My sister Gayle and I would dream up ways to pass the time and generally devise cruel and unusual ways to annoy each other. We both possessed these advanced skills.
Once we found the perfect camping spot, dad would level the trailer and we would eat supper at a nearby picnic table. This usually consisted of fried chicken that mom had cooked earlier that afternoon although there were times it tasted amazingly like Matthew's A & W fried chicken.
I would meet people from all over the United States on those weekend excursions and find numerous things to occupy my time including things having to do with snipe hunting, rabbits and a pine needle collection.
There were times when I apparently wondered what it would feel like to roll down a rock-strewn hill in acrobatic style only to discover that my skin and bones apparently weren't made of the same material as, say, a basketball.
The problem was this was an experiment I routinely tried in an effort to see if anything had changed. It never did. OUCH!!!
The was one weekend when my dad and I took our Chihuahua/Terrier "Boots" for a walk and wound up high on a nearby hill. We were enjoying the view of the lake and neighboring rock formations. I must have been concentrating on not repeating a previously mentioned experiment because I removed my new jacket and when it was time to leave - I left and the jacket stayed.
I didn't fall down on the way back to our campsite, but dad did have to walk over a mile back to our scenic view to retrieve my jacket. Boots and I decided not to go with him. That was a long walk!
Have any of you ever mistaken a cactus patch for a chair? I guess it's just me. OUCH!!!
Once my dad was talking with someone we had met at the campsite and my sister and I wanted to go for a hike. After a wonderfully talented display of whining, begging and pleading we were told to walk to the top of the hill and wait. When dad was finished he would join us and we would take that hike.
Chattering like chipmunks on caffeine we scampered to the top of the hill and began to wait. However, as most children can tell you, waiting was not a skill either of us had mastered.
Something incomprehensible beckoned to us from a neighboring hill.
"Come on, let's go and see what neat thing that is over there," Gayle suggested deceptively.
"Why, dear sister," I replied in all humility, "Father told us to remain on the top of this bluff and await his impending arrival."
"Don't be such a spoil sport. Don't you want to know what's over there?" she asked.
"Not if it means I must disobey my benevolent father," I replied trying to convince my elder sister of the error of her suggestion.
"Well, I'm going over there. You just try to stop me," she said with such utter defiance that I felt I must explain that the true path of righteousness did not originate on the trail she currently walked.
"No. Don't go. We should wait. Can you hear me?" I pleaded with her for three miles. Soon I forgot why I had objected.
I think it should be noted that it is possible my sister would dispute the validity of some elements of the previous recollection.
Have you ever had a father find you, as a seven-year-old, three miles from where you were supposed to be? OUCH!!!
Father's are given great responsibility and there is no father who knew beforehand what it would be like to have their children disobey, or the pain they would experience in seeing their child get hurt, or the sacrifice they would have to make on behalf of their children.
It's amazing, but this comes as a complete surprise to each generation. Sure we're told stories of how it might be, but either we don't believe it or we think times have changed and surely it will be different this time.
Nope, there is no father who knew before hand what it would be like - except one.
He knew we would disobey, wander off and hurt others and ourselves and yet He lovingly provided for this need too.
"All we like sheep have gone astray; We have all turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6).
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