"After much nagging from his wife, Sam reluctantly agreed to visit the audiologist to check his hearing. Yes, he would need hearing aids and they ranged in price from $50.00 to $2,000, was what he was told. "I’ll try the $50.00 pair” Sam said. The nurse placed the hearing aids into his ears and hung a huge wire around his neck. “Does that wire really have to be around my neck?” asked Sam. “Why of course!” replied the nurse. “You think these things in your ears do anything?! It’s the wire around your neck – when people see it, they are encouraged to talk louder!" (copied)

Let's see if we have this right. It is October 2, 2015? Check. It is Friday. CHECK! Sorry. I suppose you caught me experiencing feeling a slight hint of a tinge of the TGIF syndrome. I'm not typically one to fret over stuff like that but we've had one of those combination weeks. You know what I mean. It's been one of those 'all of the above' and then some weeks. I end up the start of this last day of the work week with a tremendous sense of thankfulness. With all the medical stuff we've been exposed to this week I've been made painfully aware of what could easily be not only the future but the here and now for any of us, at any time. Therefore, I confess my thanks to God that I am as well as I am, diabetic, headed for the door marked 70, but still feeling pretty good and able to get up and go. The other day I stopped in at a place to fetch some hydraulic oil. It was in a five gallon container. The young fellow asked if I needed his help carrying it out to my truck. I thanked him but said in a very affirmative tone, "I think I can handle it." I don't know why I always see an offer for help as a challenge. I'm pretty sure he was being very courteous but at times I'm thinking maybe he doesn't think I'm up to it. Given the circumstance I grabbed up that bucket and carried it holding it out from my body. You know. Like it was a rag doll or something. I figured I would be out of sight before I collapsed. You do know that I am kidding. Mostly. That bucket only weighed about 40 pounds. Makes me wonder why he even asked. This week gave me a renewed appreciation for what folks mean when asked how they are doing and they say, "At least I'm vertical." If you aren't that good at math, look it up.

I thought about writing a song for the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives who resigned last week. It could be entitled, "Don't Cry for Me John Boehner". Or I might have called it, "Save the Last Cry for Me." I actually don't have a problem with grown men crying. When the occasion calls for it. He tended to turn on the water works a little too often in my opinion. You know. At the drop of the hat. He does have a compelling life story and I believe him to be an honorable person. He is not the conservative leader the Republican majority wanted. Who knows where it is all headed now. The President made great and lofty statements to the Pope about our enduring respect and defense of religious liberty. The smoke from the Pope's plane had barely faded before the President, at a homosexual advocate gathering, said that people who have problems with the changes being made by the courts, well, they had better get used to them. He included some veiled threats and my take is he pretty much gave an 'or else' ultimatum. So much for America's enduring respect and defense of religious liberty. Stay tuned. I have no way of predicting where all of this is headed. I do know who does. And, He will have the final say on it. We certainly can count on that. Amen.

I can't really apologize for yesterday's brain freeze. It's a part of the process. You've seen it on your computer. The dreaded frozen blue screen. What do you do when that happens? You reboot the system and hope for the best. Right? I suppose that's what I did. Rebooted. I'm back up and running. I'm not sure all of my data is where it is supposed to be but we will have to see how that works out over time. What if it comes back new and improved? Now that would be something to behold. I could be functioning like the 1950 Rinso laundry soap. The ads on radio back then said it made clothes whiter and brighter, brighter than brand new. Brighter than brand new. Maybe I will be brighter but I wouldn't wait on John Boehner to shed a tear while waiting to find out. I do hope you will have yourself a most enjoyable Saturday and a wonderful Lord's Day Sunday. Meanwhile, I will attempt to check out some of those reloaded files to see if there's enough there to splash some words onto the electronic page for Monday. I do hope, Lord willing, to see you then. May God bless us all is my prayer. Amen. ....More later.