What A Friend...

How terrible it must have been for the man with leprosy. He was a good man; an honest man who had a wonderful wife and two small children.
One day he came in from the field where he had been plowing and noticed a small sore spot on the palm of his right hand. He showed his wife and they spoke of it for just a moment then had supper and went to bed.

The next day he rose early as usual and went to the field to work, plowing the ground, getting it ready for planting. The soil was rich and he knew that with some effort he sould bring in a good crop and the little family would have food and clothing through the winter and oil for their lanterns to light the darkness of the nights.

As the days went by the sore on his hand got worse until he was forced to see the doctor at the nearby village. The doctor examined the mans hand closely and, with sadness in his eyes, told the man he had leprosy and it would never get better but it would get much worse very quickly.

The doctor wrapped the mans hand in a bandage and instructed him on what to do to care for the disease.

The man thanked the doctor and started to leave to go home. The doctor stopped him and told him he could never go home again. The leprosy was at its' worse stage now for contagion and if he went home, his wife and children would surely catch the disease.
The man asked what he should do and the doctor said, "Follow me outside and I'll show you."

When they got outside, the doctor pointed to an old house on a hill a mile away and told the man he would have to go there and never leave that place again.

The man loved his wife and children so he asked the doctor to explain to them what had happened and what he must now do. Then he went to the old house on the hill.

There were laws in those days that were made for lepers.

"The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, `Unclean, unclean.' He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp."

This old house on the hill was one of the places to which the law referred.

There was a fence around the house and lepers were not allowed outside the fence. They could not see or speak to or touch anyone outside the fence. They would live inside the fence until they died.

Each day someone would bring meager meals to the fence. The people inside had to stay back out of sight until those people left then they could go and get the food.

At first each day the man came to the fence and gazed out across the expanse toward his home. Sometimes he thought he saw someone standing there, looking toward him, waving at him and he waved back. The man's heart ached for his wife and children, knowing he would never see them again. But the leprosy got worse and after a while he stopped looking toward the outside world. He even stopped wondering when he would die from his disease.

Then one night he had a dream. He dreamed if he could just leave this place, he would get well. He would be healed.
He had heard of a man who did wonderful things. He heard the man could even bring back someone from the dead. He thought about it so much that he became completely obsessed by the thought.

So early one morning just as day began, he slipped away from the leper colony and, staying in the shadows, made his way to the outskirts of a town.

He saw a crowd of people following a man called Jesus and he knew this was the Man of whom he had heard.
Quietly he crept closer to the man and, just as he was seen by others, he approached the Man and fell down and worshipped Him and said to Jesus, "If you are willing I will be clean." And Jesus, feeling compassion for the man, put forth his hand and touched him, saying, 'I will; be thou clean.' And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."

What a wonderful reunion that man and his wife and their children must have had that day.After all those years of being locked away from them without the loving touch of his wife's hand, without the hugs from his children, never seeing them, not even hearing their voices, knowing he could never again be with his loved ones, now at last, because of the love of his Savior, he was home.

What wonder that just a word and a touch made all things right again!

What a blessing to have a Lord and Saviour who loved him and healed his disease; and healed his heartaches.

Later...

The Trip...

My first wife and I lived in Pueblo, Colorado for three years, give or take a few months. I had gone to work for JH Marks Trucking Company in Odessa, Texas, and transfered to Pueblo to haul pipe from the steel mill there to various places around the southwest where oilfield pipe was needed.

I made 6 cents a mile plus a dollar seventy five a day for a hotel room.

The per diem was actually just money to make the 6 cents seem like more when payday came around. Neither I nor any of the other drivers stayed in a hotel at night, with a few exceptions, of course.

Once I was up all night and loaded the next day to go south and by the time I got to Raton, New Mexico that evening, I was too sleepy to go on so I spent the night at the Raton Hotel.

Mostly, though, each driver just filled out a receipt from a receipt book each of us carried and turned it in with our paperwork at the end of each trip. I'm sure the boss knew what we were doing but he never said anything about it. He was a good guy. His name was Paul Sizemore. (Funny I remember that name after 49 years)

Anyhow, back to the story.

In 1959 Maggie and I decided to go to California. I had my 1939 Chrysler Royal four door and a four wheel ex-coal trailer to pull. The trailer was one especially built years ago to haul coal from the mine to the storage warehouse and it wasn't very steady. When I pulled it with my car, it weaved back and forth constantly. It wasn't bad enough to be dangerous, just annoying, because I couldn't drive more than about forty five miles an hour pulling it.

Before we left, I went out and shot 16 jack rabbits and Maggie fried up the ones that didn't have sores on them and Maggie, Rebecca (our only child at that time) and I ate fried jack rabbit all the way to Modesto, California!

The trip was long and mainly uneventful. The Chrysler Royal had old style headlamps that had a single bulb that screwed into a socket in each headlamp and the light it gave off was extremely weak. I could barely see the road at night.

We left very early and drove quite a ways before stopping for the night. I have always been a very nervous rider so I drove all the way.

At the end of the first day, we had come quite a ways and I was ready to stop and get some sleep. We found a place to pull over at the edge of a small town. We built a fire on the ground and heated up some rabbit and ate rabbit and bread and some raw vegetables and washed it down with milk. It went down very well and we made pallets on the ground and slept through most of the night.We enjoyed the adventure.

I woke us up right at dawn and, after having some boiled coffee and rabbit and eggs, and bread toasted over the fire, we started the second day.

The day was very long and, at 45 miles an hour, the trip was getting more tiring. But, being a driver by profession, I hung in there and we made a pretty good dent in the trip that day.

I drove quite a while that night and when I decided to stop, I was more than ready to get some rest.

At around 10 or 11 o'clock that night I began to watch for a place to pull over. We were going through some hills and I would welcome any wide spot in the road in which to stop.

As I rounded a left hand curve, I saw a wide place on the right side of the road and pulled to where I was well off the road, facing away from the highway.

Maggie and Beca were asleep and neither awoke when I stopped. I needed to answer the call of nature so I got out of the car and walked to the front and stopped there. It was pitch black and I couldn't see more than a foot ahead of me.

When I reached the front of the car, I stopped right by the front fender and took care of business than got back into the car and went to sleep.

I slept deeply through the night and awoke before the others just at the crack of dawn. I thought to myself, I'll go to the bathroom now before anyone else is awake. I got out quietly and walked to the front of the car where I had been the night before; and almost fainted!

Three feet ahead of where I had stopped last night was a sheer cliff that went straight down for at least five hundred feet!

I felt a little queasy and backed up to the door of the car and stopped.

I quickly finished what I needed to do and walked around the back to the other side of the car. I remember thinking, "I'd better make sure Maggie or Beca doesn't get out and head for the other side of the car, around the front. Maggie had a good laugh about it a few minutes later when I told her what almost happened, but I didn't laugh at all.

Well, that's the story. It doesn't seem like much now, reading about it like this. I guess you had to be there.

I know one thing, though; my Angel was watching over me the night before. I hope she wasn't too embarrassed by what transpired. I still get chills when I think of what would have happened if I'd walked another three feet that night.

Later...

Remembering Odessa...

I first went to Odessa, Texas in 1949. I had graduated from grammar school and, as a reward, my mother sent me to Odessa to visit my dad and brother and sister and their families. (There were a bunch more family, the Christmases, Manions and Thackers)

This was in June of that year. The thing I am remembering right now is; One day I was walking from my dads' house on Lindberg to my sisters' house on West Ada.

When I got to Ada, I turned east. The day was very hot and the caliche roads were an inch deep in caliche dust.

I was barefoot, of course. No one wore shoes except to go to school.
Anyhow, after I turned east to get to my sisters' house, I heard a clap of thunder. It was just a little one at first. Then a big clap sounded and I watched a thunderhead form in the east and head toward me, coming right on down the street.

First I smelled the rain. I hurried a little because I figured it would cut loose at any minute.

Now comes the part that takes me back.
As I walked down the street, raindrops began to hit in the dust. At first I heard them then, as I watched , enthralled, the rain drops began to land in the street and little puffs of caliche dust popped up all across the street and I could see them get closer and closer to me. I just stopped and watched the rain as it approached me. It was amazing. I had never seen it rain a little at a time before, certainly not advancing down the street as it was doing then.

Just a little memory of Odessa.

Later...

A Little Delayed News...

Here is a piece of news about something that happened to me recently and a follow-up on it.

Dizzy...I Get Dizzy...

I had a bout with vertigo several days ago. Boy, what an adventure that was. I have been a bit dizzy before but never knew what vertigo was until three days ago. I had noticed some loss of hearing and some hearing distortion for a day or so before then dizzy spell. That was on Saturday. We went to a jam session Saturday morning where we play music with others but I couldn't stay because of the sound distortion in my right ear. It got so bad we went home before pot luck. Then on Sunday, the morning of the vertigo, I took a cup of coffee to my computer and sat down. Then the world began to spin and I had to close my eyes. I called my wife and she came a runnin'. I held on to her for a while and couldn't get to my feet. After an hour or so, I finally managed to get to the toilet (I had to go very badly) and empty out. It took about 45 minutes. Donna wanted to call 911 but I said no. (I'm so brave) After I finished my elimination bout, I managed to get to my bed and a prone position. That afternoon, about 4:00 pm, after attempting to call my regular physician with no results, I decided to go to the ER and get my ear checked out. The doctor took some blood and ran a cat scan and pronounced me not too bad. He gave me some vertigo medicine and some ear medicine and sent me home. He gave my wife a phone number for an ear doctor and I have to see him on the 28th. Believe me when I say, if you've never experienced real vertigo, you cannot imagine how it feels. I remember being so drunk once that I couldn't open my eyes without the world spinning around; I couldn't stand or move to anywhere and I got the heaves. The vertigo I had was just like that but worse and without the pleasure of bourbon or beer first. I'll keep me posted on this after my doctors' appointment.

Follow-up:

Doctors' Orders...

Well, (I like to say that before a post sometimes because it was something Ronald Reagan did when he was President) I went to see the ear doctor and I'm really glad I did. I feel much better now that a specialist has told me I had a bout with vertigo! 'duh'

I already knew that. The doc at the hospital gave me some prednisone for my ear problem and it worked pretty well so when I got to the ear doctor, my symptons were all but gone already.

The ear doc told me I probably had experienced a "Sudden Hearing Loss Syndrome,"-(1 : a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality...) and it would probably get completely well and I'd be back to normal one of these days. I asked him, "Which one of these days," and he said , "Who knows?" I assured him I certainly didn't and he assured me he didn't either. So I guess that was a push.

I'm glad I went to see him, though. At least now I know whatever it was that happened to my ear isn't something that has a specific name that might require surgery or some other really scary method to repair it.

He was pretty nice. He took a look at Donnas' ear, too, while he was at it. She lost almost all the hearing from one of her ears and has all kinds of noises in there from time to time. She had been told there was nothing anyone could do to reapir her ear and, after looking it over, the doc assured her that, indeed, there was nothing anyone could do for her ear. Boy, what a relief!

Now we'll try another jam session to make sure our music days are not over forever. My ear is better and there have been no more bouts with vertigo, Thank God for that!

Later...


Tuesday February 21, 2006

An E-mail To The President...

Here is a copy of the latest e-mail to the president and vice president.

"I would like to know how President Bush can support a country, UAE, and a company, the Dubai Ports World, who actively boycott our friend and ally, Israel? The boycott of Israeli products by these and other Muslim nations and companies is a matter of record." A quote below:

"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.

"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.

Link:

I think George Bush is not doing what is right for this country. I think he has his priorities in the wrong place. He has forgotten what real dangers there are to us from Muslim nations.

He has forgotten who our real friends are. He has refused to do what needs to be done to assure the safety and security of this country. He has forgotten that this nation was founded on Christian principles and Islam is an affront to all Christians and Jews.

He evidently refuses to educate himself about Islam and the Muslim religion so he would know that that religion was founded by a man who hated Jews and Christians specifically and slaughtered hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people to force Islam on entire countries.

I feel Mr. Bush would do this nation a favor if he would consider stepping down from the presidency and allowing someone with different values, a better understanding as to what is good and right for the United States, to take over.
Mr Bush has been and continues to be a tragic disappointment to us, conservative Americans. He has not kept his promises, such as opening ANWAR to oil drilling and exploration which he could do by executive order. I'm sorry I voted for him the second time.

The conclusion I have drawn in regards to Mr. Bush is, he is a one worlder, wanting to allow this great nation to become just a part of a world order, not a sovereign nation. I hope and pray he will do the right thing before it is too late for us.

With all due respect, James C XXXXXXXX Red Bluff, Ca 96080 530-527-XXXX jcadla@sbcglobal.net

Later...