Category Archives: It’s My Life

Paul, Ping Pong, and Peru

Last night at the ping pong club, there was a new guy named Paul. College age. Probably 6-foot-five. Tall, skinny, long hair. I thought it was Dirk Nowitski when he first walked in. Others guys said he used to attend the club when he was a kid, but the family moved to Colorado. Now they’re back in Fort Wayne.

Everyone always wants to play new guys, especially if they’re any good. And Paul was pretty good. I beat him 3 games to 1, but it wasn’t easy. He has some wicked serves.

Before starting our match, I asked some questions to get acquainted. He said he was actually on summer break from college, and that his parents had moved back from Colorado. What college? He said it was in Wisconsin. What’s it called? He said “New Tribes Bible Institute,” and said something about how it specializes in training people for missionary work.

“Sure, I know about New Tribes,” I told him. “I have a cousin who went to Liberia with New Tribes. Her husband was a pilot, and they escaped with their lives when Charles Taylor took over the country.”

Paul’s eyes lit up at the fact that I knew something about New Tribes. To him, it was just a small mission organization. But I was familiar with it.

After we played, we sat down and talked more about missions. His fiance is an MK whose parents serve in Venezuela. Paul says they have their eyes set on going to Peru. He initially wanted to be a pilot (I know Kareem squeezed into the pilot’s chair in “Airplane,” but that was a major airliner; I’m not sure Paul could fit in a four-seat Cessna), but he had kind of ruled that out and was now looking at other forms of ministry.

I’m just delighted that guys like Paul exist. He showed to me a real heart for missions. He comes from a Christian home, but would be the first missionary on his side of the family (obviously, there are missionaries among his future inlaws). I told Paul that missionaries have always been my heroes, and he understood that I was affirming him. Here’s a guy who is looking at missions as a career, not as a work trip. And from everything I saw of Paul, he’s a good catch for New Tribes–smart, likeable, athletic, articulate, and fully confident that missions is where God wants him.

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The Civility of Ping Pongsters

I continue playing ping pong regularly. Mostly, I’m going to the club on the east side of town, which meets on Tuesday nights and Saturday afternoons. It has a lot of good players, as opposed to only a couple players coming to the one on the west side of town (my side). Last night, I played 8 or 9 matches during the three-hour period. I beat the guys I should have beat, and lost to the ones who were better than me, though I put up a pretty good fight and won a couple games off of guys who had previously beaten me 3-0 (we play best of 5 games, with 11-point games).

About 25 guys were there last night, and I’ve played probably 40 different guys during the past two months. Two guys, both named Tom, are clearly better than everyone else. They are the upper tier. Then there is a tier of about 8 guys who are very good, and fairly well matched. I was surprised last night when, in separate conversations, two different guys put me in that group. I’m definitely on the bottom end of it looking up, but it was flattering.

This is just about the nicest bunch of guys I’ve ever been around. It’s not a church thing–just a secular, city club that happens to meet at a church. But I’ve never been around a more gracious, nice, friendly, courteous bunch of guys. Not a single person there acts stuck-up, gets upset about losing, or otherwise displays a bad attitude. Like a bunch of Mormons or something.

By comparison, I think of the church softball, basketball, and volleyball leagues I’ve played in. My goodness, if you want to find unsportsmanlike jerks, go play in a church league. Why is that? And why are pastor-athletes sometimes the worst of the bunch? Would the character of the ping-pong club plummet if a preacher showed up to play? Hmmmm.

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When You Love What You’re Doing

It’s been nearly two weeks since I posted anything. I’ve been conscious of that, but I’ve had other things on my mind. Actually, one thing: redesigning the United Brethren website.

I’ve been tinkering around with new designs for several months. I finally found something I liked during February, and worked on refining it. Once I committed to the design and was ready to implement new templates and stylesheets and a new structure, I had to totally immerse myself in the task of converting hundreds of pages over to the new design.

So for three weeks, that’s about all I’ve been doing. During the past two weeks in particular, I’ve been totally engulfed in this. And the thing is: it’s FUN. This week I’ve been coming in around 6 am and leaving around 8 pm, and then feeling anxious to get back to it the next morning. There’s something about a huge creative project that gives me an adrenaline rush. (The fact that Pam is deep into tax season, working similarly long hours, gives me license to work late.)

Yesterday, I went live with the new site, and a few minutes ago, I sent an email to our constituency telling them about the new site. I just know I’m going to hear back about miscellaneous broken links and other problems, despite my best efforts to track down everything. I continue to stumble across such errors. But that’s okay. Other people can help me get it right.

I appreciate the fact that many people work at jobs that are a drudgery to them. I’m fortunate to have something that gives me the chance to tackle huge creative projects that are not only immensely rewarding when done, but are immensely fun in the process. Designing Filemaker databases is that way. Designing slides in Photoshop. Writing books. That’s what I’ll be doing most of next week, taking four days (actually, compensatory time) to work on my novel. I’ll be fully engrossed in that, though it’s a whole different kind of creative project. It’ll be immensely fun.

Yeah, I don’t have a lot to complain about.

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Max is Back. For How Long?

Just got back from playing ping pong. Max, our 82-year-old leader, was in the hospital for three weeks. He has a tumor, his kidneys got infected and nearly shut down, things don’t look good. But he was playing, and could still whip me. We played for a while before he lifted up his parka and showed me the colostomy bag. Hmmm. I felt guilty hitting balls past him, because it was painful watching him slowly amble to retrieve balls. But at the table, his reflexes are plenty good. “I’m still as good as anyone in Fort Wayne, any age,” he told me.

I’m not sure of that. I’ve been going to a well-developed table tennis club on the other side of town. Lots of really good players there. There are a few that I think could beat Max–not in his prime, but now. Which shouldn’t seem like such a big deal–young guys ganging up on an 82-year-old with cancer and a colostomy bag. But there are some.

After the others left, I hung around to talk to Max. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since before he entered the hospital. He said he hasn’t been in the hospital since World War 2. Pretty fortunate. Now a bunch of things are hitting all at once. I sense that he’s lonely. I know he has at least one son in town, but I don’t know if he’s close to anyone. He just seems alone. If he didn’t have an athletic outlet, I get the impression he would just shrivel up and be gone. I asked him if his hospital stay went well, if they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. He just smiled and said, “Oh no. This thing isn’t going away.”

How do you live with that?

On the way home, I pondered on whether I should have had prayer with him. Just say a little prayer on his behalf, him and me, the only ones left in the church. That’s what a minister would do. It doesn’t really fit me–it’s not something I would normally do, just have spontaneous prayer with someone who needs it. But maybe I should. Whether or not it “fits” me is irrelevant.

Maybe next week. He needs to feel less alone. I think the fact that I, at last, hung around and inquired–with genuine concern–about his condition at least counted for something in his mind. Probably most people don ‘t know what to say, figuring his days are numbered. And they are. But he needs people to come alongside him. I’ll give it a try.

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Don’t Want No White Christmas

Woke up this morning to about eight inches of white stuff. Knew it was coming. Hoped it was just a bad dream. The good news: we closed the UB offices, so I didn’t have to go in to work today. And then Pam stayed home, too. The bad bad news: had lots of time to shovel lots and lots of snow. I got the snow blower running last night, but it’s just a little thing suited mostly for just a few inches of snow, not the deluge we got last night. Might as well run a blow dryer on a long extension cord.

When I hear the song “White Christmas,” I groan. My parents like to have a white Christmas. Dad, after all, grew up in Michigan. I’m sure they’re happy today. And I must admit–it’s very pretty outside. But I can do without.

And, in fact, I did do without for a number of years. We moved to Arizona in 1970, and in the desert, all Christmases are brown or tan. I liked that. I liked going outside in December in a T-shirt. The lake in Lake Havasu City was too cold at that time of year, but you can’t have everything (unless you live in the Caribbean, I guess, which is something to consider). We moved to California in 1974, and there, we could at least see snow up in the Sierra Madres, but it kept its distance. Out there, we talked about “going to the snow.” If we wanted to sled or throw snowballs, we piled into the car and drove into the mountains. That’s the way to do it. Snow by invitation only.

Until 1988, I spent most of my Christmases in California or Arizona (my parents moved back to Arizona, the Phoenix area this time, in 1983 or thereabouts). I would fly out there for a couple of weeks during the holidays, often leaving–or more accurately, fleeing from–a white Christmas. But alas, everyone moved back to Indiana or Ohio in 1989, and fleeing is no longer an option. If it snows, we have a white Christmas. It comes to us, unbidden. On Saturday, we will have a white Christmas, unless there is an unusually strong solar flare.

Give me the desert any day. I wonder if Jesus ever had a white Christmas? Jesus, of course, was unfortunate to have his birthday on the same day as Christmas, which meant one less day for presents. But even divinity couldn’t solve that dilemma, I guess.

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Uncle Dad

On Saturday, Pam and I grabbed a quick lunch at Panera Bread, beating the crowd by a good half hour. As I ate my excellent baked potato soup (Panera has some of the best soups in town), I noticed a thirtyish man, short and balding and with lively eyes, eating lunch with a boy I figured to be about a fourth-grader. His son, I safely assumed. They were having a good time, talking easily. The father leaned down and forward somewhat as he talked, as if trying to get on his son’s level.

What was their story?

Were they out searching for a Christmas present for Mom? For siblings? Was this just something they did regularly, going out to eat together, like I’ve heard that other parents do? Or was it a divorced father spending his weekend, or every-other-weekend, time with his boy? I didn’t think it was the latter. I’d seen other parent-child combos in restaurants who I guessed were in the broken-home box. Together, but distant. Talking, but not easily, not naturally, not like it’s something they do daily. Sitting in uncomfortable silence with occasional breaks for words, focusing unduly on their meal as an excuse to avoid awkward conversation.

Back in the 1980s, I read an article with one of my all-time favorite titles, “Uncle Dad.” A divorced father told about going to the airport once a month to pick up his daughter, who was flying in from a distant city where she lived with her mother and stepdad. The writer told about the awkwardness of those court-appointed meetings, how his daughter didn’t always like being there–torn away for the weekend from friends and other activities–and how they often found little to talk about or do together. They endured those weekends as much as anything. He always hoped they would go well, but they never did.

Then one time his daughter came to stay for two weeks, and during that period, there were some breakthroughs. Just sitting around the house, watching TV or reading or doing nothing in particular, the daughter would suddenly make a remark which revealed something of her soul–a problem she was struggling with, an issue at school, hopes and dreams for the future, a question or comment that showed that she did, indeed, like her father. The writer said many Uncle Dads fool themselves by saying that though they don’t have a large quantity of time together, they do have “quality” time. But, he said, “quality” time is a byproduct of “quantity” time, of being around each other for an extended period of time. It’s not something you can just turn on for the weekend.

I think of the times I would come home from school and just sit in the living room while mom ironed, and things would come out. Though we weren’t focused on each other–maybe I was reading Newsweek or doing homework–she might ask questions or I might suddenly volunteer information, and valuable interaction would occur. Not every day, but many days.

I had lots of quality time with my parents, and it was not only because they’re great parents, but because I had constant access to them. I never, ever, felt neglected or slighted. Even when Dad worked three jobs–teaching during the day, the Sears hardware department several nights a week, and selling Book of Life door-to-door when he could–and mom worked at the newspaper, I don’t remember feeling a sense of absence. I should probably give that more thought, because I’m sure Mom and Dad look back at various times during my growing-up years and think they were horrible, neglectful parents who should have spent more time with their kids. But I just never felt that way. I should tell them that. And I should thank them for staying together, even though there were undoubtedly times (I know of two) when their relationship hit bumps. I had a blessed childhood. I don’t want them to have any doubts about that.

I’m playing a lot of Amateur Psychologist here, I realize. But as I watched that father and son in Panera Bread, I was confident that this was no Uncle Dad. This was a father who saw his son every day, and laughing and conversing with him and sharing a meal with him was as natural as breathing. And that kid probably doesn’t realize, yet, just how fortunate he is.

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The Friday Before the Friday Before Christmas

Wow, what a whirlwind day. Spent 90 minutes at Starbucks working on my novel while downing a Peppermint mocha and then a coffee, venti both. Shopped til I wanted to drop–what a madhouse Jefferson Pointe was! More writing at home. Saw “Forgotten” at the Coventry dollar theatres with Pam–a pretty decent movie, but the theatre is dingy and the seats are crammed closely together. I guess we’re spoiled with the stadium seating at The Rave. We lived in the Willows apartments next to the Coventry theatre back in 1989 after we got married, and watched them build the theatre complex–at the time, the nicest cinema in Fort Wayne. My, how fortunes change! More shopping at Kohl’s 5:00 — midnight madness sale, tonite only. And now we’re back home at 10:45.

My, I love my Fridays–my “freelance” day, as I call it. Didn’t do much freelancing today, though. But hey, it’s the Christmas season!

That’s all I have to report today. And to all a goodnight.

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Ping Pong — Going to a New Level

Last night, I went back to the Ping Pong club. It was a rainy night and there were only two guys there, both of them 60+ years old, and both of whom whipped my butt. Or cleaned my clock, a good Christian would say.

Max is the better of the two, and I can’t tell how old he is. But I know he served in WW2, which means he’s probably pushing 80. He’s a thin fellow, who comes wearing sweat pants and Nikes and a sweatshirt. He’s not quick laterally, like you need to be in tennis, but his reflexes are very good, and since in Ping Pong you can get away with not moving much, he does just fine. His strokes are beautiful. Having played competitive tennis for a number of years (high school and throughout college), I pay much attention to form, which is all-important in tennis. I learn a lot just by watching how Max hits that little white ball.

The other guy is George. He’s still employed, but I’m guessing he’s approaching retirement age. George and Max warm up together, and they really go at it. But in singles play, George rarely beats Max. Max just has too many shots. I enjoy warming up with George, because his style is more conducive to my bang-the-ball style, and he tends to respond to the other person’s shots more than try to control the play. George and I played two games, and he beat me both of them. We played to just 11 points, taking two serves at a time. I think I got 8 points one game. But I’m sure George can still take it up a notch or two.

I played a lot more against Max. When we get in a slicing duel, I do extremely well, because my backhand slice stroke (thanks to tennis) is very good. I can at least stay with him, though he’ll eventually win the point, most likely. But I’m pleased to discover that that’s a strength of my game. When I play Kevin at church and things get tight, I can start slicing with the knowledge that he won’t be able to keep up with me.

But Max has all kinds of spins. He’ll serve the ball with a lot of spin, and when I return it, it might veer off to the far right or to the far left–I never know which. He has a forehand shot with lots of spin that sends the ball out wide to my right; I think I’m on it, but I swing and miss it. Very frustrating. But I’ll get onto it eventually.

My backhand has always been a strength–thanks, again, to tennis–but it just doesn’t measure up with these guys. I have felt real good about my forehand. But when I mentioned to Max that I needed work on my backhand, he said, “Actually, your backhand is better than your forehand.” Which was a blow to me. But it’s because I didn’t know better. He explained that I was hitting the ball where you would in tennis, at waist level, whereas in ping pong you need to hit the ball at the top of its arc. I started doing that as I played Max–it’s very tough to break decades of habit–and it was definitely an improvement. He taught me other things about how to stroke the ball. Too many things, actually–I’m overwhelmed! But if I keep going back, week after week, I’ll be able to incorporate things into my game.

Max and I played three games. He beat me all three, and without much difficulty. I had my moments, and I’m not a pushover. But Max is the master. The previous night, he was playing full-court basketball with the youth. He also plays tennis, and who knows what else. Quite the athlete. Not as quick as I’m sure he used to be (he’s about 80, for heaven’s sakes!), but great reflexes and wonderful coordination.

I could have continued elevating my game just by playing at Anchor, improving on what I already know and struggling back to the level at which I played in college. But putting myself in a whole different situation will jump-start me to a new level. I can feel it. This ping pong club will be very good for me, and I’m extremely eager to learn. I think Max appreciates that.

I know there are correlations I can draw with the Missionary Church–putting ourselves among them, learning from people who are much better at church planting and missions than we are, discovering new spins and strokes that we’ll never learn just playing among ourselves. But I’ll let it go.

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Ping Pong Club

In light of my Sunday losses in Ping Pong to Kevin Kay, I realized I needed to get more practice. Otherwise, next time he returns from Ball State, it’ll go even worse for me. I had heard about a Tuesday night ping pong club at the Aldersgate United Methodist church on my end of town, so last night I decided to check it out.

Soon after I arrived, around 7 pm, two guys older than me arrived–one in his 50s, the other in his 60s. I wondered if they would be much competition for me. Then they started playing against each other. Wow. Another guy arrived a little later, a black fellow with, I believe, a Jamaican accent. Named Rick. Great guy.

We didn’t actually play any singles matches–just hit around. I could hold my own against the two older guys, especially when it came to just banging and returning. In an actual singles game, they would pull out some spins which I wouldn’t know what to do with, but in a slugging match, I could do okay. I didn’t get to play Rick, who is probably the best of the three. He’s amazing at returning the hardest of slams.

We ended up playing nine games of doubles–2 out of 3 games, and rotating so that each of us was teamed once with each of the other three guys. I think my team won two of the three sets.

I had a great time, and got a pretty decent workout. I’ll definitely be going back. It was a rainy night, which probably affected the number of people there, but I don’t think they have many coming anyway. They seemed delighted that someone of my calibre showed up. I think they’re used to newbies coming who can’t hold a candle to them in ability. I could. That pleased them, and pleased me.

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I Admit It — I’m a Wimp

I’m such a wimp. This morning Pam and I went to Lutheran Hospital to have some blood drawn for testing. For me, it has to do with high blood pressure which developed over the past year, and for which I’ve been taking tiny white pills. I hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, since you’re supposed to fast before having blood taken. But I also hadn’t drunk any water, which is allowable, but I guess I wasn’t thirsty. As a result, the nurse said, I was somewhat dehydrated, and that made it difficult for her to find a vein. She tried puncturing one on my right arm, but the blood stopped coming–because I was dehydrated–and she had to stop. And about that time, I started on a trajectory toward fainting. I didn’t, but I was heading in that direction, fast. I’m just a wimp.

So I sat there with my head lowered, trying to bring blood back to my head, and they brought me ice water to get some liquid in me. Meanwhile, a lady who was probably 70 came into the room and had blood taken. She talked the whole time, commented on the speed with which the blood was exiting her body, and generally became my Hero.

Eventually, color returned, and the nurse tried again. She had me clench my left hand while she kept tapping on my arm, trying to scare up a vein. She found one, poked it, and then what seemed like several hours passed. It was really only a minute or so, but it seemed interminable. Feeling myself going again, I started asking the nurse about her work‚Äîhow many of these blood tests she did each day‚Äîand she, knowing why I was asking questions, tried to make conversation back. Toward the end, I felt myself going, my face flushing, and I’ll bet I would have fainted right there in the chair if she hadn’t suddenly said, “There, we’re done.”

She had me drop my head again to let me recover. Finally, I felt ready to go, and I stood up. Yep, I was ready. I said good-bye and left, finding Pam waiting for me (having long since given her blood).

I am SUCH a wimp.

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