BLOG Pause and several good ones

This will probably be the last post for about four weeks and maybe more. I will be leaving today to pick up my daughter in Houston and then head for North Carolina where we will spend two weeks touring that area. After that I will attend a three day seminar at the Billy Graham Cove. Following that I will leisurely travel back home taking my own sweet time enjoying the country and friends.

The following are items I intended to post as needed and decided to give them all to you at one time. These came to me from several different email buddies. Thank you one and all for your wonderful contributions!!

See you in about a month or more. Please pray for a safe trip.

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CATHOLIC SHAMPOO

While shopping in a food store, two nuns happened to pass by the beer, wine, and liquor section. One asked the other if she would like a beer. The second nun answered that, indeed, it would be very nice to have one, but that she would feel uncomfortable about purchasing it.

The first nun replied that she would handle that without a problem. She picked up a six-pack and took it to the cashier.

The cashier had a surprised look, so the nun said, 'This is for washing our hair.' Without blinking an eye, the cashier reached under the counter and put a package of pretzel sticks in the bag with the beer.

'The curlers are on me.'

PRICELESS

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Bubba's sister is pregnant and is in a bad car accident, which caused Her to fall into a deep coma.

After nearly six months, she awakens and sees that she is no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asks the doctor about her baby.

The doctor replies, "Ma'am, you had twins -- a boy and a girl. The babies are fine. Your Brother came in and named them."

The woman thinks to herself, "Oh, no! Not Bubba; he's an idiot!" Expecting the worst, she asks the doctor, "Well, what's the girl's Name?"

"Denise," the doctor answers.

The new mother thinks, "Wow! That's a beautiful name! I guess I was Wrong about my brother.
I really like the name Denise." Then she asks the doctor, "What's the boy's name?"

The doctor replies, "Denephew."

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Two 90-year-old women, Rose and Barb, had been friends all of their lives.

When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day. One day Barb said, 'Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our lives, and we played all through High School. Please do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's women's soft-ball there.'

Rose looked up at Barb from her deathbed and said, 'Barb, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you.' Shortly after that, Rose passed on.

At midnight a few nights later, Barb was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to her, 'Barb, Barb.'

'Who is it?' asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?'

'Barb -- it's me, Rose.'

'You're not Rose. Rose just died.'

'I'm telling you, it's me, Rose,' insisted the voice.

'Rose! Where are you?'

'In Heaven,' replied Rose. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.'

'Tell me the good news first,' said Barb.

'The good news,' Rose said, 'is that there's Softball in Heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us

are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play softball all we want, and we never get tired.'

'That's fantastic,' said Barb. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?'

'You're pitching Tuesday.'

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It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts....and his bucket of shrimp. Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.

As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, "Thank you. Thank you."

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years. When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like "a funny old duck," as my dad used to say. Or, "a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic," as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp. To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.

Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida. That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were. They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull! Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued. (after 24 days at sea...)

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped saying, "Thank you." That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket f ull of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

(Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)
PS: Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern Airlines.

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