My Favorite Christmas....

Christmas is always a highlight for me every year. I have many wonderful memories and feelings about this time of year.

My Favorite Christmas Memories

Some of my favorite memories of the Christmas season are going over to my grandparent's house and opening up gifts Christmas Eve. My grandma is kind of funny in her "Great Depression" ways. Even though they have plenty of money and can afford very nice things, she still is very stingey when it comes to wasting things. I remember having to open the wrapping paper very carefully (usually with a knife to peel off the tape) so she could reuse the paper at a later date. She would not only reuse the paper, but the bows and name tags as well. In fact, she sometimes even reuses the gifts she gets and gives them again the next year if she doesn't like it.

Some other significant Christmas memories for me...

• My first Christmas when I truly understood the significance of the birth of Christ
• My first Christmas as a married man. We had a very small Christmas with just a few presents under our $17 WalMart artificial tree. None of that mattered.
• My first Christmas as a father. It was wonderful buying presents for my little six month old baby boy. What a gift he was for me that year.

My Favorite Christmas Presents

• In 1983 E.T. was all the rage. That year, I received an E.T. stuffed doll. I carried that thing around everywhere I went for months. I slept with it, I ate with it. It was a little odd...
• My record player. I listened to records for hours. I loved that thing. It still works too.
• A "Garfield Treasury" book
• A winter coat I desperately needed, thanks to my buddy Pete. Still have it-still wear it.
• guitar hero from my sweety
• A special journal given to me by my sweety in which we could write each other notes and encourage each other. Although we haven't done much writing recently, it has been a blessing.

My Favorite Christmas Music

• My favorite Christmas songs would probably have to be "White Christmas" and "The Christmas Song". Now the first one needs to be sung by Bing and the latter needs to be sung by Nat. They may not be very spiritual but to me they are beautiful.

• My favorite albums consist of ones that have tried to be original. You can only hear "Deck the Halls" so many times before you want to scream and start wrecking the halls. So in that vein, my favorite albums so far would have to be: Michael W. Smith's "Christmas"; Steven Curtis Chapman's "The Music of Christmas"; Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas album. I hear that Sting has a new album that sounds intriguing. It's called "Winter's Night". It has a lot of traditional English songs on it.

My Favorite Christmas Movies

Yes, most of these are going to be quite generic but hey there is a reason why everyone likes them. So my list of favorite Christmas Movies are as follows:

• It's a Wonderful Life: This movie is more than just a Christmas movie. It helps remind me every year that one person's life touches so many others. It's good reminder that our life means something and Jesus has us right where he wants us.

• A Christmas Story: Now I know everyone likes this movie, but if you're a boy, I think it has a lot more meaning. Classic!

• A Christmas Carol:Of course there are many out there. But I particularly like the George C. Scott version. I also like Mr. Magoos version. And of course Scrooged is pretty classic.

What are your personal favorites of Christmas and the holiday season? Do you have a special gift that you still remember getting or giving? Do you have a favorite movie, song, or even food of Christmas?

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Stories From the Past: The Frog

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

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Chevette's and Car Chases

In continuing my series on stories from my past, I am not going to continue to write in a chronological order. Rather, just stories that I recall or I that I think are worth repeating. This leads me to today's story.

The Trip

Back in the early 90's I was living in quaint little town in Montana. Bozeman was my birthplace. And because of that, I think it held a special romantic place in my heart. It is a nice little town. There are mountains in every direction. In the summer, the high temperature hardly ever hits 90. And in the winter, which I swear starts in October, hardly ever gets warmer than 20.

My mother came to visit over Independence day. It gave her a chance to enjoy the town she grew up in. It was a fun time that included lots and lots of fireworks.

The story truly begins on our ride to Idaho Falls to take my mom back home. The journey began quietly enough with a leisurely drive through the Gallitin Canyon area into West Yellowstone. After turning right out of West Yellowstone, we only managed to drive about 500 yards out of town when the traffic came to a complete standstill. A tiny little Suzuki Samurai decided to play chicken with a Deisel truck carrying hazardous chemicals. The Suzuki did not fair very well and the drivers were critically injured. The truck on the other hand, faired a little better but leaked chemicals all over the road. Thus began our wait. We waited, and waited, and waited some more. The hazmat team had to be called up from Idaho Falls to clean up the mess. West Yellowstone is about 200 miles away from Idaho Falls, so of course we had to sit there and wait for the team to arrive and then wait for the team to clean up the mess.

Eventually the mess was cleaned up and the disabled vehicles towed away. After 3 hours of being parked in a long line of cars on a highway in the middle of the woods, were began moving again. But, this journey was about to take a turn for the very strange.

We had been crusin down the road in my little Chevette for about 30 miles, drinkin Pepsi and listening to some groovy tunes when the odd day, became even more bizarre. While driving through the Henry Flats, I noticed a little station wagon coming up to the highway. He stopped for a short moment and then decided to cut out in front of me. His timing was such that there was no physical way I could have slowed down fast enough to avoid slamming into the back of it.

I swerved into the oncoming traffic to avoid the unavoidable and swung back into the correct lane in front of the little wagon. I was a little annoyed, but far from road rage.

Now my little car was not known for its speed. It wasn't even known for its good looks. It was however, known for being propelled down the road by my larger than average size stereo. But it did not have much acceleration. On top of that, I am not a big fan of inviting cops to pull me over and present me with little pieces of paper. So I generally try to drive very close to the speed limit. This fact must have ticked the driver of the little wagon off, because he kept creeping closer and closer to my little "vette". At one point I looked into my mirror and found the wagon to be less than a foot away from bumper.

I decided to do what any responsible driver would do. I "lightly" tapped on my brakes to let him know I was uncomfortable with how close he was following me. I think he interpreted my brakes more along the lines of"...look you jack ass get away from my car." Honestly his interpretation was probably more correct. All the time, my mom sat patiently in her seat watching me deal with the situation.

The driver did back off and gave me space, or so I thought. Just 90 seconds later, my mom and I experience a very hard jolt that knocked us forward in a very violent manner. my mom looked at me and asked if we had blown a tire. I told her no and that the guy behind us had just rear ended us. She turned around to look at him, then turned to me and informed me that he had just flipped her off.

I looked in the mirror just in time to see him press on the throttle and rear end us again. All this time we driving down the highway at 55 miles per hour. I was confused and didn't have a clue of what to do. One more time his front bumper met my rear end. It became very clear that this man meant business and he had reached the point of road rage.

By this time we had hit a section of road construction. I found a place to pull over and figured it best to do so before he forced me over. I pulled over and told my mom to lock the doors. We had nothing in our car to protect ourselves, save an old license plate! As my mom was reaching for the license plate, the driver of the little wagon came charging up to the drivers side door. He began punching my poor little plexi-glass window and telling me to get out. He was mad at what I had done to him "back there" and he was intent on kickin the sh** out of me. For whatever reason, I decided it best to open the door before he broke my window. I slowly unlocked the door and opened it as the smell of alcohol began to fill my nostrils. He told me to get out because he was going to teach me a lesson. I asked him to explain to me just what I had done and why he was so upset. He couldn't really elaborate on what I had done that was so bad, he just kept on telling me that he was going to "teach me a lesson".

Unbeknownced to me, my mother was trying to get out of the car during my conversation with the living beer can. Suddenly, the man reached his hand through the car and pointed at my mom. He told her that she better stay put or he was going to come around and kick her a** as well. At that point, the mama bear instinct took over and my mother looked at him and said "You just try it". Now here is this drunk man screaming profanities at a women who was almost twice his age and half his size. The funny part was, that the woman who was twice his age and half his size was screaming profanities back!!! All the while the man was trying to get in and the mama was trying to get out. By the grace of God (for the driver), the door was locked and my mom's adrenaline was flowing so fast that she could not figure out to unlock the door.

Thank God, my brain kicked in. At that moment my brain said "hey stupid, get out of there!" I said "Good idea!". I popped the clutch and spit gravel in the drunkards face. I took off as fast as my little Chevette would allow me to go (which was about 60mph). My decision was quick and fast enough that it left the driver of the little red wagon stunned and unable to comprehend for a moment, that he was standing on the side of the road...alone. By the time he was able to get back in his car, we had made it a fair distance down the road and he was never able to catch up. We did not loosen our grip on the license plate until we pulled into our garage.

So all this to say....Chevettes may be small, but they hold a special place in my heart.

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Memories Part 3

Just a few minutes after getting ready for bed on that frightening evening, my grandparents called. As I remember it, they had just gotten back from a trip to Mexico and called us from the airport to see how we were doing. This memory may not be correct, because for the life of me I cannot figure out why they would call us from their and not wait until the got home. But I digress.

My mom answered the phone and chatted with my grandma for a few minutes before handing the phone to me. I talked with my grandma for a while conversing as well as a four-year old is capable of doing before handing the phone back to my mother.

She was sitting on the arm of the chair in our tiny living room chatting with Grandma, when she abruptly stiffened up and fell backwards. She dropped the phone and hit her neck on the arm of the chair with tremendous force. My mother had descended into another seizure.

My toddler brain could think of doing only one thing. I grabbed the phone and began to scream at my grandparents to get there as fast as they could becuase there was "something wrong with Mama". I didn't know what I was doing, I was terrified. All I knew for sure, was that this phone was my connection to the outside world. I needed rescuing. I needed some security. At that moment, that phone became my lifeline.

I was still screaming with anguish into the phone for my grandparents to "get here" as they walked in the door. I remember running to my grandfather (Papa) and hugging him while tears streamed down my face.

My memory blurs a bit from here. I recall the ambulance arriving. I recall my mom being placed into the ambulance. I remember going to the hospital and trying my best to explain to the doctor what had happened (I was later told that he didn't believe me). She spent a few days in the hospital and was later diagnosed with Epilepsy. She had been experiencing Grand Mal seizures.

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More Memories

In my mind, we had only lived in our new little apartment for just a short time. But frankly, I really don't know how long we had lived there when this next event happened.


One of my favorite memories of being younger, was my mom reading to me every night. I loved books from an early age and wanted her to constantly read to me. She read to me on a nightly basis, although sometimes reluctantly.

On one particularly occasion my mother was reading to me my favorite book-"The Ginger Bread Man". We were sitting on the couch cuddled next to each other. We were about half way through the book when something strange began to happen. My mom stopped reading and was silent for a small period of time. I looked up at her and it seemed to my four year old mind that she was going to sneeze. She motioned (at least that's how I interpreted it) for me to move away. I stood up from the couch and watched my mom fall down on the cushions as she began to convulse. Her eyes rolled back into her head, she foamed at the mouth and made low growling sounds.

As a small child, alone and watching strange things happen to my mom, I was scared beyond belief. I didn't know what to do! There was a wall dividing the dining room from the living room. Not knowing what else to do, I ran to the other side of the wall and cried as I listened to my mom lying on the couch having convulsions.

Although it seemed like an eternity, it was more than likely just a few minutes. My mother came to after coming out of her seizure. She was disoriented and could barely hold an intelligible conversation. She asked me what had happened and I told her as well as a 4-year old vocabulary could muster. She hugged me and said we should get ready for bed....

(to be continued)

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Reflections on the Past

Recently I have been blogging about my experiences at the Christian bookstore. I think I will take a break from that subject and concentrate on some of my memories from when I was a child...



I was the product of a marriage that lasted less than two years. I was born in Bozeman, MT in 1974 and less than a year later, my mom and dad seperated and consequently divorced. Due to some physical ailments my mom suffered from, my grandparents, who were living in Idaho Falls, ID, took the trip up to Bozeman and moved my mom and I down to Idaho.



We were able to find a little studio apartment in what some call "the hood" in I.F. Now, of course, this neighborhood was nothing like living in South Central L.A., but it was bad enough. Auto theft, murder, and drug pushing were the norm in my apartment alone!



A few years later we were able to move into the little house that was located behind our current apartment. It was a tiny one bedroom converted garage. It was constructed completely of cinder blocks and was deathly cold in the winter. The only heating apparatus was an old style gas furnace that was stationed right in the center of the house. Consequently, only about a 10 foot radius ever was sufficiently heated. The place was small, cold, and located in a run down part of town. But we considered it home and stayed there for six years.

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Christian Bookstores Part 3

On a particular occasion, the soda fountain was "hoppin". We had every table full and a family just walking in the door. This family was rather upstanding in the community as they ran a chiropractic clinic. The family sat at the bar and began to order sandwiches for the whole group. Now, you need to understand that this family was not your typical 2.5 kids. Because of my location, the average size of a family is much larger. This group consisted of six kids and of course both parents were there as well.

I took the orders and began to systematically tackle the awesome task of making all the sandwiches at the same time. The goal, obviously, was serve all the sandwiches without much delay between them.

Before starting the other sandwiches I decided to make the grilled cheese sandwich for the mom and get it cooking. The other sandwiches did not need to be cooked and would not take as long. I plugged in the electric fry pan and began spreading mayonnaise on the others. After a few minutes I went back to the pan to check the temperature, and realized that I had failed to turn it on after plugging it in. I grunted just a little bit realizing my mistake, turned it on and proceeded to build my other michaelangelos.

A few minutes later the pan was ready to warmly caress the bottom of the first slice of bread. I carefully and lovingly laid the slice down and and layered it with a tasty piece of Cheddar cheese. I turned away to finish up the other sandwiches that were waiting to become masterpieces in their own right.

Fifteen minutes after starting all of the meals for this fine family, I finished seven of the eight sandwiches. I suddenly realized that the grilled cheese sandwich was still simmering away in the electric fry pan. I rushed over to see what kind of disaster awaited. I picked up the sandwich to discover that the bread was as black as night. After contemplating for a fraction of a second to just scrape the burnt crust off and serve it, I thought that perhaps this was not the best customer service and changed my mind quite quickly. I hastily tossed another piece of bread with a slice of cheese on the the grill and went to apologize to the mother for the length of time she was having to wait for a measly grilled cheese sandwich.

Five minutes later, it was time to serve the sandwich and be done with this family and this sandwich that was proving to difficult to get from pan to person. I grabbed a spatula to transport the sandwich from pan to plate....I didn't quite make it to the plate. The sandwich slipped off the spat and when "splat" on the floor. I was in shock. It had taken twenty minutes to get to this point and now, once again, I had to start from scratch.

I once again apologized to the mother (who was only sitting three feet from this fiasco) and began to try to make her another one. I put the sandwich on the grill, made sure the pan was on, carefully watched it so it wouldn't burn, and then delicately put the sandwich on the plate and daintily handed the mother her sandwich. almost thirty minutes after starting her tiny little grilled cheese sandwich, I finished. She was very considerate and did not have a bad word to say. I gave the sandwich to her for free.

There were many other fun experiences at the soda fountain like counting out $5 worth of penny candy, cutting my finger on an egg shell, spilling milkshakes on people, giving a person a banana split and forgetting the banana, and cutting my hand wide open while making a sandwich in front of the sandwich owner.

next time; part 4 of Xian bookstores.

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Christian Bookstores Part 2

The little bookstore opened its doors in June of 1995. It opened to some fanfare. It was located in an historic building in the center of Idaho Falls that had been the home to a drugstore and soda fountain for over 30 years. We tried to keep some of the charm of the place, the most obvious one being the soda fountain. The front of the store would sell the books, the center consisted of the music and gift sections. While the back would host the soda fountain with local ice cream, sandwiches made fresh and of course our huge shakes for a buck fifty. We even had to know the old soda fountain terminology like "mud", "chocolate cow" etc. It really was a nifty place with a lot of nostalgia for those of the baby-boomer generation especially.

tomorrow...stories from the soda fountain....

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Christian Bookstores Part 1

In the mid 90's I had the privilege of working in a Christian bookstore here in Idaho Falls. It was a local "mom and pop" bookstore run by some fantastic people that became near and dear to my heart.

When I first heard that the bookstore was about to open, I was truly excited. The only other Christian bookstore we had in town was run by a crotchety old man that cussed all the time and complained about all the "damned" kids that would come in and run around in his store. I really wanted to work at this new bookstore but did not know how to get a hold of the owners. So, I went up to the store and slipped a note under the door telling them about my qualifications. Those consisted of having incredibly useless knowledge of about every kind of Christian music one could imagine.

After a couple of weeks went by, I became convinced that I would never hear from and thus ending my thought of landing my dream job. Not a day later, I received a call from the owner who wanted to give me an interview! I was ecstatic, thrilled, and determined to land this job.

After another agonizing couple of weeks, the owner called me up and extended an offer for a job. They were looking for someone who about music and someone they could train up to be an assistant manager. He thought I fit the bill well enough and he wanted to give my a chance. I could barely contain my excitement. I couldn't wait to start. I promised him that he had made the right decision and I would be a person he could count on.

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