Sharing something very special tonight

So, this past week a memory just popped into mind.  About something I had written a long time ago as a student at Elon.  Awhile back I discovered an online archive of every issue of The Pendulum, which was the college's newspaper.  I've shared a few of the op-ed pieces I wrote for the paper already.

I don't know why I found myself thinking of it but I went looking for it.  And lo and behold I not only found it, but I realized today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication!

Maybe there is something at work, that such synchronicity happened right just now.

For many years at Christmas time I posted the text of this piece.  It was a holiday tradition for this blog.  But I haven't done that in a long while.  Maybe this year would be a good occasion to bring that tradition back.

Well anyway, here it is.  From the December 3rd, 1998 issue of Elon College's The Pendulum: my essay about Christmas and its memories.  Click to enlarge the image.

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This is the kind of people that Americans used to be

It was 1983, forty whole years ago.  At the White House.  "Santa Claus" came that year in the form of Mr. T.  Here he is with beloved First Lady Nancy Reagan sitting on his lap:

Damn it.  What the hell has become of us, since then?

We aren't like that anymore.  Our culture and society has become so degenerated that something so playful like that photo would be practically impossible in today's environment.

But once, in seemingly a better time and a different reality, we honestly were like that.

I like to believe that we could be again.

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Return of the Deep-Fried Turkey!

Hey gang, hope the holidays have been going well for y'all!  Christmas was rather good on this end.  I wound up with some Star Wars, some LEGO sets (Christmas is NEVER complete for me without Star Wars and LEGO no matter how old I get), some clothing, my mini dachshund Tammy received a bunch of toys.  And one way or another a lot of new cooking stuff came into my possession.

And speaking of cooking, steer your peepers onto this bad boy:

That's the first turkey I've been able to deep-fry since Christmas 2013!  Between my father passing away just before the following Thanksgiving, journeying across America and to a new hometown, getting situated in a house etc. it just wasn't practical all this time.

But Christmas Eve 2019 was a glorious return to feeding my irrational addiction to fried turkey.  I got a shiny new rig and it was screaming to be inaugurated.  A baptism of fire, so to speak...

Sixteen-pounds of turkey, mega-marinaded with garlic butter and slathered in Cajun rub.  45 minutes in the hot oil and out came a juicy, tender, succulent Christmas Eve feast for friends and family.

My friends, I truly have a home of my own now.  A house is not a home without a turkey fryer :-)

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One last photo from 2012 Holiday Season

Kristen and me on Christmas Day at her parents' house...

Despite everything she says, I still insist that she is far too sweet, fun and beautiful for a guy like me to be blessed with :-)

I am feeling led to say something here. That this Christmas was, for more reasons than I can possibly count, THE best Christmas that I have been able to enjoy in a very long, long time.

It was the first Christmas that I have had without Mom. In fact, it was a year ago today that we had her funeral. And in a lot of ways this was a trying and difficult year in other aspects as well.

But when I see the person I was a year ago, the time that I was going through then... and then now, how far God has brought me in that time, how He has blessed me more than I possibly deserve. And then how Kristen had promised that this was going to be a wonderful Christmas...

It was. It really was.

And Lord willing, next Christmas will be even better ;-)

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Stop Christmas, I want to get off

Let's dispense with the floridity and get to the point:

The holiday season has been damn near ruined by commercial madness.

I'm hearing that some families are having their Thanksgiving gatherings destroyed by Wal-Mart and other retailers mandating their employees be working on Thursday morning. Yeah you read that right: a number of stores are opening at noon on Thanksgiving when everyone else will be gorging on turkey and watching football.

I got a bad vibe when stores like Wal-Mart and Target began putting the Christmas stuff out before Halloween. That's two full months of holiday marketing. One-sixth of the entire year devoted to holiday spending.

Now the radio stations are following suit. 99.5 out of Greensboro - which has traditionally not begun playing Christmas songs until the day after Thanksgiving - is already blaring out 24 hours round the clock of holiday music.

Gad-dommit, STOP IT ALREADY!! I'm bipolar dammit! It's already hard enough for me to slow down my mind. I don't need the year to go by any faster! Neither do most other people. But that's what is happening as a result of the extended holiday season: the year is going by faster. Too fast. The holidays should come at us bursting with joy, not creeping upon us like so much unstoppable kudzu.

I'm this close to just calling off Christmas entirely this year. Not only not giving presents but demanding that I don't receive presents either. This ain't what Christmas is meant to be about. It's supposed to be about family, friends, good times, being thankful for what God has blessed us with...

Did we not learn anything from all those years of A Charlie Brown Christmas?

This is going to be the first Christmas that I spend without my mother. A few friends during the year also lost parents. For some, they know that this will be the last time they will have the holidays with a loved one.

Not all the money in the world, no amount of dollars spent, will ever fill the vacuum left by a beloved friend or family member.

Call me sentimental, but it seems like this is a time to be appreciative of what we have now, instead of accumulating mere material "things". I for one would certainly like to have Mom for another Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the rest of my life I will be haunted by old hurts between us that never really got resolved. It would have been nice to have the time to reconcile those and have just a little more time to share. That will never happen. But I refuse to let that be with anyone else that I care for.

This Thanksgiving, I choose to be thankful. This Christmas, if I don't receive anything at all, that's not going to keep me from enjoying the company of those that I love.

When I consider the madness that will no doubt ensue in a few days' time, it makes me almost wish that this country would have a hard crash. Perhaps then it would bring us to our senses. Compel us to get our priorities back in order. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy getting some Christmas presents: it just isn't perfect unless I get a new pair of sweatpants, some LEGOs and at least one Star Wars toy. But is any of that the focal point of my holidays? More like a nice cherry on top.

Anyhoo, Jennifer Waters at MarketWatch has a considerably recommendable story about retailers ruining Thanksgiving in their war for "Black Friday" bucks. You might have already read it 'cuz it's making the rounds quite a lot already. It's enough to make one pause, and forsake heading to the stores at all on Thanksgiving Day.

Who knows: if enough people stay home, maybe the retailers will come to figure out that it's not worth the money to open the doors earlier than sanity allows.

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Ahhh, love is in the air...

The bouquet of roses I got Kristen for our first Valentine's Day together:




Also got her a box of candy, a card, and I'm cooking her dinner too! A pizza with the pepperonis in the shape of a giant heart.

I would have also gotten her a gift certificate to the day spa, a pair of diamond earrings and a new car but hey, it is our first Valentine's after all. Got plenty of time to build up to bigger stuff :-)

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It's Valentine's Day!

Saint Valentine was a Christian who was imprisoned, gruesomely tortured, and finally beheaded on orders from Emperor Claudius II of Rome on February 14th, 270 A.D. 

Lord only knows how we came to remember the occasion by giving cards, candy and flowers. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY from The Knight Shift!

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Happy Labor Day

It's like May Day, but without the socialism!

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Taking off for the Fourth of July

I'm gonna step away from the blog for the next few days. Will return Monday. Perhaps then I'll even finally be caught up on my movies for this summer (if there might be anything good playing...)

In the meantime, have a great Independence Day weekend y'all! But don't let it be just about fireworks and hot dogs. Freedom, after all, is never free.

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Let's see Hallmark make a card out of this

Saint Valentine was a Christian who was imprisoned, brutally tortured and finally beheaded on orders from Emperor Claudius II of Rome on February 14th, 270 A.D. 

How we came to remember the occasion by giving cards, candy and flowers, is anyone's guess... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY anyway!

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Happy LeePoeKing Day Weekend from The Knight Shift!

This is the weekend here in the United States where we have an extra day off to commemorate the lives and contributions of three great Americans...

First, born on January 19th in 1807, there is Robert E. Lee: to this day one of the most revered and beloved generals in American history. And in this blogger's mind, also one of the greatest examples of Christian virtue and service. Eventually Lee had to make the hardest choice of his career: to lead the Union army or to throw his lot in with the Confederacy. As we all know Lee became the general of the Army of Northern Virginia. But what choice did he have? Lee was morally unable to take up arms against what he considered to be his countrymen. His role in the war and even his personal character have been debated for years... but in my mind there is no grounds for debate. Robert E. Lee simply sought out to do what God would have him do, as best he could understand Him. How many of us say the same about ourselves?

Born on the same day two years later was Edgar Allan Poe: the father of the detective story and the one most credited for developing what became the modern horror genre. Poe's influence is still considerable today, especially in literature and film. Unfortunately his later literary success did not reflect his life: Poe's years were wracked with personal tragedy, including the early death of his young wife. He died in Balimore, Maryland at the age of forty, leaving behind such works as "The Raven", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Masque of the Red Death".

And on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia was born Martin Luther King, Jr.. Interesting historical note: King was originally born "Michael King Jr." until his family visited Germany in 1934. So inspired by the life of Martin Luther was the elder King that he legally changed both his name and that of his son. Martin Luther King Jr. was in the church choir that sang at the Atlanta premiere of Gone With The Wind in 1939. He entered college at the age of 15, became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church when he was 25, and earned his doctorate the following year. The rest of his life, of course, was devoted to the civil rights movement and the dream of a nation whose people "...will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

So wherever you are, and whoever you might be, HAPPY LEEPOEKING DAY!

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Something I whipped up for the occasion...

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