I was privileged to spend April 19th with our granddaughter, Jessica, in Clearwater, FL (about an hour and a half north of our home). Pat wasn’t feeling up to going along which made her (and all of us) pretty sad. We’re all three hoping to go to Sea World one of these days and celebrate all three of our birthdays.

Either Pat or I go over on Mondays and take her to several doctor’s appointments. She was rear-ended about two years ago while sitting completely still on I-275 in Tampa in a traffic gridlock. A man, while talking on his cell phone, ploughed into her at 70 to 75 miles per hour. Watch those cell phones, folks, PLEASE!

As we checked errands and appointments off our list, she asked if we could go to a particular mall for a few minutes. I elected to wait in Tonka while she went inside. While sitting in the passenger pickup area, I noticed a sheriff’s car. No one was in it.

Just before Jessica came out, I noticed a huge, burly police officer coming out of a department store. He was arm in arm with a rather tall, willowy, well-dressed young lady. No romance here, folks. Her arms were firmly fastened behind her back. I’m guessing that she was caught shoplifting. Don’t know for sure, but she looked embarrassed as she walked on parade in front of dozens of people. I saw that she’d been crying.

When one considers what she had to look forward to, it’s no wonder it brought tears. First was the shock of her discovery and capture. Then, she had to wait while the sheriff’s deputy was summoned. Next, the parade through the public forum. After arriving at the police station, there’s the picture taking (please take a number) and the fingerprinting. Finally, for the moment at least, comes the “Clang! Clang!” of the jail cell door pounding shut.

I have a good friend who’s stationed in the Sheriff’s substation at our local mall. When I asked him one time about shoplifting, he reminded me that more goods are stolen by employees than customers. He also said that when he arrests someone, the first thing they want to do is pay for what they stole. He tells them that they’ve got the order reversed. The time to pay is BEFORE they walk out of the store. When jewelry is involved, he often reminds them that they did get a pair of bracelets…just not the kind they hoped for! He also told me that most of the kids he arrests are from well to do families and have plenty of money in their pockets and purses.

It must be quite a temptation to our kids, grandkids to pick up something and stick it in their pocket. Drive-offs at the gas pump has increased dramatically in the past few months. They’re not all kids, BTW! (g)

Kids learn from adults. Adults don’t always think that the little corners they cut are important, illegal, immoral, etc. Regularly disregarding stop signs, speed limit signs, hauling extra buffet food home in one’s pocket or purse – just the tiniest beginning of what could become an enormous list.

When I was 9 years old, I stole a cap pistol and caps from a store in Lake Charles, LA. I got caught for the pistol. The manager didn’t know I also stole the caps. I didn’t tell him either. He told me that he was going to call my father. Well, I knew that that would have meant the end of the road for me. I literally begged him not to do that. We worked out a plan where I swept floors until I’d paid the value of the pistol. I also didn’t get to keep the pistol. About five years ago, I was in Lake Charles. The store from which I’d successfully stolen the caps was going out of business. I went in, found the manager, and gave him some money for the caps. Good lesson for me, for sure!

Guess I better finish the story about Jessica’s birthday celebration. She wanted to eat some Mexican food. I didn’t have a cake or anything. She “suggested” quite strongly that I please not inform the greeter that it was her birthday. Well, Pat had thoughtfully sent along a box of candles. Jessica stuck a candle in her enchilada and lit it. I sang “happy birthday” under my breath and she blew out the candle. Wish YOU could have been there. (g) The above graphic shows the candle in the enchilada!

It’s always a treat to hear from my readers. This time is no exception. If you have some experiences you’d like to share, something with which you disagree, please feel free to use the “Leave a Reply” box below!  We cheerfully accept prayer requests and praise reports as well.

SOME RESPONSES TO “MY RETARDED CAT”

(PapaJ’s Note: This response to a recent prayer request for land, came from a good friend in Tennessee. Thought you might enjoy his sense of humor. “Noah, the great seaman, built his Ark without any water. I can’t for the life of me see why YOU can’t build a house without any land.”

– Here in Toronto, our landfill is full so we truck our garbage to Michigan. Lots of recycling going on here as a result and that is good, but the litter drives me crazy. I remember walking behind this young man for a while, watching him unwrap candy bars, etc. and drop the papers on the ground as he walked by garbage cans. I don’t usually do such things, but I just had to go up to him and say, “Hi, there, see that over there? That is a garbage can. Perhaps you didn’t know that…” Not sure it had any affect, but at least I felt better and didn’t get beat up:-)

As you know, I walk extensively on an almost daily basis and I often take the time to pick up some garbage as part of my walk. I don’t pick up everything I see, but I do something at least.

– Got your Purple Paper yesterday… I liked the article about “Living in The Litter Box” I remember when my wife was here she thought we were crazy to recycle. She said she would never do anything that is so much work.

Our little community has a recycle program. They recycle cardboard, plastic, tin cans, newspapers, magazines, paper bags and plastic bags, and aluminum cans (however, we take those and get 5 cents back on each one) We collected $48.00 this last time. We get other people to save theirs for us, too. My husband and I are very avid and active recyclers… I even have some old windows that I’m going to make into frames to decorate our walls… They really are pretty. I watch a program about turning trash into treasure.

– VERY GOOD ADVICE. We do most of the things you suggested. Our Granddaughter is the “Recycle Monitor” of her 3rd grade class at school!! We call her our “Recycle Queen”..ha! She is also involved in the “Save the Rain Forest ” at her school. They sell T-shirts each year and again this year she was top seller with 33 shirts..not bad for a 9 year old and shirts at $13.50 each.

It was just on the news tonight that Devil’s Kitchen Lake has been contaminated by mercury. This means one can’t eat the big mouth bass. Also, we live close to a university and so many of the students throw their trash (from fast-food places) everywhere especially around the lakes.

We need to start by teaching our children when they are little to respect the earth that God gave us to take care of! AND they need to SEE Dad and Mom “practice what they preach”!

– I was sorry to hear about the land deal not working out the way you had expected. I enjoy reading your pieces each week–by the way– on the retarded cat piece–I think it is possible that all the things we see happening in our world from terrorism to environmental destruction and a myriad of troubling social issues are all leading up to the point where the world will desire to usher in Someone who can “make peace” out of all of it. I don’t want to be fatalistic, but I sometimes wonder if there is any true correction of these problems on a grand social scale or if it is all just leading to the end. I believe on an individual level there is hope and correction of the course through the Lord Jesus. However, is it realistic to think that companies and the mass of humanity will improve? Short of a large, really large revival and enlightenment for the truth of God, the huge majority of the population will continue to harm themselves in greater ways both directly (moral choices and lack of knowledge) and indirectly through things like you mentioned in the retarded cat story.

(‘Nother Editor’s Note: My good Chicago friend doubted that his repines would be included. Not to fear, PapaJ is near!)

– With all due respect, pardner, I have to disagree with you on this one. I am all for keeping our waters and lands clean and those who intentionally pollute them should face sanctions. That being said, however, there are lots of environmental wackos like the Sierra Club who claim the sky is falling at every turn and want regulations at every point. It’s especially bad on the West Coast where they have these “save the trees” nut cases who believe trees have feelings and prevent loggers from cutting them down.

We’ve had studies, both locally and nationally, showing that the costs to recycle are higher than before America got onto a recycling craze. The Center for CO2 Research and the National Policy Center (web site name escapes me), for example, refuted much of the claims that recycling saves money. What they pointed out that for all the work that it took to recycle – purchasing equipment, hiring employees, sifting thru every trash item, sorting, etc. – cities pushing this were spending more money than before it became “the thing to do”.

For a long time, Chicago was doing commercials for recycling, saying “Chicago got it in the bag”, a takeoff of James Brown’s oldy “Papa’s Got a Brand New Band”. The recycling commercials are rarely heard or seen any more. Except in more liberalized sections of Chicago, there isn’t much promotion any more, though the effort is still going. It’s just too costly.

As for me, I get tired of accumulating all these cellophane bags from grocers and dept. stores and after they pile up, I take them to a local Dominick’s grocery store where they recycle them. That’s about as far as I go with the recycling game. I prefer paper bags anyway as I like to use them for trash.

Maybe where you’re at it’s different, Jerry, but in recent years, there have been lots of our waterways shored up, thanks to strict controls on dumping. I like clean waters. I would love to swim in most of them. I believe in keeping things clean. But when it comes to glass, bottles, papers, etc. – my slogan is “when in doubt, throw it out”.

I realize what I wrote may not be what you would have expected and you likely won’t put this on your web page but I read up on this issue from good independent sources thru web links from the respected Townhall.com and others. Nonetheless, you have my side of the story.

Thanks for all your prayers for me and for updating us on Pat. Be sure to update Hugh Bodey and the TCCC Prayer Warriors when you can. God bless.

– It sure makes you wonder what the earth will be like in another 50 years, doesn’t it? We can still burn paper here, so we do that. The gang saves pop cans or most of them. We still have trash, though. They have to be running out of places to put all this stuff. What are they going to do next, take it to outer space and let it go?

– Oh ….. a bit about recycling, and here just this week I made shelves behind a door at church with boards and Reader’s Digest Condensed books. The books were free. The huge roll of duct tape was on sale (3.33) that I taped them together with (with plenty left over- to fix many other things.) The boards were full price.

I covered the duct taped books with used plastic table cloths to hide the fact the supports were old books. It is a little wobbly, BUT I braced all the right hand edges against a door frame so it worked out well- not so wobbly now. We now have a new place to put the toilet tissue, paper towels the church uses. They might settle due to weight of shelves, but time will tell on that. There will always be bricks or bits of wood or ??? if plan A fails.

– I am living in the “Recycling Capital” of the world! People come from all over the world to find out what Nova Scotia does that makes their recycling so successful. I think just about every home has a number of large containers for recycling.

We have one for tins, bottles, plastic containers that have a special symbol on them. milk cartons and other items which we are informed of by a newsletter from the Recycling Program. We have a container that contains actual garbage. This has greatly reduced with the advent of “compost containers.”

The compost containers are supplied by the Municipality. They also supply a small container to be kept in the kitchen for vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, meat scraps, poultry scraps, thin cardboard like cereal boxes, boxes from frozen foods. We are supplied periodically with a special newspaper for recycling. This gives us the updates on things to be recycled.

      W;e also have a separate bag in which we put plastic bags from the grocery store. Newspapers are another separate item. They are placed in a plastic bag and put out to the curb along with the blue bags containing the plastics and bottles and tins. Then there is a separate bag for paper – computer paper, scrap paper, envelopes (plastic windows removed) any kind of paper other than newspaper. Corrugated cardboard is bundled separately and put to the curb for pickup.

So, that is our recycling program. Our Province did a good job of educating us a little at a time prior to the start of the program and then keeping us advised on an ongoing basis of what is and what is not recyclable.

– In l999, I required surgery on my jaw. When asked if I smoked I said “yes”. They told me I would not be able to smoke for at least three weeks. I walked out of the pre-op office and immediately told God that I did not think I could handle this and so I was giving it to Him. I had to be certain that I was not taking it back. By the time I got home from the pre-op session, I talked again to God and told Him He just had to take it because I knew I could not get through that period of time without his help. I can honestly say, to this day, I have never had even an urge to pick up a cigarette. At that time I had about 5 pkgs, in the house and even that did not tempt me. I had smoked from age 16 until age 70. Praise Him – I have never looked back. Thanks for being the sounding board.

– Here in southern Ca. we have blue trash bins for recycling items and gray for the regular trash. We do put paper and plastic in the blue container, but with the new CRV (Ca. recycling value) at 4 cents per 12 ounce can we choose to take them to the recycling center ourselves so we can cash in on all that money.

– Every aluminum can I find, I put in my 55 gallon plastic deal in the backyard until it’s full. I then take it to the recycling center and get $7.00 for it! Good for a pizza!

– It has been quite some time since I wrote to you. I have been very busy. I am upstairs at church now and had to make this response. I agree entirely with you on the recycling and what we must do. When I read about the Sunday funnies, it reminded me of something you don’t see anymore. The Sunday funnies and some light pieces of wood make GREAT box kites! Not labor intensive and lots of fun for kids and adults to build and fly. I have started a new 31 day diet myself. As this is the 11th I have now lost 11 pounds in11 days! : ) God bless you and keep you, my brother.

– Finally getting back in the swing of things and trying to catch up a bit. We have been recycling plastic and glass along with newspapers for years. We also save all of our plastic bags and if we don’t find a use for them we donate them to one of our local food pantry programs. They can always use the extra. When I downsize, I try to give away anything usable. My kids usually get first dibs on containers, but the clothing goes to charities or is sold in a yard sale. I buy very few new clothes, but go to Goodwill or yard sales. I have way too many, but will be thinning down again soon.

Just wanted to add my comments since it has been many months now since I have felt like getting into reading all my emails. I usually delete as many as I read. lol