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I always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon. There’s just one problem with my dream of riding in a balloon I’m just a little afraid of heights. But my fear of heights if not my fault it’s my brother’s and Pete’s fault. When we were little daddy found a house that was being demolished and he was able to get enough lumber to build us kids a play house. Daddy built the play house it the corner of our back yard beside a large pine tree. My brother and Pete are older than me but that didn’t stop me from trying to do everything they did this included climbing up the pine tree and getting on the roof of the play house. I could climb on the play house roof just as  good as they could. I did have one small problem I could get on the roof I just couldn’t get back down. I’m sure there was never a time that my brother or our best friend Pete, would get on the roof just to see me stuck up there. If I was going to have a song to go with my play house story it would be that Van Halen song that says “you might as well jump. ” But today’s song is about riding in a hot air balloon which I have never done. I have had a similar experience I have ridden on a crane–twice.

My last story was about my time being stuck in an elevator with a CT gantry. This is another story about a CT delivery . The location for this delivery was not the same hospital but it was across the street from it at a large doctor’s building. This time there was no chance of getting stuck in an elevator because we were going to make the delivery from outside the building. Behind the building was a large crane that was attached to a massive steal platform. On the top floor was a large hole in the wall. Would you like to guess what happened next? That’s right was moved the CT gantry from the truck onto the platform and held on to the CT gantry, as if we could stop the gantry from moving, the crane operator then begun to raise us up to the top floor. I suppose that this was sorta like riding in a hot air balloon but I believe a hot air balloon would be a lot less stressful. Because being lifted ten  Stories in the air with a heavy large piece of medical equipment that could tip out of the platform right on top of me was very stressful. I know some of you may say there’s not a ten story building across from the hospital. Well OK it was on the third floor, but the building is on top of a hill and looking down to level ground from outside of the third floor would be like looking from ten floors up if it was on level ground. That and a ten story building makes a better story. The truth is anything that’s higher than the play house is scary.

Now it’s time to tell about my first experience riding a crane. Way back in 1988 I was looking for work so I filled out an application at a temporary agency.  The way it worked back then was you were to call every morning after 6 and before 7 and tell them that you were available to work that day. Unlike what some people thought there was no one at the temp agency that was going to come out and hold your hand to get a job. After a week or so  someone at the temp agency called and wanted to know if I could lift 65 pounds. I told them sure I can do that. They told me to at the Port of Fort Smith at 7 in the morning. In the morning I arrived at the port signed in at the office and was told to go stand on the dock with the other temps. I went to the dock where about 20 or 25 other men were standing. None of us had a clue what we were going to do next. The regular employees arrived and one of them started up the crane, on the crane boom was a little steal cage that looked like it could hold one man.  The crane operator dropped it by us and the boss says ” OK four of you guys get in. ” Well after all we were just temps and when I signed in at the office there was a large sign that read “Temps are not allowed in the break room. ” After two or three trips it was my turn so I and three other men stuffed ourselves in the metal basket The crane then lifted us up and over then lowered us down inside a barge. When all of us were inside the barge, the crane lowered down several rolls of brown paper we were told to cover the entire bottom of the barge with this brown paper. After we were finished with rolling out the paper they told us to form two groups at either end of the barge. We all looked up none of us knew what was coming next of coarse since we were all at the bottom of the barge when we looked up all we could see was the sky. I was guessing that the crane would lower a pallet of something. Turns out they didn’t just lowered one pallet at a time, We could hear the crane lifting something then suddenly we could see why the crane was making so much noise. Above the top of the barge came the crane’s load which was two steal I beams with a dozen pallets attacked to the I beams by hooks on the I beams. The pallets were in huge plastic bags like the giant sandbags that were used at New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. When the massive weight of all the pallets hit the floor, the entire barge would move. The hooks were then released and my job began. Each of us would pick up a bag then we walked to the back wall of the barge and made a line of bags after that line was completed we started on the next line. In turns out that not only was I making a lot of money I was making the massive sum of five dollars an hour, plus I was helping with disaster relief. The sixty five pound bags were filled with a grain mixture which in large letters read USA relief or something to that effect after all this was in 1988 and I don’t remember every detail. The crane would go back and forth between the end I was at to the other end of the barge where the other group were. That’s what we all day long with one lunch break and other crane ride. At the end of the day the barge was about half full. The boss man says “I’ll see you guys back again tomorrow at seven o’clock”.  Turns out not everyone came back the next day I never did find out why. The next day we were almost to the top of the barge and then something wonderful happened–we run out of bags! I wanted to stay around and watch them put on the large steal lids but I was still just a temp so I had to leave. There are not many jobs that comes with free crane rides. But somehow I still believe that riding in a hot air balloon maybe a whole lot more fun than my crane riding experiences. I hope you have enjoyed reading my stories today and maybe you learned something that you didn’t know. For instance maybe you learned the people that sung that Up Up and Away song are all black. Well just so you learned something.

This is a song about a man having his dream fulfilled by getting stuck in an elevator with a beautiful woman. I also was stuck in an elevator but not with a beautiful woman, I was stuck in an elevator just me and a CT gantry. You might be wondering “how do you get stuck in an elevator with a CT gantry”?

Your first question maybe “What’s a CT gantry”? The most prominent part of a CT scanner is the gantry – a circular, rotating frame with an tube mounted on one side and a detector on the opposite side. A fan-shaped beam of X-rays is created as the rotating frame spins the X-ray tube and detector around the patient.–Ok I didn’t write that description I looked up CT gantry on Bing then I copied and pasted the description which is pretty advance computer work–well that’s advanced for my computer skills. How did I find myself in an elevator with a CT gantry? Back when I was delivering medical equipment like CT scanners and MRIs  we had a problem delivering this one CT gantry it was to go on the 3rd floor. The General Electric rep was there, I knew him from other deliveries I made. He said the gantry would fit in a patient elevator if we removed the dolly appliance. I went into the elevator and then the other guys pushed the gantry in, once it hit the back wall of the elevator I took a ratchet and lowered the wheels on the dolly. The guys in the lobby lowered the wheels on their end and then they had to remove the two 3 inch metal rods that when from end to end on either side of the gantry that was connected to the dolly. Then after they removed the dolly on their end we were ready to close the elevator doors.(I tried to find a picture on a CT gantry attached to a dolly appliance but I guess that’s the one picture that I cannot find on the internet). The reason I was in the elevator is because once in the elevator the gantry takes up all the space. It almost didn’t make it through the doors after the gantry was in the elevator there was no way for someone to get into the elevator to lower the back wheels. The only room I had was the tiny area where the buttons are. Once we were ready the GE rep says ” once I hit the button then we’ll have to help the doors to shut don’t worry this will work I did it last week at Saint Marys”. So I pushed button number 3 and doors began to shut the GE rep says everybody push the doors together. The doors were closing and all they lacked was about three inches from closing then everything just stopped. Then I heard the GE rep say ” Oh NO or something like that, A door must had come off it’s runner”. Well that’s no big deal after all we’re in a good sized hospital and they have 24/7 maintenance staff. The maintenance man finally showed up and the GE rep told him what happened. Then  I heard the maintenance man say ” Oh no we don’t touch the elevators you’ll have to call the elevator company”.  After another long wait the GE rep yells through the crack in the doors “don’t worry the elevator repairman will be here in an hour–or two. we’re going to get something to eat will you be alright?”  I said “sure don’t worry about me”.  So there I was stuck in an elevator just me and a CT gantry meanwhile I knew the other guys weren’t going down to the hospital cafeteria they were headed across the street to Red Lobster. What to do while you’re stuck in an elevator? I thought I would read a little, there’s not a lot to read in an elevator but I did find this rather interesting above the buttons were words that read weight limit 4400 lbs.  I thought I weigh about 200 pounds and the CT gantry weighs about maybe 5,000 pounds! What happens when your stuck in elevator that’s overweight. Well I now know the answer to that question. The elevator will slowly sink for 3 or 4 inches then it will automatically reset by jerking suddenly up the 3 or 4 inches. Now I want to be clear the elevator did all the jerking. Every time it did that the CT gantry would move a little. The problem is that the CT gantry is round! I could imagine the gantry rolling over on me. Yes I could be crushed by a CT gantry in an elevator– in a hospital! But I guess that the gantry was so wedged in that it wouldn’t roll when the elevator adjusted itself which happened about every ten or fifteen minutes. After a hour or two the elevator repair man finally showed up. The GE rep told him what happened and said we have to get the gantry up to the third floor. The elevator then said ” well to do that I’ll have to get on top of the elevator and flip all the safety switches. I could tell this man never had to worry about being named employee of the year. But to be fair I guess his job did have it’s share of ups and downs. I’m sorry I know that was waaay too easy.  After he decided that he would do his job and get on the roof of the elevator, he said “who do I bill this to?” After all of that the repair man went up to the 2nd floor and I could hear him as he stood on top of the elevator he then told me to push the three button. The elevator begun to move upwards and I could hear him flipping the safety switches and the elevator stopped on the third floor, the other guys put the dolly back on and ratcheted the wheels back up then I ratcheted the back wheels up and then we rolled the CT gantry out of the elevator onto the third floor. My experience of being stuck in an elevator was over and it was nothing like today’s song. But I am glad that it did happen before that movie came out . You know the movie that I’m talking about?  I’ll put the preview for it below.

It’s that movie where a bunch of people are stuck in an elevator together and one of them turns out to be the devil. I didn’t know this before I saw this movie but the devil must like to ride in elevators. It would be my luck if I ever get stuck in an elevator with a girl she would turn out to be the devil. That or she could be a vampire or a zombie I would know that she’s a zombie you know by the ax in her head. I do have a strict policy that I don’t mess with a girl until after I remove the ax from her head! I guess I’m just funny that way. I hope that you have enjoyed todays song and story, you may want to watch that movie it’s the best movie I’ve ever seen about the devil riding elevators. Next time you get in an elevator think of me!

 

 

Back in high school did you ever work really hard on a homework assignment and then received a much lower grade than what you thought you deserved? Don’t you wish you could now go to that teacher that wronged you with such a low grade and tell that teacher what you thought. Then the teacher would change your grade. Well that’s not going to happen! to you anyway. But it did happen to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. When Brian was in high school his music teacher gave his class an assignment to write a song. Brian wrote a song he entitled Surfin The teacher gave him a F for the song he wrote. The rest is what they said is history. The song Brain Wilson received a F for writing in music class became the Beach Boys first big hit!

Last week after 58 years the high school officially changed Brain’s F to an A. I didn’t know they could do that. Now that I think about I should have one of my grades should be changed. Back when I was in high school in my World History class we were assigned to write a term paper. As I recall the paper had to relate to World War 2. I decided to write my term paper on Nazi Propaganda how brilliant is that! Just the title should had been an A. This was back in 1979 and back then we were not allowed to use the internet! I had to go the library and once there I went to these large cabinets with hundreds of small drawers filled with small index cards. Somehow looking through millions of these little cards I was supposed to find the book I was searching for. After I found the right card then I would have to find the book in the library  All by myself! Kids of today have it so easy, all they have to do is type a few words and there’s everything they need. After my big trip to the library, I then proceeded to write what might become the finest high school term ever written. Bill& Ted would later say dude that was the most excellent world history term paper in the history of term papers. I could sell my paper to the movies and make millions. After I turned my brilliant term paper I was prepared to get an A+ and a comment from the teacher saying “that was the best term paper I’ve ever seen”. But to my dismay, when I received my term paper instead of an A+ there was a C-. Instead of comments of praise my teacher wrote all kinds of comments on what I did wrong. How could this be I guess my teacher couldn’t see greatness when he saw it. When I become the worlds best selling author, I want this grade changed to an A+ that I deserved!

I’ve been thinking maybe just maybe I didn’t deserve an A+ on my high school term paper. One reason that I have a blog is to become a better writer through practice. Today I look back on my blog posts although they are not from very long ago I still can see how I could have used  a different phase or term. I could had done a better job of telling my stories. Hopefully I well get better in the future. I’m sure when I will read this post sometime in the future  I will think that I could had written more clearly and somewhat different than what I wrote.  I believed I learned more from my C- than I ever could had I received an A+. My world history teacher would tell me that I needed more of an explanation on that last statement. Thomas Edison once said “I’ve not failed I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.  I think that I deserved an A+ because now I’m looking at it as a 55 year old man not as a teenager in high school. Maybe Brian Wilson did deserve a F for his song Surfin think about this when Brian Wilson was in high school there wasn’t music called beach music because Brian was the person who invented it. Instead of ending Brian’s musical dreams it maybe just made him mad enough to make his dreams come true. And besides, a number 1 record is revenge enough for that music teacher. What do you suppose the future students of that thought when the teacher said “I expect a lot of you students, remember I once gave Brian Wilson a F.

Sometimes listening to a song and hearing just a few words can remind you of a memory  that has now been long forgotten.  That’s the case with me and this song it brought back a memory that if it wasn’t for this song I might would not have thought about again.

The line that brought back this memory was ” I’ve been waiting in the rain for hours and you were late”. When I was in the 8th grade, basketball practice was at the end of the day and practice would last 2 or 3 hours. When practice would finally end the coaches would lock the doors to the gym. In the locker room the coach would take a phone out of the equipment room which was caged up and placed the phone on the floor . I never knew why they had a phone in the equipment room or why they couldn’t find a desk or something to the on instead of having it on the floor. Of coarse there was no way the coaches would let any of us boys into the coaches office to call for a ride home. I suppose that they were helping us to “build our character “.  By the way you have to remember this was back in the 70’s, and back then none of the students were allowed to carry cell phones! Somehow it always seemed like I was always at the end of the line for the phone. One day it was raining and this would had been in December, it was after 5 o’clock so it was also dark. It was finally my turn to kneel down and by the way back in the 70’s this was the only time that we were allowed to kneel down, and I dialed our number on the phone. and told Mama to come and get me. After a long wait all the other boys were gone, I was the only one left, Then I saw Mama’s headlights, remember it was dark, and it was pouring down.  I opened the door and run as fast as could. Between the locker room and the parking lot was the practice football field It was raining so hard that the field became a lake so I was running and splashing water with each foot. When I reached the parking lot I looked up and the car that was seating there was not Mama! What was I to do?  Well there was only one to do instead of standing there in the pouring rain. I turned around and run back into the locker room. There is a small chance that as I was running back to the locker room the person in that car may had been laughing at me. I couldn’t hear anyone laughing I was too busy getting soaked. There is a happy ending Mama did pull into the parking lot and I once again run through the rain when I made it through to the car Mama asked me if I was wet. I told Mama “only a little bit”.  I didn’t tell Mama what happened fact is this was a good experience in that I learned to keep my mouth shut. And besides that woman who sat in  that car laughing at me could be dead now! Now if you didn’t learn anything from this story, if you watched the video at least you saw that Phil Collins used to have hair. If there’s a song that brings back a memory please share it in the comments.

The title of today’s song is anticipation but I was think of it as the good old days song. The first part of the song, the anticipation part, was used on a ketchup commercial a few years ago. You might think that I’m going to share a story about my childhood. But this story is not about my childhood or anybody that I know. Today’s story is just a thought a had when I was watching TV.

Back in high school I did a term paper on Nazi Propaganda, I guess since then I have always been interested in WWII and I always wanted to know why the people of Germany would follow Hitler to their deaths. One night I was watching a program on the Nazi Youth. there were two Nazi youth organizations one for boys and one for girls. In a lot ways these where a lot like the boy and girl scouts they even when to summer camp. Their summer camp was almost like summer camp that our kids would go to. Like for instance the Hitler Youth boys would learn how to build a fire, shoot bows and arrows, do woodworking, go swimming with naked girls, go hiking, singing songs around a campfire,—-Wait did anyone notice the swimming with naked girls part? That’s right the Nazi boys camp would meet up with the Nazi girls camp and go swimming together naked. Why would the Nazi’s do this? The Nazi’s were really proud because at the end of one year, nearly 800 Nazi girls became pregnant. When they gave birth their babies were know as Hitler’s babies. I know it sounds unbelievable but this really happened.

The space above is there where I can put pictures but you can look these pictures up on the internet for yourself.—A week after I saw the Hitler Youth program another WWII program came on, this one was about Hitler’s invasion of Russia. In particular it was about the Battle of Leningrad, the program told of the suffering of the German soldiers during the harsh Russian winter. Meanwhile back in Berlin, Hitler is on the radio telling the German people how their brave soldiers were glad to fight to the death for the Fatherland. While I was watching this I thought what would a couple of German soldiers say to each other? Just imagine this conversation: ” Hans do you remember back in the good old days when we were warm, and we were back at the youth camp and swimming with naked girls? Hans how’s your hand feeling?” Hans replied ” It’s feeling a lot better since it fell off” Hans can you remember anyone telling us when we were swimming with naked girls, by the way in a few years you’ll be freezing to death in Russia. Hans said “Now that you mentioned it, no one told us that”.  Yep those were the good old days.

Sometime it maybe best not to get everything you wish for. When you listen to this song you might think that poor Rick sure does need that girl. Yes Rick wants her bad and not only does he want her he deserves to have her instead of that friend of his. You can only hope that maybe someday Rick will get this girl.

I got some great news for Rick, I think I found Jessie’s girl! This girl is singing to Jessie and  it sounds like she wants to break up with him, which is great news for Rick! But when Rick hears what this girl has to tell Jessie I’m thinking maybe Rick might what to reconsider on this girl. She says that she won’t cut fresh flowers for Jessie, which could be a big problem after all she works for him at Jessie’s Flower Shop. (I know if Jessie owns a flower shop, there’s a good change that he doesn’t like girls, but for the purpose of today’s song, we’ll say that he likes girls) Then she says she won’t keep the wine cold for Jessie, If you are beginning to feel sorry for Jessie, wait for what she next. She tells Jessie that she won’t change the sheets for him. Wait a minute Rick will she not change the sheets because there is no reason to change perfectly clean sheets! Rick you may want to rethink that whole loving him with that body idea of yours. Then she says she won’t put on cologne for Jessie, a girl that wears cologne, you didn’t see that coming did you, Rick? And finally she says that she won’t wait by the phone for Jessie, not only will she not talk to him on the phone I’m thinking she’s also not sending any really “good” pictures on her cell phone.

After listening to today’s song you might realize that always getting what you want, may not be that great of an idea. Sometimes it’s best to be happy with what you got.

If you don’t listen carefully to this song you think this is a song about Jesus after all they say Hallelujah a lot. But the former Beatle, George Harrison, is singing praises to Hindu gods. This is also known as the “Hare Krishna” song, I always thought that it was the Harry Krishna song but it turns that’s a different dude. To understand the meaning of the song you have to listen to what the background singers are singing, they start out at the first of the song singing Hallelujah several times but at about the halfway point they change Hallelujah to “Hare Krishna” they sing “Hare Krishna several times, then at the end song the backup singers do a Hindu chant. I can’t understand all the words their singing so I looked it up on the internet. At the end of the song they sing; Krishna, Krishna: Hare, Hare: Guru Brahma: Guru Vishnu: Guru Devo: Maheshwara: Guru Sakshaat:

If George Harrison wants to move to India and become a Hare Krishna I suppose he has the right to do that. After all George is one of the Beatles gods. What I disagree with is when Christians take this song and say , well if we take all that Hindu stuff out of it, we can make it into a Christian song. I haven’t done anything on Jim Nabors since his death because I was waiting for today’s song to come up. This is Gomer singing My Sweet Lord without all that Hindu stuff.

So leave out some background words and there is suddenly there’s a Christian song that used to be a Hindu song. What’s wrong with mixing Christianity with Hinduism? It seems that today there is a lot of Hinduism being mixed in with today’s Christians. I don’t know much about Hinduism but I know enough to see how the belief in reincarnation is really popular with today’s Christians. For instance, those brown people in Mexico need to stay in Mexico and suffer and when they die, in their next life they may be born a white, English speaking, American. That is the Republican plan for citizenship. Those starving people in Africa, well they can just go ahead and die, maybe their next life will be better. Today’s Christians will tell that’s not what they believe, but that belief would explain much of their actions. This belief justifies racism, and the war on the poor.

 

You may think that this song is a summer song but when it’s the coldest night of the year and your furnace goes out and you are almost frozen, then you know why Glen is so happy that the heat is on. In the summertime if your air conditioning goes out at least you can cool down a little by getting in front of a fan. But when your cold in the middle of the night all you can do is put more cover on, wishing that the heat was on.

When I was growing up at the start of every winter my brother and I would help daddy start up the furnace. Maybe  my brother and me were not much help when we were so little, but looking back now Mama and Daddy were teaching us that you should work for what you got. If you want heat then you don’t just flip a switch there is work to do before the heat comes on. Our furnace was in the attic, it took more work than just opening a door in the hall. The first thing to do is to change the filter, on our furnace this is not like today where there a filter that just slides into a slot, out furnace used a roll filter that was inside the furnace. To replace the filter you first opened up the panel on the inside was a curved metal frame with a filter wrapped around it. One side of the filter was clean but the other side was super dirty. To replace the filter we would remove the metal frame, take it in the front yard take off the old filter then take out the new filter out of the box and unroll the filter then we would place the old filter next to the roll filter making sure it would be the same length as the old filter, then we took  a pair of scissors and cut the new to the right length. Next we when back in the attic and try to put the frame back into the slots that the metal glides which also held the filter in place. The problem was there was about 5 different ways to put the filter holder back together and by the time that I measured the new filter I forgot how it went back together.  After I finally got the filter in place, the next thing to do was lite the pilot. In order to lite the pilot, we had a 2 foot long metal rod with a slot on the end of it. The slot on the end of the rod was there to place a match on the end of it then lite the match push the pilot lite button in with one hand and with the other hand take the rod with the burning match on the end of it, and put it where you think the pilot is before the match goes out. That is how we did it back in the good old days.

Today I have my own house but instead of the furnace in the attic I have what is know as a package unit outside. The contains both air condition and a natural gas furnace. The other day I was sitting in my chair which located next to a vent. I thought there was something wrong and when I put my hand over the vent there was cold air coming out which was not good. I then went outside to see what was wrong. To explain what was going wrong and why it was cold air instead of warm , I need to tell the big change in how today’s furnace works which is quite different from the good old days. How a furnace works is really simple. When the thermostat calls for heat, the gas valve opens the gas coming out of the burner is lite by the pilot. Then the blower goes on and you have heat. The air from the blower does not blow over the burner, that would blow out the flame, the burner heats up the heat exchanger, which is made out several sheets of metal, the air from the blower first goes though the heat exchanger into the ductwork which goes into the house heating the whole house. How could you improve on that? The answer was to change the way the burner works. In good old days burners inside a furnace looked and operated very much like a burner on a propane gas grill, little blue flames coming out of a bunch holes. The more little blue flames the more heat you would get. Today’s furnaces have what is know as an induction motor. What the induction motor does is what I Think is quite amazing. No longer does a furnace has a burner with a lot of little blue flames, today there are only 3 to 6 flames, but each of the flames are impressive.  The draft from the induction motor draws the flames through a portal all the way into the heat exchanger resulting in a hot burning flame. This is far more productive than the old method of several small flames. I went outside and opened the panel and it was easy to tell what was wrong. My unit has 5 portals the problem was only one had flame. I thought I could get my long lighter and light the others, then I thought that may not be a good idea, then I came up with the idea of just blowing on the portal so I blew on it and a large whoos happened well instead of just scaring me the other 4 ignited  since it was working and it was dark I closed the panel and went to bed. At about 3:30 in the morning I woke up and the house was cold so I put my shoes on, went outside, blew on the flame which once again ignited all the portals and I went back to bed. The next day after breakfast I took the panel off once again. What I thought could be wrong is there must be an obstruction somewhere that would interrupt the flow of gas for a brief moment, this would result in the 4 portals going out. I took out the induction motor and blew it out with compressed air from my air compressor, took apart each of portals where I could blow them out, blew air everywhere I could, I put everything back together and guess what it worked whatever it was that was blocking the gas flow must had blown out. I was very proud that my heat was once again on.

 

Don’t wish me Merry Xmas nor Happy Holidays is the first line of this Christmas song.  I  was a mover for several years and one thing that I  never ever did was to box up Christmas decorations and then mark on the box Xmas Deco. I saw boxes marked Xmas all the time and whenever I saw them I would think of this song. Writing Xmas on a box was taking Christ out of Christmas. It’s not just using Xmas as an lazy abbreviation, back in the day on store fronts and signs storeowners would place Merry Xmas obvious that it would offend Christians. It’s not like they haven’t heard the song before back then it was a real popular song.

The song also says don’t wish me Happy Holidays. I’ve always had a problem with this. Yes saying Xmas does directly take Christ out of Christmas, but I always thought when someone wishes you Happy Holidays they were referring to the Holidays, and the Holidays are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years day not just Christmas. I believe they saying Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, the phrase Happy Holidays covered ALL the Holidays. The big retailors would love for us to forget the other Holidays and think of nothing else but to sell us something for Christmas. Happy Holidays also can refer to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, this is how President Obama got into trouble with the ” Trump base”.  They were offended because President Obama didn’t say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. Now President Trump says Merry Christmas with a lot of pride and arrogance his base is super proud that we have a President that’s brave enough to say Merry Christmas. The church people say that what President Trump is just like today’s song he is putting Christ back into Christmas. That would be great if that were really what he intents by saying Merry Christmas. However I believe that President Trump is not praising Christ by saying Merry Christmas in truth, President Trump is praising himself! Who are these “church people” in the Trump base, well read this carefully because I know who these “church people” are. Back during the summer of 2016 during the campaign Candidate Trump spoke before a large group of pastors. Time and time again Candidate Trump referring to his audience as “you religious people “. After the speech, someone must had told him that the one thing that pastors hate is being called “religious”.  A few days later instead of You Religious People Candidate Trump starts to call them the People of Faith. Why not call them “born again Christians”? Do you remember the 76 election where Jimmy Carter called himself “born again” and all that followed after that? Donald Trump didn’t want be get involved with something like that again, so they picked what they thought would be a safe thing to call them, after all calling someone a person of faith you might think that would be a compliment. But think about it if you now call yourself one of the People of Faith then you might not realize it but you just took Christ out of your name. That’s right the people that shout the loudest about putting Christ back into Christmas have taken Christ out of their name because that’s what Donald Trump wants  them to be know as. President Trump and his advisors had no idea what they did at the time but what they unaware did is to divide the “Born Again Christians from the People of Faith. The Born Again Christians are followers of Christ on the other hand the People of Faith are followers of Trump who may go to church. As a Born Again Christian I believe you might could call this what we now call “a God thing” the People of Faith would not agree, but then you have to consider they are willing to give up the name of Christ just because of politics. Do you know the best way that you can put Christ into Christmas. It’s through your actions not weather you tell someone Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. —-The last line for today is Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Today is December 7 that means today is what we now call Pearl Harbor Day. The attack on Pearl Harbor was 76 years ago today. Today’s song is Anchors Aweigh, I always thought the song title was Anchors Away, but it turns out that’s it’s Anchors Aweigh. My guess why  they call it aweigh is because anchors are really heavy, of coarse I could be wrong. I think you have to ask someone that’s in the Navy they should know or I guess you could look it up on the internet. There are a lot of different versions of the song, this one is my favorite because it shows current Navy personal on a ship. This video is really good, until the end where their standing in front of their ship and they unroll a banner that reads Go Navy Beat Army. Now since today is Pearl Harbor Day when you see this part just imagine that the banner says Go Navy Beat Japan.

For several years I went to church with a man who was there on December 7, 1941. Every year Brother Scott would tell his story about his experience on a ship, I don’t remember which ship Brother Scott was on, I guess I should because I heard his story, which he didn’t change a word, every year for a least 20 years. The thing that everyone remembers about Brother Scott was how he was such a snappy dresser. Brother Scott wore every Sunday a plaid leisure suit with a super wide “beautiful tie” a 3 inch wide white belt with a silver buckle and of coarse he always had on his polished white shoes. It is possible that all his leisure suits were homemade. If you want know how it was in 1941 you could ask Brother Scott, if you want to know how really cool men dressed in 1973 you could look at Brother Scott. It won’t be long until all of the World War 2 veterans are gone and their will only be memories not anyone who could tell how it was like to really be there.