An Arkies Musings

This week the letter for the  ABC Wednesday Meme  is Y.  I will use the letter the way it sounds - why?  As in the question, why do bad things happen to good people? More specifically, why do bad things happen to me?   This post is made up of words that I wrote on September 11, 2012 that address the question of why. Today is the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Most Americans can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the awful news that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I was at work when Gina called me to tell me what she was seeing on TV. I turned my radio on, and listened all day as the news reports came in. I think that most people wonder why God allowed something so terrible to happen. The past couple of years have been hard ones for our family.  My son has been having heath issues and had to have brain surgery this spring.  Why does God allow these things to happen?  I think that is...

Every day as I take my morning walk I listen to podcasts.  My interests range from history to folk music, from religion to geocaching.  Some of my favorite podacasts are, Stuff You Missed in History Class , A Way With Words , Voice of Prophecy , Fresh Folk , Podcacher: Geocaching Goodness , and Sawbones .  The most entertaining of all of the podcasts I listen to is Sawbones . Sawbones is Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin.  The show is, according to them, a marital tour of misguided medicine.  On the show they dig through the annals of medical history to uncover odd, weird, wrong, dumb and just plain gross ways we've tried to fix people over the years. Some of my favorite topics in the last few months have been, Warts, Tuberculosis, Pregnancy Tests, Leprosy, Royal Rife, Teething, and Headaches. The shows are very entertaining and keep me laughing as I listen to them. I love history and Sawbones is full of history but it is presented in a ...

X is for Xenia. X is a very hard letter and I usually have to resort to a word with X in it instead of starting with X. I recently learned about a car built in 1938 called the Xenia Coupe. The car was built by Andre Dubonnet to show off his new independent suspension. He used a Hispano Suiza H6C chassis and modified it to include his enclosed coil spring suspension. Hispano Suiza was a European manufacturer of the finest luxury cars up until 1936 when they turned from the manufacturing of cars to aviation engines.  The cars that they built in the 1930's were considered some of the finest in the world at the time. For his creation, Xenia, Andre Dubonnet used a Hispano Suiza H6C chassis and chose Jaques Saoutchik to form the one of a kind body. The result was an avante-garde interpretation of the teardrop, and was different from any other cars of it's time. The Xenia's styling was inspired in part by art deco architecture. Jaques Saoutchik was the founder of...

Did you know that the Bible talks about a sin that God can never forgive?  Throughout the centuries since the New Testament was written, millions of people have lived in fear that they may have committed it. Is it really true? Is there something that God is unable to forgive? The Bible says in Matthew 12:31 – “the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven unto men”.  So, it turns out there really is a sin that can't be forgiven, and it's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That raises a really important question, just what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?  In order to understand what the sin against the Holy Spirit is, it's important that we understand exactly what the role of the Holy Spirit is.  In John 16:8, referring to the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”  The Holy Spirit works as a kind of "conscience" for the whole world. What happens ...

Last Sunday I drove to Fayetteville to attend the Smokey & the Mirror Album Fundraiser Concert.  Smokey & the Mirror is the new musical project of Bryan and Bernice Hembree. I first heard Bryan and Bernice when they came with the band 3 Penny Acre to my hometown here in Mena, Arkansas and gave a concert at The Ouachita Little Theater.  I went to the concert because my friend Richie Owens was opening for them and I was curious about the band because Bernice Hembree grew up here in Mena. I was blown away by how talented they were. Since then I have tried to attend as many of their concerts as I can, traveling as far as Oklahoma City and Shreveport to see them. Smokey & the Mirror is in the studio this week working on their debut album.  At Sunday night's concert they played several new songs that I hadn't heard before that are going to be on the new album.  My favorite song of the evening was a new song, the first song that Bernice has ever wri...

W is for Will and Woody.  Will Rogers and Woody Guthrie.  The state of Oklahoma links them together.  I once heard it said that Will Rogers is the most famous Oklahoman in the whole country and Woody Guthrie is the most famous Oklahoman in the whole wide world. Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in the town of Okemah, Oklahoma.  Woody said of Okemah, "It was one of the singingest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Towns." Okemah is a small town just off Interstate 40, about 70 miles east of Oklahoma City where I-40 splits off from Route 66.  Route 66 is also known as the Will Rogers Highway. Woody wrote a song about Will Rogers titled Will Rogers Highway.  In the song Woody takes Will to ...

This year for Father's Day, my Mom told Daddy that he should get whatever he wanted for Father's Day.  He just happened to find a beautifully restored 1941 Plymouth.  He had driven a 1941 Plymouth when he was young.  A friend told my Mom that next year she should just get him a card. Yesterday I took photos of Daddy with his new Father's Day gift trying to recreate this old photo of him with his car. We had fun doing it.   Today is Daddy's 59th Father's Day.  I know because I have been around for every one of them.  I have spent most of my life working along side my Daddy.  Here is proof.  I learned the auto body trade very young. Through the years some of the things that I have learned from my Daddy are the importance of having God in your life, and how to work.  Here are some photos of Daddy working through the years. Happy Daddy's day.  Some people have fathers,...