Elmer’s Glue and Girls Dresses Part 1

Ahh memories.  I love this story.  It makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods that this small town has to offer.  If Idaho Falls had a “hood”, this street qualified.  I used to refer to it as the South Central LA of Idaho Falls.  Drugs, gangs, thefts, shootings, murders, you name it, it all happened in my little hood.

Since the majority of the neighborhood consisted of apartments, people were constantly moving in and out.  People would stay for a few months and then leave.  Soon after another family would move.  This situation made for a quite an interesting group of children that I would play with.

One day a family moved into the large stone building located just in front of our little dwelling place.  The family was not unlike mine, a mother and a child and that’s it.  single parent families were not all that uncommon in such a poor area as this.  The child was a girl just a few years older than me.  She was very nice, although it was obvious that she suffered from some sort of mental disability.  That didn’t bother me much and we became friends and played outside quite frequently.

A few months later, my mom and I were enjoying a nice Saturday afternoon watching WCW wrestling when we received a knock on the door.  It startled both of us since we did not get a lot of visitors and were not used to being bothered on a Saturday afternoon.  My mother opened the door to find one Idaho Fall’s finest standing on the other side.”Mrs. Edwards?” the officer asked.
“Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you Officer?” my mother responded warily as the doubts started to well up in her mind.
“Do you have a son by the name of Nathan?”
“Yes, he’s right here. Why do you want to know?”
“Do you know a Rhonda Helberton?”
“Yeah, she lives up in that house over there. What’s going on here?’ I could see my mom’s face turning more red as the seconds passed. Her blood pressure was rising and she wanted to know what this was all about.
“Well, Miss Helberton filed a police report that your son broke into her house and squirted glue all over her clothes.” He said calmly.
“WHAT! You have got to be kidding me! What did she say happened?” My mom said furious. I could see her getting ready to explode. I think she just wanted to shove the officer out of her way and storm directly over to this girl’s house and confront her, or better said, slap her for making such a crazy claim……to be continued…..

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>10 Questions I Should Have Asked This Weekend

>1. Do I get more time if I have more mail?
2. Sure you can take our order without writing anything down, but can you clean our table?
3. Is it really a good idea to put those two together?
4. Should I study or watch the new Star Trek movie?
5. Does it matter whether or not you buy it at JC Penny or Sears?
6. And why can’t have sausage?
7. How do you stack wood cohesively?
8. Is Harry Reid serious?
9. Can you really score that many points in a football game?
10. Is it really faster if our kids help us?

>Regret or Hope: How Do You Live Your Life?

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Alright, now this is not going to be one of those long drawn out blog posts. In fact, it’s just a simple question. But I would love to have everyones feedback on it.

I have seen people who have dreams and aspirations and yet they are never realized. Life marches and on and suddenly they find themselves at the end, never doing what they thought they wanted to do. But, the amazing thing is, they never lose that zest for life. They never let the regrets of not doing what they most desire take center stage. They don’t cling to what could have been, they focus on the here and now. If you were to look into there eyes, you would see a spark that cannot be dimmed.

So, my question to you is, how do they do this? How is one able to live years and even decades with unfulfilled dreams and expectations, and yet never fall into the rut of self pity and regret? How does one take each day as if it was their last? To quote a country song how does one “Live like you were dying”?

I look forward to your responses.

>Stories From the Past: The Frog

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Okay, so I was thinking about this rather unfortunate incident the other day. I figured I would write about it. It’s supposed to be therapeutic right?

When I was 9 years old, my landlord’s kids brought home a bunch of frogs from the lake that they had camped at during the weekend. I really don’t know why they brought them home. They had no plans of keeping them. Their parents were quite mean and wouldn’t dream of such a thing. As far as I know, most of them went over to the river and were let go. But a few days later, while I was playing in the yard, I happened to see something jump in the grass. I ran over to where I thought I had seen movement. Much to my amazement, there was a frog in the grass in the middle of the city.

I took the frog in the house and asked my mother if it was okay if I keep it. She was a little hesitant, but didn’t say no too often when it came to me and animals. I could tell many stories of all the different animals I brought home over the years.

I grabbed an old margarine container, found a rock, filled the container with a little water, and wallah! I had my very own frog home. Now an animal isn’t a pet until you come up with a creative name for it. So I thought long and hard and finally came up with one that fit…Frogger. I was very original, I know.

Well Frogger and I got along splendidly for a few months. I would make sure he was fed and had fresh water. I even took him out of his “house” once in a while so he could have some “exercise“. It was on one these occasions, that the unspeakable happened.

You see I decided to let Frogger out for a bit to stretch his legs. I placed him on the arm of the chair and began to dance around. To this day, I can’t remember if there was music on or if it was all in my head. But regardless, it was a tragedy ready to happen. As I was dancing around, I did a little spin and lost my balance. I stuck my arm out as I came down to catch myself…right on the arm of the chair. With fear and anguish filling my heart, I lifted up my hand to reveal my buddy Frogger-with his insides hanging on the outside of his mouth. I was mortified! I was devastated! I had just killed my little amphibian buddy!

I ran to my mother and told her what happened, tears filling my eyes. She took me in her arms and gave me a big hug. Normally this wasn’t her typical reaction, but this time she knew I was sorry enough. We found a little shoe box, wrapped him some toilet paper and buried behind the bushes that were in front of our house. My poor little Frogger. I sure do miss that little frog, and I am sorry for his untimely demise.

RIP Frogger

>In Defense of Halloween

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It’s that time of year again. The time of year when most people come out of their shells just a little bit and have some fun. For children they get to dress up as their favorite superhero or TV character and run around the neighborhood collecting candy from strangers. For adults, we get to dress up ( and loosen up) and be somebody we wish were more like for few hours at least. There are parties, decorations, pumpkins, cookies, and of course lots and lots of candy. But for some this day is a day not to engage the world, but to hide from it. To turn off their lights and sink into a corner and hope the devil doesn’t get them.

Halloween is an interesting time for Christians. We really don’t know how we are supposed to relate to this holiday that has its origins in pagan fertility rituals. Some think that because of its origins, they should not participate at all. Some Christians will go on the defensive and put signs up on their front door that state they “refuse to participate in the devils holiday”. Others will open their doors to the little ghouls and goblins that come a knockin, but instead of putting a tasty treat inside their bag, they put some sort of track proclaiming the “Good News”.

If churches do decide to engage the culture with a “celebration”, they can’t seem to bring themselves to have a “Halloween” party. No, instead they have a “Harvest Festival”. And of course instead of just opening their doors and letting people come in and enjoy themselves, they have to “bible story” everything. “Make sure you wear your bible story costume! Our games are going to have salvation themes and bible story themes. If the kids win at the games, we’ll give them some candy and a track explaining the gospel message.” Christians want to make sure they are a “light in the darkness” on such a “worldly” night.

When I was a kid, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. I dressed up as vampires, goblins, ninjas, and other various characters. I ran door to door collecting all the tooth decaying fare I could get. I never thought about all of the supposed “spiritual warfare” that was going on around me. I never thought of this being the worst, most evil holiday of the year. Since I did not grow up in the church, that kind of stuff never entered my mind. However, after I became a Christian, I began to realize that this kind of thought process existed. Now for a while, I was a good fundamentalist and did the same things that the others did. But then, I began to think that this was not the best way to engage the culture on this particular evening.

I began to have a few revelations:

• The devil has been defeated and does not control any holiday….ever. He is not in control. He does not go around trick-or-treating.
• Almost all holidays have roots in paganism. Christmas and Easter are just as pagan, if not more so, as Halloween.
• Harvest, Halloween, Fall festival…its all semantics….It’s like drinking a mock cocktail at a fake speakeasy(inside joke). Or Christian swear words-we all know what you really mean so why don’t you just say it.
• Do we have to spiritualize everything? Why not just invite the community over and have some fun. Meet some people. Start some relationships. If you want to dress up as a ninja, great! It doesn’t even have to be a Christian ninja.
• All my tracks I hand out end up in the garbage first thing. So why not just give them candy and say a silent prayer for them instead. This not only gives me a chance to meet people in my neighborhood, it also keeps my house from getting toilet papered…

I like Halloween. I like to dress up. I like the pumpkins, candy and yes the skeletons and ghouls. I will not burn in hell for it. I am not opening myself up to “spiritual attack”. My Jesus has freed me from this kind of frivolous nonsense. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to get my costume on and have some fun this Halloween night.

>Wow Time Slips By

>Life has been in 5th gear lately. I have started my new job with the post office, and have spent the better part of two weeks training between Pocatello and Rigby. If I wasn’t training, I was lying in bed sicker than a dog. Actually, most of the time I was in training was spent being sick. It is really hard to concentrate on a speaker when you are running a temperature of 103.

I do plan on continuing my series on American Presidents, and I have some other subjects that I have been wanting to write about. But for now, I have to wait until things slow down a bit and get into some sort of routine. Thanks for reading my blog, and remember leave me a comment and let me know how you think I’m doing.

Blessings!

>Abi’s Bed Frame…Maybe

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Alright, so I received this bed frame from a friend over a year ago. And I said to myself, “Self, you will work on this bed frame as soon as you get the garage cleaned.” Well, the garage is not cleaned. But I figured if I continue to wait until that actually happens to work on this bed frame, it might actually get done around the time Abi is expecting her first child.

So this is my official project to be completed before Christmas. I really don’t know what I am doing, so any suggestions would be nice.

>Warning: Do not attempt!

> We had been having a very active summer. Camping, fishing, circus, Independence Day activities. It was simply nice to be able to do things with having to worry about me working on the weekends and overnight. For the first time in years, I was able to enjoy my family and be awake during the day.

But on Sunday a few weeks ago things changed and became hectic in a whole new way. while my wife was attempting to move a railroad tie in our front yard from point a to point b, she managed to drop it on her toe. She tried to bounce it away from her and unfortunately it bounced back onto her. What made it even worse, was the fact that my poor wife was not wearing any shoes.

I was in the house working on some homework and decided to get up and go ask her a question (I now can’t remember what that question was). As I was walking towards the front door, Kim was walking (or hobbling) up to the door as well. I asked what was wrong and she explained to me that she had dropped the tie on her toe. She limped up to the shower to wash the blood off and see how bad it was. She said that her toe had exploded and she need to go to the doctor. Even after that description, I was still thinking that all she would need was a few stitches to recover. Little did I know that the entire top piece of her toe was now detached from the rest.

We jumped in the car and drove recklessly to the doc in the box. The doctor rushed us in immediately and diagnosed the situation. He informed us that most of the top her toe was hanging by mere pieces of skin and that over a quarter inch of bone was showing. He was unable to do anything with it except bandage it up and see if he could make an appointment for Kim to see a podiatrist the next day.

The doctor was able to secure that appointment and my wife went to see the podiatrist the next day. They decided to do what they call Hyper Baric Oxygen treatments and they had planned on doing twenty of them. So basically she gets stuffed in a giant clear tube that spits out 100% pure oxygen. She has the privilege of staying in there for 90 minutes a day.

Since then my poor wife has not been able to drive. And since I just started a new job that works slightly different hours then her, I am unable to give her rides. She has been forced to find somebody that will take her to her appointments and drive her back home. It has been incredibly frustrating for her, but she has been a trooper.

As my wife said, the moral of the story is:
Good idea: Wearing gloves while working in the garden
Bad idea: not wearing shoes while working in the garden.

Pray for my dear sweet wife.

>Time Flies

>To all my faithful blog readers (all one of you). I am sorry that I haven’t posted much lately. Things have been hectic in the Edwards household. Between camping trips, pool trips, school work, new job, and toe accidents, I haven’t had much time to write. I promise as things slow down, I will not neglect my blog. I wish you all a good rest of the summer and look forward to sitting down and writing about the crazy events that have happened here.

Blessings to All

>Strange Encounter with Suicidal Bee

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It is said that everyone is a critic. After last night, I tend to agree. My family and I were sitting outside going through our nightly bedtime routine. This routine consists of reading from some sort of book, a chapter in the Bible, as well as songs and prayers. It is a routine that we have been doing for years and the children have a fit if we don’t follow through.

Last night we were reading a short story from the great American author Mark Twain. Our selection for the evening was one of stories entitled “The Bad Little Boy”. The story is about a bad little boy that never gets in trouble, never gets found out, and gets away with everything. There is no moral truth behind his actions. In fact, he grows up, gets married, has a big family (that he bludgeoned to death with an ax), and then becomes a respected member of the legislature.

Now during the reading of this great American short story, a bumblebee decided to join the oration of Mr. Twain. He buzzed by my ear as I tried to flick him away. He came back at me as I stood up and tried to get away. At that point my old dog Jackson, walked forward and tried to come close to me. The bee, being completely subjective, decided that he was a warm body that was worth stinging. The bee flew towards Jackson and stung him once. I swatted at the bee with my copy of Mark Twain. I hit the bee, but he came rushing back towards the dog at lightning speed and stung him again. I whacked the bee again and managed to hit it away. Jackson ran into the house and jumped in the bathtub scared to death. I don’t know if he was more scared of the bee that was stinging him, or if he was afraid of the fact that I was hitting him with a book!

After the bee inflicted his damage on the dog he went after my youngest child and stung him on the arm. My son was in shock trying to figure out what had just happened. He grabbed his arm and began to scream in pain. After my wife tried to get the bee away from him, it attacked her as well. The bee rushed in and stung my wife on the leg. She finally was able to give it a good whack and stun the bee to the ground. I took Mark Twain over to where the bee lay stunned and hit it as hard as I could with the back of the book.

This whole incident happened within about fifteen seconds. It seemed like an eternity. It was one of the most surreal situations I have ever seen. It is a story that will live in infamy and one that my children will probably tell their children. As for the bee, it is not for me to judge the state of its eternal soul, but I doubt it accepted Christ in it’s last seconds on earth. I do know one thing, he wasn’t much of a Mark Twain fan.