wife still reeling from what had happened to them, the husband’s health began to fail. And after a long series of tests, doctors were at a total loss as to what was wrong. Within a couple of months he was almost unrecognizable. He was swollen, disfigured, and every inch of his blackened skin was covered with pus filled sores. His nights were spent tossing and turning, unable to sleep because of the constant itching and the fever that racked his body. His condition epitomized “misery.” Through an email, three of his friends heard of the horrific disease he was battling and made arrangements to meet together to visit him. When they came to see him in the hospital, his illness had ravaged his body so much that they had to double check to make sure the name on the doctor’s chart was that of their friend.

He went through seasons of very deep depression and unbearable grief. Even though he had had a healthy relationship with God and many of his prayers were answered in amazing and miraculous ways, it seemed that for some reason God had now turned a deaf ear. But through the agony of all that had happened to him, the story went on to say, the husband and father’s faith remained steadfast. He spent tortuous hours wondering “Why?”, but he never came to the point of saying, “If this is the way God is going to treat me, I am finished with serving Him!”

Sometimes life is hard and sometimes it doesn’t appear to make sense. “Why is this happening to me?!?” seems to be often on the mind.

In the fall of 2001 my wife and I had to deal with some difficult life-stuff that left both of us emotionally drained, and in the summer of 2002 my dad passed away very unexpectedly (even though he was taken to the doctor twice the week before he died and the doctors could not find anything wrong with him). During this same period of time, I was battling with some major health issues and in 2003 and 2004 I spent a total of 6 weeks in the hospital. My wife didn’t inform me until I got home from the first surgery how bad the surgeon said my condition was and how close I had come to having a permanent address in heaven. Concurrent with these events there were the stresses that accompany working full-time plus pastoring a church plus going through a building program.

And then there was Mother’s Day weekend of 2004. The phone rang in the middle of the church service – it was an emergency call from my wife. Baby George was dying and I needed to get to the hospital as fast as I could. I asked the worship leader and a guest speaker to take the rest of the service and asked the congregation to pray. George died that Sunday and Gwendolyn a couple of days later.

In the first part of this article I mentioned that as I was preparing for the funeral service for the twins I had read the true story of the man who had lost his ten children and his businesses in one day. And after that, his health.

Most of you have probably read or heard about this story also. Except for me bringing it into the current cultural setting, it’s a story found in the Bible. It’s the story of Job. In one afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Job lost everything, and most tragically their children (chapters 1-2). Most of the rest of the book of Job is a record of the fierce and passionate dialogue that took place between Job and his friends as they tried to figure out, “Why has this happened?”

It is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written. And a remarkable part of the story comes early in the story at the end of chapter one. Chapter one ends by saying, “Through all of this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God.” I think that is an amazing statement and two things jump out to me from that verse.

First, think about the word “through.” Living life sometimes means we have to go “through.” Psalm 23:3 says, “Yeah, though I walk “through” the valley of the shadow of death (the valley of deep darkness or trial).” I don’t know about you, but I want to go AROUND, but God calls us to go THROUGH. We want to bypass the financial struggles, the physical illness struggles, the marital problems, the struggles with our children, the struggles we have with friends and coworkers. But God calls us to go through. “Through all of this, Job…”

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, he didn’t blame God. “Through all of this Job…did not blame God.” Take a moment and try to place yourself in the second pew of the church seated immediately behind Mr. and Mrs. Job. Directly in front of them – ten coffins lined up across the church. The ten coffins of their children. Exactly 7 days ago the entire Job clan had gathered at the oldest son’s home for a birthday party. The sounds of joy and laughter and fun filled the air. Now – heartache and unspeakable grief filled the hearts of Job and his wife. But when the organist began to play the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” through a flood of tears Job rose to his feet and raised his hands in praise to God. Facing a funeral he worshipped! How many people today, at the first sign of trouble, shake an angry fist at God? “God, why have You done this to me?” is too often the bitter response. It should instead be, “God, I don’t understand and the pain is greater than I can bear, but in the midst of this storm I am determined to praise You and love You! I WILL praise You in this storm!” (Remember, when things are dark, it’s not wrong to cry out, “Why?!?!” Jesus did it on Calvary).

The struggles that my wife and I and our family have gone through are by no means unique – most of you have faced your own times of intense trial and darkness and questions of “Why?” And for some of you, your storms have been far more severe. In talking with friends and relatives I sometimes feel that we have just passed through a spring shower and they have faced the full force of an F5 tornado.

I remember wondering “Why?” when our church secretary and young mother of five lost her battle with cancer. Why hadn’t God healed her? I can still see the picture of her husband and five children standing alongside the coffin before it was lowered into the earth. I wondered “Why?” when the teenage boy who mowed the church lawn was tragically killed in a car accident. Why did the wife of a friend of ours develop Alzheimer’s disease at a young age?

I titled this article, “The Backside of the Tapestry.” Have you ever looked at the reverse side of this decorative and colorful type of material? A tapestry is a heavy cloth woven with rich and colorful threads into stunning scenes or designs – sometimes they are hung on walls for decoration and sometimes they are used to cover furniture. On the front you can see the beautiful colors and patterns and scenes – all woven together in perfect order and harmony. But on the back all you see are the colors and patterns that don’t seem to go together or make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes the loosely hanging threads seem so out of place, and it definitely doesn’t look like something you would want to hang on your wall or put on your furniture. It has no beauty and just seems to be a disorganized piece of no-purpose cloth.

Job (and Mrs. Job) only saw the backside of the tapestry. They didn’t understand. Life didn’t make sense. In chapters one and two we are immediately able to see behind the scenes and are given a glimpse of the heavenly battle between Satan and God. But it’s the part of the story that Job never got to witness. And so we see, at least in part, the reason for Job’s troubles. But Job isn’t privy to such information. To him – one day he is just sailing along fine serving God with his whole heart listening to the laughter of children. And a month later? While a fever racks his frail body, the awful memory of those ten coffins continually fills his waking hours. Through many dark and depressing nights of anguish he couldn’t see how any possible good could come out of what had happened. BUT GOD WAS WEAVING HIS LIFE TOGETHER INTO A BEAUTIFUL DESIGN! When the end of the book came, Job finally got to see the front of the tapestry…and it was far more wonderful and beautiful than he could have ever have imagined! Read chapter 42. The Divine Weaver had taken all of the pain and sadness and confusion and anguish and tears and disappointment of the preceding months and turned it ALL into something beautiful.

At the funeral for George and Gwen I held up a small piece of tapestry. I showed the backside first. The color scheme and patterns didn’t seem to make sense or fit together and it was hard to detect a pattern or scene. But when I turned it over you could see the beautiful mountain scene, the flowing river, the meadow and the two deer standing in the meadow – one buck and one doe. Little George and little Gwendolyn.

Perhaps right now your life doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Maybe there is some tremendous pain that you are going through right now. Unbearable grief surrounded by days of darkness. Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 that “All things work together for good to them that love God.” He doesn’t say that all things are good – but that GOD CAN WEAVE ALL THINGS (the good and the bad) into something good. If there is one thing I could leave you with it is this: despite the pain you may be going through right now, GOD CARES DEEPLY FOR YOU!!! And He can take all of the confusion and all of the pain and all of the senselessness and weave it together into something far more beautiful and more amazing than you could ever possibly dream! Cry out to Him today…He is much closer than you think!

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Having Coffee With Friends at the Tofte Dump

2008-09-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

My boss’s boss’s grandfather passed away and the department secretary passed the obituary around for us to read. Two things stuck with me after I read it. First – it was longer than the normal obituary and so I immediately assumed he must have lived a “full” life. Apparently he did. The obit listed the extensive record of his activities and accomplishments and military service. The second thing, and the item that really stood out to me, was this phrase tucked between the list of accomplishments and his surviving family members: “He loved….having coffee with friends at the Tofte dump.” I may be reading too much into that phrase (I never knew or met the man) but to me it speaks volumes about a life lived full. Tofte is a little town in Northeastern Minnesota along the shores of Lake Superior. Population of 246 (or so). At the mining company where he was employed he worked his way up from foreman to results engineer and then to plant supervisor. Later (after retirement) he came back as a consultant. He was a board member of an area utility company and also a member of the local hospital board.

He did lots of “stuff.” And yet when it came time to write a few paragraphs of his life to put in the local paper, family members thought it appropriate to include the few words, “He loved having coffee with friends at the Tofte dump.” Weren’t there other accomplishments/activities/contacts/life-stuff that would be more appropriate or more impressive to readers? What was the biggest fish he ever caught? Did he ever get a hole in one? What kind of a plane did he fly? During those nine years he served in the Navy during WWII (and the Korean conflict) was he involved in any of the major battles we read about? No details about any of that. And yet….”he loved spending time with friends at the Tofte dump.”

I think that’s so cool. To me it says a lot about the important things of life. Living the “dash” (you know, that little itty bitty horizontal line between a date of birth and date of death that is chiseled into millions of headstones in thousands of cemeteries). Here was a man who sounded pretty accomplished and yet he apparently never lost touch with the people he grew up with and grew to love spending time with.

Perhaps somewhere on some highway or gravel road you’ve stopped by a small family-owned café for breakfast or lunch – and when you opened the door just about every eye turned to see who the hungry strangers were. I remember vividly as a kid stopping at one such café in Wheaton, Minnesota along highway 75 on our way to our grandparent’s house. A bunch of “old-timers” would be sitting in one booth or around one table telling jokes, maybe talking about the crops, perhaps bragging about the fish they caught or the buck they shot, passing along the town news-gossip and just having a great time.

But this scenario is a little different – they met at the town dump! Not as idyllic of a scene as a Terry Redlin old-time rural America painting, but a rural America scene nonetheless (just as the superstore-ization of our cities has wiped out most of the small mom and pop grocery stores, so the “town dump” has given way to the more sterile term “sanitary landfill”). Did they meet at the little shack that stood at the entrance to most dumps? Did they ever say, “I can’t believe Charlie is throwing that out!”? Did they bring home the “one-man’s-junk-is-another-man’s-treasure” treasure? (It seemed sometimes that my dad brought back more from the dump than he originally hauled there. You can’t do that nowadays – everything is promptly crushed by some sort of mechanized T-Rex – thus we have lost a great “dump-tradition”). Whatever they did or didn’t do, I am guessing he and they had a wonderful time.

“He loved…having coffee with friends at the Tofte dump.” There is a phrase in verse 3 of the 14th chapter of the Gospel of Mark that stands out to me, “…and being in Bethany in the home of Simon the leper…” Only two days before Good Friday, Jesus (the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Creator of the universe) was in a town about the size of Tofte and in a home – not of the mayor or some prominent family or bigwig – but of Simon the leper! Wow! Didn’t he have more on His mind? Weren’t there some other more important preparations to be taken care of? This is either Tuesday night or Wednesday of Passion Week and only about 48 hours away from His sacrificial and excruciating death on Calvary – shouldn’t He be confronting some Pharisee someplace? But the Bible says that “He was having coffee with friends at the town dump.” (The Vander Ark paraphrased version). To me that speaks volumes about the love and concern that the Son of Man had for the “Mr. and Mrs. Life-is-tough” family. He genuinely and sincerely loved being with people! In fact, He loved them enough to go to the cross for them (the John 3:16 thing).

“He loved…having coffee with friends at the Tofte dump.” When your obituary is written will they simply list your job titles, places of employment, educational degrees, and surviving family members? Or will they include a much more important snippet of how your life was lived…your very own version of “He loved…having coffee with friends at the Tofte dump?”

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com

The Magic Sock Drawer

2008-09-01T06:30:00.000-05:00

“Hey honey, come here and look at this!” “I’m coming, I’m coming,” my wife replied, “What’s going on?” I pointed to the bottom drawer of the dresser in our little bedroom. “Look! IT’S FULL AGAIN! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! This has to be some sort of miracle! This drawer hasn’t been empty for over 12,000 days! I sat on the edge of the bed and just stared at the drawer. My wife just rolled her eyes.

“12,000 days,” I kept repeating. “Always full, never without socks.”
I followed her as she lugged a huge laundry basket down the stairs, “You don’t suppose there’s a sock angel do you? Maybe we should contact the church headquarters and see if they want to investigate and possibly turn it into a shrine.”
“I think they should investigate you,” she said.
“But this is almost bigger than Moses and the Manna,” I argued. “There…Bamanna Bread for 40 years…from heaven; here…black socks, brown socks, white socks for 33 years…from wwwwwhhhhoooooo kkknnnnnooooooowwwwwssss wwwhhhhhheerrrrreee? I bet you it has something to do with that big hole in the hozone layer!”
“Honey, it’s not the hozone layer….its the ozone layer. You think your socks are falling down from the ionosphere by aliens?”
Well,” I replied, “you know how when you put five pair of socks in the dryer and only 4.5 pair come out?”
Yeah, what about it?
Well, I think when the dryer spins it opens up some sort of vortex or Sockgate in the back of the dryer -- that stray sock then hits the hozone and somehow my magic sock drawer gets filled up!
“I think you’re spending too much time in the bozone layer,” was all she said.

I snuck up on the dresser and tried peeking in the drawer – kind of like opening up the fridge door fast enough to see if you can look in before the light comes on. It was always full. I began pondering some other strange occurrences around the house: like the fact that the sugar jar was always full, and and and come to think of it -- the coffee canister….that never gets empty either. Hmmmmmmmm?

I shared this fact with some of my guy friends (well I didn’t share it with them, we sort of grunted about it while watching the Vikings get beat). They have sometimes seen it happen in their homes but not to the extent that it happens at our home.

“Crop circles,” one of them said, “somehow it’s connected to crop circles.”
Another one said, “Set a trap. Cover the floor with flour or Jell-O or hook a pail of water to the ceiling and connect it so when the drawer is opened……wawhoooooooooooshhh.

I took part of their advice. I rigged up one of those motion sensor cameras with a flash like the deer hunters use.

It didn’t take long. I was sitting on the couch one night doing several reps of remote control curls when suddenly I saw a brilliant flash at the top of stairs followed by a crash, bang, boom, crash and then a blood curdling scream (or was it a blood curdling scream followed by a boom, crash, bang?). I raced to the top of the stairs and shot into the bedroom. My wife was sprawled out on the floor – she was covered with Jell-O and flour. I stepped right over her and the laundry basket as I rushed to look into the magic sock drawer – it was partially open! “Honey, did you see it? What was it? Did you SEE ANYTHING AT ALL???”

The last thing I remembered seeing that night was a laundry basket full of socks coming toward me at the speed of light.***

(***Disclaimer: Most of what is stated above is sort of not really true and just a little bit stretched, except for this one thing: the sock drawer is ALWAYS full and I am deeply in love with the sock angel and appreciate her more than she knows [Proverbs 31:10-31]).

www.ourdogtbone.com

When Faucets Attack

2008-03-10T20:00:00.000-05:00

It first happened last September during my granddaughter’s second birthday party at my daughter and son-in-law’s home. We were in the process of getting ready to eat before the birthday presents were opened. The little squeeze bottle of mustard sort of “burped” and so there was some old-mustard icky stuff on the little red nozzle thing. I went to the sink and washed it off. But then I had to take the sprayer and wash the mustard out of the sink.

Then it happened.

I went to put the sprayer back and that was apparently its cue to not work. When I released the sprayer nozzle thingy it stuck and sprayed me all over the front of my sweatshirt.

The kids sort of snickered. “Hehehehehe…look at Grampa….hehehehehehe….Grampa, how did you get all wet?…hehehehehehehe.

I think my son-in-laws were responsible some how but I am having a hard time proving it.

But that wasn’t the first time it happened

It also quote-unquote “happened” (like it was an accident) at a church event in January a couple of years ago. It was a Saturday seminar with one of our important church officials. His name was Larry. We will call him Larry. Larry The Important Church Official. Larry TICO for short.

About 15 people were gathered and it was just a few minutes before I was to introduce Larry TICO. The faucet in the kitchen was leaking. It was one of those industrial type of kitchen sinks with the water supply for the faucet coming directly out of the wall (as in “pointing toward the person standing in front of the sink”).

I am a man. I am sort of handy. So I am sort of a handyman. Sort of.

I, as super-pastor-sort-of-handyman, wanted to impress the ladies in the kitchen so I attempted to fix or stop the leak.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem. I am Dutch – my ancestors were good at stopping leaks. Remember the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike to save Holland? Kept his finger in the hole all night long to prevent his homeland from becoming a lake. I wasn’t planning on taking that long.

I pushed on the faucet to see if that would help.

It didn’t.

And that’s when it happened.

Ffffssshhhhoooosoooososshhhhh!!!

Directly at me!

The one side of the faucet became unhooked from the water supply and the water was spraying horizontally out of the wall.

I, super-pastor-sort-of-handyman, held my hand up in front of the pressurized stream to try to stop it.

Who did I think I was, Moses?

I was getting wet – and fast.

Immediately someone (or I super-pastor-sort-of-handyman – that part is a little bit of a blur) went under the sink and shut off the supply.

I was really wet.

It was 5 minutes before I had to introduce Larry TICO

When I went to talk to him he said, (and I quote), “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!”

Water-logged-super-pastor-sort-of-handyman, “Faucet…attack…me…wet.”

I introduced Larry TICO and eventually dried off.

I made some sort of joke about wanting to get baptized.

Somehow, I think my son-in-laws were involved in this also, but again, I am having a hard time proving it.

CSI Hawthorne is working on the case.

Copyright 2008 All rights reserved
www.ourdogtbone.com

Latin Phrases

2008-03-10T18:00:00.013-05:00

A couple of weeks ago one of my coworkers emailed us a Friday quiz. The subject line said simply, “Friday quiz…Latin phrases,” and the email went on to ask, “Latin phrases people pretend to understand....how many do you know???”

Below were the phrases:

Caveat Emptor (KAV-ee-OT emp-TOR)
Persona Non Grata (puhr-SOH-nah non-GRAH-tah)
Habeas Corpus (HAY-bee-as KOR-pus)
Cogito Ergo Sum (CO-gee-toe ER-go SOME
E Pluribus Unum (EE PLUR-uh-buhs OOH-nuhm)
Quid Pro Quo (kwid proh KWOH)
Ad Hominem (ad HAH-mi-nem)
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (ad-MA-yor-em DAY-ee GLOR-ee-um)
Sui Generis (SOO-ee JEN-er-is)

Well, I couldn’t pass up trying to interpret them so this is what I came up with:

Caveat Emptor - A tourist attraction in SW Kentucky, "Come and see the Cave At Emptor!"

Persona Non Grata -- One of those stupid high school math problems, "If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many Non Grade A eggs does Person A have?

Habeas Corpus -- A little town 12 miles southwest of Corpus Christi.

Cogito Ergo Sum -- What a Roman boss would holler at an employee..."Cogito! Do some work!"

E Pluribus Unum -- What E.P.'s family asks him when he comes in from 40 degrees below zero, "E Pluribus, you numb?"

Quid Pro Quo – Not sure…it’s either a shortened form of a cheerleader cheer for the defunct pro football team from Iowa (the Crows), “I am not quidding, look at that Pro Crow!" Or what the really, really young fans of the rock group “Kid Pro Crow” holler at one of their concerts, “Quid Pro Quo! Quid Pro Quo!”

Ad Hominem -- A request for more hominy when someone doesn't like their grits.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - An ad for margarine that's really shiny.

Sui Generis -- Filing frivolous generic lawsuits.

Her reply? “Forget the real answers...yours are way better!!!!!!!!”

But there is one Latin phrase that can only be interpreted one way – and it is without doubt the most important ever penned, “Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam.” The interpretation? It’s a verse found in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (3:16). God loves you so much He sent His Son to die for you on Calvary! Give your heart to Him today without reservation and without hesitation.

The Steps To The Reception

2008-03-10T18:00:00.012-05:00

The wedding for our youngest daughter Courtney was approaching fast. The reception was going to be held at the Solway Town Hall and the stage was going to be where the head table was placed. In order to make it easier for the bridal party to get up to the stage and down to the main floor I told our daughter that I would build some portable wooden steps. I procrastinated (as I normally do on things) and Courtney sent an email inquiring as to the “state of the steps.” The following is the actual email exchange that took place between us.

**********************************************************
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 1:47 PM
From: Courtney
To: Dad
Subject: Steps

Hi Dad ~ Did Mom ask you about the steps for the reception?

**********************************************************

Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 2:19 PM
From: Dad
To: Courtney
Subject: RE: Steps

Yep - I told her:

Step One - you gotta fall in love with someone really nice and someone who loves your son....yeah, someone like Gus!

Step Two - you gotta decide to get married and hang around with the person in step one your whole life - even when you or they are crabby or you find a couple dings or dents in their knight-in-shining armor armor.

Step Three - you set a date to get married and ask you father, who just happens to be a preacher, to marry you two.

Step Four - You walk down the aisle with your father and he cries and his wife cries and everyone is just crying, crying, crying all over the place because they're so happy - even the little dude (Courtney’s son) is crying...

Step Five - You say, I DO!

Step Six - You walk back down the aisle as Mr. and Mrs. Gus, get in the F150 Ford Limo and go to the Town Hall.

Step Seven - you eat and smile and dance and talk to friends and family.

Step Eight - somewhere along the way make sure you invite Jesus to be a part of your family - He can make things go a whole lot better and has had a lot of experience in human problems and predicaments. He brings joy where a lot of times there is just sadness and He can make something beautiful out of what was all broken.

And those are the steps to the reception!

Dad :-)

Or were you talking about the wooden steps up to the stage?

**********************************************************
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 2:53 PM
From: Courtney
To: Dad
Subject: Re: Steps

Oh Daddy, I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Just in case you didn't already know that!) Yes, I did mean the wooden steps for the stage!! :-)

www.ourdogtbone.com

My Truck's Emergency Brake is a Hunk of Oak

2008-03-10T18:00:00.011-05:00

My wife and I began our married life in 1973 with a 1960 Ford Falcon as our mode of transportation. It was painted canary yellow and had one of those do-it-yourself black spray-on vinyl tops. The gas pedal was held on with a coat hanger wire, there was a hole in the floor board, and if you hit a bump too hard the driver’s side window fell off the track and disappeared down inside the door. So you always carried a pair of pliers in the glove compartment in case the window suddenly decided to open on its own – you simply grabbed the top edge of the window and yanked it back up. In Fargo, North Dakota it’s important to have your windows rolled up when it’s a minus 30 degrees. For any trip the checklist was:
Gas…yep.
Four tires…yep.
Pair of pliers…yep.
Ok we’re good to go.

Shortly after our wedding my wife drove the car to the automotive insurance place to get it insured. At a stop light the window went kerthunk. If I remember correctly it may have been snowing that day. A nice guy offered assistance. When my wife told him where she was going, he simply said, “You’re gonna insure that?”

We have been married for 33 years and now have three vehicles – one is a 2000 Nissan Sentra (driven all the time by my wife), one is a 1998 Chevy S-10 (only driven every other Sunday when the weather is nice – which isn’t too often in Duluth, MN), and the one I drive most of the time -- a 1995 Nissan pickup. A couple of days ago we went to the hospital to visit one of the church members. I was going to park on 4th Avenue East (called Cardiac Hill) but my wife advised against it (Duluth is a northern Minnesota version of San Francisco with all of its hills and steep streets). I agreed and we went to park where it was level. The emergency brake cable had broken a couple of years ago and so I haul around a piece of 4x4 oak about a foot long that serves as the “brake.” I have had to park on some pretty hairy streets and so I turn the steering wheel either all the way to the right or all the way to the left depending on the existence of a curb, get out, lock it up (who knows why), and then throw out the hunk of wood. (Just to sort of change the subject for a second…there is a restaurant out in the country about 20 miles from where we live called the Covered Wagon. When you park you pull up next to a hitching post [you know – where you tied up the horses in the old Western movies]. I have told my wife that someday I am going to tie a rope to the bumper of the car the next time we are headed to the Covered Wagon. When we get there I will get out and "tie up the car." I think it would be hilarious – she just shook her head.) As we drove home from the hospital, my wife said, “What’s that little yellow light on the dashboard next to that little red light?” I simply replied, “Oh that’s the check engine light – its nothing. It’s been coming on for three years now. And the yellow lights are not really warning lights, they’re more like suggestion lights.”

We’ve only ever had one new car (a 1985 Plymouth Horizon) and that got attacked by a deer only five months after we had it. Hit it dead center. Blam! So much for the new car. So we pretty much just buy used vehicles (and I’m not too good at dealing with car salesman. Me to the salesman: “You said your daughter doesn’t have any shoes??? Well here, how about I pay you a thousand dollars more than what the sticker price is?”)

Anyway, “stuff” rusts, rots, breaks, fades, gets stolen, loses its attraction, gets eaten by dogs, gets attacked by deer, blows up, melts, fizzles, loses it faddiness (is that a word?), etc, etc. The 1960 Ford Falcon probably met its demise several decades ago (I sold it to my sister when she needed a car – I can’t remember if I threw in the pliers). My in-immaculate-shape-only-a-few-thousand-miles-for-being-a-1998 Chevy S-10 will one day not be so immaculate. A friend gave me an old IBM ThinkPad laptop for free – it probably cost around $2,000.00 new -- my four year old grandson plays with it when he comes over. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 6:19-20). He also said in another place, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” (Mark 8:36).

I am not saying here that we shouldn’t take good care of our stuff. If you use your vehicle for a “dirty job” then you have a reason for it not being so clean, but having a filthy car isn’t a sign of being laid back, it’s a sign of laziness. But compared to the big picture of eternity, the scratch on the new car ain’t so important, the stain on the new couch isn't such a big deal, the antique that was broken won’t matter much in heaven. There is more important “stuff” to life. Souls are eternal and Hell is forever. Paul said in II Corinthians, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (II Cor. 4:18).

Would that God would “stamp eternity upon our eyeballs.” Seventy, eighty, ninety, even one hundred years of life is just a little blip along the scale of eternity. Make your decisions with that in mind…and above all give your life unreservedly to Jesus Christ! Don’t hesitate to ask Him to forgive your sins, to come into your heart and to become your personal Lord and Savior.

Dan Vander Ark
www.ourdogtbone.com

Flaming Angel, Speak!

2008-03-10T18:00:00.009-05:00

I got up from the computer desk in our basement and decided to go upstairs instead of into another room in the family room/lower level. It was one of those fateful decisions to go to the left instead of right. When I turned the corner I was terrified to see fire ON TOP of our wood stove – a big flame on the OUTSIDE instead of INSIDE of it! I am not a woodstove expert but I do know that’s NOT normal. It was a metal angel that my wife had put on the top of the woodstove that had caught fire once the fire inside was roaring at a pretty good clip. Normally metal angels don’t burn – but this one had a nice little candle tucked away inside of it that both of us had forgotten about. Once it got hot enough the wax decided to leave the metal container that housed it and venture out onto the top of the woodstove….and POOOOF! A flame almost reaching the ceiling! That’s never a good sign. My first reaction? I knocked the flaming angel off from the top of the woodstove but that only created fire in two spots – on top of the stove and on the carpeting. I immediately reached for the fire extinguisher that had been hanging in the same spot unused for about 8 years – I hardly remember pulling the pin and then pulling trigger but WOOOOSSSSHHHHHH and the fire on the stove was out and another WOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHH and the fire on the carpeting was out. The smoke alarm went off and I was shaking and coughing from the cloud of smoke, fumes and chemicals (when I had finally settled down my wife asked me where the fire extinguisher was – I couldn’t remember – I looked and looked and finally found it outside on the back deck). The fire was out but now everything was covered with a dusty white film. Shooting off a CO2 extinguisher indoors is one thing – but shooting off one of those dry chemical extinguishers in the house creates a huge mess (of course not as big as a burned out room in the house or even worse).

Kay said when she heard all of the commotion (you know, like me yelling “FIRE!”) and looked down the basement door all she could see was an orange glow. She didn’t think it was another Day-of-Pentecost type moment but she wasn’t sure what had happened – she thought maybe the chimney piping had come loose or something.

Well we spent a couple of hours cleaning things up and, amazingly, the carpeting didn’t look too bad. I was sure there was going to be, not a snow angel, but an angel shaped burn pattern in the floor. Instead it wound up being just a small melted spot. And the next day I bought some mineral spirits and cleaned the wax off from the outside of the wood stove.

My wife and I both made a mental note – always check metal angels for the possibility of flammable stuff in their guts.

The next day I told this story to a friend at work. He thought for a moment and then said, “Wow man that sounds biblical! Don’t you think you should have listened to see if the angel wanted to speak to you?” He was, of course, referring to Exodus chapter three and the story of Moses and the burning bush. (Can you picture that? Me sitting on the carpeting in front of a blazing angel, smoke alarm going off in the background, my wife flying down the stairs, and I simply respond, “Ssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh! We must listen to the flaming angel!”) He told the story to his wife that night and she said it was good thing God hadn’t called me to Mt. Sinai to see the burning bush – her implication being that I would have brought along a fire extinguisher!

I can picture it now – Cecil B. DeMille’s epic motion picture starring Dan Vander Ark as Charlton Heston (in my mind Chuck will always be Moses), Fraser Heston as the floating-in-the-Nile Moses, Yul Brynner as Rameses II (someday I’m gonna try out that Egyptian “bald-all-over-except-for-the-pony-tail” hairdo on my congregation to see what they think; the teens would love it), Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, Edward G. Robinson as that really icky guy named Dathan, Lilly Munster/Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora (Zipporah) and pre-horror movie Vincent Price as the evil lord Baka. Moses had been banished to the backside of the desert where he had married Sephora/Zipporah and become Jethro’s son-in-law. One day, while shepherding his flock near the slopes of Mt. Sinai, he rescued Joshua/John Derek (Hollywood took a little “this-part-is-not-in-the-Bible” license with the rescue of Joshua scene) but something in the distance grabbed his attention – a fiery, blazing bush that just kept burning and burning. While peering at this miraculous sight toward the top of the mountain, Moses (i.e. me) glanced back at Zipporah and said, “Honey, I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight. Hand me that fire extinguisher!”

Hey Pastor Dan, You're Cool!

2008-03-10T18:00:00.007-05:00

One of the people at church happened to mention to me one day, “Pastor Dan, you’re cool!” Her statement sort of took me off guard, but once I recovered I felt I had to set the record straight. “Well let me tell you a little story and I think you will change your mind.” I sat down next to her and told her the following true story. Several years ago my wife bought me one of those leather Spencer Tracy type of hats – you know, the kind that Harrison Ford made famous in those Indiana Jones movies. I had to make a trip to the mall for something so I decided to wear the Indiana-Jones-Harrison-Ford-Spencer-Tracy hat. I parked by Penney’s (on one end of the mall) but decided to go to Sears (at the other end of the mall). As I was walking through the mall I noticed people sort of glancing my way. I thought to myself, “They must be thinking, ‘Was that Harrison Ford? Hey, look! It’s Indy!’” I kept walking and people kept glancing. I tried walking like Dr. Jones. By the time I got to Sears I felt like I was on the last crusade as a raider of the lost ark through the temple-mall of doom. When I got to Sears I went to the restroom just to take a quick glance in the mirror to make sure I was still oozing coolness. Aaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! I had the hat on backwards and the tag was sticking out!

I ain’t the Fonz. Me and coolness just don’t see eye to eye. Don’t get me wrong – I try to be cool – but coolness doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I found 22 results for the word “cool” on www.dictionary.com – I wasn’t pictured by any of them. Besides the typical definitions for cool (such as “imparting a sensation of moderate coldness”), I also found these: socially adept – well that’s not me – I almost knocked out this girl I liked at youth camp when I swung my duffel bag up and caught her underneath the chin. Another definition is this: to reduce the molecular or kinetic energy of an object. I think I do that sometimes. I know I’m thinking slower. I think. And another is this: composure, poise. You haven’t seen me on the dance floor. Just typing “me on the dance floor” seems funny to me. The word can also mean “excellent” or “first-rate.” Like, “Hey you drive a really cool 1995 Nissan 2-wheel-drive rusty dog-ate-the-truck-seat pickup.” It can also mean “a casual manner” or “nonchalantly.” Now that’s not me, but it perfectly describes my older brother. He was really nonchalant at about age 9 or 10 when he started the woods on fire behind our home and came in and asked our mom for a bucket of water to put the fire out. “What do you want that for, Naj? (I spelled his name backwards to protect his identity). “Oh nothing, just gonna water the woods.” By the 27th bucket she must have figured something was up. That and the flames and fire truck outside. My brother reminded me of my “involvement” in this criminal activity about a month ago, but I think he is still just trying to ease his conscience after all these years. I am just about sorta kinda pretty sure I didn’t have anything to do with it. Sort of.

Now if I had started the woods on fire, my nonchalantness/coolness would have gone like this:

“MOM, NAJ STARTED THE WOODS ON FIRE!!! WE NEED WATER!!! AND FAST!!!”
“Who started the woods on fire?”
“NAJ, YOUR SON NAJ!”
“Danny, we don’t have a Naj in this family.”
“LISTEN TO ME WOMAN! I AM SAYING HIS NAME BACKWARDS TO PROTECT HIS IDENTITY!!!”
“Oh. Well, here’s a bucket of water…”

I would imagine most people at some point in their lives try to be “cool.” The desire afflicts teenagers big-time. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, there are a few remarkable verses that always make me stop and think when I read them. “He has no form or royal, kingly pomp, that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like One from Whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth. Yet surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows and pains…He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace and well-being fell upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed and made whole.” (Isaiah 53:2-5). Another version of the Bible puts the first couple of verses this way, ““There was nothing attractive about Him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a Man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at Him and people turned away.” These words were written of the Messiah and they give us insight into how He was viewed by the society of His day and His remarkable heart of love for people…even people who laughed at Him and scorned Him and derided Him and didn’t think that He was “cool.” But Jesus didn’t worry about coolness. He didn’t put on airs and never tried to impress people. He never tried to be something He wasn’t. What you saw on the outside, He was on the inside. And His tremendous heart of love caused Him at times to do the “uncool” (like touching lepers and talking to prostitutes) and eventually led Him to Calvary for you and I.

So just be yourself. And does anyone want to buy a used “Indiana Jones Harrison Ford” hat, size 7 ½? And you don’t have to worry about putting it on backwards -- I will write “FRONT” on the inside. And I can cut the tag off. 

The Legend of Pigfoot

2008-03-10T18:00:00.006-05:00

We were working on our new church a few Saturdays ago when, at lunch time, a couple of the guys starting talking about a wild boar roaming the woods of northern Wisconsin. Now I’m not the world’s most knowledgeable outdoors type of guy (although I do know the difference between a whitetail deer and a John Deere) so immediately in my not-too-informed-about-giant-pigs brain I envisioned little Babe, that cute talking pig, his face wrapped in a Packer scarf, struggling mightily against the bitter cold of a Douglas County winter.
“Poor little piggy,” I said to the guys. “POOR LITTLE PIG! ARE YOU NUTS?” they hollered in unison. I was immediately informed that this was no ordinary pig – but an escapee from a maximum security game farm somewhere in Northern Wisconsin known only to the DNR and the CIA. “And how did he get out?” I chuckled, “Did he tunnel his way out like in the Great Escape?” Thought I was being funny but they didn’t laugh. Their reply: “THEY just escaped! Walked out right past the guard tower!” So now I’m informed that its not one giant pig but several and they weigh……are you ready for this? About 500 pounds each!!! “Why that’s as big as a black bear!” was my astonished reply as I tried to impress them with the one thing I know about black bears (other than that they are black).
As we continued our lunch and the conversation progressed, facts began emerging about this giant pig. Not only is he B-I-G (I guess it’s a he), but he has the temperament of Robert DeNiro, Martha Stewart and the Terminator all rolled into one! They have tusks (yes just like an elephant) and they are meaner than a bunch of day-after-Thanksgiving-shoppers at the local mall. I later checked all this out on the Internet – looked up Russian Boars just to see if they were exaggerating. Those animals get really big (up to 700 lbs. in some countries) and are they ugly looking -- uglier than 11 Vikings trying to stop a last minute touchdown by a high school football team (being a 35 year Viking fan I have a right to say that…but let’s get away from such painful visions). The DNR website states emphatically, “If encountered, give the wild boar plenty of room to flee…” Now I’m thinking, “Give me plenty of room to flee!” And the paragraph heading on one website says boldly, “THREATS TO WISCONSIN.” Honest, I am not making this stuff up! The whole state is apparently in grave danger! And still another line goes, “Russian wild boars have thick shaggy coats and are capable of surviving Wisconsin winters…they are also wary, elusive animals that can live in an area AND NOT BE SEEN.” You mean to tell me they have stealth technology!!!
So I asked this group of mighty warriors, “If you meet one in your yard, is there any way to stop him? What should you do – just holler, “I don’t eat bacon!!!?” Again, my humor fell far short of its intended goal. They glared at me, but then just looked slowly at one another and began to speak in hushed tones – reminded me of a Frankenstein movie when the townsfolk are gathered at the local pub trying to figure out a way to stop the “MONSTER.” A grisly old guy with one eye leaned over my way, spit out his chew, and said with a raspy voice (I am exaggerating here for literary effect – it was actually just one of the ushers – and he has both eyes), “Preacher, they can’t be stopped! We’s tried bullets, arrows, pickups, tasers, everything……and they CAN’T BE STOPPED! If you sees one – just git in the house and begin praying!
Facts tend to get stretched and the stretches tend to grow into fiction and the fiction somehow weaves its way into legend. When my 2 ½ year old grandson grows up and comes to visit me in the old folks home, he’ll see me with my whitened hair (but then again probably not as I am currently taller than my hair), sidle up next to my rocking chair as I’m wrapped in my purple and gold afghan, and will ask me, “Grandpa, can you tell me about that giant pig that roamed the woods of northern Wisconsin back in the old days?” “I’d love to Noah….sit yourself down here for a spell and let me tell you about the legend………the legend of PIGFOOT.”

Our Dog T-Bone: A Heartwarming Story of Life with One Really Nervous Dog

2008-03-10T18:00:00.004-05:00

Our hearts were broken. With the severity of his old age issues and a losing battle with S.A.* we knew the time had come. I had called the vet a few days earlier and made an appointment with him to have T-Bone put to sleep, and now Kay and I and “Bone” made the agonizing trip to the vet clinic. After a few minutes in the waiting area we were ushered into the exam room. I was both crying and shaking, and you could see the tears streaming down my wife’s face. When the vet came in he briefly explained to us what he was going to do. Even though T-Bone was mostly blind we both wanted to be in a position to look into his eyes as he passed away. But (as had always been the case at the vet) he was so anxious and struggling so much that I had to sit on the floor and hold him as tight as I could with him straddling my lap. His head was toward my left and I felt bad that I wouldn’t be able to look into his eyes but at least I was able to hug him as close as possible. We had tried to prepare ourselves for T-Bone’s death, but neither of us was prepared for what he did in the last few moments of his life…..

For the rest of the story go to www.ourdogtbone.com

An A-Mail From T-Bone (Heaven from a Dog's Point of View)

2008-03-10T18:00:00.003-05:00

Introduction: I don’t normally put an “intro” to an article but for the following fictitious story I need to sort of set the scene. For 13 years we had a dog named “T-Bone” whom we had to put to sleep in May of 2006 due to a losing battle with separation anxiety and his old age issues. Even though the Bible isn’t clear on it, I lean toward the fact that our pets go to heaven. God is an amazingly good God and I think when we get to heaven we will be amazed by so many things – and one of those things will be seeing our pets in heaven. So the following is what I call an “a-mail (angel mail) from T-Bone,” sort of “heaven from T-Bone’s point of view.”

“Hey master – guess what? I can type now! They have a huge keyboard by one of the gates of the city that is made just for dogs – it fits our paws perfectly! It takes me awhile to type these but hey, I got lots of time! The angels help us (the younger angels-in-training); they help us spell somewhat and then we can pull up anyone’s name on planet earth and just hit the “send button” and they say somehow it gets to you. So that’s kool.

You remember how you used to preach about Paul the apostle and that church tradition said he was bald and bowlegged but that that would change once he got to heaven? And that once you got up here you would not be taller than your hair? Well guess what? Paul still doesn’t have hair! Guess the jokes on you!!! Hahahahahahahahaha. Just kidding master – he has lots of hair – but he’s still bowlegged – so I guess you’re outa luck there. But is he cool to talk to! He still has fire in his eyes.

I saw Jesus the other day. All I can say is, “WOW!” You know you can still see the nail prints in His hands. And guess what? He really loves dogs!!! All types and sizes come running to meet Him when they see Him and He even lets them lick His face – even the pitbulls like Him. And you can’t believe how much He loves people – master I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t give their heart completely to Him. He has such an incredible sadness and heartache when He talks about people that don’t know Him as their personal Savior.

Fsbof yp;f ,r yjr dyptu pg jo, smf Hp;osyj!!! Oops hold it, the angel in training just pointed out to me that I had my little paws shifted one key to the right. Let me try typing that again…what I wanted to type was this: David told me the story of him and Goliath! You know King David isn’t that big, he sure ain’t no Ahnold Schwarchentruber Governator guy, he’s just like you and me (well pretty much like you accept he has hair – hahahahahahahahaha – hope you don’t mind me teasing you again about your hair master, of which you have none); and Goliath was huge! They have HDTV up here (heavenly days TV) and they have all of history on DVD’s so we can watch anything we want. Anyway, we plugged in the story of David and Goliath and David sat right next to me!!! Kooler than kool! He pointed out how his countrymen were a bunch of chickens (a couple of chickens up here told me that they were ashamed to be associated with Saul and his soldiers) but that his faith in God helped him overcome any fear that he had and that he couldn’t stand having some big ugly giant dissing his God!!! (See how I picked up that street slang since I been up here?). Anyway, he took out his slingshot and a couple of rocks and wow was it quiet out on the battle field when they had their standoff. Goliath was huffing and puffing and spittin and fumin and snortin and filled with rage. But little David was grinning from ear to ear!!! Us under-dogs were so excited we could hardly stand it. Davey slinged that slingshot and hit the giant right between the eyes and he fell down kabooom! And then he went and took the giants sord (I am sworry master but it seems like a total waste of a “w” to spell it “sword”) and cut off the giant's head. I saw all of the little dogs so happy that little David had defeated that big bully. WAS THAT EVER KOOL! Most people aren’t aware of it, but David wrote a book about that battle and went on a book signing tour for awhile before he became king. Do you know what the name of his book was master? “How to Get A Head.” hahahahahahahaha

And hey, tell your daughter Courtney and her husband Gus that their little son and daughter twins that died unexpectedly are doing fine – they took me for a walk the other day down the most beautiful trail; it was all wooded and wow the colors are incredible. Better than any pictures you ever took.

Well, I miss you master. I still stop by the gate everyday to see if you’re coming. It’s nicer than nice up here but it still isn’t quite the same without you. I ain’t nervous anymore but there seems to be sort of an empty spot in my dog heart. I think it will be better once you get here.

Luv, Yer Dog T-Bone

PS Master…Dogs get to come right on into heaven – but you know what? Katz have to have a letter of recommendation! I think that’s so funny master.

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