Football team manages to win even without the encouraging prescience of its biggest football fan. I don’t know what happenend; I mean I still haven’t figured it out. Somewhere along the line connecting this Sunday (today) to last Sunday, something went askew. I lost a day in the shuffle there, somewhere. I’ve tried replaying the… Continue reading Twilight Zone Comes to Apex family
There is no place like Nebraska. My oldest son, then age four, had just witnessed the second of three national championships that the Nebraska Cornhusker football would win over the course of four seasons (1994, 1995, and 1997). In my son’s first five years of life, the Huskers went 60-3. That is, sixty wins against… Continue reading Memorial Stadium
This is a poem that my great-grandfather, John Stevens Jr., wrote in 1957. He left it untitled, but I gave it a name. The Desert of Memory The truant fancy of the agedLoves to penetrate the vast and barren wasteWhich we call memory,Although its vain and profitless expanseIs thickly strewn with rough, forbidding rocksAnd angry… Continue reading The Desert of Memory
I received this in the mail the other day, good words from a friend. There are some good thoughts in here. Balance Sheet of Life The most destructive habit — Worry.The greatest joy — Giving.The most satisfying work — Helping Others.The ugliest personality trait — Selfishness.The greatest shot in the arm — Encouragement.The greatest problem… Continue reading Words from a Friend
In a way, this book was my mentor for five years. I learned more as the author than I could have imagined I would. Pouring through family history: very old postcards (with very old stamps), family histories, family trees … In one branch, I found (from the “other side”) a not-too-distant cousin who was starting… Continue reading Saving Arapahoe, Benefits of Research
The Husker – Wolverines game wasn’t even a contest, but at least it wasn’t ugly. I knew going into the game that the score likely would not be close. I figured if we could hold Michigan to 14 or 17 points, and if our offense could manage to squeak out a couple of scores, then… Continue reading Well Played
The summer of the shark surprise was also the summer that Aaron and I went to Alaska to fish with my dad on the Russian River in Kenai National Park. IT wAS the time of year for “combat fishing”—that is, standing side by side, perhaps four or five feet apart, from the person next to… Continue reading Da (Grizzly) Bears
that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
I think that God gives each of us the innate ability to know if something is right or not … now, sometimes that ability may run askew. You may choose to blind yourself to the moral reality, but deep down you know it’s not right. This could lead to many topics … and today I’m… Continue reading This isn’t right
The Adventures of John Stevens, Jr., My Great-Grandfather Note: This is mostly fiction, but it has close ties with an actual event. This wil someday be rewritten so that it aligns with the facts. Until then … An Untold StoryI was blessed to have a great-grandfather who recorded countless notes, wrote numerous letters, and told… Continue reading The (Still) Untold Story