Pickin up Sticks

Our backyard has 27 full grown trees in it. I'm talking mature, leaf producing, shade providing trees. Hickory, poplar, Oak, black cherry, there is quite a variety. Someone told me if you want to enjoy the shade in the summer you have to put up with the leaves in the fall. I don't mind the leaves, it is the sticks that keep me busy. I'll bet I spend 15-20 minutes a day picking up sticks that fall on the ground. I can pick up all the sticks in the backyard and come back a few minutes later and there they are again, more sticks. We did make a place where we can pile them up and have a hot dog roast or toast marshmallows once in a while. We look forward to roasting and toasting back there for many years to come.

The fella that is in charge of rafting at Appalachian Bible College Coach Tim Barton asked me to teach the guides some of the history of the mining communities and the ghost towns in the New River Gorge, so this afternoon I was heading down into an area that I could hike to an old cemetery and I was going to mark a trail back to the beach where the rafts stop for lunch often. However, a man who was camping with his family had fallen out of his canoe yesterday and since he didn't have a lifejacket on you have to know that there was no happy ending to that camping trip. Sad, but true, that more people drown in that river every year that are fishing than in 5 or 6 years of rafting, all because they don't want to wear a lifejacket. Anyway, my plans were changed because they had the road blocked off to where I was heading, a little place called Red Ashe Island. They were still searching for the man who drowned.

However on the way down into the Gorge I saw a BFR - (big flat rock) I had been wanting to get a BFR in order to make a bench out by the stick pile so while we are roasting and toasting we'll have something to sit on. I actually want to get two more BFRs, but one at a time. Well I stood the ol BFR up on it's side and walked it over to my truck tailgate and laid one end on the tailgate and tried to pick up the other end, but I didn't have enough umph to get it up all the way on the tailgate. Hence the B in BFR. So I called my good friend Nick and went and picked him up and between the two of us we had just enough umph to get it up and in there. I don't think that there was a lot of extra umph, we both had to grunt pretty hard. Sharon always makes fun of me when I go to pick up something heavy because I study it for awhile, but I think that lifting something really heavy requires a little bit of studying. I don't ever remember my Dad studying
anything he wanted to pick up, but I'll never be that strong.

Live like Bill Lived

Bill and Cora Withers are our neighbors, we knew Bill and Cora from Fayetteville Baptist Church, he was the former Pastor there and also served as the Pastor Emeritus after retiring from another local Church. We purchased the house we now live in from them. Bill is dying of leukemia, he calls himself a vampire because the only thing keeping him alive is weekly blood transfusions and occasionally some platelets to boost up his blood. Bill's body stopped making good blood awhile back, the leukemia has destroyed his bone marrow. Bill is surrounded by his large and loving family, daily people come from various places to pay their respects to him while he is alive and visit with him. The driveway at their house has different cars in it every day. The other night a local folk music group stopped in and Sharon and I were invited over for a hour concert in the Wither's living room, quite a treat. (There is nothing like live music, makes me wish I could play.) He mentioned to someone that he had never tasted lobster and the next night his grandson had some fresh ones delivered from Maine and they made a big lobster feast. I am trying to paint the picture of someone dying slowly without pain and with a lot of love. There are many ways to die, I've always thought that I'd like to "go" quickly, without a lot of fanfare and trouble, but seeing how Bill is dying has made me think that it is not such a bad way to go. You can settle old accounts, let people know how much they meant to you and pass on your blessings to your family and friends. The thought struck me and I am sharing it with you that in order to die like Bill is dying you have to live like Bill lived. He dedicated his life to serving God and others, his home was a place of hospitality, he would get up in the middle of the night and sit with the man next door who lived in the house we now live in when he was having a bad time. The list of things Bill did for others would be a long one. Well I am trying to live like Bill and stay in touch with our family, I hope that this becomes a weekly habit and that no one objects to my aimless ramblings.