Having Another Slipped Cog
Although the gears in my brain usually mesh quite well even after the head injury in February 2015, once in a awhile something happens to cause my mind to jump the track. This aberration was the first time in my fifty plus years of owning and driving a vehicle.
As I was driving back from my volunteer work at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society Wednesday, I noticed that the inspection sticker for my car had run out at the end of November. What upset me was that I kept telling myself that I needed to get my car inspected before the end of the month, but somehow my thought process shifted the date to the end of December and not November. The realization suddenly hit me, my car was out of inspection and I was driving illegally.
As soon as I arrived home, I called my mechanic and he said that he would squeeze me in on Thursday since my car’s inspection was outdated. I am now legal and passed inspection. Several days ago I purchased new tires for my car and had the front end aligned. About a month ago, my mechanic replaced the rotors and pads for my brakes. I knew my car would pass inspection. The only thing it might have needed was if a light bulb had burned out. Thankfully all my lights and signals functioned properly. I fished out the proof of insurance and the registration for my car. I was ready and I got my new sticker. I’m legal again.
What now worries me more happened later in the day. I answered my home phone. It was my mechanic. He was missing the paperwork for another customer. He was inquiring whether he’d given the missing papers to me with my paperwork. I tossed the plastic sleeve with my papers into my console without checking them. I had a similar plastic pouch. When he asked, I checked and I had someone else’s papers tucked in the sleeve with mine. My mechanic was very much relieved when I found and returned the papers to him.
Now I am beginning to be worried that cog-slipping may be catching. I hope that it doesn’t turn into another pandemic. If it does start a pandemic, the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization will require people to don tinfoil caps to prevent the spread of the invasive slipped-cog disease. They may even try to force inoculations that cause sterilization of men, abortions in women, and other health problems without actually curing the “disease.”

 Jesus Was a Jew
If you read the Bible, you must know that Mary was the mother of Jesus. She was a young Jewish virgin. His stepfather was Jewish as well, and Jesus was raised in a traditional Jewish home. He observed all of the Jewish feasts and holidays. In His life and His death, Jesus fulfilled all of the promises that His Father God made with Sarah and Abraham and fulfilled the prophecies made elsewhere in the Bible. Because of the sins of Adam and Eve, a blood sacrifice was needed to atone for and cover the sins of mankind. The death of Jesus on Calvary was necessary and His resurrection fulfilled many of the predictions of the Old Testament.
The gift of redemption He offers is free, but just like any gift, the person to whom it was offered must accept it before it is actually theirs. It becomes theirs only when they actually claim it. If a person is offered something then refuses to take it, it isn’t theirs to own.
I was watching the testimony of an Indian Muslim who claims to have been saved by reading the Quran. He was a devout Muslim who studied the Quran. As he did, he noticed that Jesus was mentioned more than fifty times, directly or indirectly by other titles. He said that the actual name of Jesus was mentioned twenty-five times, the Messiah eleven times, and twenty-three times as the Son of Mary. He also noted that Muhammad was only mentioned four times. In his reading of the Quran, he noticed that Jesus was still alive while Muhammad was dead.
He went to his mentor and Imam to ask about the things that he read. When the Imam couldn’t give him the answers he sought, he began to read the Bible. When he did, many of the words surrounding Jesus began to make sense. One thing he mentioned was Jesus was mentioned as the Word. At the very beginning of the book of John it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.” John 1:1. From that, this once Muslim ascertained that Jesus was more than a just a prophet as the Quran branded Jesus, He was more than a prophet, He was equal with God. The more he delved into the Bible, the more he understood his need for a Savior. It was something that he could not find in the pages of the Quran. It became his testimony that he was directed to Salvation by the words he found in the Quran. Salvation can still be found in this Jew-born Man.

 I Can Be Such a Card
Most of my friends know that I have become the repository and caretaker for many of my family’s postcards. They have been gathered by family members over the past several generations. I have postcards from my great-grandparents and grandparents who have saved them and passed them on to my parents. I have also inherited postcards from my wife Cindy Morrison Beck’s family. A lot of them were sent to Cindy or our kids Amanda Beck Yoder, Andrew Beck, and Anna Beck Prinkey over the years that their Grandmother Retha Johnson Morrison travelled with friends all over the United States and Canada. A few of the cards I own were either gathered by me, for me, or sent to me from friends when they were visiting other countries on mission trips or while vacationing. There are some that I purchased while I was in the United States Navy or while traveling on vacation with my family or friends. How many do I have? I’ve never counted them, but I have two boot boxes filled with cards. I have to be honest, several of the saved items are not postcards, but photographs of the local area that were made into calendar tops.
What sent me down this trail of thought was finding several past Christmas cards, thank you cards, and birthday cards. I’ve decided not to keep them. My office/computer room is already cluttered enough. Just to show you that I am ecologically conscious, I don’t plan on tossing them into the garbage to be burned or to fill a garbage disposal site I am passing them on to a friend. She will recycle them. She uses the photographs on the front of old cards, crop them, and then she will glue them to cardstock making a new Christmas card, thank you card, birthday card, special occasion card, or a card with a blank interior so a person can write their own greeting message.
To extend the “I can be such a card” theme, I often would tell a story or joke while I was working at Frick Hospital in Mt Pleasant, Pennsylvania. I hope it made the work day pass much more quickly for my workmates. Even today while shopping I will tease another shopper or cashier just to make them smile. My motto is, if I don’t make someone smile, I might as well stay home. No one likes dealing with a grumpy old man. Unlike a physician that I used to work with, Dr. Vandyk, when someone would wish him a Merry Christmas, he would mutter the Scrooge-like saying, “Bah Humbug!”

A Tree-mendous Christmas Memory
There was a time in our not so distant past that a person could go out into a grove where pine trees grew wild and harvest one for himself. The person would cut the tree that he wanted and haul it home. It wasn’t quite stealing, but it came very close. These unclaimed trees were always fresher and cheaper than going to a Christmas tree sales lot to purchase one.
A friend was doing just that. He and his wife drove their car to get an evergreen for the Yuletide season. Once he and his axe were out of the car, his wife sped away with plans to return to collect him and the newly acquired tree. The friend would recognize it was his wife with the signal that she would flash the headlights on her return. He would hurry back to the road with his prize, he would quickly load it into the car, and they would drive away. The trunks of cars were much larger then and unless the tree was huge, it would fit inside the car’s trunk with only the tip of the pine peeking out from the tied down lid. If the tree was too large for the trunk it could be tied to the car’s sturdy steel roof for the short trip home.
It was a cold day and my friend was warmly dressed in his red and black Woolrich pants, coat, and hat. The thick Woolrich clothing was the accepted winter and hunting clothing of that time period. Having cut the tree, he squatted on a bank above the road to watch for his wife’s return. When headlights of an oncoming car flashed, he hopped down onto the roadway only to find that it wasn't his wife.
The oncoming car had rolled over a bump in the road and the headlights only appeared to flash. He told me that the surprise on the driver's face looking out of the car’s windshield was impressive when he suddenly leaped onto the roadway. Can you imagine the surprise of the man as he drove along and saw a man clad from head to his foot in red at Christmastime carrying an evergreen tree in one hand and an axe in the other unexpectedly pop into view? My friend said the driver of the car slammed on his brakes then swerved the car to avoid hitting my friend and sped away. I really like this story and may be an annual post at Christmas.

 Cluttered
When I was looking for something in the clutter of my office/computer room/ storage area, I thought “Wow, I really need to clean this up.” Boxes of manuscripts, books, and cartons of photographs and postcards have claimed much of the floor space. Clutter has even topped my ironing board. Yes, my ironing board functions as a third desk. I have to clear off a corner when I want to press something to wear and yes I do still iron some clothing. There are enough natural wrinkles on my body without adding another layer.
Boxes of partial unfinished and a few finished manuscripts fill the knee niche in my second, older desk. It also houses my medications, office supplies, and of course an ever-present junk drawer with items that may just come to be handy somewhere in the future. I’ve managed to toss any old batteries before the begin to leak and have outlived their usefulness.
Right now my computer desk is cluttered with Christmas cards. I’m trying to get them sent out before it becomes too late. One thing that I tossed and wished I hadn’t was the envelope with an address for our associate pastor and family. I forgot to copy his new address since he moved to North Carolina to continue his education.
This leads me to the most cluttered area in my life. It’s my brain. Too many ideas collide, mix, and refuse to make sense at times. That is why I have so many unfinished poems and manuscripts stored in boxes. The ideas begin to flow, then close down. I’m not sure if the creative juices dry up or whether a new thought has grabbed my attention.
I have to keep my calendar up to date. So many things are happening this month, I need to keep the drivers and chaperones for each Wednesday evening for our church straight in my head, two doctor’s appointments, four luncheons and parties. I’m still of the old school. It’s necessary to keep the information on a desk calendar as a back-up for my digital “secretary/alarm clock” on my cell phone. I know I’m an old fuddy-duddy and am resistant to change. It could be why my closet is still filled with outdated clothing.

 What to Wear
When I was a kid I didn’t have to make the decision of what I was to wear. My Mom Sybil Miner Beck made those decisions for me. I was the oldest of three kids, so I didn’t get to many hand-me-downs. The only hand-me-down I can remember was a winter coat. I didn’t hate it, but I managed to burn a hole in it trying to get warm on the potbelly coal stove in fifth grade. I went to a two room schoolhouse in my youth. I missed going to a one room school house by one year.
As young kids when we woke we’d run around in our underwear until after breakfast. Mom would put out the clothes we were to wear and that was that. Just like Mom preparing food for a meal. There was no argument. Eat it or go hungry.
Now I have to make these decisions on my own although I usually still run around in my underwear until after breakfast. First and foremost directing my choice is the weather. Will I be too hot or will I freeze exposed skin? Next I must decide where I’m going. Is it a place where grungy clothing is permitted or is it a place where a button-down shirt and tie is required? One of the final and most important decision is considered, will my friends who are there going to really care.
A sidebar here, often my kids will say, “You’re not really going to wear that out where someone can see you, are you?” Yes…I have outdated clothing still hanging in my closet. Who knows, they may come back in style and I can retro fit a generation.
Sometimes I think I’m too old to care about what covers my body, as long as it’s covered. I’m no longer looking to find a date. I’m not planning to impress the checkout people at Wal-mart and do I really care who I bump into at Ollie’s or Big Lots? I do miss the Save-a-Lot store though.
I quite often meet a fellow worker from Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania at Wal-Mart and I’m glad to see that they didn’t dress-up to meet me either. Our trials and troubles at work created a friendship like that. We survived the years of toil and now we are what we are.

 May I Have the Envelope Please
As I was growing up, many of the television programs had an answer or something that needed to be kept secret until the time of the reveal. It was then that the Emcee would call for an assistant to fetch the sealed envelope to announce the winning answer. The emcee would say the oft repeated phrase, “May I have the envelope please.”
I’m thinking the same thing as I sit here with my Christmas card list and the boot box filled with the leftover cards from years past. I’ve said before, I am frugal and I usually but me Christmas cards right after Christmas the year before. Sometimes the designs in the boxes of cards have been picked over, but there are always some themed cards that are still acceptable.
The reason my boot box is filled with Christmas cards is that I usually have more cards than people to whom I send the Christmas greeting cards. So the cards are random with different subjects and verses. I have some cards that look old fashioned with their sepia cover pages. I have cards with fold out features that stand up when removed from the envelope. I have cards with gold writing sharing the birth of the Christ Child and ones that announce “Joy.” Written in gold on a royal purple cover are the words, “Hallelujah, King on Kings and LORD of Lords and He shall reign forever and ever.” There are ones that depict the Christ Child in a manger. The cards come in all sizes: longer thinner ones, smaller cards, and some that are just larger.
I try to choose a card verse that suits the person to whom I am sending the card. Sometimes I will choose a more secular light-hearted one or for someone else, I may choose one that is more serious and religious in nature. If you are like me, you’ve made mistakes writing on the envelope or card which leaves an envelope without a card or a card with no envelope.
Here’s where my thoughts of “May I have the envelope please” comes in. All of the cards and envelopes have been randomly placed in the box. They get shuffled and loosely stored from year to year. So when I’ve selected a card that I like, I have to sort through the stack of envelopes to find a correct size to fit the card. It’s like a miniature scavenger hunt.