A Day In the life ot the People at First Baptist

Our family has belonged to The First Baptist Church in Flora for many years. Our church was
always known for having great singers. They could perform solos, duets, trios and even quartets.
We no longer have a choir, and to tell you the truth--that is probably my fault, as I wasn't talented enough on the piano to play those choir songs. This story goes back a few years.
Our Shari was a teen-ager and she and two or three of her friends always sat on the front row of
the choir section and believe me, there was always some kind of confusion going on up there.
Jim and I tried to sit out in the congregation where we could keep an eye on them and see what they were doing and when things would get really bad, we would give Shari one of those, "wait until we get you home" looks, but Shari soon learned how to avoid that problem--she refused to look at us the whole service.
This particular Sunday, we had a guest speaker. He was a young man and while the first part of the service was going on, he sat in a chair right beside the choir but sitting facing a different direction. This made everything he did visible to the members of the choir and visa-versa, but
the man didn't pay much attention to what was going on. He was probably nervous and I imagine he was going over in his mind what he was going to talk about when his turn came up.
He absentmindedly started picking at a stray thead on his pant leg. Well, you know men--he kept picking and picking until the thread broke. He was unaware the young girls were watching all of this, but they were glued to the scene.
As his hem on the pants began to unravel, so did the choir. The young girls got the older women laughing--the older women made the men start to snicker and before long, since laughter is contagious, the congregation started laughing too--even though they had no clue as to what was going on in the choir loft.
The choir finally began to settle down a bit--until the man stood up to speak, and there was one pant leg dragging the floor and the other one up where it was supposed to be--and well, that started the young girls off on another tangent. The young man said, "good morning" and people snickered all over the church--he made some remarks and everyone laughed--whether it was funny or not. Let me tell you, it was one joyous service.
I'm sure that young man, when he left our church that morning thought to himself--"why I must be a better speaker than I thought. I had those people rolling in the aisles."
And our Heavenly Father, sitting up there in his big Man's Recliner, must have said to himself,
on that Sunday morning, as he shook his head from side-to-side--"goodness, goodness, what am I going to do with those Flora Baptists?", but I'll bet he had little laugh lines around his mouth, too. What do you think?

A sad time--

I see it has been nearly 2 weeks since I last wrote in this blog. The N.W.H. blog practically writes itself. All I have to do is check my sources on what those silly politicians are doing--and put it down on paper, but this blog is harder.
As I said at the beginning when I started writing this blog--this shows my kinder, gentler self. Right now,
that self is having trouble accepting a serious illness which my ex-daughter-in-law has. I simply can't get my mind wrapped around this situation.
Of course, she is Rylee's mother and she is a great mother, too. Rylee went through a really rough time when her folks got a divorce, and I can only worry about how she is going to get through this sickness and the upside-down world that will undoubtedly accompany it.
Rylee has 2 brothers and I worry about them, too.
Every time I would start to write in this blog, Jennifer would come floating into my mind.
I ask for your prayers for the whole family. I never know if it is right to ask for a miracle--but
if God doesn't mind--this might be the time to ask for one of those, too.
Thank you for caring!

Well, we are back from a month in the south and getting settled back in. This house seems SO big after living in a motor home--and the nice thing is I don't have to step on a pedal to flush the toilet! Anyhow, until I get my thoughts together, my brother sent me this via e-mail. I thought it was so cute that I wanted to pass it on to you!

A very gentle Southern lady was driving across the Savannah River Bridge in Georgia one day. As she neared the top of the bridge, she noticed a young man fixing (getting ready) to jump. She stopped her car, rolled down the window and said, " Please don't jump. Think of your dear mother and father."

He replied, "Mom and Dad are both dead. I'm going to jump."
She said, "Well, think of your wife and children."
He replied, "I'm not married and I don't have any kids,"
She said, "Well, think of Robert E. Lee."
He asked, "Who's Robert E. Lee?"
She replied, "Well bless your heart. just go ahead and jump, you dumb a-- Yankee!"

The reason this probably caught Bob's eye is Mom and Dad named him Robert E Lee on
a February 20th morning not too many years ago. Rumor has it, he was named after a
boat. Just kidding!! Good one, Bob!

The Least Tern Nesting Area

We have driven along Highway 90 here in and around Biloxi dozens of times since we came early in Feb. When I kept seeing the sign along the road which said, "Least tern - Judith Toups Highway", well, my writer's brain was brought to attention.
What is a least tern and who is Judith Toups. The least tern is the smallest member of the gull
and tern family and when the world's longest man-made beach along the Mississippi Sound was built in 1952, the least terns found a paradise for nesting.
As for who is Judith Toups--that is a little more complicated. After her children became more or less raised, Judith began painting and soon birds appeared in many of her pictures and before long she got a field guide and binoculars ansd began to learn to identify the birds she found along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She founded a local chapter of the Audubon Society.
Hurricane Katrina changed forever the hometown of the Toups family. Although a year after Katrina, casinos and money-making businesses began to rebuild, families had to relocate as
they tried to sell their stripped real estate or wait around to settle with insurance companies.
When Judith's daughter, Christine, lost her job at a local newspaper after nearly 12 years of
service, Judith sold the family home and moved to Decatur, AL and it was there she died of lung cancer, caused by years of chain-smoking, on Feb. 27, 2007.
I urge you to look up the story of Judith Toups on the internet. Hers is a fascinating story.