Did the Jesus Man die ?

On Good Friday I was reading in my monthly magazine " U.S.Catholic, " and this title caught my eye. Upon reading this essay, I learned that a little girl about three years old, asked her mother at the end of the service, "Did the Jesus Man die?" The mother answered, "Yes, honey, He died."

In our Apostle Creed that we say at mass there is a phrase that states that Jesus was a True God and a True man. He was born in a natural birth from His mother, Mary. That is how we all were born. After our birth we will live a certain number of years, then we all have to die. Now if Jesus was a true Man, then He had to die. Well it was predicted that His death would be very horrendous and break His mother's heart. My opinion is that His death had to be so severe that there would not be any question that He died.

After the three days He rose from the dead, and was alive again. He was completely healed and walking around, but the others did not recognize Him until He spoke. He went to Mary Magdaline and said, " Mary." Then she knew who He was. Why didn't she know Him because He was transformed, but His voice was the same. This happened several times later.

I personally had a similar experience after my wife died, I heard her voice about one month later speaking to me. My granddaughter-in-law heard and saw her in a dream about three days later.

So there is life after death, but our bodies will be transformed. If we are good on earth and we get to heaven, there will be complete happiness.

Happy Easter to all

Thin Ice

Even though I live now in Illinois, I continue to get the Minocqua Wisconson news paper every week because I have many friends there. Also our lake property is there with my son,Jack,as owner, and we need to follow the various changes that are occurring.

Now in last week's paper was a sad item even though I didn't know the people personally, I still felt the sadness for these people. In four consecutive days there were four accidents where people went through thin ice and drowned. The last one was the worst. Here the vehicle fell with two passengers went through the ice, but one was able to escape out of the vehicle. The other person drowned. How tragic to have sudden deaths in four families of active people.

This winter has also been mild with very little snow when a normal mid January temperatures should be near zero and ice on the lakes over 4 inches thick. This brought to my mind the time when I fell through the ice.

Very similar circumstances, mid January, but temperature was near zero and a good cover of snow. It was a week end when Jack and Marilou were over to do some cross country skiing. They went on the pond that I call, Broz Lake, because it is on the East end of our property. After they returned they suggested that there was a beautiful spot on the pond where the snow covered branches arched over the inlet creek, like a cathedral.

Then on Monday I told Dorothy that we should check it out because there was not much happening that day. After lunch we put on our skies and went to find our new found "cathedral". We were skiing on our pond before, and I knew where this creek was located. We would have to go about a half block across the pond and to our right.

There it was. A beautiful winter scene. The trees were on both sides, as if it was an entrance. It was narrow so I told Dorthy that I would go first. I hardly finished saying that when I started to go down as if I was in an elevator. Skies and all made a seven foot hole in the ice, I told her not to come any closer because I fell through the ice.

This was a shallow spot and I was standing on the bottom, However I am up to my waist standing in ice cold water. I leaned to the side to get out but the ice broke. So I moved back to thicker ice, I was able to get my left leg and ski out of the water. However when I turned my body, my right ski was caught under the ice. Now I had to lower my self back into the water to release the right ski and turn it to be able to get it into the hole where it went in. Now I was able to get both skies on top of the ice, and I decided to keep both skies on since I had to get back to the house.

I made it back but my shoes were encased in ice. I was able to get my skies off, and then I had to melt the shoe laces before I could get them off. I proceeded to remove my wet clothes and dry myself. Then a hot chocolate drink. The next day I developed a cold, but that was all of the effects after an ice bath.

My guardian angel was with me all that while so I'm here to tell you my story. So be careful of thin ice.

Birding

This term, birding, at least to me, is a relatively a new term for a hobby of studying and bird watching. This my impression.

When I was living in Wisconsin many of us had bird feeders, and we would be watching to see which type of bird was feeding there. Most of us had two types of feeders, one for humming birds and the other for all of the other birds. The humming bird had to have a special liquid feeder that held a syrup. Then this was colored red to attract the humming bird, The other feeder had the sun flower seeds which all the other birds seem to enjoy.

In Wisconsin our challenge was to locate the feeders out of reach of the black bears. They loved both of them, and they would even destroy the feeders just to get at the food. Now in Illinois that is not a problem, so birding is much more enjoyable.

At our first feeder we had a pleasant surprise when the first birds arrived. They were the American golden finch. They were rare in Wisconsin, but here we had 3 or 4 or even 5 at one time. Very pretty site, When the weather became colder, the yellow birds disappeared. We had plenty of birds, but I assumed that they went south. Several months later after a little research, my son Rick discovered that they changed coats for the winter and become brown and white, so they were still with us Now we are waiting for them to start to change back to yellow.

We had so much bird traffic at the first feeder that we needed to put up another. And now do we have birds. We have cardinals,mourning doves, juncos, chickadees,nut hatch, woodpeckers just to name few. Surprising we can have all of them at one time. They also come in large numbers,like 6 cardinals, 16 mourning doves, numerous juncos, also many sparrows. The red headed woodpeckers come in different sizes, and they are very flighty. The tiny chickadees take one seed, and then fly to a tree near by. There they peck on the seed to crack open the shell. They really work hard to get out that morsel inside. Then they fly back to get another seed, and do it all over again.

My son, Rick is buying bird seed in 35 pound bags, because the birds are eating about 1 pound per day. It seems to me that we are the only people feeding the birds. It might be the sign of the current times where you have to feed your family first.

If you can feed the birds, you will find it very entertaining,and you will be aiding the trees as well. After all this is in God's plan as well.

A Christmas Story

Good tidings and a Happy New Year to all of you. At present most indicators are that this year of 2012 will be a very good year.

I have not written blogs for a while, but now I have written 3 recent ones before this. I will try to do better this new year.

Our Christmas amaryllis is in full bloom. It is beautiful but it missed Christmas by one week by one week. Now for my true story.

This occurred in the 1950's when we were in CFM, Christian Family Movement. Basically we were meeting in groups of 10 couples about every two weeks in our own homes, on a rotating basis. Naturally we would become very familiar with each other. We were very fortunate to have a swimming pool, so during the summer we would have an outing with all.

In our group we had an owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business. While we were serving watermelon, I mentioned that I really like watermelon, and that I even would like to have it in December at Christmas time. Now remember this was in the 50's when air travel was in its infancy, so my desire was only an exotic dream.

However at Christmas that year, he shocked me when he handed me a watermelon.

That was the time that Tom Brokow called us, " The World's Greatest Generation "

The Little Red Dress

When I was about 10 years old, my mother told me this story about an event that occurred when I was about 3 years old.

She said that I was a surprise pregnancy. Her thoughts were that she felt that she had her complete family after both my brother and my sister, a boy and a girl, were born. My brother was 6 and my sister was 2 when I was born. She said that I was a good baby and did not present any problems.

Now she related to me about an incident that happened when I was about 3 years old. We lived in a 2 flat building with a laundry in the basement. One morning when she was going to do the laundry, she noticed that she had no clean clothes for me to wear. My sister who is now 5 had some of her baby clothing available. My mother thought there was a red dress that would fit me, until my laundry was finished.She then put the red dress on me, because I would not know the difference anyway. Also there would be no one there to see me, because my sister was in kindergarten.

While she busy with laundry, some how I was able to get out of the house. She just said that when she got upstairs, I was gone. She quickly went out side and there was no one there in the yard She proceeded to the street in front, and looking up and down, but she saw no one.

What a dilemma. Where should she look? Which direction should she go? We lived a short distance from 16th street which was a busy road on the left. So far she still saw no one. Her decision was to go left to the main street. A short distance from the corner was a local grocery store. She decided to go there first. Her thoughts were that she would find some one to talk to. She would have to ask if any one saw a little boy in a red dress. There was no other way to say it. She entered the store, what a surprise. She saw me, red dress and all, sitting there on a cracker barrel with a face smeared with chocolate. I imagine in her embarrassment, she did not have much to say except, "Thank You." What a frightful experience to go through.
She picked me up and we went home.

It was several years later when I was older, my mother told me this story. I do not know if she ever told that story to any one else.

My Father's First Car

The year is 1925, and I'm 5 years old. My father went to a car dealer and with cash in hand he bought a 1919 model T Ford. That was the year I was born. He paid for the car and the dealer gave him the keys. After a few instructions, he told him to drive it home. There were only a few cars on the road, because there were only horse and buggy era.
Well there was no gas peddle. The throttle was a lever in the middle of the steering wheel. It had no starter. It had a crank that had to be turned by hand.It was hanging in front right behind the bumper. In my curiosity I reached over the bumper, lost my balance, hit my chin on the crank, cut my skin, and went home bleeding.

My father would service the car including greasing the wheels. On one occasion he forgot to put the cotter pin in. We were on our way home from Fox Lake with my Grandma. The cotter pin was missing from the right rear wheel. The wheel came off and the car tipped; sliding on the axle. My poor Grandmother was being squished into the corner of the car. Luckily, the car finally stopped in front of an auto repair shop. Thankfully the service man was in. On a Sunday! He told my brother to go get the wheel which rolled across the road. He looked at the axle,and he said there was enough tread left. So he was able to put the wheel back on this time with the cotter pin, and we continued on our way home.

Earlier that day we went to mass. Our angels were working overtime.

May flowers

While we are waiting on the next step of the publication of the book, I thought you might like to have a look at the May flowers in our garden. They were planted by previous owners and they have been multiplying over the years. Enjoy the views!