FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS . . .

     "I DON'T READ."

     As I travel around North Texas doing book signings, it's a rare day that some customer doesn't answer my sales pitch with some variation on those three words.  And every time I hear it, it's like a dagger to my heart. I LOVE to read.  I read constantly.   I have read, on average, some fifty books or more a year for my entire adult life.  I often have two or three going at once, everything from a huge anthology of human atrocities (THE GREAT BIG BOOK OF HORRIBLE THINGS) to a biography of some figure I admire (CAESAR: THE LIFE OF A COLOSSUS) to a collection of my favorite comic strips (THE FUZZY BUNCH). Anytime I am sitting still and not on a computer, I open a book.  I keep one next to the tub, another next to the toilet, yet another on my desk at work. If I make a road trip, I have one in the car so I can read over lunch, or dinner, or breakfast.  When I go on vacation, I always take a book or two with me. I cannot conceive of life without books.  Neither should you.

     "But I don't like to read!" some people say.  Do it anyway.  "Reading is hard!" Yes, it is, but there is no other activity that will open as many doors in life as the ability to read well.  And you can't open those doors by being a resentful, I-only-do-this-because-I-have-to reader.  You have to reach into yourself and tap into a love of reading.  Being a lifelong reader is the first step to being a lifelong learner.  Yes, you can learn in other ways and many do.  But no other activity exposes you to a broader, more eclectic range of knowledge than reading.  Reading is the gateway that will take you to destinations you can't even begin to dream of.

     I recognize that there are physical and mental issues that can make reading difficult, from poor eyesight to processing disorders like dyslexia. (As a father of twin dyslexic daughters, I am VERY aware of that last!)  But reading is a learned skill, and even dyslexics can earn it.  Both my daughters can read well and one of them has become an avid reader.  As a teacher, I tell my students that cultivating a love of reading will take them further in life than any other activity they can learn in  school.  Written information is the key to virtually every academic discipline, and being able to read quickly and proficiently is the baseline skill on which virtually all other skills depend.

     How can I learn to love reading when I don't even LIKE to read?  I get this question from students pretty often, and also from adults.  My first suggestion is find a topic you CARE about.  You like cars? Start with automobile manuals, or maybe a biography of your favorite racecar driver, or a history of NASCAR.  Love war movies?  Start reading biographies of some of history's greatest warriors.  You think dinosaurs are cool?  Try reading some of the great publications on those giant reptiles by leading paleontologists!  The thing is, there are books out there about EVERYTHING.  There are books arguing the case for God, and books arguing that He never existed.  There are books about people and books about animals.  There are books about love and books about sex (and some that deal with both!).  The point is, whatever topics you find interesting, somewhere out there is a book about it.  Start with that.  It may take  some getting used to.  You may have to look up some words.  You may struggle with some names ("Just say 'buttermilk' and roll on!' is one of my church members' way of dealing with long names in the Bible!).  Just keep reading.  The more you read, the easier it gets.  The more you learn, the more you want to learn.

     Then, when you have exhausted your favorite topic, move to something else.  It might be something related, it might not. Find stories that are fun, fast-moving, and written at a level you can follow easily.  You don't have to just read history and technical books, or just biographies.  Read fiction!  Read teen fiction, science fiction, historical fiction.  Find something that trips your trigger and binge-read on it.  Hang out at your local library or book store.  Ask other people what they like to read, what stories they recommend.  You will open up worlds you had no idea existed!

     I don't mean to put down other disciplines when I place so much emphasis on reading.  Science is important, history is important, health is important, even math is important (although if anyone tells my colleague Tom Witt I said that I will deny it to the high heavens!).  But reading is the key that unlocks every other form of learning.  If there is one single skill you can take out of high school and into the world, let it be a love of reading.  If you have struggled with reading your whole life, you can still learn to read better and more often.  If you have given up the struggle long ago. you can take it up again.

     In my classroom at GCS, I have a whole wall of books. Upstairs at home, in the alcove between my bedroom and my daughters' lair (a scary, dim-lit tunnel composed of dirty laundry and Dr. Pepper cans leading to two beds), I have three double-sided bookshelves crammed with titles of all sorts.  I haven't read them all, but I have read most.  There are more books scattered all through the house, on the dining table, on the coffee table, on the floor next to the sofa.  Every time I open one, I am transported somewhere else.  I can ride along the smooth, well-cobbled roads of the Roman Republic carrying messages to Caesar's legions, or past the bloodshed and carnage at Antietam in the wake of Lee's retreat.  I can hobnob with kings, emperors, elves, dwarves, and dragons.  I can visit any time, any place, any event in this world or even on worlds that have never existed.  I can see them all, experience them all, visit them all, BECAUSE I READ.

   In the words of Tyrion the Imp: "That's what I do.  I read, and I know things."
   Learn to read.  Learn to love reading.
   Do it for yourself.  Do it for your family.  Do it for your kids.
   Do it for the sheer love of books.

You'll never regret it!


And hey - if you are looking for a good book to start with, you can always order my newest novel:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632132729/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1491859610&sr=8-2&keywords=THEOPHILUS%3A+A+TALE+OF+ANCIENT+ROME

An Exciting Excerpt From My Newest Novel!

  I started working on THE EMPEROR AND THE APOSTLE in Dec. 2016.  This book is the final volume in my "Ancient Rome" trilogy that began with THE REDEMPTION OF PONTIUS PILATE and continued in THEOPHILUS: A TALE OF ANCIENT ROME.  This installment is set at the end of the First Century AD, when John is the last surviving apostle of Jesus of Nazareth, and the Empire is ruled by the intelligent sociopath Domitian, a ruthless opponent of Christianity.  I am about four chapters from ending this story, but tonight I thought I would share with you a morsel from several chapters back.  Domitian has been warned by John that his reign would end violently in its fifteenth year.  Unwilling to take the word of a hated Christian 'cultist', Domitian summons Rome's most famous fortune teller to see if what John told him is true or not.  Here is what happens next . . .

Domitian might hate Christianity, but at the same time, he feared the wrath of the Christian God now.  He also brooded constantly over what John had revealed about his future fate.  Would he truly perish in the fifteenth year of his rule?  He had been Emperor now slightly over three years, and he was only thirty-two.  Surely his life could not be cut so drastically short!  Finally, unable to sleep due to worry, the Emperor summoned the famous Greek astrologer Thallus to inquire as to the veracity of John’s prophecy.

The Greek was an ancient, withered figure who was ushered into Domitian’s presence with fear and trembling.  Domitian assured Thallus that he would not be harmed, no matter what he predicted – the Emperor only wanted the raw and unvarnished truth about how and when his life would end.  After multiple assurances and being paid in a hefty bag of gold sesterces, the old stargazer finally agreed to tell the Emperor’s fortune.

Once committed to act, the old man’s fears seemed to vanish.  He called for a brazier and pulled some ancient, dried leaves out of his pouch and burned them, deeply inhaling the bitter, aromatic smoke that curled up from them.  Then he studied the Emperor’s palm closely, tracing its lines with his withered fingers.  He reached into another compartment of his pouch and drew out a handful of animal bones, each one carved and inscribed with runes in a language that Domitian could not recognize.  Thallus cast the bones three times, jotting down which characters came up each time.  Then he unrolled a tattered scroll that was covered front and back with sketches of the constellations.  He studied it long and hard, comparing it to the runes he had written down from casting the bones.  Finally, he had the servants bring in a freshly captured owl, hooting and screeching in protest.  He deftly wrung its neck and then produced a sharp knife made of flint with which he sliced open its abdomen from neck to tail, pulling the rib cage apart to study the heart and lungs as well as the entrails.  Only then did he turn and speak to Domitian, who had been watching with a combination of anxiousness and revulsion.

“I must observe the stars tonight, Caesar, in order to ratify my predictions.  I shall return to you on the morrow and tell you all that I have learned,” he said, his voice wheezy and asthmatic.

Domitian badgered the old man for a hint, but Thallus was firm: he must watch the stars overnight before he could predict the Emperor’s future.  Domitian watched the stooped, wrinkled form leave his audience chamber, and then sat for a long time, lost in thought. . . .

The next morning Domitian sent a message that he would be calling the Senate into session that afternoon; he wanted to lay his trap for Sabinus while the idea was still fresh in his mind.  He had almost forgotten about Thallus when Leonidas came into the chamber to announce the seer’s return.  Domitian felt the pall return as soon as he heard the man’s name.  Did he really have only a dozen years left?  His apprehension heightened as he heard the tap of the old seer’s cane on the marble floor.

Thallus looked terrible; the lines in his face seemed deeper and the circles under his eyes darker than the day before.  Was it simply lack of sleep, Domitian wondered, or something more dire?

“Ave, Thallus,” he greeted the old man.  “What tidings do you bring your Emperor this day?”

“Dark are my tidings, Caesar, and grim are the portents that I would reveal to you.  The stars spoke volumes last night, and when I finally slept, my dreams were stranger still.  Indeed, I hesitate to reveal to you all that I have seen, for fear that you shall punish the one who bears the message of the gods to you,” Thallus said, his voice trembling.

“I told you from the beginning, wise one, that what I required of you was simply the truth, with no sweetening applied.   Give me what I requested, and you will have naught to fear,” Domitian told him.

“I was afraid you would say that,” said the withered seer.  “Then hear, Oh Caesar!  Hear the message that I read in the bones, that the stars whispered to me, that the gods screamed in my ear as I slept.  I do not know what all of it means, only that it is a prophecy of doom.” 

Thallus swallowed hard, and spoke: “Twelve are the months of the year, and twelve are the Caesars who have ruled this city.  Twelve is the number of the greater gods, and twelve are the apostles of the God to come.  Twelve are the years remaining in your life’s thread, for twelve days before the Kalends of October, blood shall shine on the moon as she enters the house of Aquarius.  Then, ere the fifth hour of the day is done, your thread shall be cut short, as the hand of those who share your household shall be raised against you, and vainly shall you cry for succor.  For you have offended the god who is to come, who even now spreads his wings over the heavens, and his message across the earth.  The gods of Rome wither and die, and piteous are their wails as they fade from the pages of history!  I see the temples of Jupiter and Vulcan and Minerva crumble to dust and ruin, and the line of Emperors fail. I see our city sacked and burned again and again.  I see centuries of darkness, followed by light too bright to behold, and shining in the heavens above the city of Romulus I see a cross of gold, as bright as the noonday sun, and the face of the one crucified thereon is too terrifying to behold.  Beware, O Caesar!  Beware the fifth hour of the twelfth day before the Kalends of October, twelve years hence!  Beware the dagger that flashes in the noonday sun!  BEWARE THE CRUCIFIED GOD!”

As the old man spoke, his voice grew in volume, the rheumy tone giving way to something deeper, louder, and more profound, until that last terrible sentence seemed to shake the very foundations of the Emperor’s palace. The noonday sun seemed to darken, but an aura of light surrounded Thallus, growing brighter as his prophecy grew louder.  Domitian stopped up his ears, for it seemed the booming voice issuing from the frail old man’s throat would shatter his skull.  When the last words were spoken, Thallus stiffened, his eyes widening as the power of his vision consumed him.  Then his body went limp, and Rome’s most famous fortune teller crumpled before the Emperor’s throne, dead before he hit the ground.

A FEW WORDS FROM MY WIFE

  My dear bride Patty celebrated her birthday this week (I won't say how old she is, but she is one month younger than me, so now we are the same age again!).  She recently posted this on her FB page, and I was quite impressed with it.  Patty is a woman of deep faith and deep thoughts, and she occasionally shares these in the form of online devotions like this.  So I figured I would share it with all of you.  Read on and enjoy!


                                                       ONE WAY OR MANY?


I have had several instances recently where people say things like it would be unfair of God to only accept those who believe in Jesus. Or that all the ways and religions lead to God. I thought I would explain in my limited view why I believe it is both right and fair that Jesus is the only path to God.
It all begins with the love of God for his creation. God, who knows the heart of man, looked at his creation, who was created to have fellowship with God, in His very image... and eternal, and saw great wickedness. In his love for His creation God mourned. God did not seek revenge, did not seek to punish. He just deeply mourned the loss of His creation that had removed themselves from God's presence by pursuing wickedness. 


A system of sacrifices did not suffice to permanently restore a relationship with God. It could not depend on what men do, since they do not have the ability to stay pure 100% of their lives. There would be moments of weakness and moments of doubt. Man contemplates temptation and thinks on wickedness even if he might not show it. Man's salvation could clearly not come from man.
Therefore God himself, emptied himself of his "Godness" came to earth and was born to grow up a human in a modest and humble home. GOD, called Jesus, did live a life without wickedness. There were no moments of weakness in faith or doubts. He did not contemplate sin. In other words, Jesus did something man cannot. He lived a perfect and righteous life if God's eyes. JESUS, in full knowledge of what the price would be (His death in a very brutal way) offered himself, our very creator, as a sacrifice for our wickedness to forgive all past and future sins and to once and for all restore a relationship with Himself that is eternal for all who choose. 

  THIS IS AN ACT THAT DEMANDS A RESPONSE. This is God, who died for you and for me. Not a surrogate, not a prophet, but God. He did not send a messenger, he did not remove our free will and force a response. He died, to offer us a way, demanding nothing from us except that we believe and honor His sacrifice on our behalf. 

 Jesus is the only way, because it was God who came down and allowed Himself to be tortured and murdered for each and every individual on Earth. I don't know of another path or religion that has God personally act to save every person. Jesus is the only way, because all other ways pale in comparison, and pale in forgiveness' power. No other way i am familiar with has a single act forgive past present and future sins for believers. None other require nothing from man outside of belief . If man could not save himself, forcing God to take on the entire burden of out salvation, then man can't do it today either. It is not unfair for God to make this single event the way He chooses to judge. After all, He died for you, what more do you want. It is fair, because God did all the work and requires nothing other than for us to acknowledge what God has done for us.

Ten Reasons to Believe the Gospels Were Telling the Truth

   I take a lot of smack-talk from my various atheist friends over why I would place so much importance in a two thousand year old book, so much so that I stake my immortal soul on its truth.  While I do recognize that belief in Christianity is ultimately a step of faith, I also believe that faith doesn't have to be blind.  I think that history and archeology make a strong case that the Gospels are telling the truth about who Jesus was and what He did.  I first wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have recently updated and expanded it - so here you are:

TEN REASONS TO BELIEVE THE BIBLICAL GOSPELS

ARE TELLING THE TRUTH

(with a couple of new bonus reasons added free of charge!)

 

 

1.  First of all, they were written well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life.  The Rylands Papyrus fragment (about 6 verses from John 18) is reliably dated to 125 AD.  Considering that it was found in the Egyptian hinterland, hundreds of miles from Ephesus, where it was written, this would certainly seem to indicate that John's Gospel was composed a decade or two earlier - which would put it in the 90's AD, which is exactly when tradition has always claimed it was written - by a very aged Apostle John.

2.  The Diatesseron - the first ever harmony of the four Gospels - was composed around 178 AD, which shows that not only did all four Gospels exist at that point, but that all four of them were already regarded as authentic and authoritative by that time.  Neither the “Gospel of Thomas,” nor any of the other Gnostic Gospels, were included in this work, only the four New Testament Gospels.

3. The earliest Christian writings outside the NT - I Clement, the Didache, The Shepherd of Hermas, and the writings of Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius - all contain recognizable quotes from the canonical Gospels. They quote these Gospels as authoritatively as they quote history.  All four of those works date from the period of 90 AD to 160 AD.  The Gospels must have existed for a considerable period of time and been widely recognized as Apostolic in origin for the Church fathers to regard them as the go-to source to settle doctrinal disputes.

4.  The Magdalene papyri (several verses from the Gospel of Matthew) are now generally dated to the end of the Second Century, however, one paleographer has made a very convincing case that the handwriting on them is much closer to First Century than late Second/early Third Century writings.  This could place these three papyrus fragments as early as 70 AD.  If so, they would now be the earliest known pieces of the New Testament.

5.  Papias, who died in 130 AD, left an account of the origins of all four canonical Gospels.  Although his full works are no longer extant, he is widely quoted by later Christian sources, most notably Eusebius.  He linked every one of the Gospels to an apostolic source.

6.  Josephus' testimony about Jesus, although almost certainly interpolated by later Christian copyists, is still considered authentic by a strong majority of scholars, as are his references to the death of John the Baptist and James the Just - and while details vary, all three citations generally corroborate the NT narrative.

7.  The recent discovery of a fair-sized fragment of Mark is reported to date to approximately 70 AD, although the scholarship on it is, as yet, unpublished.  If authentic, this would be the strongest piece of evidence yet that the Gospels were based on eyewitness testimony. (Two years later, there has still been nothing published about this find, so it may prove to be either a hoax or else wrongly dated – or else the analysis is simply taking longer than was originally thought.)

8.  Paul's account of the Last Supper in II Corinthians, a book universally recognized as authored by Paul around 54 AD, follows Matthew's account of the event very closely.  No serious scholar disputes that Paul wrote this; therefore, Matthew’s version of the first Communion was already in circulation by the mid-50’s AD.

9.  Paul's list of the Resurrection appearances in I Corinthians 15 also follows the order and general outline of the Gospel accounts. 

10.  Finally, the Anti-Marcionite prologue, written around 150 AD, defends the authenticity of the four Canonical gospels while condemning Marcion's rejection of Christianity's Jewish roots and his dismissal of Matthew's Gospel. 

 

BONUS:  The fact that the mainstream church rejected about two dozen pseudepigraphical Gospels written in the Second and Third Century but universally accepted the four Canonical Gospels as authentic shows that they were of considerable antiquity and long-established credibility, long before the later councils of Nicaea and Hippo formalized that recognition.

BONUS THE SECOND:  None of the four canonical Gospels have ever been attributed to another writer.  But three of the four Gospels were linked to very minor figures in the New Testament narrative (Mark, Luke, and Matthew). This is a strong argument for their authenticity.  After all, if you were writing a forged account of Jesus’ life, why not attribute it to one of the heavy hitters among the disciples, like Peter or James?  Why attribute them to men who are barely even mentioned in the rest of the NT – unless those men were the actual authors?

REFLECTIONS ON THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

   OK, this title is a teeny bit misleading by design.  It's not really about "the Christmas Present," as in this year's Christmas of 2017.  It's about THE Christmas present, a most amazing gift that was presented to me by my mother this evening.  I've been given many great gifts over the years, but this one surpasses all the others.

   What is it? you ask.  A new car, a fully furnished lake house, a one hundred per cent foolproof guide to getting my books on the New York Times best-seller list?  Nope, none of the above (although if any of you have that last one, feel free to send it to me!).  No, what my Mom gave me was a Bible.  Not even a new Bible, a used one.  As a matter of fact, it is more used than just about anything in my house other than my Indian arrowheads and my small collection of Roman relics!

   You see, in 1834, a 27 year old Kentuckian immigrated to the province of Northern Mexico known as Tejas.  His name was Obadiah Smith, and he brought along his wife Elizabeth and a brand new Bible they had purchased in New Orleans, LA before crossing the border. (Illegally, I might add, since under the Decree of April 6, 1830, immigration from the USA to Texas had been suspended.  That's right - I'm a descendant of the ORIGINAL "wetbacks"!)  Obadiah was my grandfather's grandfather, and now I am the fifth in a long line of Smiths to own this treasured family possession.

   As a child, I loved this Bible.  I thumbed through it, looking at the list of births, marriages, and deaths recorded in the section between the Old and New Testaments.  I stared in wonder at the recorded births of two family slaves, one born in 1850, the other in 1853.  My Grandfather Smith, whom I never met (he was born in 1889 and died in 1959, four years before I was born), remembered those former slaves, now in their 40's, coming across the border from Louisiana to visit their former mistress, his wife Elizabeth, at Thanksgiving every year when he was little.  They always brought him presents, and he looked forward to their arrival. (This is not an attempt on my part to put some sort of rosy tint on the "Peculiar Institution," it's just a family memory my Dad passed on from his Dad.)  I also enjoyed trying to figure out an inscription in the back, written in fading pencil, of some sort of home remedy for headaches.

   When I was around ten, I drew a treasure map on a piece of notebook paper and stained it yellow with tea so it would look old and then secreted it for several weeks in the pages of this old Bible. Then I "found" it and tried to convince my siblings, all older than me, that it was the real deal.  I'm not sure what gave it away - the fact that I used a ball point pen, or that the paper was, in fact, official H.R. Puffinstuff stationary!  (Fellow late-stage Baby Boomers will get that reference instantly, for the rest of you, there is Google!)

  Now as a grown man, I look at this old book and think of all the history that has unfolded since my grandfather's grandfather bought it for three dollars and fifty cents (quite a large sum in those days, I might add!) so long ago.  Andrew Jackson was President in 1834; thirty-seven men have held that office since then.  (No, that's not a math error, Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms and was both the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States!)  This Bible was loaded into a wagon headed for the Louisiana border during the Runaway Scrape phase of the Texas Revolution, and was sitting on a shelf or table in my family's home during the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the War on Terror.  It has survived the Panics of 1837, 1873, 1893, and the Great Depression.  There were twenty-four states in the Union when this Bible was purchased, now there are fifty.

  Abraham Lincoln was a struggling storekeeper when Obadiah bought this book; Queen Victoria was an unknown teenage great-niece of the popular "Sailor King" William IV of England, and France was still a monarchy under King Louis Philippe.  Winston Churchill would not be born for another forty years.  All the gold in California was still buried in the foothills above Sacremento, and Santa Anna had just wriggled his way into power as the President of Mexico. Much of the world was still unexplored by Europeans, and the technologies that would transform the nineteenth century were either not yet invented (the telegraph and the camera) or in their infancy (the locomotive and the assembly line).

   All this history and more has come and gone since this book was purchased by an anxious young newlywed on his way to make a new life in the undeveloped, mostly unexplored territory of Texas.  One can never truly own such a piece of history - we can guard it, protect it, care for it, and then pass it down to the next generation.    My Dad's wishes were clear - since I am the pastor in this generation of my family, I am to be the caretaker of this sacred text for the duration of my life.  When I die, my nephew Thomas, the only one of the ten Smith grandchildren who will carry on the family name, will have it next.  From there, it will pass to a generation yet unborn.

   But this Christmas, it belongs to me and my house for the first time.  It is a gift that is awe-inspiring, humbling, and one that reminds me of the sacred event we celebrate this season.  The pages may be yellowed with age, the language archaic, and the print tiny, but Luke Chapter Two still reads:
"Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."

Amen!

OLDER AND MORE MARRIED THAN EVER BEFORE!!!

  December is a crazy month for everyone.  There's Christmas for most folks, Hanukah for our Jewish friends, and New Year's Eve for everybody.  Time off work for parents, time out of school for kids, seeing relatives you generally only see once a year, buying gifts, it's all a lot of fun and a lot of stress.

  But in the Smith household it gets even crazier during this season.  You see, December 13 is my birthday, December 15 is our anniversary, and then my wife celebrates her birthday January 9.  Of course, with both of us being teachers, this comes in the middle of semester exams for me and Christmas programs for my wife, who teaches music, as well as the normal holiday hullabaloo that everyone goes through.  Needless to say, by February we are flat broke and ready for the relative calm of - well, the rest of the year.

   So, want to walk through the last few days with me? 

  I woke up on my birthday, now 54 years of age.  That means, for the next three months, I am 54 and my wife is only 53. I will be an "old man" till January 9, and then I will mysteriously become young again.  Funny how that works!  Anyway, she woke me up with a kiss and a "Happy Birthday!" and then started in.

  "Do you need a cane to get out of bed?  Or maybe my Mom's walker? Oh, wait, I bet you can't hear me!  Shall I go buy you a hearing aid?" 

    It's going to be a long three weeks.

   Really, birthdays used to not bother me as much, but recently they really have begun to get on my nerves.  I mean, before 40, they are nothing.  When that first digit is still in the threes, you can still honestly refer to yourself as a "young" person.  Then, in the forties, the self-deception begins.  It helps if you look somewhat young for your age, which most folks say I did and still do.  It's always nice to find and, if possible, hang around with people who are younger than you but look older (and if they are fatter than you that's a bonus!).  But in your forties, you can still reasonably say that you are young, or at least, on the low side of middle aged.  After all, you are still active, look relatively decent, and can do most of the stuff you always did.  But you begin to notice those activities take a bigger toll on you than they once did, and you take longer to recover from them.  Then you hit the late forties, and that "I'm still young!" claim rings more and more hollow.

   Then fifty comes along - the big Five Oh, the Half Century mark.  At that point, you have to grudgingly acknowledge that you are, by no stretch of the imagination, young anymore.  You may still feel that way from time to time (although those moments are fewer and further between), and you are certainly still allowed to act as immature as ever (something I specialize in, and working around teens every day gives me an excuse).  But the fact is, after fifty, you're getting old.  And every year over fifty, you realize that you are beyond halftime and  in the third quarter - maybe even the fourth, who knows?  You just want to avoid the "sudden death" part of the game if you can.  Well, honestly, "sudden" death begins to have a certain appeal as you watch people not that much older than you going by inches from cancer, or diabetes, or any one of a number of other problems that can sneak up on you at any minute once you're past fifty, mostly because you accidentally and not on purpose ate several thousand cheeseburgers and fried pieces of chicken when you were much, much younger (like last week!).

   But it was a nice day, nonetheless.  My seventh graders brought me a cake (although they had this odd idea that I was supposed to share it with them - doubtless some adolescent concept that has come along since my time, but I humored the quaint notion and divvied it up with all seventeen of them, just to be nice).  My wife got me a card that said "So you're a year older!  Look at the bright side!"  Now that's an admirable sentiment, until you open the card and it says: "Just kidding, there is no bright side!  There's a bright light, but you're gonna want to stay away from that . . ."  Very funny, dear.  Actually it was pretty funny, to tell you the truth.  My daughters got me a $40 WalMart gift card and a birthday card that had a picture of Jesus distributing loaves and fishes to a crowd, who were all whining about whether the fish had been tested for mercury, if the bread was gluten-free, et cetera, with an inside quip that said:  "Ignore the complainers and have a happy birthday!"  Good advice there, but what if I am the complainer?  However, they also made me my favorite chocolate cake in the world, and I DIDN'T have to share it with a hungry class full of seventh graders, so bonus points for them there.

   The day after my birthday I got a late present from my best friend, Ellie, and her daughter - a hardcover copy of George W. Bush's biography of his Dad (a beautiful little book, I had read it but didn't own a copy), and also a STAR WARS calendar from Ellie's little girl, who knows my taste in movies all too well.  So, overall, despite my advancing years, I must admit this year's birthday really didn't suck.

   Friday night was our 33rd wedding anniversary.  Thirty-three years together for me and Patty, sometimes it feels like it's only been a few weeks (and, very rarely, it feels like it's been several centuries!).  We both had to teach all day, but we met up after school and ate supper at Chili's (which was largely paid for by a gift card from work, always nice to go get good food and not have to pay for it!).  I still think's Chili's original chicken crispers are perhaps the best you can get anywhere, and when you have cream gravy to dip them in - well, the world is your burrito!  (Wow, I am really mixing up my food metaphors, aren't I?)

   After dinner we went out on our big anniversary date:  a movie night to see STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI!  Now, I would not spoil anybody's enjoyment of the film by listing spoilers here in my blog  (OK, OK, I lied, HUGE spoiler here - Gandalf is not really dead!  He returns as Gandalf the White!), but we both enjoyed the movie immensely.  The fact is, we have watched EVERY single STAR WARS movie in the theater together since the summer between seventh and eighth grade, when we watched A NEW HOPE together as (barely) teenage sweethearts.

   So all in all, it's been a nice week, despite the fact that I am standing on the brink of encroaching senility, catastrophic organ failure, and the explosive ear hair growth that is the curse of us old geezers everywhere.  I guess getting older and more married than ever before is not that bad - still, I kind of like the idea of letting anniversaries take the place of birthdays.  Next year I will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of my twenty-fifth birthday right before I celebrate my thirty-fourth wedding anniversary.  Then let's see her call me "old" for three weeks straight!!!
    PS:  Did I mention this month is expensive?  You can help out your favorite penniless author avoid the doghouse for not buying his wife a birthday gift AND the humiliation of eating cat food for the rest of January by clicking this link and purchasing one of my marvelous novels. They are guaranteed to entertain and are absolutely, one hundred per cent gluten free!!!

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=Lewis+Ben+Smith&search-alias=books&field-author=Lewis+Ben+Smith&sort=relevancerank

A NEW SHORT STORY WITH AN OLD TITLE!

  I had no intention of writing a new blog post tonight, and in fact had no clue what my next post was going be.  But I was shopping at Wal-Mart earlier today and noticed something odd: a trio of young men, one with both arms free, one with his left arm in a sling, and one with his left arm amputated at the elbow, all standing there and talking like old friends.  It was just an odd sight, and I mentioned it to a friend of mine who is also a writer later this evening.  She issued me a challenge: that we should each write a short story describing how these guys came by their injuries.  So while I sat grading Dual Credit U.S. History tests, this story was churning and turning in my head, and when the tests were graded, I sat down and wrote the first story.  This morning I got an email from Ellie with her story. Hers is a LOT shorter and a LOT darker than mine, but like everything she writes, it's pure genius. I have included it after my own entry; I think hers is actually better and delivers quite the punch, but I'll let you decide for yourself:

                               A FAREWELL TO ARMS

                                  (OR, THE PERILS OF REPTILE WRESTLING!)

 

 

          Mike, Charlie, and Bob – or, “Slugger, Peanut-head, and Scrappy,” as they called each other – stood in the deli in the front of a Wal-Mart store in a nondescript little Texas town.  All three of them were twenty-five or thereabouts; scruffy looking young white men with shaggy hairdos, goatees, and assorted tattoos on their arms.  In short, they looked like any other trio of millennial skate-rats that could be hanging out in any mall or store in America, checking out the babes and seeing if they had enough money to buy some Jack Daniels, or at least a case of Budweiser – but with one exception. While Mike (Slugger) had two long, hairy arms with a yin and yang symbol tattooed on one and a geisha on the other, Charlie (Peanut-head) had one arm tightly wrapped in a white gauze bandage and supported by a sling.  Bob – AKA Scrappy – did him one better:  his left arm was missing at the elbow and had been for a long time, as evidenced by the well-healed stump that he swung back and forth as he talked with his friends.

          Brittany Jane and her best friend Daisy saw the three guys standing by the deli and checked them out.  It was freaky, thought Brittany, with the three of them standing there in a row, one with both arms present and useful, one temporarily disabled, and one permanently maimed.  She was a pretty, perky young blonde with a long track record of getting guys to do whatever she wanted, so she decided to find out what their story was.

          “Hey, guys,” she said.

          “Hello yourself, sweet thing!” said Mike.

          “Ignore him, lady, we just took him out of the special kids’ home yesterday,” said Charlie.

          “Actually, they’re both retarded,” said Bob.  “I’m the only respectable one in the bunch.  How are you doing?”

          Brittany laughed – she loved watching guys trip all over themselves when she turned on her signature smile.  Daisy, who was quiet and shy by comparison, enjoyed watching her brassy friend turn guys into gibbering idiots.

          “The three of you are quite a team,” she said.  “I couldn’t help but notice your injuries.  Were you, like, in Iraq or somewhere?”

          “Worse, we’re from Louisiana!” said Scrappy.

          “So what happened to your arm?” she asked.

          “This old thing?” he said, waving his stump.  “Well, it’s a bit of a long story.”

          “If I buy you each a latte, can I hear it?” she said, curious now.

          “Sure thing, sweetcakes!” said Bob.

          “She’s gonna put vinegar in yours if you keep that up, moron!” said Scrappy.

          “I’ve heard worse,” she said.  “You guys order and I’ll pay.  Daisy, you get one too!  But -” she gave the men a sour look – “if the story’s no good, you three have to take us out for Mexican!”

          The three millennials ordered their coffees and sat down side by side, across from the two girls.  Brittany and Daisy were both cute and they knew it, and the guys were already trying to figure out which two of them were going to score dates and which one would strike out.

          “OK, fellas, story time!” said Brittany.

          “All right,” Scrappy began.  “My real name is Bob, but my buds here call me Scrappy because I love a good fight.  We all grew up in Sabine Parish, just across the border, near Toledo Bend lake. We used to fish, hunt, drink, and chase girls all summer long up and down the eastern shore.  Lots of parks and campgrounds, lots of pretty, bored chicks trying to get away from their family vacations for a few hours.  Well, one day we were tossing a frisbee back and forth at Huey Long State Park when Peanut-head here” -  he nodded at Charlie – “made a bad throw and the disk went into the water.  Well, we were all in our trunks anyway, so I dove in after it, hot-dogging it off the dock and swimming underwater and generally being a show-off.  I was holding the frisbee up to show I had it and yelling ‘There can be only one!’ when something grabbed my free arm and yanked me under, hard!”

          “Wow!” she said.  “What was it, an alligator?  My Dad always said that lake was full of them.”

          “It was the biggest gator I ever saw, fourteen feet if he was an inch,” interrupted Mike.  “He surfaced with Scrappy here in his mouth, screaming bloody murder, going into a death roll. I jumped off the dock without thinking and grabbed goofus here by his free arm, with Peanut-head right behind me, and we played tug-o-war with that gator for what felt like five minutes, although it was probably just a few seconds. I remember seeing that the beast was really old, with lots of scars, and one of his front legs had the foot bitten clean off.  About that time I heard a loud ripping sound, and we went tumbling over backwards with Scrappy landing on us.  The water was churned up and bloody, and we all floundered back to the beach as fast as we could, but the gator had done made off with Scrappy’s arm!  I grabbed my belt out of the truck and used it as a tourniquet while Peanut-head called the ambulance.  In the middle of all this, Scrappy suddenly held up his good arm and somehow, he was still holding the stupid frisbee!”

          “I was pretty light-headed,” said Scrappy, “but I remember tossing it back to Peanut-head and saying, ‘Keep it out of the water next time!’ right before I passed out.”

          Brittany was impressed despite herself, and Daisy was staring in wide-eyed wonder at the one-armed storyteller.

          “Wow, that’s a great story,” Brittany said.  “I’ve never met someone who survived an alligator attack before!”

          “Oh, that’s not the half of it!” Peanut-head told her.

          “There’s more?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

          “You think I was gonna let some oversized lizard eat my friend’s arm and get away with it?”  he said.  “Me and Slugger started hunting that critter the very next weekend.  Problem was, he was an old gator that didn’t move around much, and his haunt was in that state park.  He had lost most of his fear of people, too, and that made him dangerous.  It’s a miracle he didn’t eat some kid in that swimming area, but there were usually enough jet skis around to keep him scared off.  We talked to the rangers, but they were absolutely insistent that we could not shoot him anywhere in the part itself.  So we got a john boat and began following him all the time, whenever we could see him.  He was easy to track; he was hands down the biggest gator on that part of the lake.”

          “After I got out of the hospital I joined them,” Scrappy said.  “I owed that dang gator one for eating my arm!  So we rowed around, or used a trolling motor, for the next two summers, tracking the stupid beast.”

          “I’m not sure how stupid he was,” said Slugger.  “He never once let us catch him outside the park. It was like he knew exactly where the property line was!  We sure knew – we had it figured out just how far the park extended on either side of the public swimming area, just in case we caught that gator over the line.  But we never did!”

          “But a few weeks ago we noticed that one of his new basking spots was only about twenty feet from the line,” said Peanut-head.  “So we decided, if the gator wouldn’t leave the park on his own, we might help him a little, you know?”

          “Wait a minute,” said Brittany.  “You decided to kidnap an alligator?”

          “Well, I wouldn’t call it kidnapping,” said Scrappy.  “Just relocating to his place of execution.  The state does it to criminals, right?”

          “And for what it’s worth, this gator was getting really bold,” said Slugger.  “I watched him follow a fisherman down a hundred yards of shoreline, waiting for him to step off the bank.”

          “I actually hit him with a boat paddle once because he was so close to some kids swimming,” said Peanut-head.  “It was just a matter of time before he actually ate somebody.”

          “So, anyway, about two weeks ago, we saw him basking on a mud bank just a few yards from where the park’s property line ends,” Scrappy said.  “We decided that it was time for Mr. Gator to meet some Louisiana justice!”

          “We had actually gone to the gator farm and practiced wrangling some smaller alligators, just to get used to it,” said Slugger.  “My cousin works there and he got us in after hours.  So we ran the boat up on the bank a hundred yards away and cut up into the woods with some rope and duct tape.  Me and Peanut-head led the way, with Scrappy bringing up the rear since he was short-handed, so to speak!”

          “Up yours, dipweed!” said Scrappy.

          “Well, hey, we let you carry the most important piece of equipment,” said Peanut-head.

          “What was that?” asked Daisy, speaking up for the first time.

          “The gator-killer,” said Scrappy with a grin.  “A .44 automag!”

          “So anyway,” said Slugger, “I jumped on the gator’s back and pinned its head down, just like the old Crocodile Hunter used to do! He was monstrous strong, mind you, and it was all I could do to keep him from dragging me into the lake!”

          “I was busy trying to duct-tape its mouth shut,” said Peanut-head, “Which was hard because the old monster was slick with mud and thrashing its head back and forth really hard.  About that time it bucked old Slugger off just like it was a rodeo bull, and all of a sudden those big old jaws came clamping down on my arm!  I was squalling like a castrated calf, and that monster started dragging me to the water.  Then Slugger here got ahold of my free arm and was trying to pull me loose, and all I can think is: ‘Here we go again!’  Then old Scrappy comes running up with that pistol.”

          Scrappy cut back into the story before his buddy could finish.

          “I was scared half to death,” he said, “but all I could think was that oversized lizard was NOT going to eat my friend’s arm too!  I stuck that pistol right at the base of its skull and pulled the trigger before I could chicken out.  The gun kicked so hard it went flying out of my hand, and I ran after it because I thought I might need another round.  But when I grabbed it and whirled around, that gator was barely twitching.  That .44 made a hole the size of a marble going in and about the size of a softball going out!  The vet who looked it over called it a perfect ‘internal decapitation.’  He had to explain to me what that meant, but apparently I cut the gator’s head off with that bullet without actually cutting its head off.  That make sense to you?”

          “Yeah,” said Brittany.  “I saw it on Forensic Files one time.  Severs the spine but leaves the neck muscles attached, is what it does!  So what did you guys do next?”

          “Well, I bandaged up Peanut-head here,” said Slugger.  “Then all three of us dragged that gator to the other side of the property line and laid him out on a mud bank there.  After that Scrappy helped our buddy back to the boat while I went over to where the tussle happened and tried to erase as much of our tracks and the blood as I could.  When I was done, we got on our cells and called the ambulance and the Game Warden.”

          “I had to have about fifty stitches on my arm,” said Peanut-head, “But the doc said I’ll have full use of it.”

          “We’re all going in together to get the alligator stuffed and mounted,” Scrappy said.  “We’re opening a bait shop next year, and we’re gonna hang him on the wall behind our counter.”

          “That was the best story ever!”  said Daisy.

          “I agree,” said Brittany.  “In fact, I think I’m gonna buy you guys Mexican.  TaMolly’s OK?”

          “That’s the place just down the service road, isn’t it?” said Slugger.

          “One and the same,” she said.  “Tell you what, since we’re an odd number, I’m gonna text my friend Jessica and have her meet us there.  Think you could tell her the whole story again?”

          “Why not?” said Peanut-head.

          “Well hop in your car and follow me!” she said. “I’m driving the bright yellow Mazda parked over by the cart corral on the pharmacy end of the store.”

          “We’re in a black F-150,” said Slugger.  “See you in a few.”

          The three guys didn’t say a word till they got in the truck, then all three collapsed in hysterical laughter.

          “A giant, three-legged gator?  Really?” said Slugger.

          “It sounded better than a lawn-mower repair accident,” said Scrappy.  “Thanks for playing along!”

          “And it definitely sounded better than getting my arm half chewed off by my ex’s Rottweiler because I was trying to break into her house and get my PS4 back,” said Peanut-head.

          “Well, let’s go over the details again, and make sure we have the story straight,” said Slugger, “and we might have a very fun evening ahead of us!”

AND HERE IS ELLIE'S STORY:

                                                   Grisvard: A Tale in 100 Words

 

“There’s no telling how much flesh the Master will extract in exchange for His blessing?” the Millennial nervously inquired.

“No,” answered the acolyte, missing an arm, result of the Old God’s “kiss.”

“Stick your arm in the black portal below the hidden storeroom at Wal-Mart,” the second acolyte told him, pointing to his bandaged limb. “Sometimes, He’s hungry, sometimes he only…nibbles.”

Heart-pounding with excitement at the idea of feeding the ancient master, slumbering these 7,000 years in the Cavern of Miseries, the initiate nodded and proceeded to the sacred altar, to offer his right arm in exchange for Grisvard’s blessing….