slowly

If your life needs a bit of slow down time, I have a plan.

My town once was 8,000 when I first remember. Now it is about 30,000. There were maybe 50,000 people in the “valley.” Now that number is ten times more at least.

Some things have changed. I remember going downtown and it was all bustling with business: Wards, Sears, JCPenny’s, Woolworth, Idaho Department Store, Alexanders (named after the first Jewish governor in the United States: Moses Alexander), Safeway, Albertsons, Model Market and so on.

None of those are in the down town any longer, several are no longer any where.

But our post office goes on and on. The building is the same size, and I swear they have the same number of clerks.

Of late, there seems to always be a line 10 or 12 patient patrons deep. Once you step in the sandstone framed doors, time stops. You can use your credit card to buy stamps, and there are posters of the latest stamped hero.

But there is the same number of clerks, I am sure. They are in no hurry. They take their time. Not always friendly time, but slow time. Suddenly one clerk may put an “out to lunch” sign up and disappear.

One has always intrigued me (and not positively). He has worked there for a couple of decades. His answers to everything were remote, like the were uttered by a machine. I have driven 10 miles to a nearby town to another post office to avoid him, but in his middle age he is becoming a bit more human.

Oh well.

This time they had a sheet of Alzheimer’s stamps, at least there was one under the glass. I was going to get one, and I do support any kind of research, obviously, but then I remembered how much Miriam fights the idea that she has the disease.

The only things that have changed is the size of the line, and the cost of postage.

Oh, and postage goes up in May the clerk told me.

I bought "forever" stamps, just in case.

brand

There seems to be a new branding phenomenon in my town.

Maybe it is more than here, I don’t know.

I was in a restaurant a while back and at the table next to us was a largish family. There was a young woman, maybe mid 20’s, there were kids, grandparents and what i took to be her husband.

But what struck me was that when the woman turned I could see that she had a man’s name tattooed on her neck. Not in small letters, but block letters, maybe ¾ of an inch tall. It began right under her ear and went down under her collar.

Does that mean she really belongs to him?

Then yesterday when I was at the post office, a teen girl was looking at pictures of her friends (I guess). She was on the other side of the counter, waiting her turn. Her top was quite low and revealed about an acre of skin.

But what got me was there was a Spanish word with letters a good inch long, running across her chest! It was high enough that she would be dutiful to cover it with clothes, but she did not seem to care, in fact she seemed to be bragging about the whole thing.

And a while ago we were in Target getting food for Leo the dog. The clerk was a young woman who had gotten a tattoo on her breast. It was quite low, actually, and she was determined that we should all appreciate her bit of body art.

I wonder what part of my body would get bruised if I suggested to Miriam that she should have “DAVID” tattooed across some intimate part of her body?

I won’t ask.


Another thought: some one recently was quoted as saying that if you want to invest in a new industry that has a bright future, invest in technology that REMOVES tattoos!

Ben

Ben called this morning.

I have a brother named Ben and a grandson Ben as well, but this was friend Ben. This Ben had a knee replaced a week and a half ago, and he is doing pretty well. He said that his freezer has worn out and they were going to buy a new one.


Would it be possible for me to help his wife get one and get it place. I said he was in luck the pickup was ready to go and was empty, a good combination. I agreed to meet his wife Jan at Home Depot in about an hour.

Modern freezers are pretty light. Part of that is better insulation, and some of us fear it is also because they are poorly made. I am afraid that the first conclusion may easily out weigh the latter.

I bought some straps (I don’t have enough of them) and we loaded the freezer. It says right on the box that it is legal to carry one lying down as long as it lays on its back. Wow that made it pretty easy.

The rest was routine. I moved the old freezer out of the way, offering to take it to the disposal site after Christmas, installed the new freezer, leveled it up and got it all going.

They thanked us and we left. It was one of those things you would do for almost any one, but would be eager to help a good friend.

We drove away about 3 minutes and my cell phone rang. It was Ben. When a customer calls right after I have done a job, I am sure I left a tool, or that something ha gone really wrong, or something equally dark.

It was none of those.

They knew we were planning on going to visit our kids for christmas. Our pickup is quite new, but the trailer is 24 years old, and while it is in pretty good shape, it has not been pulled for a while, and tires wear out faster from not being used than being used. Besides, it needs a few repairs that are off budget, as they say.

They have a newer trailer that they have used to travel a LOT. They work on church building projects as volunteers the trailer is their home away from home. It is a good one, and Ben assured me the furnace works fine. (Ben spent his career as a crack carpenter. We all value his knowledge and expertise).

I told Ben I would have to think about it a bit, but that right now my inclination is to take up his offer.

I have been listening to a book about christian grace. Cathleen Falsani’s “Sin Boldly” which is a quote from Martin Luther that is easy to take out of context. But I thought of grace and how Ben had just offered me a big bucket of the stuff.

Thanks, my friend, not just for the loan of your trailer, but for the lesson in Grace that you and Cathleen have shown me.

up front

A while back I was visiting with my friend Dorothy.

(This story has nothing to do with anything important, but is a cute story and it popped into my head today.)

We were working on church business together.

Some how we got to talking about being up front of the church. I said that even though I am seriously introverted at times, I don’t mind being up front and speaking or doing music.

Dorothy grimaced. She is a quiet person -- big time. Then she said something I will never forget: “I don’t mind being up front, as long as no one is there.”

Bless you, Dorothy.