An Arkies Musings

When I was attending grade school during the 1960’s I had two passions that consumed me. I loved baseball. I chewed lots of really bad gum to collect baseball cards. As much as I loved baseball, what really intrigued me was space exploration. My heroes were the astronauts in NASA’s space program. I read everything about them that I could get my hands on. In 1969 my interest in space was at a fever pitch. Everyone was talking about the race to land on the moon. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, the entire world was captivated. Every newspaper covered the story. I soaked it all in. I couldn’t believe what a marvelous world I was living in. The moonwalk was a part of pop culture. After watching the moonwalk on TV, the Moody Blues drummer, Graham Edge, penned the poem "Higher and Higher", which was used to open their next album. "Blasting, billowing, bursting forth with the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes. Man, with his flaming pyre has c...

Here is my entry for this weeks ABC Wednesday . This week the letter is X. X is difficult, and for me called for creative spelling. X is for xtreme close-up. Over the 4th of July holiday a couple of years ago, Gina and I traveled to Columbia, Missouri to visit my sister and her family. We really enjoyed our time with family. We decided to go to the St. Louis Zoo even though the weather forecast was 80 to 90 percent chance of rain every hour. The weather cooperated, and we had only one short rain shower while we were at the zoo. It was cloudy and cool, just wonderful weather for walking around the zoo in the summertime. The St. Louis Zoo is a great zoo, and admission is free. In 1910 the City of St. Louis set aside 77 acres in Forest Park for a zoo. State legislation provided that "the zoo shall be forever free," which has made the Zoo accessible to millions of visitors ever since. I was excited about visiting the zoo and being able to take lots of pictures....

Here is my entry for this weeks ABC Wednesday . This week the letter is W. W is for wisdom teeth. "The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil." That quote has been attributed to Cicero, a Roman statesman and philosopher. Cicero is widely considered to be one of Rome's greatest orators. A while back I had an experience that made me start thinking about wisdom. I had been having a very painful toothache, so I went to the dentist. After taking x-rays, he told me that second molar on the lower left was in bad shape. One of the reasons that it had deteriorated was because it was up against my "wisdom tooth". He recommended that I have both teeth pulled. Having the teeth pulled was quite an ordeal. The wisdom tooth was laying sideways, and the root had a hook that was in the bone. The procedure wasn't that painful, but the pulling, pushing, cutting, tugging and prying made it very uncomfortable. When the anesthetic wore off I w...

Today, June 15th is a special day. 36 years ago I said "I Do" to my very best friend. The best decision I ever made was to marry the girl who stole my heart when she walked into Mr Brost's History class the beginning of my senior year of high school. I know that high school romances are not supposed to be forever and that when kids get married when they are in their teens the marriages aren't supposed to last, but we have proven those things wrong. It is still awesome to go through each day with my best friend. This is the girl that took my breath away when she walked into class that morning. I was too shy to talk to girls, so it was almost a year before she had any idea that I was interested. I think that the good Lord knew that I needed all of the help I could get so he made it so that our paths crossed in a number of ways that year. Mr. Brost selected five students to work together each week producing learning packets for History class. Gina and I we...

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week the letter is V. V is for Vicksburg. Last year Gina and I spent some time in Vicksburg, Mississippi on our way home from the Relay For Life Summit in Jackson, Mississippi. While we were there we visited the Vicksburg National Military Park. The park commemorates the campaign, siege, and defense of Vicksburg. The city's surrender on July 4, 1863 split the South, giving control of the Mississippi River to the Union. There are over 1,340 monuments, a restored Union gunboat, and National Cemetery on the 16-mile tour road. There is so much history in the park. The U.S. Government established the battlefield as a National Military Park in 1899. The battles of the Vicksburg campaign were some of the fiercest and long lasting of the war. General Grant attacked the Confederates on May 19, 1863 and again on May 22. The Confederate positions ...

It's time again for ABC Wednesday . If you aren't participating in ABC Wednesday , you are missing out on a lot of fun. This week U is for Unicorn. While driving through the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center near Glen Rose, Texas we came across this guy with a broken horn. He reminded me of a unicorn. Some scholars believe that the sightings of one horned animals like this produced the myth of the unicorn. Greek writers of natural history were convinced of the reality of the unicorn, which they believed lived in India, a distant and fabulous realm for them. During the Middle Ages the people of Europe did not consider the unicorn a myth. The King James Version of the Bible uses the word unicorn 8 times. Unicorn horns were often found in cabinets of curiosities in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. They were most often examples of the distinctive straight spiral single tusk of the narwhal whale They were brought into Europe as a very valuable trade item, and sold as horns ...