my careless contagion

I wrote a post by this title three years ago. (Also, a movie by the same name exists.) My mind goes back to certain places where I think maybe if I had made a different choice, things would have turned out differently. I can feel bad about that the rest of my life if I want to. I don't. It's clear God used this incredible weakness and affinity for a woman to bring me back to Him. (I never wanted something so much in my life. The only thing stronger than that feeling is the urge to give her what she wants. It goes without saying my love for the Lord is greater.) You can say I got carried away, but, no, I loved her. I did things that were wrong in my chasing of her and paid a dear price. God took care of that. I made mistakes and was punished and made a commitment to stay on the straight and narrow. I've been doing okay. Always room for improvement.  Did I chase her wrong? Nothing is wrong with chasing a woman. Infringing upon her space and disrespecting her is wrong. If she ...

Here begins my Nebraska retrospective – four parts in all, not including intro and conclusion. I have focused a lot on my childhood in this blog. It's an accepted belief that our childhoods greatly influence who we become as adults. There is some debate, of course, but the nurture part of nature/nurture is very important. It is safe to say I didn't have a very nurturing upbringing. I have focused on my childhood primarily because I moved back to where I was born about five years ago, and with that move, the memories came crashing in on me. This is where my original memories are, at least until the age of 10 years old, and, having family here, we often came back to visit, too.  The next nine years of my life, though, were spent in Nebraska. We moved to a town called Broken Bow over Christmas break in 1987. That is where this retrospective begins.  Initially, I was heartbroken after this move. Gradually, I saw that it was, indeed, a good move for my family. It was a be...

No, Nebraska is not for everyone. It's widely derided for being "flyover country," for being flat (it's the 20th flattest state, not even close to being the flattest — Florida), for being "cow country," "corn country," and for having a proud college football heritage but failing to live up to that heritage for, oh, about 20 years. But, hey, I hear they have a proper football coach again. And they've always had some of the finest mollisols on the planet. Nebraska, a heckuva place. I had never seen a blizzard before moving to Nebraska at the age of 10. I had never had a snow day. I got both of those within days of moving there in 1987. I can still recall the wonder of driving around town after the blizzard with the snow piled high in the middle of the streets. We couldn't see cars on the other side of the road! Yeah, Nebraska is not for everyone. Nine years of my life were spent here. These were years filled with many changes, now that...