The Bears Playground

October 11,2006
Some folks who live in the Goldenview part of the Hillside area in Anchorage just built this playground in their yard last weekend for their 3 and 4 year-old boys. The next morning, the mom woke up to this scene. There were four juvenile black bears. Somewhere in the trees was the mother sow.

Later that same day, a large bull moose moseyed around in the woodchips, inspecting the area.It appears they may need to erect a 12-foot fence before letting any children out to play there.

AWWW, wasn't it nice of these people to build a play set for the wildlife? Only in Alaska I swear....

Sent to me from my sister- Lori

As A Young Minister

As a young minister, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends, who had died while traveling through the area. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost; and being a typical man did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew, who were eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side of the open earth. There I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them long, but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I poured out my heart and soul. As I preached the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord," and"Glory."

I preached, and I preached, like I'd never preached before -- From Genesis all the way to Revelation.

I closed the lengthy service with a prayer and walked to my car. I felt I had done my duty for the homeless man, and that the crew would leave with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication, in spite of my tardiness.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another "I ain't never seen anythin' like this before...and I've been putting in septic tanks fer 20 years!"

Sent to me from my sister.

Here is the List

Wednesday was a busy day. In the afternoon I went to the Dollar Store to buy gifts for the kids that come on Wednesday nights. Have I already said that they are the greatest? Last week they did a coloring contest and a fine job they did, too. I was getting their prizes.

After setting everything up I was so excited about them getting their gifts and seeing their faces. The kids all had a number above their name in the order of how well they did.

Just before number four was called, Pastor Tom came in, said he needed something from home and asked if I could run home to get it. He brought Sharon in to help with the activity. I handed Sharon my list pointed to number four, Ben and said that the kids had numbers by their names. I ran home got the item and returned to the room. I was so confused by what I saw and I asked if they were already done? Thinking boy that sure was fast. They say no, we couldn’t read the list.

Here is the list that I gave to Sharon.

I am still getting the biggest laugh from this.

Jesse and the Hornets

And the Nominees Are...

Once upon a time, oooh, about 16 years ago, in a land about two hours away... Our family went out to visit my Grandparents. At that time they lived on the waterfront, with nothing separating them from the waves except for a rather large cliff. My two older brothers, being the adventuresome chaps that they were, decided to descend the cliff to the beach instead of taking the obvious way, the stairs. It was a pleasant summer day so it made only perfect sense to tackle this feat while wearing shorts. They had started their way down the cliff when my eldest brother smashed into a hornet's nest. Luckily, my other brother made it back up a little quicker, but unfortunately, Jesse suffered a gruesome fate. The hornets swarmed up his shorts, into his shirt, got entangled in his awesome afro, all the while he was trying to scramble his way to the top. All right, so shortening this story a tad, once he made it into the house my mom quickly whisked him away to soak in a tub of vinegar (yummay!) to help suck out some of the venom. I believe that in total he suffered about 25 stings. He started going into some form of shock and I was sure that he was now on his deathbed. I remember my feelings at that moment. My undying love of my dying brother, and the heartache of losing him. I could practically hear the soundtrack playing in the background (I believe it was the song from Fiefel). They had moved him from the tub and now he was shivering on the couch. I slowly walked over to him, knelt down by his side, and gently rested my hands next to his head. Tears beginning to swell in my eyes, I looked at him and said, "I love you, Jesse...". To which he so inspirationally replied, "OH, SHUT UP, NAOMI!" The soundtrack screeched to a stop.

Academy Award? Oh, I think so...