An Arkies Musings

2017 is almost over.  Here is a list of the top ten most viewed posts of 2017 on An Arkies Musings.  It is always interesting to me to see what topics other people are interested in. The most viewed post of 2017 is one titled Barn Find. In the late 70’s and early 80’s building kit cars on a VW chassis was very popular. In 1981 Daddy purchased a complete MG replica kit from MIGI. He spent many hours building the car. At about the same time he was building the MG, he built an addition to the side of his shop. When he completed the addition, the first thing that he stored in the new building was the recently completed MG replica. The little MG has never moved from that spot until just a couple of weeks ago. The post. Barn Find tells the story of the little MG. You can read it here. The second most viewed post of the year was written about our cat. Saving Moses tells the story of how we became the owner of a cat. You can read the story here. In January my...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 27, 2017, issue of The Mena Star During the Christmas season, we focus on giving good gifts. We spend a lot of money and time finding the right gifts for people that are important in our life. Did you give any great gifts this year? Was there a particular gift that you were especially excited about? Sometimes we fail in our gift giving. Did you have any fails this year? One Christmas when my son was a young boy, we nearly ruined his Christmas with one of his gifts. One of his jobs was sweeping the kitchen floor. That Christmas we bought a stick vacuum cleaner and thought it would be funny to give to him as a gift. The vacuum, wrapped in beautiful paper, was the largest gift under the tree. When my son saw that the largest gift had his name on it, he was very excited. His imagination went wild. What could that present be? His whole Christmas revolved around the largest gift under the tree and speculating on what it could be. W...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 20, 2017, issue of The Mena Star. Growing up in Colorado, I remember occasionally seeing shepherds with their flocks of sheep when we traveled in the mountains. I thought that being a shepherd looked like fun. You got to spend your time outdoors in the beautiful Colorado mountains. Their small little trailers looked so homey and quaint. When I got older and became an avid newspaper reader, I read some stories that showed the darker side of being a shepherd in Colorado. Most of the shepherds are foreigners who are seldom able to talk to family back home. They live without any human company for months at a time. The shepherds have no water, no toilet, no shower, no place to wash clothes. Most live in small, 6x10-foot trailers with just enough room to stretch out to sleep, a small wood-burning stove and little else. Some have an outhouse nearby. Many don’t. Before World War II, most of Colorado’s shepherds were Americans, but by...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 13, 2017, issue of The Mena Star. When my wife learned that the musical theatre production of Les Miserables was coming to Little Rock, we made plans to attend. We had attended a production of the show around twenty years ago and had enjoyed it very much. We asked my Mom if she would like to go with us and she was excited to be able to attend. She had studied Les Miserables in French class when she was a girl. The December day that we traveled to Little Rock to see the production was a warm 75-degree day. After some Christmas shopping, a great meal at Cantina Laredo, and seeing an awesome sunset, we headed to The Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock. As we were driving, we watched the dramatic supermoon rise over downtown. The state capitol was striking with Christmas lights outlining the building. The Robinson Center was a bustle of activity as we made our way to our seats. The set with its towering buildings on either si...

I must admit that I have never liked Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas.  It just seems a bit flippant and unnecessary. In today's culture where many Christians perceive a war against Christmas, they see the use of Xmas as an attempt to secularize the season by taking Christ out of Christmas. I must admit that I agreed with those sentiments until I actually looked into the history of the use of Xmas.  Originally, Xmas was an abbreviation where the X represents the Greek letter chi, which is the first letter of Christ's name in Greek, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. However, because of the modern interpretations of the letter X, many people are unaware of this and assume that this abbreviation is meant to drop Christ from Christmas. According to R. C. Sproul in his book, Now That's a Good Question, the idea of X as an abbreviation for the name of Christ came into use in our culture with no intent to show any disrespect for Jesus. The church has used the symbol of the fish historically...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the December 6, 2017, issue of The Mena Star. Last year, the Chamber of Commerce asked us to drive my Dad’s Shay Model A in the Christmas Parade with Santa Claus riding in the rumble seat. For those who are too young to know what a rumble seat is, it is an upholstered exterior seat which folded into the rear of a car. Rumble seat passengers are exposed to the elements and receive no protection from the regular passenger compartment top. This year the Chamber of Commerce once again asked if we would drive Santa in the Christmas Parade. The Shay Model A had been driven very little since last year’s parade. I decided to get it out and drive it over the Thanksgiving holiday to make sure everything was in good working order before the parade. My granddaughters, ages twelve, ten, and seven, spent several days with us at Thanksgiving. They loved to ride in the rumble seat. Since only two could ride at a time in the rumble seat, there was always a dis...