Restoring That Which Was Lost

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I'm hoping everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. Mine has been filled with family fun, food, and special christmas miracles. We all have those stories about gift giving this time of year that warm our souls. This year mine concerns something I thought I had lost to the neglect of time. We all have had those things which for whatever reason slip into a state of neglect. Mine was a 12 string guitar I had bought and played beginning my 18th year. I learned to play on this guitar and spent many hours just enjoying making melody, singing songs, and yes, praising my Savior Jesus on this guitar. Well, after some time. moisture and tuning it with too high pitch caused the face to pull up from the supports, and the neck to crack, which broke my heart,also.
It was placed in storage until I could figure out what to do for it. Time passed over many years and every time I saw my misshappen friend in storage I promised myself I would find a way to restore the many wounds on its face from my children playing with it and its structural damage. On Christmas day we were exchanging our family gifts, my turn came to receive. My family pointed out a package which had a familiar guitar shape. It was not a gift I had acquired for someone else, so I had not paid much attention to it. I opened it with no clue. It was my old friend the 12 string restored. To my surprise all the cracks and damages were repaired, and a new set of strings placed, and a new solid guitar case to safely put my guitar within. My wife and daughter knowing my fondness for the guitar had secreted the guitar from storage to another friend of mine who works miracles with wood products, and WALAH! Niagara Falls the water works just started to fall. I cried tears of joy. What a wonderful Christmas magical moment. One which I will never forget.

Lazarus Come Forth

This year has been unusual in many ways. We have seen an unprecedented economic downturn. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "rescued" by a total government takeover. Lehman Brothers, AIG, Wachovia, and Bank of America all stock market giants becoming unstable and needing Federal bailouts. The Big Three Automakers receiving 15 billion dollar government monies. The first African American elect President in American history. Automotive fuel prices at all time high prices only to drop lower than they have been for over a decade. 2008 may go down in history for many different reasons. Today will stick in my memory for awhile for an unusual happening. I was getting an ID photo done at a local university, I am not photogenic, and it was taking the administrative assistant multiple takes to get something worthwhile. Suddenly, from the doorway of the ID room I hear a voice " Lazarus, come forth!" I turn in the direction from whence cometh thus strange proclamation and say" Excuse me?" A young African American gentleman with knitted skullcap and ipod earbuds responds again" Lazarus, come forth!" I say somewhat perplexed" Is there something I can do for you?" Still standing there not moving he ignoring my gesture toward less innane communication retorted" Lazarus, come forth!" for the third time. I just stood there glaring stupidly while he looked back at me, then he walked away. This did not seem to bother the assistant who just said" Why would God bother to raise someone at peace from the dead." This got me to thinking after awhile, maybe God sent this young prophet to me to let me know with all the financial deadness around these days God's saying" Lazarus, come forth to our Counties' economic woes. Wouldn't that be a strange occurence in a very strange year.

A Fantasy Farce: The Northern Indiana Spaceport !

What if some forward thinking individuals with entrepreneurial will power, and a spirit of adventure decided," What Elkhart County should do for an industrial boom is develop a recreational vehicle spaceport to the Moon." If someone thinks that sounds ridiculous consider Burt Rutan, SpaceshipOne and Virgin Galactic winning the SpaceX prize, or The Dubai Spaceport. Not as far fetched as one might think, huh! Would it not be wonderful? Imagine all these RV employees building solid fuel rocket propelled space recreational vehicles with just a GED level education. Oh, I am sure each would have a high-def flatscreen with surround sound. There would be special deals, with purchase, like two weeks paid timeshare at a lovely moonbased casino hotel. There would be offered Nascar moonbuggy racing tickets, mooncrater wall climbing, "sneak out to the Sea of Tranquility, and watch the Earth rise" get away trips. All conveniently priced with monthly low payments like at the local DIY home rennovation store. Nobody would mind the fact that their great grandchildren would still be making payments on their vacation. They could put a bumper sticker on their space RV " Spending my great granchildren's inheritance".Quoting Dr. Suess, "Just think of all the thoughts that could be thunk!'

Recreational Vehicle Bust vs. Alternative Energy Boom

Here in Northern Indiana the recreational vehicle industry has been the manufacturing "King of the Road" for decades. This year's slowdowns, layoffs, and shutdowns have reduced our reigning champ to what looks to some to be a sprawling knockout. Large numbers of unemployed RV workers may be drawing state checks for some time. It will be anyone's guess just how long it will take for consciousness, and the industry's return to it's feet. While contemplating these turn of events "the pain", my memory goes back to the last recession in Elkhart County circa. 1972-76. Everyone then said," We should not allow the RV Industry to be the major backbone of Elkhart County economics". Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. One may say" What would replace so lucritive a business and so many lost jobs"? First, what Elkhart County needs to replace is not the RV Industry, but the mindset which continues to take us down the road of recession based upon tight credit conditions created initially by high fuel prices. The present low fuel prices may yet give way to something worse, fuel shortages brought on by Mideastern instability. My answer, alternative energy resources developed independently from oil company concerns and privately funded by new startup industry. The Department of Energy and oil company interests are too often one and the same. Northern Indiana has begun alternative energy development of methanol and bio-diesel. Indiana universities produce some of the most creative, intelligent, and capable minds in the world only to loose them to outside job markets, because we have a mindset which is not alternative energy industry and technologically forward thinking. If we start thinking in terms of the State of Indiana as the Midwestern energy, technology, industrial hub and invest resources in revolutionizing how we do business here, recession for us would become a thing of the past.