Bus Accident

 

What is the attraction between school buses and kids?!  I remember driving the church bus and my children running to the back of the bus when someone spotted a speed hump ahead.  The higher they bounced the better they liked it.  Great memories.  Except when my little sister was a child.  My dad drove the church bus in Joppa, Maryland and had finished dropping off all of the kids and was on his way home.  My sister was in that exciting back seat but had fallen asleep.  Dad topped the hill on four-lane US 40 at the intersection of Mountain Rd. and had slowed to a stop to make a left turn.  A truck driver topped the same hill moments behind my dad.  But the truck driver hadn’t seen the light change from yellow to red and plowed into the church bus from behind.  Both vehicles slid through the intersection and slowed to a stop.  When my dad collected his thoughts, he looked in the big rear-view mirror to see the back of the bus smashed in.  His heart sank.  His little girl had been in that back seat.  Dad rushed to the back of the bus to examine the wreckage.  The back end of the bus was crumpled into the back seat and both were pushed into the next-to-the-back seat.  The tops of the seats were smashed together, but the seats themselves had remained intact.  Nestled between those two seats was my little sister.  She was safe with only a broken collar bone.  Had she been sitting up, she would have been crushed between the two seat backs.  But she was asleep on the back seat and was protected.  David said in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”  Each of us has a destiny.  And God has a specific plan for each and every one of us.  Hey, are you fulfilling God’s plan for your life?  I hope you are.  You should be.  Think about it.

Anniversary

 

My wife is amazing!  She has been a wonderful helpmeet to me for fifty years!  Our fiftieth anniversary will be October 2 this year.  We celebrated our first-year anniversary camping out in the Great Smokey Mountains near the Tennessee - North Carolina border in Cades Cove, about 25 miles from Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  It was cheaper and more exciting than a motel.  We got to the campground late at night and the ranger station was closed.  So we picked out a spot and set up our borrowed two-man pup tent.  Just as I finished hammering in the last tent stake into the ground, a soft rain began, and it continued all night. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, water infiltrated the tent and our blankets got soaked.  Kathy and I retreated to our car, sleeping sitting up (only slightly reclining) in our 1969 Rambler American.  I had to start the car every thirty minutes to warm up.  We didn’t sleep with the car running because Kathy was afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning from the exhaust.  I got up early to fix breakfast only to find that I had forgotten the stove’s propane tank at home.  So we rolled up our wet blankets and wet tent, and headed to Gatlinburg for breakfast.  The fall colors were finished, and the winter season hadn’t started, so most of the motel rooms were marked down to just ten dollars a night.  So much for my best-laid-plans.  But my wife and I didn’t care.  We had each other, and that was all that mattered.  Solomon said in Proverbs 31:10-12, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her …She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.”  Kathy has been perfect for me.  I am blessed and grateful.

Alaska Homestead

We were watching “Alaska Homestead” last night.  There were two brothers outfitted to take down a moose for their winter meat.  They had rifles with scopes and a spotting scope to scan the horizon.  They had to hike 2,000 vertical feet to get to the tree line where glades and meadows opened up for the moose to graze.  The sparsity of trees allowed them to see the moose from a greater distance.  One young man had a small megaphone to amplify his moose calls.  He sounded exactly like a bull moose in rut.  The other brother used a small limb and scraped it on a downed birch tree to sound like a moose scraping his antlers.  The men spoke to the cameraman in hushed tones explaining how the moose would respond to the calls of a cow or the rustle of antlers of a rival bull.  They froze as a bull was heard in the distance.  Both men scanned the horizon looking for the bull.  From her recliner, my wife spoke, “Wouldn’t it be much easier to pick up a package of meat at Publix?”  The spell was broken.  She brought me back from Alaska to Ringgold, just like that.  Hey, I was excited to be with the brothers on the hunt, but it was just TV.  I was a little annoyed with her statement, right there in the middle of the hunt, but she was right.  I walked to the refrigerator and took out a cold 7 Up.  It was comfortable in our house.  God has been good to us.  David agreed in Psalm 103:2, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”  I enjoyed watching the moose hunt on TV, but I REALLY enjoy the blessings of our modern life.  Abundant food, warm house, electrical appliances, doctors nearby with cars to get to them quickly if need be.  Yes, God has been good to me.  Hey, God has been good to you too.  Think about it.  Have you thanked the good Lord today?