What makes your hair stick up?

I love the picture of Preston with the wig as it relates to this story.  In fact I was talking to Jason Taylor of OC Basketball fame and he said, "he learned a lot from Preston".  Well, me too.

This is kind of a backwards story and a little pitchy but it does make the hair stand up on my head.  By the way, that is not Preston's real hair.  Anyway, the other day I was talking to a young man who is about 28 years old, married with two children living in a rented house ($600 Per month plus utilities) and his wife does not work.  He drives a four wheel pickup that if not modified would be worth about $4000 but he spent about $10,000 fixing it up.  Do you know what I mean?  It was jacked up with expensive tires, new special bumpers and lots more options.  Now it is not even sellable to most.  He makes good money at about $70,000 per year including overtime, before he quit.  Did I mention he gets about 4 miles per gallon on gasoline and drives about 100 miles per day round trip to work meaning it costs about $37.50 per day in gas much less if it were a few months ago and gas was close to $4 per gallon.  Not including wear and tare he spends $9375 per year on gasoline alone.  I should also tell you he spent four years in the military and was deployed for 2 years and is in excellent physical shape.  Now for what drives me crazy.

I asked him what would happen to his wife and kids if he had a wreck in the truck and got killed.  I also asked how would she buy groceries the next day much less pay the rent.  His response was, "they have about $200 in their checking and no reserve account".  My hair stood up as he also said she would just have to move back home with her parents.  Where is the logic in this?!!!@#$!!!???$#@%

I bet you cannot guess why my hair was standing straight up like Preston's.  Cathy at my office can get him a $250,000 policy for about $12 per month.  He said he could not afford it.  If you have not figured your options call Cathy at 405-463-7952.

Now for a little lighter information:  Does anyone remember when Debbie Ware of Shidler put her hands on the electrostatic generator during assembly and her hair stood straight up?  It might have been Virginia Chrisco but I cannot remember any more.  That was funny.  I bet I made my parents hair stand up many a time.  Like when I cut Cathy Eaton's hair with sheep sheers.  Boy was I in trouble.

Now let me give you one on Preston.  One time we were short on spoons in the house and we knew we had a double set meaning we had about 24 spoons, Oneida as I recall, expensive.  In fact we were totally out.  Why?  Well, Preston likes things clean and tidy.  We trained him to put things where they belong.  Chase and Wynter, our regular children, could not learn this while they lived at home.  Preston who has special needs learned it well.  So well, that after he ate his yogurt each day he put the empty container in the trash with Mom's spoons until they were all gone.  Shouna's hair stood up on her head that time.

So what do you learn in the Osage or from your children?

• be careful what you teach your children, they may follow your instructions
• a mess is not necessarily the worst thing to happen, remember those Oneida spoons
• sometimes hair standing on ones head is better than no hair at all

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

or try this out and you can get help from Cathy or me

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Home on the Range: THe Sky is FAlling

Home on the Range: THe Sky is FAlling

THe Sky is FAlling

I feel like Chicken Little.  The stock market is down, a friend lost a child from a long battle with failing liver and kidney transplant, my father-n-law is in the hospital and my daughter has some health issues and then there is some additional junk going on.  Now honestly, "stuff happens", I almost said something more descriptive but held back.  Sure I am concerned and tired from a little sleep deprivation and sure I have prayed a lot and continue to rely on my Lord Jesus Christ to bring a little calm to this storm. 

Through all of this I find calm but not because that is my style but because I am better off depending on Him than my personality quirks, some would say quacks or cracks.  Here is what I learned in the Osage.

• after the storm the air smells better
• the air is cleaner
• the sky is bluer

So you may ask, "how do I do it?".  Well when I was growing up I watched my Mom and Dad and how they reacted to storms.  Storms of low commodity prices were killers when you raise cattle, corn, wheat and maize.  But you know what they did?  They kept putting one foot in front of the other and planted another crop held a few more heifers back for breeding stock and kept the faith that things will always be better even during the storm if you just look for the opportunity.  They planted a bigger garden and raised more chickens.

Now for you idiots (that is country talk for folks who don't know country speek and I apologize for it kind of?) a heifer is a young female which becomes a cow when she has been bred to have a calf.  I suppose I should explain BRED.  That is sex for cattle.  It really is fun making fun of folks that don't get my humor but guess what, folks have been making fun of me for years because of what I don't know about city life and city talk.  Plus my humor is not as good as I enjoy it and it is usually at someone else's expense.  We should all laugh about our differences and embrace them, not howl about them and divide us.  Got a little political there, sorry.

Well in summary, I am just grateful for the storms I get and what God is teaching me.

So what do you learn in the Osage:

• obviously, it feels really good when the storm has passed
• there is beauty found in the storm if you look for it
• trust in Him not in myself

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

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What I have learned from a child with special needs

I have been challenged by a friend to share some of the life lessons I have experienced with a special focus on children and adults with special needs.  In case you do not know it our third child, Preston, was born with down syndrome.  So at least for a few stories I am going to walk you though what I have learned.

September 3rd, 1987 Preston was born around 6 P.M. and in a hospital in the Dallas area.  The doctor told us we had a healthy baby boy.  The doctor was older and had a rough bedside manner but still seemed to be a good doctor.  Of course we shared the good news with lots of folks on our call list.  There was no texting and cell phones weighed about 5 pounds and were pretty expensive so no one had a cell phone.  We did it the old fashioned way, we called on a land line.  Think about it, pause, a huge number of young people born after 1980 have no idea what "dial a phone number" really means.  And how about "answer the phone, it is ringing off the wall".  They don't even know what an 8 track is.  OK, back to the story. 

The excitement was slowing down and we were settling in for the night when around 10:30 I walked by the nursery to see my new boy and I saw the nurse crying.  I just assumed one of the new babies was having trouble and I never considered it was Preston.  At about 11 the nurse retrieved me from being with Shouna and took me to a small room where the doctor was waiting.  He began to tell me about down syndrome and why he suspected Preston had the extra chromosome.  He suggested we should consider putting Preston in an institution.  He asked me if I wanted him to talk to my wife.  There was absolutely no way I was going to have him deliver such a message after he had done such a horrible job with me.

As I shared the news with Shouna around 11:30 or 12 we both cried a little and neither of us would consider giving our son to be taken care of by the state.  I am blessed that my wife has a positive attitude and relies on her assurance that God is in charge.  We prayed together and talked for a long time.  I have no idea when we rested but the next morning we started the task of calling our family and friends and telling them the news.  This is probably one of the situations I learned the most from.

As we called most were politely apologetic if for no other reason than they just did not know what to say.  One person expressed that "if we prayed hard enough Preston would not have DS".  I wish I could say I had a great Biblical or Christian response but I just said to Shouna, "that is the stupidest remark I have heard".  One of the common remarks was "God gives special children to special parents".  Again I declared "BS".  Don't get the wrong idea here, we felt confident we were blessed.  We just did not know the answers to a lot of questions.   What did we / I learn?

• saying something, even if it was stupid or clumsy, was better than nothing from our friends
• a baby is a blessing even if "normal", whatever that is, is not to be found
• start by looking for what good is to come rather than dwelling on the negative

One last thing to end this story.  One of the biggest blessings I have ever received and one of the biggest learning opportunities happened that day by around noon.  During my calls I called Larry Lippel in Oklahoma City who was a dear friend and co-worker and asked him to share the news with friends at the office, FDMC/First Data Management which also was known as SCS which was the ATM network in Oklahoma.  He did not say much but as I was walking down the hall in the hospital about 2.5 hours after talking to Larry he stepped off the elevator and walked toward me.  I think he was speeding, of course.  Even today I choke up thinking about that act of kindness.  Larry was about 6 ft. 6 in. tall and he walked up to me and put his arms around me and squeezed like crazy.  I felt like a pimple ready to pop.  It was a long hug and we both cried.  His first words were he wanted to see our baby and see Shouna.  We went straight to see the babies and I proudly pointed out my new son.  We walked down to see Shouna and he hugged her.  Larry was a strong believer in Jesus but had dropped out of church and that day he promised he was going to get back to his relationship with Christ.  Honestly I don't remember another thing he said or did.  He did not stay long and then drove back to OKC. 

• I learned that being there is more important than anything
• sacrificial giving of time and a big hug says more than 10,000 words
• that day was the beginning of a testimony from Preston about a life with Christ, Preston had already made a positive impact in Larry's life and ours

I am shutting down for the night but hopefully as I write these stories they can be of benefit to others and record my life for you and my family.

So, what do you learn in the Osage?

• everyone can make a positive impact on someone's life, be an ADDER not a SUBTRACTOR
• life is full of surprises, make the best of them
• when life throws you a curve, adjust and get a hit and most of all keep your eye on the ball

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com