Reflections

Covid got in the way of our 30th anniversary. We had booked a trip to Israel and were planning on taking our children/spouse. The long tunnel that covid seemed to be was never ending and our plans were cancelled. But around May, we booked our trip…this time, just the two of us as Ashton and Ben were into baby mode with the birth of our first grandchild. Thirty (now 33) years, seemed like a milestone only older people achieved. I have come to realize that age is a perspective. The older you get, the younger the next decade seems. Only this decade comes with 30 year old children and now the title of grandparent. So, yes, grandparents are a young group of people. I booked us a Viking tour thru the heart of Europe. Starting in Budapest, we have floated on the Danube River and learned about the long history of Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and now Germany. Three overriding things have captured my thoughts.  1. The architecture. The grandeur of both the governmental buildings and even more ...

  A Parable of Modern Technology: Internet Explorer Dies After 27 Years (A blog borrowed from Albert Mohler) But I'm going to end today noting an obituary. It's not an obituary for a person, no worry. It's an obituary for a product. And that product was Internet Explorer. It turns out it's dead. Microsoft has killed it. It announced some time ago that Explorer was no longer going to be supported, but as it is, what was once the most popular internet browser, frankly, the first commonly used internet browser in the world among consumers. It is now no longer supported because it no longer exists. Internet Explorer has died. Here's another irony for you. One of the signs that Internet Explorer was in decline is that people were using Internet Explorer in order to download other internet browsers, then to abandon Internet Explorer. Now that just shows you something about the obsolescence that comes in all kinds of products, very fast for technological products. But it a...

Unlike many of my peers growing up, I fell in love with folk and bluegrass. My introduction to Tony Rice was like entering the Graceland of Bluegrass & Folk.  I grew up going to chicken stews and family reunions where very often there would be a five-string banjo and a guitar and amateur musicians strumming out old fashion tunes. Little did I know that my DNA was being infused with the love for American traditional stringed music.  My favorite combination was Tony Rice’s interpretation of Canadian music and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. Lightfoot became successful in folk, folk-rock, and country music. Popularized in the 60s, he is considered one of Canada’s greatest songwriters.  His biographer Nicholas Jennings said, “His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness.” In 1996, Tony Rice created the album “Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot” which was a compilation of Gordon Lightfoot written tunes. For m...

I remember 1981. I was in the 8th grade at South Davie Junior High. I had my first “job” early that year working for a local beef and hay farmer. I remember picking up bales of hay that weighed just a little less than I did. A close friend of my father let me ride his horse back and forth to the farm to feed the cattle. I crossed over probably three different property owners to get to my destination. Back then, graciousness was common with neighbors as it relates to trespassing. I remember getting a pair of cowboy boots for Christmas. The heels were probably two inches tall, but they made me feel a foot taller. I also purchased and wore a large western belt buckle that had a bull rider in the center of what could be called a silver billboard. The farmer trusted me at that age to run a John Deere 1020, I believe a 1970-year model. It gave me a lot of responsibility. With the cows that I fed, the horse that I rode, the1020, and my boots and buckle, I thought in my mind I was truly a cowb...

  “If I’d known what it was like to be a grandfather, I’d a had them first.” I’ve heard that phrase for many years.   In time for the 2021 tax deduction, Braxton Gray Burton entered the life of his mother and father and made me a grandfather. Excited…happy…. elated…. I’d probably have to study The New Oxford Dictionary of English, first edition with 350,000 entries to find the adjective to express the emotions that came with that day. Holding Braxton for the first time created an immediate emotional bond that I will keep tucked in my heart for the balance of my journey. Looking into his eyes, seeing his little hands spread wide to stretch his fingers, touching his perfect skin, I pondered the many places he would go, the ballgames he would enter, the fish he may catch, the life that he would carve. I watched his mom and dad fall right into being loving parents nurturing his physical and emotional needs. The experience took my back to 1992 when Braxton’s mother was born. We had...