pick up sticks and spider webs

You know what I miss? Yard Darts. Wonder if I could find a set on E-Bay? I guess I understand why they quit selling them. But really, wasn't the potential danger of impaling yourself or your brother half the fun? It's like NASCAR. We don't really want to watch cars go in circles. We want to see 'em wreck ! They've made IT safe too. You know what else they've made safe? Pick up sticks. They're not pointed anymore, they've got round balls on the end. Stupid. How can you use one to help pick up another with a round ball on the end? Are we gonna cut the ends off tooth picks next? I liked to play with pick up sticks though. It was a good challenge and I felt good when I won. I once dumped 5 or 6 containers of pick up sticks out. I have ADD. I gave up. Too confusing.

I used to work at a construction company who's shop was in the woods. I really enjoyed working there. One of the fun thing there was the spiders. They were all over the place. The cool ones were the Garden Orb spiders. We called them Banana spiders 'cause they were shaped like a banana. They could get huge, like 3 or 4 inches ! I used to catch baby frogs and drop them in the web and the spiders go nuts. They zoom to catch the frog, wrap it up and start sucking it dry. Cruel and gross I know. Boys will be boys and I am one. In one barn there were spiders who seemed to congregate together. There would be a couple dozen in one spot and they'd have their webs all tangled with one another and I wondered how they could tell who's web was who's. So many threads interwoven.

My daughter Kara had a Ford Mustang for a few years and the head gaskets blew so it was up to me to fix it. I'm pretty mechanically inclined and had done a few head gaskets before so I dove right in. Then I dove right back out. But she needed her car. I hemmed and hawed for a few days then reluctantly went back at it. Some cars are easy to work on but this one looked like the engine was poured in place. No room to work. And so many wires and hoses. You couldn't tell where they started or ended, whether they were in the way or not. So many things connected and inner woven. And so many bolts! I knew I could get it apart but getting it together and it have it run, well.... I wanted to cry some times. It seemed so confusing. Too many parts. Even with the book it seemed confusing. But I got it done. And It ran !

I'm just about to give up watching the news, reading newspapers, the internet or Facebook. I guess I'm tired of so much complaining and the seeming hatred and disdain for those who don't see the world like we do. That's part of my personality I think. I just want everybody to get along. Isn't that what Rodney King said? This whole health care debate has stirred up a lot of this in me. I've read so much stuff on Facebook where people on both sides of the isle are taking swipes at each other and it just seems so...unloving. Unkind. I get that people are passionate. I need to be more that way. But the way it's been expressed.....

I want to comment on political stuff but I don't because I don't or can't understand so much stuff. The issues are to me so complicated. Like pick up sticks, spider webs or Ford Mustangs I feel like everything is so connected or woven together, that to do one thing might affect another. What's good for some will be bad for another and I know I'm not smart enough to make those decisions. And what's disheartening to me is that people who disagree and are way smarter than me both seem right. So who IS right? Uuuhhh.....

I am a blessed man. I live in a country where so much is possible. I live in a country where I'm free. And what I want to do with my freedom is to love my God and to act like Him no matter what the government looks like. Well, I say I want to love Him but I don't think I do such a good job. He's easy for me to ignore sometimes. Sad. But I want to walk in his steps in my world and do what He's doing. I can't change the country but I think I can change my world, at least my little slice of it. I guess. I hope tomorrow I'll wake up with the same passion for my Dad as some have for this country. Which,by the way, isn't even my home.