Ain't she sweet? At 65 years old, this old girl can stand on her tail, stand on her wing, or on her nose and still pull right out. Very forgiving. No matter how many mistakes I made with her, she straightened right up. Thank you, Saphronia, for buying me this plane ride! And thank you, Gina, (GIB=girl in back, who actually flew the plane, letting me have the stick for a few minutes) for a great ride!

Why the title?

What in the world is a "dishpan cookie?" You can google the term and find recipes, but I have my own. I'll include it in a later post. "Dishpan cookies" is the name my cousin gave the peanut butter cookies my Grandma made. She would come into the house, find a jar of peanut butter in the cabinet, and bake cookies until she filled an old fashioned dishpan with them. Hence, the name.
I remember the times these dishpan cookies showed up. Usually, times were bad and stressful. My Mom was a single parent, trying to take care of three boys. We moved all over the United States when I was a kid. My stepfather moved us to these places and often ran off and left us for a year or more. Grandma usually found a way to move nearby; sometimes running a hotel and cafe in Tacoma, Washington, sometimes running a service station in Oklahoma City. When things were bad around the house, in would come Grandma--I recognized the sewing machine sound of her '59 Ford--and start baking those cookies. With the house full of that aroma, things got better in a hurry! At least, you began to think you could survive. You could make it, as long as there was still a dishpan cookie in the jar.
That's what I hope these posts are. Some of them get read on the air in my local radio station. I'm working on syndicating them. Let me know what you think. And have a cookie today. Remember the manna that God fed the children of Israel in the wilderness? "Like wafers made with honey." The people called it manna, which means "what is it?" Maybe tasted like a Graham cracker. I'll bet it tasted like dishpan cookies.

Don't trip over my smoke pot

The other day I tried to help a friend start his car. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t locate any tools or jumper cables. I ran home to get them, but they weren’t there. After a bit of head scratching, I remembered that I had left in the van the last time I used it. I like to be prepared whenever I go somewhere. The problem is, my fifty-two year old brain plays tricks on me.
Bill Cosby, in his book Time Flies, describes the fifty year old male mind as a magician. It hides your car keys—often in plain sight. One can picture your keys waving themselves in the air, saying, “Hey! Over here!” or else giggling while playing hide-and-seek under a stack of junk mail.
Cosby goes on to describe himself and others, like me, who like to be prepared for any situation. He describes juggling several items in his arms while trying to get out the door and lock it. Among the items is a smoke pot he carries, just in case he should run into his friend, who is an orange grower and might need to borrow one in the event of a killing frost. That’s me. Can’t get out the door without juggling several things in my hand.
All of this describes a goofy sitcom dad—which Cosby portrayed at several times. We love to make fun of them. The advertising industry regularly lampoons the obsessive-compulsive male who has to have things just his way with the car, his tools, the remote, etc. Let them. It was fun, laughing at Cliff Huxtable as he tried to lead his family while occasionally indulging in a submarine sandwich, which Claire told him was bad for him.
How one copes with being a goofy fifty-something-year-old male is first, don’t take yourself too seriously. Remember, God loves fools. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God . . . as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”—I Corinthians 1:27-31. In other words, you’re not so big. God is. Secondly, develop a healthy sense of humor. Laugh at yourself. “A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance,” says the Proverb (15:13).
My teacher always said, “If you want to see God’s pathos, look at the cross. If you want to see God’s sense of humor, look in the mirror.” True, that. Come and see me sometime and we’ll talk about it. Just watch and don’t trip over that smoke pot. I sometimes forget to bring it home.

Byron Beck

At first sight, Byron Beck’s stern countenance frightened children. He scowled and spoke in a loud, gruff voice. His wife Billie helped him run the Western Auto Associate Store in Shattuck, Oklahoma. She did most of the talking to customers, only turning to Byron when someone needed a plumbing fixture or electrical part. Byron was loud, it turned out, because he was nearly deaf. Which also explained his scowl. When you can’t hear, you feel left out and set aside on the shelf of life. It’s frustrating.
I caught a glimpse of the real person behind the gruff exterior when I brought in the back wheel from my 5-year-old daughter’s bicycle. The bike was a $5 garage sale bargain, with solid rubber tires. A few riding lessons promptly shredded the back tire. I couldn’t fix those solid rubber tires, but Billie told me Byron could. I brought him the wheel and his gruff face broke into a wide grin. Sure, he could fix it! He put the new semi-pneumatic tire on the roof of the store, where it got hot enough to stretch over the rim. He could true up spokes, too, if I needed them done. I could swear his eyes twinkled. What a transformation!
It turned out that Byron and I had two things in common: one was a love of bicycles and the other was delight in seeing happy children riding them. Byron grinned every time I returned to buy a bicycle part. I bought handle grips and bike chains sometimes just to see him grin.
Some people can’t stand children. I remember a frustrating visit to my great-uncle and his wife. They were childless, but did have a Chihuahua named Montgomery. Our first born son was just learning to walk and we as proud parents were eager to show him off. To our dismay, all my great-aunt wanted to talk about was that little dog Montgomery. How insulting!
Byron Beck loved children. Anyone who does holds a special place in God’s heart:
“Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
Children a reward from him.” Ps 127:3

“ Children's children are a crown to the aged,
and parents are the pride of their children.” Proverbs 17:6

God has a special concern for children: “A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.” –Psalm 68:5. No doubt about it, anyone who loves kids is on God’s side. No wonder gruff old Byron could smile at a father fixing up a bike for his child. Kids are special in God’s sight.