Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  I recently read a book by a first time author, Richard Ratay. It's titled,  Don't Make Me Pull Over!   Talk about an eye-catching title. I knew I had to read it, and I wasn't disappointed. The subtitle is,  An Informal History of the Family Road Trip. He starts off with a memory of being seven years old in 1976. He has a blurry recollection of being hauled out of bed in the middle of the night by his father, and being tossed across the laps of his two older brothers in the back seat of the family station wagon. The next thing he knows, he's rudely awakened by landing with a thud on the floor with a rug burn on his cheek from the carpet, and the hump from the transmission in the middle pressing on his stomach. He's surrounded by empty Styrofoam cups, eight track tapes and stuffed animals. He discovers that the cause of the discomfort is that the car has slid on an icy highway in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana and has come to an abrupt stop in a snow bank. As he des

   Last week my sister-in-law called with the news that Dr. Charles Stanley had passed away. It was news that I knew I would some day hear, but never wanted to. He died on April 18 at the age of 90. By any standard, he lived a long and productive life. Frankly, I was surprised that I didn't hear anything about his death on any of the networks, which I found surprising, considering he had an impact on millions of people around the world. I know that he certainly made an impression on me. I'm going to copy what I found on his home page. I think his words are profound. Life goes by quickly-very quickly. And many people today who are in heaven or hell intended to live a lot longer than they did. They didn't make any plans to die. They only had plans to live and enjoy themselves. So I want to ask you: What are you living for? What's your goal in life? Do you have any real purpose for living? God says we ought to be living to worship and to serve him. Because that, my friend,

  Jan asked me to vacuum the living room carpet a few minutes ago, she said she can't do it. Really? You can't vacuum the carpet? I know she's on the weak side, but this is ridiculous. I soon found that she wasn't kidding. I started pushing the vacuum and was breaking out in a sweat. I was about ready to hire a dog sled team to clean our floor. Last year we installed carpet in the living room. We opted for the really good pad, I guess extra thick or something, not realizing that for as comfortable as it may be to walk around on, cleaning it was going to take two men and a boy. Holy cats. I damn near got a hernia. I can imagine going to the doctor and when he asked what I was doing that was so strenuous I had to explain that I was vacuuming my carpet. I'd probably be laughed right out of the office.  I think that a new sport should be introduced for the Olympics- carpet cleaning. It would really separate the men from the boys. If you got a gold medal in vacuuming, yo