I don't just write history; I'm old enough to BE history

After our family vacation all last week, I'm working in a stupor preparing the May update to www.cowart.info . God only knows if the new site additions will make sense.

I've boasted that I could write in my sleep; now, I'm doing it.

When Ginny & I visited the library to return our books this morning, two librarians asked if I'd give a talk on Jacksonville history in June. I'm flattered.

They asked if I'm an historian;I explained that I'm just a guy who is interested in Jax history and write about it out of that interest. I'm no expert at all. But they want me to give the talk for their local history month program anyhow.

The prospect scares me a little.

They were talking about inviting other librarians and folks from the Main Library's Florida History Collection — real local history experts — to this talk.

I fear being exposed as an amateur fraud... O well, I'll never learn humility without being humiliated.

Besides, what kind of utter wimp gets intimidated by librarians for Heaven's sake?

Librarians hardly ever attack.

Do they?

Week's Summary

Jennifer & Pat put their house up for sale.
Fred wasn’t able to make the trip.
Patricia is back in Gainesville.
Johnny is back in Maryland.
Ginny is back at her job.
Donald is familied out.
Eve's tooth is pulled.
God’s in His Heaven.
Vacation’s over.
I’m exhausted.
ZZZZZ....

Great News, A Gracious Lady, An Odd Store, And Geeks In Heaven + announcement

Great News: I received word today that the Public Library System plans to order sixteen copies of Crackers & Carpetbaggers, my history of Jacksonville, Florida. They are also considering buying some copies of my science fiction novel, The Lazarus Projects.

Thank God!

My sales are increasing.

Watch out Stephen King.

I kept the car today and picked Johnny up early. We went for a leisurely breakfast at Whiteway Delicatessen. Sammy, the owner, said I can put up flyers for my Jax history book.

I’ve been preparing a photo album on statues in Jacksonville for the May update of www.cowart.info so I took Johnny to a lovely private garden that I’ve before only seen while driving past. He owns a digital camera and was taking pictures of a deer statue at a fountain in the garden.

The owner of the home, Janice saw us taking photos from the sidewalk and came out to talk with us.

She could not have been more gracious.

She explained that she and her husband have dedicated this garden to their daughter Sandy who died tragically five years ago. Sandy was a tv news writer.

Sandy’s Garden is one of the loveliest spots in Jacksonville and Janice invited us inside so Johnny could take more pictures.

I don’t know how to insert photos in this blog yet but I plan to post some of the photos in the statue album on cowart.info next week.

Next Johnny & I visited Eve at work and meet some of her co-workers. Johnny goes back to Maryland tomorrow and wanted to say good bye to her. He’s leaving early because his Amtrak experience coming down was so unpleasant that he plans to rent a car and drive himself back then turn in his train ticket for a refund.

After visiting Eve, we walked for hours around Shep’s, a unique discount store which sells everything from pianos to motor scooters. There for the first time I saw a skateboard engraved with Bible verses!

Johnny bought a shopping cart full of souvenirs for folks back home.

Donald came by for supper. He and John entered Geek Haven networking laptops with my computer and intensely solving some picture transfer problems or something. Afterwards they took off to Shep’s again and planned to spend the night at Donald’s apartment doing computer stuff.

At her work today Ginny led a meeting involving accounting procedures and she feels good about it. It should smooth out some glitches in the flow of money in some of the children’s programs. It seems as though in the midst of staff changes some jobs were not passed on and so have fallen through the cracks.

My e-friend Mile Morrell, webmaster for www.Sites Unseen, asked me to post this notice:

Memorial Day weekend, May 27th-29th, I am going to be part of a very special conference at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina . A "core" of about a dozen of us are seeking the Lord about forming an intentional house church community in the Durham area. We are hungry to know Christ, in the depths, and know Him with each other in the context of the city. We are having a conference to this end with author and church planter Gene Edwards. For full details on this conference, please see our site at http://epurpose.org

Educational trip to the Museum

Yesterday most of the family took me to Jacksonville's Museum of Science and History. It was very educational.

I learned that my feet hurt less if I let everybody else tour the museum while I sit outside on a park bench!

The museum features an excellent display on Jacksonville history. It was like walking though the pages of my book Crackers & Carpetbaggers, a jax history. I kept seeing so much I recognized and enjoyed.

In the evening my son Johnny & I enjoyed a great meal at Bar-B-Q Junction on San Juan Ave. We talked with two very nice sweet young ladies, the manager and the cashier (who said I look like the movie star played a lost boy in Hook). They posted a flyer about my jax history book by the cash register.

My own good looks are my best advertisement. (I haven't seen Hook; that actor does look good, doesn't he? Well, doesn't he?)

On The Beach

A flock of Laughing Gull (Larus atricilla) surrounded us at the Talbot Island State Park beach as Patricia tossed them bread scraps. That, of course, reminded us all of a funny/horrible incident:

Once when Patricia was 13 or 14 she encountered a poor family on her way home from school. Neither Ginny nor I were home at the time so Patricia decided to make up a food basket from canned goods and food from our kitchen. She packed a couple of grocery bags with cans of Spam, tuna, beans, powdered milk, etc. Also in her food basked for the poor, she placed a loaf of bread from the freezer..

Now for ages, Ginny has saved all bread scraps from family meals (crusts, moldy slices, half-eaten toast, broken cookie crumbs, etc) so that when we go to a park we’d have something to feed the ducks, pigeons or gulls or whatever. It was her custom to store these in an old bread wrapper in the freezer until she accumulated a bagful. Also, she’d buy several loafs of real fresh bread at a time and freeze it till she was ready to use it.

You guessed it.

Patricia inadvertently gave the poor, starving family the duck food in the bread wrapper when she carried her two food packets to their house.

It wasn’t till Ginny got home that evening that the error was discovered!

Ever since then the whole family has teased Patricia about being cruel to poor starving wretches by making them eat duck food.

Today was no exception. As Patricia tossed bread crusts to the gulls, we all teased her about needing to save those scraps to feed the poor.

Today the eight of us walked for miles along the beach gathering treasures of shell, feathers, drift wood to show eachother. We picked a poor day to go the seashore; it was really too windy and chilly – I was disappointed not to see a single bikini on the beach. Nevertheless, we persevered and walked beaches in both the Talbot Island parks.

We discovered a nest on Big Talbot – no, not a bird nest, but a lean-to shelter patched together by some homeless man in the woods. In the past, when we were more active in helping the homeless, we’ve run across many such nests, usually just a simple sheet of plastic on the ground. But this one was more elaborate made by propping sheets of plywood and driftwood planks around the forks of a fallen tree to make a hidden dwelling – not permanent but at least long term.

(Long story, but sometime I’ll have to write about the time Johnny brought Norman, a nest-dweller too crazy to be inside a building, home to live at our house—all my children are NUTS!!!)

When the eight of us rested at two picnic tables, Ginny broke out cokes and snacks; and Patricia, a vegetarian, broke out a pack of green soy beans to share. Of course, the way we shared the beans was to play seagull and for everyone to try to toss beans for Jennifer at the other table to catch in her mouth. Eve proved NBA Champion by scoring two consecutive baskets down Jennifer’s cleavage!

Then we all howled and laughed like idiots as Jennifer, who only has the use of one arm, .tried to dig beans out of her bra.

Johnny remarked, “Some people come to Florida on vacation and spend hundreds of dollars at Disney World without laughing as much as we do just tossing beans at my sister”.

After our trek on the beach, Donald led us all across the Mayport Ferry to a seafood restaurant he knew about, Captain Singleton’s Seafood Shack & Model Ship Museum. We gorged on shrimp, clams, oysters, fish, scallops and whathaveyou. Then browsed in the museum. The models delighted me. When my sight was better I dabbled at building ship models but nothing on the scale of these.

After supper the girls fed a herd of cats that infest the restaurant parking lot. Then we walked a block to see Mayport’s historic lighthouse and watch the moon rise over the ocean. Then drove home exhausted…

I feel hesitant, reluctant to mention this next thing. It’s almost as though I’m transgressing…

All my life the sight of the island salt marshes has touched a cord in my heart. The stretches of sawgrass cut by tidal runs and dotted by distant hammocks of gnarled trees generate a haunted feeling in my soul. I feel a yearning, a longing, a good fear – like when you see a person in the distance and you think it might be Someone you love but you’re not sure.

When I look closer, yes I can see that the marsh is mud and weeds and dead shells and bird droppings… Yet, Something is there. Some Presence. Some yearned-for-Someone. I gaze at the marsh and think there’s Someone behind me and I almost expect to feel a nail-scared hand come to rest on my shoulder.

Pipe dreams?

Maybe.

My brain knows that theologically God is omnipresent, He is in all places at all times. Where could He not be? In Him we live and move and have our very being…

Yet, when I see what I know is a swamp --, I think I’m reminded of Home … a Home I’ve never been to – yet.

Torture Aboard An Amtrak Train & Our Family Cookout

Saturday morning I went to meet my son John at the Amtrak Station; his train was over five hours late.

When it pulled in the station, I witnessed an odd phenomena: No sooner had the train stopped than the doors sprang open and people began urgently pouring out of the cars as though they were running in panic.

From the way they rushed out I thought they were evacuating the train because of some terrorist bomb threat or something.

But, no.

These passengers clustered immediately outside the train doors and began to light up; poor bastards had been stuck in a No Smoking environment for over 12 hours!

Their craving for tobacco fostered a sense of urgency in getting free of those damn metal boxes so they could smoke.

I commented to a man standing there, an old retired Railroad guy, “The way those folks rushed out I thought maybe terrorists had taken over the train”.

He said, “Son, terrorists took over Amtrak years ago – and they’ve been running it ever since”!

How happy I was to see John for the first time in years. We’d arranged for a family and friends cookout in the backyard to welcome him and Ginny set up an elaborate spread featuring every goody just short of a genuine fatted calf.

For herself Patricia brought some straw — or whatever it is that vegetarians eat. As a treat for everyone she grilled frest ears of corn still in the husks. Once they're cooked over the charcoal, you peel back the husk, butter the corn, and eat it like a popsicle using the husk as the stick. I've never seen corn cooked like this before. Scrumptious!

The other night Ginny’d run across a song sheet with all the words to “Oh My Darling, Clementine” on it and Johnny and all us guys serenaded the ladies with all ten or 12 verses. The girls nearly fell out of their chairs laughing.

While I’m grateful to the Lord for all the material blessings in my life, when the faith really hits the fan, people are the only thing that really count. Nothing other than but people will last forever. I am so privileged and thankful to be a part of this wonderful group.

Four digital cameras were present at the cookout so they got lots of pictures of family, friends and garden – I plan to post some of these on cowart.info in a few days (I never have learned how to put a picture on this blog; it utterly defeats me).

A Talk With My Youngest Daughter

Friday I sprayed the yard for mosquitoes while waiting for Patricia, our youngest daughter, to arrive home from college.

She and I ate breakfast at Dave’s then drove to Goodyear because one of her tires had picked up a razor blade and she has been driving without a spare.

We then drove to the unique home featured on my website because she wanted to see the place in person. We returned home and talked and talked and talked, she sitting on the deck while I vacuumed Rex’s pool.

This was the first one on one in depth conversation we’ve had in years.

Her maturity and insights amaze me. I’m so accustomed to thinking of her and my other children as kids; then, suddenly I see them as adults and I wonder where these wonderful people have come from.

Patricia told me about adventures with her apartment, college, car and friends. She is coping so well with the vicissitudes of life. She’s managing things on her own that would have overwhelmed me at her age. I admire her.

And she is so appreciative. She expressed again and again her gratitude for me and Ginny and for the way we raised her. And I thought it was all water off a duck’s back.

When she was a teenager, I despaired of ever seeing her grown. Some of the friends, ideas and habits she embraced terrified me and I lived those years in frustration, fear and dread.

She took a different path from one I would have chosen for her but her own inner strength and character (with a little — to me almost imperceptable — help from God) has caused her to really land on her feet.

Back then, Ginny & I didn't think we could survive her; now she is such a joy to us.

Another thing that pleases me so much is how well our children get along together. They really like eachother and plan things together and help eachother out in individual troubles. That relationship gives me so much pleasure.

Fireworks & Celebration!!!

Fireworks & Celebration.

Waved banners. Dance in the streets. Scatter flowers. Kiss strangers. Light bonfires.

This morning for the first time ever the Webalizer statistics for my website, www.cowart.info , show that over Ten Thousand readers from 72 countries have spent at least 30 minutes on the site so far this month.

Blows my mind!

I can't imagine why or how so many people would be interested in my writing. I'm just a plain 'ol garden variety Christian and it scares me a bit to think that maybe my life touches so many others in this little way.

Hey people, read Brother Lawrence, David Brainerd, Jeremy Taylor, William Law, St. Patrick or somebody important. John Cowart is about the most wobbly christian on the vine... But, thank you for reading my site. I'm honored.

And I'm also tickled pink to break 10,000 readers. Awesome!

Rex Gave Me A WWI Artillery Shell

I added something wonderful to our garden yesterday – a World War I artillery shell.

My friend Rex works at a site that was once used for artillery practice and his workmen occasionally uncover practice shells when they’re digging so he brought one home for me.

I’m delighted.

Even though it’s hollowed out – no explosive, of course, the thing weighs over 40 pounds.

Cool!

What a macho thing to display among the flowers along with the statue of Aphrodite and that Aborigine carving.

(I’ll borrow Eve’s camera this weekend and try to post some pictures if I can figure out how to make the computer do that). (Another thought, Donald did post some pictures of our 2002 garden on my website at www.cowart.info but it’s time for some new ones).

Really, I like the yard-art stuff I’ve accumulated over the years as much as I like the garden’s flowers per se – you don’t have to weed artillery shells.

Ginny, of course, tolerates my predilection for yard art. When I bought a carving at a yard sale once she said, “O well, one man’s trash is another man’s trash”.

God, but I love her!

We sat out by the fountain late yesterday evening trying to identify an odd bird which we’d never seen before. None of our bird books even give us a hint.

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time this week reading other people’s blogs and I find them fascinating. It seems the more unhappy people are over life and relationships, the more they write. I feel such pity and often pray for many of the folks I read about.

The computer system skips from blog to blog at random so it's hard to return to one when I find one that appeals to me or a person I come to care about.

I'm really happy to see so many people keeping track of their lives. For over 20 years I've kept a daily journal and I've found it invaluable, probabally the most important thing I've ever written, so I view bloging as a fine thing for people to do. (Excerpts from some of my old journals are on my website, www.cowart.info if anybody cares)

My own life is so happy on so many levels but joy does not make for the high drama that drives writers to literature. So many of my days can be bloged with ditto marks.

I actually made a comment on a blog this morning. The first time ever I think. I’ve started to a couple of times but I feel uncomfortable, maybe even intrusive when I really have some insight or comfort to offer. I'm not sure about the rules of courtesy when it comes to internet blogs. But the one I was reading today, Funky Bug, is by a vivacious, clever lady who apparently lives downstate and who had eight other comments going about a computer problem — Donald was complaining about the same site/server problems last night — I just joined the line of commenters..

Ongoing conversation with Wes

Breakfast at Dave’s with Wes. We spent about 4 hours talking about life, charity, frustration, reality and Christianity. We didn’t arrive at any specific conclusions but determined to hang in there.

After Wes left, I spent some time watering the flowers I’d transplanted last week.

Among the birds in the yard today were an eastern bluebird, a white-throated sparrow and a Brewer’s blackbird.

Flashing Twelve Ingenuity

Big plans for the weekend. Patricia will be home from college and Johnny will be down from D.C. For the first time in ages five of my six children (Fred has to work) will be together at once. I’ve been trying to clean house and yard so they won’t know that I live like a slob…

Donald is always after me to vacuum behind the computer. Dust, tobacco crumbs and my pipe’s ashes accumulate around my desk.

In fact, ashes get in my keyboard and cause the letter iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii to stick now and then.

Donald bought me one of those little cans of compressed air to blow off the keyboard but it just drives the dust deeper inside. However, being a Flashing Twelve, I have solved the problem; I keep a large pair of tweezers in my pencil cup and when iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sticks, I just use the tweezers to pull it up then backspace the extra letters.

Thus once again a Flashing Twelve conquers a high-tec problem thru skill and iiiiiiiiingenuiiiiiiiity.

One Great Movie!!!

“Around these parts we’re serious about taking horrible mutilations seriously”.

This quote from Ranger Brad comes from a seriously great movie called The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, which my wife, Ginny, & I watched last night as my wife and I watched this tv video last night – which gives you some idea of how the dialogue in this delightfully camp film goes.

I highly recommend this video as pure entertainment although it is rated PG for “Brief Mild Language”.

This film makes the early Godzilla movies look like cinema!

Beware of those aliens; they carry a painter's caulking gun as a space weapon! So you'd just better watch out.

Hard to remember when we had so much fun with a library video.

I had lunch with my friend Barbara at Far East Buffet. She told me she’s having trouble with her printer. When she tried to print a hard copy of her resignation from her volunteer job as secretary of her condo board, the printer refused to print.

Barbara said that she’d try to print it one more time and if it would not print she’d take it as a sign from God that she is not supposed to resign from this onerous job…

I told her that if it would not print, then that is a sign from God that she’s to take a hammer and chisel and engrave her resignation in stone!

April 18th, 2005, a day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate out times. And you were there...

As of this morning, according to the Webalizer stats for my website, www.cowart.info , 8,373 readers from 68 countries have spent at least 30 minutes each on my site so far this month.

I know this is not a huge number in the computer world, but it amazes me that so many people show such interest in the work of a quiet man from such a backwater as Jacksonville.

I try to offer. readers something honestly worth their time, but let’s face it, the life and thoughts of a happy man are not all that interesting to somebody else.

I mean, take this blog for instance.

How often do readers want to know I worked in the yard, or I love my wife, or I saw a bird, or I prayed, or I’m pissed about something? How interesting is that? Yet, such mundane things are the substance of my life and thoughts.

So while life is rich for me, there’s not much drama in it for other people.

Maybe I’m a sort of Mr. Rogers for adults.

Titanic Anniversary

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic sank.

1,502 people died.

Among them was Dr. Robert J. Bateman, founder of a rescue mission for men and a home for wayward women in Jacksonville, Florida. Newspapers of the day hailed Bateman as a hero both for his actions aboard the Titanic and his life beforehand.

President Theodore Roosevelt consulted Bateman regarding social issues; and a letter from a prostitute led the minister to be on the Titanic.

“Jacksonville’s Titanic Hero” is one chapter of my book Crackers & Carpetbaggers, available on my storefront at bluefishbooks.info if anyone is interested.

Without A Vine

If I ever finish this yard work, Tarzan won’t have a vine to swing on.

After working on the Stacy Letters from 3 to 6:30 a.m. and packing Ginny’s lunch, I again devoted the day to cleaning our yard and pool. Normally, edging and mowing the yard takes me about six hours. But having let things go all winter, I now find the job overwhelming. However, once this initial cleanup is done, it will just be a matter of maintaining things.

Of course, the more I do, the more I see needs doing.

I have to know when to say “good enough”. Stephen King remarked somewhere that it’s possible for a writer to spend his whole life doing his laundry!

I finds the compulsion to get things “just right” is a satanic obsession to avoid writing.

Talked with C. et al again this afternoon about our new neighbor. We’ll see what develops. Even sexual predators need to live somewhere. But this guy is likely to find himself in a goldfish bowl. Several neighbors have already made sure the police are very aware of his presence.

While Ginny washed her beautiful hair this evening, I browsed through blogs linked to Donald’s site. I blundered into an aspiring writer’s entries and composed an encouraging comment for her but afterwards I found that you have to register with the web server to post a comment. I wish they’d told me that before I wrote the letter.

Barbara called in a panic this afternoon because of a computer problem. I talked her through it even though I feel I know nothing about computers (you punch the key and sometimes something happens — maybe).

She’s contacted a master gardener to help her with her flowers; I’m relieved because it’s such a grueling trip over to that side of town. Of course, if the master gardener does not work out for her, I’ll go over with my weed eater.

Typical Day -- Broken Schedule, Yard Work, Sex Offender, Train Wreck, Volcanic Eruption & Writing

Monday, April 11, 2005
Up at 3 a.m. and did a few chores before dressing to drive Donald to the airport at 10 a.m. — as the louse had arranged for me to do yesterday.

Fortunately I checked his blog before I finished getting ready to go. There, I discovered that he had already left for the airport without telling me!!!

And here I’d planned my whole week around having his van and feeding his cats.

Therefore, I found myself with no schedule for this week. I decided to hell with it and dabbled in the yard, first climbing on the roof, cleaning gutters, and removing winter debris; then beginning a thorough cleaning of the pool.

A short MED Neighborhood Crime Watch meeting tonight; there’s to be a group yard sale next weekend but Gin & I want to pass on this one..

Afterwards we drove to Barbeque Junction where we munched while reading our books, ignoring eachother in warm, comfortable, happy intimacy.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Up at 3 a.m. and worked on Stacy letters till Gin got up at 6:15. After she left for work, I continued edging the yard till the battery-operated string trimmer ran out of power. I clipped and rooted a batch of colangas to back the impatiens along the east fence.

This afternoon C. called quite upset because police computer records reveal that E.H., a registered sex offender and rapist, has moved in just a few doors down the street from us. She is contacting everyone in MED Neighborhood Crime Watch to discuss what, if anything, should be done.

Railroad tracks run just behind our house and this morning a train squished a guy just down the street near a Chinese restaurant where we often eat. Cops question whether he may have already been dead and his body placed on the tracks for the train to mulch.

The evening tv brings more news from Indonesia: following the Christmas tidal wave, and the Easter earthquake, today a volcano erupted killing yet more people…When Donald gets back, we’ll talk about sending more aid…

A Petty, Self-centered Thought: If the Indonesian translation of my book on prayer ever does get printed, will there be anybody left to read it?

Sunday, April 10th

Because I was supposed to drive Donald to the airport and we had a lot of yard work we wanted to catch up on, Ginny & I skipped church today to work on our flower beds.

Unfortunately, due to a timing glitch, Donald missed his flight and I’ll drive him tomorrow. I was so tired that I crashed and got virtually nothing done today.

Yard Work

Yard work all day.

Ginny & I helped friends from MED Neighborhood Crime Watch clean up our section of roadway. Came home to do yardwork in our own backyard. Lunch at Dave’s. Home to start more yard work. Eve came to visit. And we did more yardwork as we chatted.

On being a cheerful, happy, glowing Christian -- Damn it!

Sometimes I hate being a Christian.

Today was one of those times.

Earlier this week someone brought to my attention that one of my neighbors has been pissed over something I did.

Well, my first reaction is to say, “To Hell with ‘em”! I didn’t do anything wrong, in fact what I did was right and she has no reason to get her ass on her shoulders. It didn’t involve her and it’s none of her damn business”.

Then I went through all sorts of mental gymnastics justifying what I’d done and why she has no business being offended. She really needs to grow up and move on.

I decided to withdraw and that the best thing to do was simply to avoid contact with her from now on.

But, being a Christian of sorts, I could not help remembering the Scripture from Matthew 5:23-24, where Jesus said,

“If thou bring they gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift”.

In other words, when there are hard feelings, even it they are not my fault then I need to be the one to make the initial move and take the first step in straightening them out.

What a pain in the ass!

I’m not in the wrong about this.

Why should I be the one to apologize?

Jesus has all these dumb rules that make me belly-crawl even when I do the right thing. I’m the good guy here. Now, I can see going to another person who has offended me and trying to get things straight, but I’m not the tender, delicate offended party here.

Nevertheless, the Scripture stands.

It boils down to whether or not I intend to follow Jesus. He is my Lord, or He’s not.

So, I’ve avoided meeting the person all week long. But this morning I called to be sure she was at home and I drove over there and apologized.

I went with much mumbling and grumbling and vexation of spirit – but I went. (NOTE: if you obey but gripe about it, you loose all your spiritual brownie points)

Turns out, she says, that the original report was wrong. She was not pissed at me at all but at somebody else altogether. But I would have assumed animosity from now on if I had not marched over there and straightened out things between us.

The words of Jesus are often a pain, but sometimes they make sense.

But I could do without all this anguish of spiritand bitterness I've been feeling. I really truly did not want to go talk with this woman. But I felt I had to make that first move.

I’ve got to stop reading all that Scripture, it messes up my head when I take it seriously.

Enjoyed breakfast at Dave’s with my friend Barbara. We talked about her family. In relation to them, she reminds me of some tragic character from Greek mythology, sort of Sisyphus, Prometheus, and Cassandra all rolled into one.

Barbara is reading my Lulu book I'm Confused About Prayer and says she will write a brief review for my Lulu storefront at www.bluefishbooks.info.

Worked on the Stacy Letters for a short time this afternoon.

This week, four people have asked me about doing yard work for them. How can I get another book written behind a lawnmower? Of course, judging from my book sales, I make one hell of a good yard trash man.

Another Country heard from

Heard from our friend in Indonesia. She and her family came through the earthquake safely. She says that the Indonesian language translation of my book on prayer is being printed now and should be available soon.

Today’s Webalizer stats for my website, show that so far this month 3,077 readers from more that 30 countries have spent more that 30 minutes each reading stuff on www.cowart.info.
The number of folks who visit my site continues to amaze me; I never suspected it would reach so many people.

Yesterday for the first time someone from Fiji visited the site.

Yard Work

Because of all the recent rains, the weeds in our backyard grew so high you could have filmed a Tarzan movie back there.

So I spent all Wednesday pushing a mower through the weeds.

As I worked, I saw the first hummingbird of the season.

My Day In The Wild Kingdom

I spent Tuesday at World Golf Village. Not golfing but bird watching... I counted 31 cormorants in a single Cyprus tree. I also saw scads of heron, crane, red-winged blackbirds, a thrasher and (maybe) a pine warbler.

I also encountered a cotton mouth moccasin between three and five feet long (I did not stretch it out to measure it, you understand).

When Ginny got off work, we drove back via State Road 16 and stopped in Green Cove Springs for a delightful seafood supper.

We strolled in the park adjacent to the spring, chatted with fishermen on the public pier and sat on a park bench reminiscing about the year when the children were tiny and the six of us spent a week’s vacation in a Green Cove Spring whore house.

No, that’s not a typo.

We’d made reservations a by phone and paid in advance not knowing what kind of place it was. So we stayed anyhow and the girls fawned over our children and treated us – and we them – with utmost courtesy. It was one of our happiest family vacations ever.

Rick came over this evening telling us more about that young mother on the block whose husband died suddenly last month: Her parked car was totaled by a hit-and-run driver of a stolen truck. She and the baby had just got out of the car moments before it was hit. Rick’s not sure about her insurance situation.

No sooner had Rick left than Wanda, our friend from Savannah, dropped by with a burning theological question that’s bothering her.

She lives in a ritzy, gated community up there and here’s what she asked:

How should decent people handle it when one person’s cats track footprints all over another person’s just-washed car?

Wanda, a natural born mother hen, finds herself in the middle of this because she likes both parties and wants them to like each other.

Wanda leaves for home tomorrow. She casts herself in the role of peacemaker and is upset about the situation there.

The cat-lover and the car-lover , both decent folk, are adamant in their obsessions.

Emotional buttons have been pushed.

By-standers are taking sides.

Cops have been called.

Nuclear war threatens.

Savannah may be destroyed.

The pope is dead.

Billy Graham is not in town.

So Wanda, asks me for advise.

Duhh!

I can’t think of a single Scripture passage that might relate.

If King Solomon, world’s wisest man, counseled these people he’d take a sword and cut the cat in half and give each… No, Solomon’s solution only worked with babies.

Maybe if you tied the adversaries’ left hands together, then placed a meat cleaver in their right hands….

No. No, that’s not a Christian solution.

Of course, after my friend was well on her way up I-95 – then, too little, too late, as usual when I try to think of answers to problems – I had an idea:

Perhaps Wanda – who, for some reason beyond me, finds herself involved in trying to reconcile the parties — might ask each of these adversarial parties this question:

“Is your neighbor’s eternal soul, health, well-being and good will more important than your car/cat?”

“Really?”

Happy Birthday Dolly

Our friend Rick dropped by with a birthday card for Dolly he asked me to sign.

Dolly & her husband, Bubba, have lived around here for ages. They have scads of children and grandchildren who are always in the neighborhood.

A couple of years ago Dolly invited Ginny and me to a family cookout for her birthday and we had a blast. Bubba rigged an old galvanized washtub over a roaring fire and boiled up a mixture of crabs, pigtails, potatoes, and corn-on-the-cob – a real Florida luau of the old school. And Dolly cooked up a mess of the best greens I’ve ever tasted anywhere.

Rick and I also chatted about a lot of things going on in the world and our own neighborhood.

Rick recommends that I watch a tv preacher, Rev. Miller, who broadcasts at 5 a.m. Since I’m usually at work by then, I think I’ll give the program a try some morning. I need all the help I can get.

Time & Ressurrection

Daylight Savings Time began today and Ginny had to set the microwave, VCR, car radio and all the clocks ahead one hour. We had a little trouble setting the sundial in the garden, because the sun does not like to be moved, but I called my friend Joshua and he nudged it ahead.

So now all the timepieces read right
…
Well, all of them except for one wristwatch in the dresser drawer.

Remember a few days ago when I discovered the term “Flashing 12”? For years now, I have kept two wristwatches one set to Daylight Savings Time and the other to real time. When the appropriate Sunday of the season arrives, I simply put one watch in the dresser drawer and take out the other watch so I never have to fiddle with those little un-pushable buttons on the side, yet I always have the right time.

Thus do we Flashing 12s confound the devil’s technology.

In church this morning the pastor preached on Christ’s resurrection, the account of Doubting Thomas from John’s Gospel, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”.

The Scripture reading from Acts struck me as particularly appropriate as I see the extended, inaccurate and befuddled tv coverage about the dead pope (I question whether any tv reporter has ever read any history book ever!).

Anyhow, this morning’s Bible reading was from St. Peter’s speech when he said, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know – this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

"But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For(King David)… foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.”

Still no word from Indonesia. Nine Australian aid workers died there in a rescue attempt yesterday when their helicopter crashed.

Ginny & I bought fertilizer and stuff and worked in the garden most of the afternoon.

Scripture & Media

This Scripture cropped up in my devotional reading today:
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables.
-- II Tim. 4:2-4

All day Ginny & I drove around town photographing statues for a future website special. We’d planned to go to a gardening class but ran too late for it so we came home and watched tv coverage of the pope’s death.

Media does not know how to handle religion. In an hour-long special only one person said the word, “Jesus” – so what exactly was the news?

What A Happy, Happy Day!

I finished my goals in computer work (e-mails, tweaking website, etc) by 6:30 a.m., and, although I still have tons of editing to do on the Stacy Letters, I said to hell with it and went outside for yard work.

The grass was too wet to mow so I spent the day dabbling in my neighbors swimming pool doing the preliminary cleaning for Spring.

Then, because of the extra classes she’s been teaching, Ginny came home early. I was so happy to see her! We drove up to Dave’s for a late lunch together.

We found the dinner aswarm with activity. The waiters, Homer, Chris, Mark & Eddie, were already hyper about getting off by 3 o’clock, but a well-dressed, classy young woman appeared just before closing and talked with Eddie, who owns the place I think, a bit and when she left, the guys told us that she’d brought contracts for him to sign: Dave’s is to be used as a set for some movie being filmed in Jacksonville!

The guys were exuberant. They are all convinced that the movie director will notice their obvious talent and sign them on as movie stars. They were singing and dancing and cutting the fool, and acting giddy over the prospects.

They plan to refurbish Dave’s for the movie. They will close a few days next week to paint the outside and ceiling and to mop and wax the floors.

I teased that to really spiff the place up good they might even go so far as to wash the dishes; all too often the lipstick on the coffee cup is not my shade.

It was such a delight for us to see them all so happy.

To get to my handkerchief, I’d put the tin matchbox I’d made for this week on the table and Mark noticed the bear picture on the cover. (For my pipe I use wooden matches and make a new box for them every week or so.)

Mark admired this one because he collects bears and such. So -– after checking to see that the bikini girl on the inside lid was suitable for someone of his tender years (She was modestly covered) — I gave it to him.

This made him even happier, but he was concerned that Ginny might see the bikini girl. She got tickled and assured him that she certainly knows she’s been married to a dirty old man for 35 years.

Jeanette, a very elderly regular at Dave’s, came in and was glad to see us as usual. Poor thing can hardly hobble. But the guys were heart set on closing up shop on time and fussed at her for coming in so late.

Ginny & I went outside to sit on the brick wall to smoke and we resumed the same running conversation we’ve been having for 35 years:

Today we talked about books, children, gardening, car repairs, sex, websites, history, television, FAMUS, SAMUS, summer camps, a seminar she’s attending next week, the pope’s dying, weather reports, restaurants, Bible stories, matchboxes, grocery shopping, weekend plans, Ted Koppel’s leaving Nightline – and on and on. All the things we've been too busy to talk about during the week.

It was wonderful.

Back home, she went in her office to pay bills while I answered e-mail. Another super thunderstorm with house-shaking lightening came up so we had to turn off computers.

We went to Woody’s BBQ for our usual Friday Night Date and kept talking. We’d intended to rent a couple of Blockbuster movies but we had so much fun talking and it got so late that we decided to come home and watch a West Wing video of our own and fell asleep holding hands on the sofa – end of a great and happy day.

Web Work & Dishes

While searching for free clip art yesterday, I encountered a website devoted to erotic wall murals from ancient Pompeii.It shocked my Christian sensibilities and after only an hour or so of browsing, I managed to escape the offensive site. (Boy, those ancient Romans sure knew how to party!)

Up at 3 a.m. today, to begin updating www.cowart.info for April. I started with a refresher tutorial in Contribute 3 software, got entangled in the world wide web, and spent 3 hours avoiding the mandibles of the web's giant spider.

But by the time Ginny woke up at 6:30, I’d solved the preliminary problem and began to actually get down to work. It took me till 7 p.m. to finish the update.

All I have left to do on the site now is post the April MED Watch crime statistics and I'll be done for this month and can start back editing the Stacy Letters.

Since it is the end of March and we drank coffee out of the Christmas mugs this morning, I decided it was time for me to wash dishes. I’ll be glad when Martha, now that she’s out of prison, gets free from house arrest so she can come take care of things like that.

I have not heard from my friend in Indonesia since the earthquake Monday. We’ve e-mailed her and I’m concerned that she has not responded.

Ginny taught a class at the commission after work today so she was late getting home – amid a gully-washer thunderstorm.