Why?

Hogskin Branch Falls, Flag Pond, Tennessee. November 28, 2009.

As most of you know, Betsy and I ‘collect’ waterfalls.  We enjoy finding waterfalls, since they give us a great excuse to get out in the great outdoors.  We’ve been to some beautiful and awe-inspiring places on our visits to waterfalls.  We usually research an area (online and through books) and try to find and visit as many waterfalls as we possibly can.

This past weekend we spent a couple of days in northeast Tennessee and visited several waterfalls.  The waterfall in the picture above was one of them.  We knew that not much could be seen from the road since it was a small waterfall and was in a small gorge.

I’ve become pretty good at bushwhacking (for an old man), so I went down into the gorge and was able to get a better view and the photo above.

But I also found some other things that weren’t apparent from the road — garbage bags, old televisions, tires, and even the old car pictured above.

Hogskin Branch Falls is no Niagara, but it could be a pretty place to visit.  Why do we feel it is okay to trash any part of God’s beautiful creation?

A Reason To Be Thankful

Wild turkeys on Bays Mountain, Kingsport, Tennessee. November 26, 2009.

After a delicious Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and all the trimmings, Betsy and I took our friend Reida for a drive to visit a waterfall and to see some of the other sights in the Kingsport, Tennessee area.

One of the places we visited was the Eastman Recreation Area on Bays Mountain.  We saw these critters near the lodge, walking around as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  Since it was the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, and they were able to enjoy an afternoon stroll, I guess they really had a reason to be thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving

A photo from the internet.

When I was teaching in China, my students always wanted to know what was the ‘most American’ holiday.  After some probing, I decided that what they really wanted to know was what holiday was most uniquely American.

Many countries celebrate Christmas (it was even celebrated in China) and every nation has a special celebration for its independence.  So I told them that the most American holiday was Thanksgiving.  Part of my reason was the historical background of the holiday and part was the fact that this holiday was about families and being thankful or the blessings of our lives.  But how would you have answered their question?

On this Thanksgiving Day I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.  Betsy and I are heading to the mountains of east Tennessee to work off our feast by doing some hiking and visiting waterfalls.  I’m not sure if we’ll have internet access while we’re gone, but we’ll be back home Sunday and I’ll catch up with all of you then.

I would also like to share with you this Thanksgiving prayer:

Almighty God, giver of all good things:
We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land.  They restore us, though we often destroy them.

We thank you for the great resources of this nation.  They make us rich, though we often exploit them.

We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit in this land.  It has drawn people from every nation, though we have often hidden from its light.

We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich variety.  It sustains our life, though we have been faithless again and again.

Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.  Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice, and to abolish poverty and crime.  And hasten the day when all our people, with many voices in one united chorus, will glorify your holy Name.  Amen.

– The Book of Common Prayer

29 Years Ago: Who Shot J. R.?

Who shot J. R. Ewing? Anyone who was around in 1980 and above the age of about six remembers that question and the speculation that it raised.

Dallas, a slick soap opera about the private lives and public shenanigans of the dysfunctional, oil-rich Ewing family,  was America’s hottest prime time series in 1980.  Jock Ewing, the family patriarch, had two sons, J. R. and Bobby.  J. R. was the character millions of viewers loved to hate — a charming and unscrupulous Texas oilman who didn’t let little things like morality or the law get in his way of acquiring whatever he wanted.

An unidentified gunman shot the scheming J. R. in the final episode of the show’s second season, but Dallas fans had to wait nearly eight months to find out who fired the shot.  First there was a summer of reruns, followed by a seven-week actors’ strike.  The first three episodes of the third season were filled with false leads about the identify of the shooter, but on November 21, 1980, the truth was revealed.  The shooter was J. R.’s sister-in-law and mistress, who shot him in a fit of anger.  This show earned the biggest audience share in television history up to that point — 41 million of the nearly 78 million households in the U. S. watched the show.

The huge ratings generated by the Who Shot J. R.? stunt helped popularize the practice of ending a television season with a cliffhanger.

How Brave Am I?

Our side yard, Fairfield Glade. October 23, 2009.

I’ve always felt that I was pretty good at handling life’s little setbacks and disappointments.  I thought I could handle any adversity, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts.

As you know, Betsy is in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, with her childhood girlfriends.  She didn’t want me to be bored while she was gone, so she left me with a fairly extensive ‘honey-do’ list.  The two biggest items on the list were mowing the lawn (and picking up the leaves) and stacking the firewood that we were expecting to be delivered.

I finished the lawn on Thursday and it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.  And just before it got dark on Thursday, the firewood was delivered and dumped in the side yard.

Unfortunately wood wasn’t the only thing that came Thursday.  Thursday night brought high winds and rain which continued off and on until Friday afternoon.  When the rain finally ended I went out, picked up the many branches that had fallen  during the storm, and faced my dilemma.

As you can see from the picture above there is a lot of wood to be stacked, and there also a lot of leaves on the ground.  There’s more wood than I can stack in a single day and the leaves are wet, so it’s going to take more than a day to clean them all up.

So the question — is do I have the necessary courage to face Betsy with an incomplete ‘honey-do list’?  What do you think her reaction will be?  Do you think I’ll end up in the dog house?  Would it do any good to ask Betsy to extend her vacation so I have more time to finish the list?

99 Months and Counting

The bride and groom, Knoxville, Tennessee. June 23, 2001.

I married the beautiful woman above 99 months ago.  We  had a whirl-wind romance — we met in January, had our first date in March and were married in June.  But it was obvious that God was at work in our lives.

We realized there were some disadvantages to getting married at our age — pushing 60.  One disadvantage was that we most likely wouldn’t have as many anniversaries to celebrate as we would have if we were younger.  So we decided we would celebrate monthiversaries as well.  Our monthly celebrations aren’t particularly fancy — last night we had dinner at Cracker Barrel — but it is a  a time when we can appreciate the blessings we have in one another.

We still make a bigger deal out of anniversaries, but our monthiversaries are special times for us.  Yesterday we celebrated 99 months.  We hope there are many, many more to come.

Shopping with the ‘Old Folks’

George at Cafe Uno in Maryville, Tennessee. July 23, 2001.

It’s amazing how time flies!  It wasn’t too many years ago that I did most of my grocery shopping on Saturdays.  When my first wife, Elizabeth, became too ill to do the shopping, I would buy groceries on Saturday mornings since I didn’t have to work then.  I continued to do my grocery shopping on Saturdays after Elizabeth died.

Now Betsy and I do our grocery shopping on Wednesday.  Why, you ask?  Because our local Kroger store gives senior citizens a discount on Wednesday.  And if that’s not enough incentive, they also provide FREE COFFEE to seniors.

But recently there has been a change.  It wasn’t all that long ago that I got my feelings hurt if the checkout person asked ‘Do you qualify for the senior discount?’.  Now that same question makes me feel pretty good!!!

I’d like to think that I don’t look as old as a majority of the people in the store on Wednesdays, but perhaps I’m just indulging in wishful thinking.  I guess I might as well admit that I’m now one of those ‘old folks’.  But there is a bright side — on Wednesdays the store plays Big Band music over their sound system.  That’s a big improvement over other days of the week!!

Scenic Sunday # 51: We Hold These Truths

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November 18, 2000.

This is my post for the Scenic Sunday meme, which shares beautiful scenes from around the world.  To see more Scenic Sunday posts, or to join and show your own pictures, click HERE.

The picture above may be more historic than scenic, but I think it is appropriate for this holiday weekend.  This is the room in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in which the Declaration of Independence was signed.  That document laid out the fundamental promise and obligation of a new nation.

… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. …

Two hundred and thirty three years later, work still needs to be done to reach that ideal.  But progress has been made and is being made.  The words of July 4, 1776, still define and animate the nation today.

Happy Fourth of July

Fireworks at Opsail 2000, Norfolk, Virginia. June, 2000.

Happy Fourth of July!  I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

What’s the Fourth of July without fireworks?  Since we were gone most of the day Friday helping my parents I didn’t have a great deal of time to go through my photo archives to find Fourth of July fireworks.  But I did find the photo above.  It was made in June of 2000 at Opsail 2000 in Norfolk, Virginia.

We’ll probably watch Knoxville’s concert and fireworks show on television.  The Knoxville Symphony is quite good and they have a very good fireworks display.  But  I’ll admit that I’m showing my age, especially when I remember the Fourth of July celebrations of years past.

For example, consider the concerts we hear nowadays.  They seem to be dominated by Broadway tunes, popular music or rock and roll.  Now there’s nothing particularly wrong with any of those, but whatever happened to Stars and Stripes Forever and the other patriotic songs we used to hear so much more often?

While I was out in the yard a couple of days ago I heard This Is My Country on my iPod.  Now I’m showing my age, but that song, by Don Raye and Al Jacobs, sums up what I feel about this country — not just on the Fourth of July, but every day of the year:

What difference if I hail from North or South
Or from the East or West
My heart is full of love for all of these.
I only know I swell with pride and deep within my breast,
I thrill to see old glory paint the breeze!

This is my country! Land of my birth!
This is my country! Grandest on earth!
I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold,
For this is my country to have and to hold.

Meeting Old Friends For The First Time

Leedra, Betsy and Shelley. Cleveland, Tennessee. June 12, 2009.

Yesterday was a very special day for Betsy and me.  We got to meet a couple of our blogging buddies in person!

The picture above shows Betsy with Leedra (left) of Leedra’s Photos For Fun and Shelley of Building A Log Cabin.  We all have been visiting each other’s blog for many months.  Leedra lives here in Tennessee not too far from us, but Shelley lives in Michigan.  Shelley and her husband Greg came down to Chattanooga on business, so a get-together was arranged.  We all met in Cleveland, Tennessee, for brunch.

As soon as we met it was like a gathering of old friends.  We talked, and talked and talked.  I’m sure we ate somewhere along the line, but it was the fellowship that was  most important.

We’re hoping that Shelley and Greg will soon get back to Tennessee when they can stay longer.  Betsy and I are hoping that we can soon get up to Michigan as well.  Shelley and Greg have a beautiful log cabin in northern Michigan and Betsy and I know that there are some beautiful waterfalls up there.