Watch Out For Falling Cows!

Did you read "Watch Out For Falling Cows" on The Midian Sib blog? Before I had a chance to read it, I was told about it by two of my children about the interesting post telling of Carol's husband's near collusion with a cow that fell down a hill into a ditch beside the road.


So they asked me to tell the old story of when a run-away cow jumped into the side of our car when their dad and I were teen agers on a date?


The Great Depression years were a time when many families did not own an automobile. This was especially true in the South which did not begin to recover from the devastation of the Civil War between the States until after World War II.


Charles's Dad, Grady Shaw was a talented and good man. When he was finally able to buy a car, he took special care of it. Mr. Shaw was a generous and loving Dad who would loan the car to Charles and James, his teen aged sons as often as he could.


But as a responsible Dad, he would loan his car along with instructions concerning their behavior and with a final admonition, "Son, take care of my car."


A hard working but involved Dad, these boys were aware their Dad would always check mileage before they left and when they returned. Theyknew he would also inspect the car (and them) when they returned for any signs of carelessness or abuse.


Charles was the oldest of five boys. His brothers called him "Buddy." One afternoon, Charles and James borrowed their Dad's automobile and invited my school friend Julia and me to take a ride with them.


We were riding on a beautiful country road near Covington, only a few miles from my home. Charles was driving and I was seated beside him. Julia and James were sitting in the back seat.


All at once, we noticed an older farm woman in a long house dress and apron running down the hill with her arms raised, chasing a cow that had gotton outside a fenced area. The cow ran down the hill, across a ditch and jumped into the side on our car.


As with most accidents, it happened in a scary flash! Charles stopped the car, but the last we saw of the cow, it was running away from the car with a part of the car door handle still attached to it's side. The first words James said was, "Buddy, what are we going to tell Daddy."


What did they tell their Daddy? They told him the truth. Not that they were beyond stretching the truth into an untruth if it suited their purpose in those days. But they believed they might as well tell their Dad the truth because he had a way of finding out the truth anyway.


However, this truth was stranger than fiction and Daddy Shaw thought they were not telling the whole truth.
I had to assure his parents it was a true story after I came into the family.

The Carlisle (Pa.) Indian School was one of more than 500 Indian boarding schools established by the U.S. government beginning in the late 1870s. A UMNS photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
By John Coleman*May 18, 2009 COLORADO SPRINGS, Co. (UMNS)
The group will travel 6,800 miles, visiting22 sites of U.S. Indian boarding schools.A UMNS Web-only image courtesy ofWhite Bison.
Trinity United Methodist Church and the Rocky Mountain United Methodist Conference are helping a Native American organization take a forgiveness journey cross-country in search of healing from two centuries of oppression.
Leaders of White Bison, an organization that helps Native Americans recover from substance abuse and addiction, are traveling 6,800 miles to visit the 22 sites of U.S. Indian boarding schools where thousands of children were taken to live and learn the dominant U.S. culture. The journey began May 16 at the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Ore., and will end June 24 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
The group hopes to present a petition to President Barack Obama seeking a national apology for the federal government’s role in establishing the schools.
Trinity, the oldest church in Colorado Springs, contributes space and participates in the organization’s community meetings and events. A ceremony was held May 2 at the church to bless the journey. The church is also helping with plans to develop a Native American community center to provide expanded services and activities to the estimated 12,000 native people living in and around Colorado Springs.
“This once-declining congregation is growing again, partly because of our friendship and ministry with White Bison and our supportive outreach to the native community here,” said the Rev. Jerry Boles, pastor.
The Rocky Mountain Conference’s Committee on Native American Ministries has helped raise funds for the journey and mailed letters to bishops in areas where the White Bison team will make stops, asking them to promote United Methodist attendance at the healing ceremonies and donations to support the expedition. White Bison is also hoping to receive more help from United Methodists to defray costs for the 40-day trek.
“We feel it is important to support native people who show an effort to heal themselves and restore the health of their communities,” said Suzanne Aikman, former chairwoman of the conference committee and a board member of the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race. “We see unhealthy, abusive lifestyles and loss of cultural integrity and values in our homes and communities every day. We’ve lost generations to the boarding school experience. This journey can help bring healing to native people and to non-native people who carry intergenerational guilt.”
The Rev. Jerry Boles (left) is pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Don Coyhis is leader of White Bison. A UMNS photo courtesy of Dan Coyhis.
Don Coyhis, a Mohican, is founder and president of White Bison. “We’ve approached all the denominations in this religiously conservative area, but the Methodists have responded with open arms to welcome us along with our traditions and self-help programs,” he said.
The U.S. government established more than 500 Indian boarding schools beginning in the late 1870s. Many were run by religious denominations, including the Methodist Church. The schools were intended to prepare Native Americans for assimilation into mainstream U.S. society through education and cultural retraining. This intention was a departure from previous general assumptions that Indians were inherently so different and inferior to whites that no education could "civilize" them.
The schools were deliberately located far from Indian reservations in order to separate the students from the influence of their families and traditional ways of life. Historians cite tragic consequences from that separation, including loss of family relationships, parenting skills and social cohesion in Native American communities, but also frequent, often horrific abuse of children at the schools, many of whom reportedly died there or never returned home.
Although the U.S. government changed its policies encouraging cultural repression at the schools in 1934, many aspects of that repression—at church-run and state-run institutions—continued into the 1960s. Most of the schools have since closed.The Journey for Forgiveness will follow a serpentine, cross-country route touching every region but the Southeast. The White Bison sojourners hope to draw hundreds of participants for their events at 22 boarding school sites in 15 states: Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, California, Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. At five of those sites, they will be welcomed by

Life with Wings

Have you ever known the feeling of being lifted above ordinary limitations? Not just doing the best you can “under the circumstances” but allowing God to get you out from under the circumstances that would hold you.

Cecil B. DeMile wrote that he was in a canoe in Maine one summer day - just drifting through the water in a shallow place near the shore. He could see the bottom of the lake and noticed it was covered with water beetles. One of the water beetles crawled up on a canoe, fastened its feet in the gunnels and died. Three hours later, still floating in the warm sun, DeMille said he witnessed a miracle. The shell of the water beetle cracked open and a tiny head emerged. The wings unfolded and finally a beautiful dragon fly with iridescent body and gossamer wings left the dead carcass and sailed across the surface of the water, shimmering in the afternoon sun - going further in a half second than the water beetle could crawl all day long. The dragonfly sailed across the surface of the lake. But the water beetles below, unaware of the miracle of metamorphosis, could not see it.

DeMille said, “Do you think God would do that for a water beetle and not do it for you and me?"


I sat with a congregation listening to Charles Shaw (a great preacher) give a sermon. He told about an imaginary conversation someone had with an ordinary looking caterpillar crawling down the road of a busy city. The caterpillar was "out of place" but told the man, "Don't stop me. I'm going to get my wings." This is the poem I wrote:

Life with Wings

God made the butterfly
And I…
Stand on earth
And watch it fly
And see that God
Has fashioned wings
For even earthbound
Creeping things!

I know that God
Intended wings
For you and me
Oh! My heart sings!
I’ve found my wings.
And even I…
Can over circumstances
Fly!

By Ruth Baird Shaw ...Copyright in 1973

Police Stories

Subject: Police Stories

Taken off of actual police car videos around the country.

#15 "Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch out after you wear them awhile."

#14 "Take your hands off the car, and I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

#13 "If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

#12 "Can you run faster than 1,200 feet per second? In case you didn't know, that is the average speed of! a 9mm bullet fired from my gun."

#11 "So you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"

#10 "Yes, Sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"

# 9 "Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

# 8 "The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

# 7 "Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy, and step in elephant stuff!

# 6 "Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

! # 5 "In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC."

# 4 "Just how big were those two beers?"

# 3 "No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

# 2 "I'm glad to hear the Chief of Police is a good personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."

# 1 "You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't ... Sign here."

THOSE WERE THE DAYS !
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?



It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?


Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?


Nobody owned a purebred dog?


When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?



You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did

When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, 'That cloud looks like a... '?

Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?


Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?


And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace? Share it with the children of today.

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew , the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell , Roy and Dale , Trigger and Buttermilk.


... as well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.


Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, 'Yeah, I remember that'?


I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on. To remember what a double dog dare is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?
Candy cigarettes

Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.


Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.

Coffee shops with table side jukeboxes.

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers.


Newsreels before the movie.

P. F. Fliers.


Telephone numbers with a word prefix...( Raymond 4-601). Party lines.



Peashooters.

Howdy Dowdy.

Hi-Fi's & 45 RPM records.

78 RPM records!

Green Stamps.


Mimeograph paper.

The Fort Apache Play Set.

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'?

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 'Do Over!'?

'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?


Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?


It wasn't odd to have two or three 'Best Friends'?


The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was 'cooties'?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?


Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?

'Oly-oly-oxen-free' made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

War was a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mother's Day

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby ...... somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, "Normal," is history.

Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct ... somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.

Somebody said being a mother is boring ....somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.

Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn out good." ...somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.

Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices ....somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.

Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother ...somebody never helped a fourth grader with her math.

Somebody said you can't love the fifth child as much as you love the first...somebody doesn't have five children.

Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing questions in the books ....somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose or in his ears.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery.
...somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten or on a plane headed for military "boot camp."

Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back .... somebody never organized four giggling Brownies to sell cookies.

Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married .... somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home ... somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her ... somebody isn't a mother.

May Day Scrabble

This is on it's second or third Email round. This beautiful May Day is a good time to fling it out again. You can save it for a rainy day.


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DORMITORY:

When you rearrange the letters:

DIRTY ROOM

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PRESBYTERIAN:

When you rearrange the letters:



BEST IN PRAYER

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ASTRONOMER:



When you rearrange the letters:

MOON STARER



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DESPERATION:



When you rearrange the letters:

A ROPE ENDS IT



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THE EYES:

When you rearrange the letters:



THEY SEE

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GEORGE BUSH:

When you rearrange the letters:



HE BUGS GORE

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THE MORSE CODE :



When you rearrange the letters:

HERE COME DOTS



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SLOT MACHINES:



When you rearrange the letters:

CASH LOST IN ME



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ANIMOSITY:

When you rearrange the letters:



IS NO AMITY



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ELECTION RESULTS:

When you rearrange the letters:



LIES - LET'S RECOUNT

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SNOOZE ALARMS:



When you rearrange the letters:

ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

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A DECIMAL POINT:



When you rearrange the letters:

IM A DOT IN PLACE



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THE EARTHQUAKES:



When you rearrange the letters:

THAT QUEER SHAKE



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ELEVEN PLUS TWO:

When you rearrange the letters:

TWELVE PLUS ONE



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AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:

MOTHER-IN-LAW:

When you rearrange the letters:

WOMAN HITLER