Serve by Design

Just the other day, I watched a humorous interview with a preteen. This occurred on an afternoon entertainment news program. What caught my attention in this brief and show-ending feature was that this youth was explaining her bad attitude while riding in the passenger seat of the family car. She was speaking to one of her parents as she made this adult-like excuse, “I’ve been crotchety since I was nine!”  Image: freepik.com I have enjoyed watching the Grumpy Old Men movies (1993, 1995) several times. The original film featured three of my favorite actors: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Ann-Margret, It’s a story of two men, Max Goldman and John Gustafson who are neighbors and lifelong friends that find themselves competing for the affections of a beautiful woman,   Ariel Truax, who lived across the street from both men, Matthau and Lemmon with deadpan humor do a masterful job of bringing their characters to life in an uproariously funny and absurd way! I’ve had my own grum...

Our oldest granddaughter, Chloe Michelle, is a senior in her home school program, Classical Conversations . She will defend her thesis soon and is scheduled to graduate on May 10 th . We are so proud of her! She is the first granddaughter and third grandchild to graduate from high school. We have two grandsons wrapping up their second year of college. I can’t believe how fast time has flown by for these young people! It seems only yesterday that Chloe was a one-year-old and played peekaboo with Monique. We love to replay how she used to say in a cute little voice, “I see you Mimi!” Image Credit: pngtree.com I am keenly aware of some of the pressures that young people face each day. The college guys in our family are in final exam time, and I am praying that they finish their class work well. Soon-to-be graduates are entering a new chapter that requires thought, prayer, and action. There are big decisions to make, colleges or trade schools to visit, and applications to fill out for admi...

The New York Yankees launched their 2025 baseball season with a bang! They hit fifteen home runs in their three-game opener with the Milwaukee Brewers. On Saturday, Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge blasted back-to-back homers to begin the game! Later, it was revealed that Goldschmidt and Bellinger were using a newly created bat (MLB approved!) that has been nicknamed, “The Torpedo Bat!” Aaron Leanhardt, a former Yankee’s analyst, is credited with designing the bat that looks somewhat like a bowling pin with a big knobby handle and a barrel that is customized per the individual athlete’s preferences. This creation puts the bulk and weight of the wood at the end of the bat. The Yankees swept the series with Milwaukee and some of the Bronx Bombers could say it was because of this new piece of “baseball lumber!” Time will tell if this new offensive tool is the result of fact and science or just another passing fad. I do know by experience that baseball players are often su...

When I was a boy, I went out summer evenings into the bottom ground of the Kaskaskia River hunting for raccoons with my dad and our next-door neighbor, Jim. Dad and Jim loved this sport and exercised their dogs in and out of season. The challenge for the dogs was to pick up and follow the coon scent all the way to the tree. Occasionally, and much to the displeasure of their owners, these highly trained canines would fall prey to other scents and be drawn away! "I smell something!" For years, I have known how hunting dogs have this heightened sense of smell, but I was surprised to recently learn that the African giant pouched rat also has the same ability! This species of large rodents is being used in some seventy-eight countries throughout the world where individuals have been victimized by landmines. Statistics show these dangerous unexploded ordnances kill or maim fifteen to twenty-thousand civilians each year! Research engineers, who work to study and train these specia...

We have been needing some extra prayers and support during the last two weeks. Monique recently took a fall as we entered a church where I was preaching and lightly sprained her left ankle. Four days later, she fell going down into our garage and badly twisted that same ankle, as well as sustaining a concussion. We are all “doctored up” now with a boot and a walker to help her get around, but every day she is still feeling the effects of that second fall! We keep telling ourselves, “These are the Golden Years!” But the gold may have recently tarnished a bit! Home Hair Care! We are blessed to have a daughter, Michelle, who lives just minutes away. She has been available to lend her help and support throughout the years. She cuts my hair, helps me with yard work and lavishes us with her verbal encouragement. After a haircut, she’ll brag, “Daddy, you look amazing!” Monique claims that I don’t have enough hair to merit all her heaping praises! This week, it was Monique who was blessed by h...

There was a time in my life when I was flattered to have a target on my back! Now that I am one of the seventy-million or so aging Baby Boomers (born: April 7, 1951, and a card-carrying AARP member!), I am no longer on the radar of businesses who are targeting a much younger generation of consumers. There was a lot of consumer power focused on my generation back in the day. We were part of what fueled the post-World War II economy! That was then and this is now! I should have known that what was going around would be coming around. My beloved mother was lamenting in her seventies and early eighties after a shopping spree at the local clothing department stores (JCP, Kohl’s and the like), “Mike, they just don’t make clothes for someone my age anymore!” I know what she means every time I pick up a piece of men’s sportswear with stretchy-fabric, I find myself declaring, “These are for young, slim guys. Not me!” This brings me to my current lament. After shopping my neighborhood grocery ...