As I approach my four-score and ten, I am convinced that what my friend Troy Dungan shared about a visit he and his lovely wife made to Ireland. Troy and Janet were greeted at an eatery by a gentleman who, as he was seating them. asked, "And how has this day been for you?" Troy's response was, "Fine, and You?" "I am too anointed to be disappointed and too blessed to be depressed". When I heard that, I thought, "I understand that very well since I too am blessed!"
As I look back on my life, it would read like a movie script. I've met some very famous and interesting people and had opportunity to do some pretty excitingly unusual things. I met and visited with Howard Hughes at the age of ten. I had traveled with my Dad and his friend, Harold Grimes, to Harold's office at the Talco oil field. He was Hughes Tool and Supply manager there. Daddy and Harold were talking in the office, so I took an airplane that my grandfather had made for me and was sitting on the front steps when a dusty Chevy coupe came in and parked. A very tall, slender man with a flop hat, searing kakis and tennis shoes, got out and sat down beside me. "What's your name and where did you get that fine plane?" I told him and said, "My grandfather built it for me." "Will It fly?", he asked, knowing it probably wouldn't since it was made of wood and propelled up-and-down fins on the tail. He had told me to call him "Howard". After a chat, stood and brushed his pants and said, "Have to go do business with my manager, take care now. As he was leaving, he said, "Nice to meet you, son. And if you love to fly, then do it". When I went for a physical for the Air Corps at the age of 18, I discovered I was colorblind, so I went to college instead. So, I didn't play sports, but chose the cornet(trumpet) instead and even though I had no 'music -reading' knowledge, I proceeded to a college degree in Voice with a minor in English from Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, 1953.
SERENDIPITY
All this and more, yet as I think back, it wasn't me, it was "HE". Whatever good resulted is to God's Glory!
AMEN
(one interesting aside. The choir, dressed in robes, took the subway to Madison Square Garden on the day we performed for Rotary International. It was obvious that getting all sixty on the same train was an impossibility, before I could divide the choir and assign each to take the "next train", I looked across and saw half my choir on the other side! The Garden was "Uptown" and the other side was "Downtown"! Once on the train, I asked the conductor for help. He sent a dispatch that had someone go and get the rest of my choir to the right train. We were on a tight schedule and I must admit panic as we awaited my lost sheep. Thankfully, a rather 'sheepish' flock arrived in time. That was probably the best "Follow the Leader" lesson that choir ever learned.)