"Putting on the Game Face" |
I did a rather incomplete job with my blog last month. There were too many days where I failed to make a journal entry. If you're like me the tolerance for political mayhem becomes unbearable and after awhile one has to quit listening to it and move onto something else... Unless you're Sean Hannity and he paddles around in the milieu like an infant in a wading pool. This is not to say that I fault him for it, because to the contrary I commend people like Sean and Rush who expose the excesses of political corruption to the light of day. What I'm saying is that I find it overwhelming, oppressive and noxious and eventually get to a point where I become overwhelmed by the fumes and must turn my mind to other things. So today I'm resolved to go out to the shop and work on my model airplanes. Before I head out there I must do the chores and take my morning obligatory walk with my dogs. First allow me to relate a most interesting set of circumstances. Early in February I went to an RC model swap in my van, following my friend Al to the event. He had a GPS in his new carvan, so it guided us on a circuitous route. During the swap meet I must have said something insensitive to Al because when it came time to go he had departed leaving me to find my own way home. No problem, I had a map of Wisconsin and navigated home the old fashioned way. During the trip I got turned around backwards and headed several miles in the wrong direction. I got off at a rest stop to use the facilities and there was a guy in his twenties driving a rusted out car trying vainly to get it started. When I came out he approached me and asked if I'd take him to a gas station. I said "No" my van was packed to the brim, including the front seat with model airplanes. I drove off and headed down the interstate for home. About a mile away I came upon an exit ramp and gas station and compelled by a guilty conscience, turned around and returned to the rest stop. The young man, who did not look to be dealing from a full deck, was trying to talk somebody else into giving him a ride. I made room in my van and told him to get in. It took him to the station, paid for his gas and returned him to the rest area whereupon he filled his tank, his car cranked and we both departed. Before going our separate ways he said, "I'm sure you will be rewarded for your kindness." to which I replied, "I've already been repaid.. and many times over." Now, when I got home a couple of days went by before I discovered my cell phone was missing. I scoured my shop, my house, my van, and the family car but to no avail. In the following weeks I repeated the process but to no avail... the cell phone was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, Linda and I concluded it was lost for good and went to US Cellular and bought a new one. On the trip home I looked around onto the floor of the back seat and guess what? There lay my phone. We had just spent a good chunk of change to buy a new one and laying on the floor was the old one. It had been the object of three determined searches over the period of the past month and suddenly it appeared in plain view on the floor of the back seat. Now why, you must be wondering... am I writing about politics, model airplanes, and a lost and found cell phone? I don't have a clear answer to that except to say I have a mind that connects things.... often things that seem unrelated. "Could it be?" I asked my wife, "that if I hadn't lost my phone I would have received a call that might have changed the direction of my life." Linda responded, "It sounds like a stretch to me but anything is possibe. More likely you had a senior moment and are trying to read more into your carelessness than the situation warrants." |