I Am Up And ...

I can’t say I’m up and running.

Up and wobbling along may be a more accurate description.

About six weeks ago my computer’s power source overheated and melted little yellow plastic gizmos (capacitors?) inside the mother board. The heat corrupted hard drive files.

Bad news.

My son Donald, a computer network manager, worked long and hard to resurrect my hard drive.

Alas to no avail.

So last night he installed this new computer for me. He’s done a terrific job of establishing me in the computer world from scratch again. None of my work would be possible without him.

This new system is like having a brand new notebook without a single word in the pages.

The endless possibilities of the blank pages stretch before me and I’m puzzling over how to start all over again.

While the computer has been down, I’ve kept busy. Here is a photo of my To Do List from last Thursday (The Ls in the margin indicate stuff I needed to climb a ladder to do).

Well, I can’t post the photo. I can’t make my FTP Server take a photo. I tired to do it both through Blogger and as a Contribute web link and I can’t make either one work.

Ah yes, those endless possibilities of a blank page.

I need to go back to Computer Kindergarten and learn how to write cursive again.

Do you know how to make an M?

And last Saturday, Ginny and I, along with other members of our Neighborhood Watch Group, tended the strip of crepe myrtle trees we planted at the entrance to our community:

I’d post a photo of the beautiful trees too – once I learn to make an M.

I suppose my having no access to a computer for the past few weeks may be a good thing because I’ve been in such a slump that anything I might have written would hardly be uplifting for readers.

Yes, a few days before the computer overheated (lucky it didn’t set our home on fire), I entered one of the deepest darkest mires of depression I can ever remember. I wallowed in feelings of bitterness, resentment, worthlessness and apathy.

A sad state for a Christian --or anybody.

When I’d think, “Christ died for you”, my response would be, “So what”.

The only prayer I could pray was, “Lord, I’m such a mess. Help”.

That’s not a happy state from which to write uplifting stuff for other people to read. Reading a phone book would be more inspiring than anything I could have produced recently.

So it may be a good thing that I did not have access to a computer to write anything because I’d be tempted to either ooze bitterness or to fake a happy faith and I really want my writing about Christ to reflect what is, not what ought to be, the way things are with me, not the way things should be.

Nothing in particular triggered my depression’s start; and I can’t pinpoint how or why I’ve begun to come out of it last week.

Just something I have to endure, I suppose.

However, during the past week four odd things happened which spark hope inside me:

1. The Old Woman’s Socks

Patricia, my youngest daughter, phoned. She works as a medical lab technician in another city.

We have not talked about matters of faith for ages and I suspect that our belief systems are quite different. She’s a vegetarian and I think she subscribes to the fringes of New Age philosophies and lifestyle. Whereas I’m just a common Christian.

At her lab, she seldom has direct contact with patients, but late one night she happened through the waiting room and found a despondent old woman who ought not to have been in the building.

Patricia struck up a conversation and listened to the old woman’s woes. The old woman said her biggest trouble was that she could not get her socks off.

My daughter knelt in front of the heavy old lady and started to peel off the dirty socks.

Immediately Patricia realized that the socks had bonded to the woman’s skin and that the lady’s feet were so corroded that maggots worked alive in the dead flesh.

To peel off the socks would have stripped raw meat from the woman’s feet.

It appeared to be gangrene.

Patricia called her supervisor at home and they made arrangements for the old woman to be admitted to a hospital where Patricia continues to check on her progress.

I’m so proud of Patricia.

Several people in the lab had commented on this smelly, stinking old lady, but Patricia was the only one to knell before her and check her feet.

So, my daughter and I are not on the same page in the theology books. I hope I would act with the compassion that she shows.

She humbles me and I’m proud of her.

2. I Got Caught And The Girl Hugged Me

Last Monday my eldest daughter Jennifer drove me grocery shopping.

Leaving me to shop, Jennifer went next door to a shoe store (Poor child really needs another pair of shoes to add to the twenty-eleven pairs she already has!)

Anyhow, as I placed my groceries on the conveyer belt at the checkout, a girl ahead of me in line ran into problems with the cashier. The girl, obviously one of the nouveau poor, was trying to buy baby food with WIC coupons (a sort of food stamp for new mothers).

The tired cashier grew impatient at the girl’s fumbling (actually the cashier acted like a snotty bitch) and she called over the manager to berate the young mother.

I saw what was going on and I remembered back to the days when we were poor and Ginny had to use WIC coupons to buy baby food for our children.

The cashier and store manager were being unnecessarily harsh with this young mother who did not know the ropes of government charity.

I continued unloading my cart on the conveyer but when I thought no one could see me, I surreptitiously did the girl a small kindness and went back to unloading my groceries.

Jesus said there are certain things we should do secretly and that’s what I tried. I did not want to embarrass the girl; I wanted what I did to pass unnoticed.

Really, I did try to hide what I’d done but the girl’s mother, who was standing to the side, saw me and after they had left the line, she must have told the girl.
The young woman ran back, threw her arms around me, hugging me, crying and thanking me profusely.

Of course, right then is when my Jennifer showed up again just in time to see this young woman kissing her doddering old father in the grocery checkout line.

Jennifer didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.

But, alas the bagboy in the next line did.

He too had observed me and came over to say how he was impressed by such a small act of kindness. Tears flooded his eyes.

Really, it was nothing, but the bag boy said it was the kindest thing he’d ever seen anybody do.

I thought he was going to hug me too.

I’d never make it as a bank robber; I can’t do anything without getting caught!

3. By The Garbage Truck At Dawn


Hot Florida sun warped the old planks in my friend’s pool deck.

She decided to replace the wooden deck with one of poured concrete.

The concrete men ripped the old deck apart and dumped the lumber at the curb for the garbagemen to haul away. But city regulations require that nothing in the trash can be over five feet long or weigh more than 40 pounds.

The old planks sat there at the curb uncollected.

This peeved my friend.

She called city offices about the delay in trash pickup.

Then one morning last week, a city crew arrived at 6 a.m. and began loading the old planks into the back of the garbage truck.

My friend, still a trifle irate about the collection, went out to supervise and make sure they did it right. She notice that while the crew worked, the driver withdrew off to the side and stood with his head down as though mulling something over, debating something with himself.

After some internal struggle, he timidly approached and said, “Lady, I need to ask you to forgive me. I’ve been resenting you because you called the office to complain. Please forgive me”.

Shocked, my friend realized that she also harbored resentment toward the garbagemen over the delay in collection.

She humbled herself and asked the garbageman to forgive her.

The two stood there beside the garbage truck at dawn forgiving and being forgiven.

Such is the Christian life.

4. I Forget What Number Four Is…

Oh yes, I remember now.

Several times recently I’ve struck a match and lifted the flame to my pipe for a smoke only to hear the pipe gurgle because I forgot to fill the bowl with tobacco.
Disconcerting.

While my computer has been down I spent several days trying unsuccessfully to solve a plumbing problem.

One day I thought I had the bathroom sink drain working. I turned on the hot water to test it. I gathered up my tools and took them outside to put away in the shed. I stopped to prune a dead limb off a tree. I ambled over to talk across the fence with a neighbor. I checked the pool filter and carried a book over to…

Did I turn off the hot water spigot?

I couldn’t remember.

Back inside the house the hall carpet gave me my answer -- it squished beneath my feet.

The water overflowing onto the floor was cold. The hot water heater tank holds about 55 gallons. I’d run it all , and then some, onto the floor.

What a mess.

Another night I went into the kitchen to cook dinner.

I opened the meat tray to find it empty???

I distinctly remember taking the meat out of the freezer.

What had I done with it?

I remembered reading cooking instructions on the label. I intended to put it in the meat tray to thaw. But I’d put it right back in the freezer instead of in the thawing tray.

The meat remained a solid white, icy clump.

We ate sandwiches and soup that night.

At my age the specter of Alzheimer worries me.

Ginny and I’ve been married close to 40 years; she’d notice any strange gaps in my behavior.

I asked her, “Honey, do you think I’m loosing my mind”?

She pondered my question for a moment then said, “With you, Love, that’s kinda hard to tell”.