Dear Grandkids,

In my last epistle I told you about our Niagara Falls adventure which checked a box on Nona’s bucket list. We traveled from there to the Finger Lakes  – had an awesome hike at Watkins Glen State Park – and then on to Cooperstown to take care of one of my bucket list items. Truth be told, I had been to Cooperstown when I was about 11 years old but I had almost no memory of that visit. And a lot of baseball has been played since then so since we were in Upper State New York it made sense, for a baseball fan such as myself, to pay a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The first thing you do when visiting the hall of Fame is to watch a 15 minute video that reminds you of some of the great moments of the game. I’m not gonna lie, I teared up watching it as I remembered just how much baseball was a part of my growing up years and how much I loved learning about the history of the game.

Then you can spend however much time you want to just walking around the three floors and looking at all the exhibits. It would not be hard to spend 6+ hours doing this – but we spent about two. I included the plague of Willie Mays in the picture above because he was my favorite player growing up… The Say Hey Kid. The two guys on the bottom left are Babe Ruth and Ted Williams (The Sultan of Swat and the Splendid Splinter). The fella on the bottom right is Roberto Clemente (The Great One). You can tell that one of the legacies of the best to ever the play the game is the nicknames that they were given.

You probably know that the people of God have their own Hall of Fame – or rather Hall of Faith – found in Hebrews 11. It would not surprise you to see inductees like Noah, Abraham, and Moses. But the surprising thing to me is to see names like Gideon, Samson, and Jepththah. The Book of Judges seems to go out of its way to point out their flaws and seeming lack of faith. And yet here they are in Hebrews 11. Although it is surprising it is nonetheless encouraging. Evidently these men, as flawed as they were, demonstrated remarkable faith during the course of their lives – perhaps in ways that were not recorded in Scripture but were a part of the oral history passed down through the generations.

So there is hope for me yet. Perhaps my flaws, though recognized, will be far outweighed by my faith. Hebrews 11:6 puts it this way…

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

And perhaps one day too I will be tagged with a really cool nickname like Willie, or Babe, or Ted, or Roberto, or Hank, or Joe, or Ernie, or Ozzie, etc.

But you can always call me Pop Pop! That’s the coolest name that I can think of.

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

Nona and I just got back from a 40th anniversary getaway. Our anniversary was back on August 1 but because Judah was expected to be born around that time we put off our trip until last week. Glad we did. The cooler weather was awesome.

One of the places we visited was a bucket list item for Nona – Niagara Falls. I had gone there with Bett and Gus about 50 years ago but had almost no memory of it other than being there. (Perhaps you have already seen this post from last year.) It really is worth a visit just because the waterfalls are so spectacular. There are in fact 3 waterfalls – The American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls – which can all be seen in the picture below on the left. The American Falls is on the left, Bridal Veil is just to the right of the American separated by Luna Island, and Horseshoe is on the right.

A couple of things that I was amazed by:

1) Just how close you can actually get to the top of the waterfalls…

2) Just how cool it is to be on a boat at the bottom of the falls…

3) How much water flows over the falls day after day after day.

Having seen the Falls up close and in person made me wonder why someone might say to themselves, ” I wonder what it would be like to go over the Falls in a pickle barrel?” That is exactly what Annie Edison Taylor did in 1901. She was 63 years old, a civil war widow, a retired school teacher who needed money. And she surmised that a plunge over the Falls was a good way to make some. She survived the stunt – perhaps because she took her cat with her who had some extra lives to share – but the scheme did not produce the cash flow she hoped for. 16 people have gone over the Falls in the name of adventure and the hope of fame and fortune. 11 have survived.

I like a good adventure as much as anyone – but…

I hope you get to visit the Falls one day. As Nona said, “Niagara Falls did not disappoint.”

To reiterate the Scripture I posted from Psalm 42 in the aforementioned Pop Pop epistle…

Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

Perhaps you notice that I am unveiling a new picture with this epistle. Judah makes his first appearance on the banner picture and now all nine of you are accounted for – as well as your parents. As I look at this picture I can see a little bit of each of your personalities shining through in this one moment frozen in time.

So what will we remember from Sunset Beach 2021. Here are a few from my perspective.

Great weather – Not too hot. Not too cold. Good breeze off the ocean. Maybe the best weather we’ve had yet.

Lots of walks – All the early morning walks. The turtle hatchlings walk where we did not get to see turtle hatchlings. The excursion to “jellyfish” bay. Walks to Crab Island and the shops at Sunset. Lots of steps for the week.

The melted ice cream fiasco – My new love affair with Blue Bell ice cream did not turn out so well since the freezer was not keeping the ice cream frozen  But the soft serve was still yummy.

Sam – If this doesn’t ring a bell, just think of Aunt Jeanne’s foot.

Boogie boarding and wave jumping – Really good waves to catch with G and to jump over with the younger cousins

Chess Games – Lots of chess games and trying to teach about the dignity of resigning honorably.

Desserts – So many great cookie varieties – especially my double chocolate pudding cookies.

Naked Man – This is the one we will probably remember most about Sunset 2021. Police cars outside our house. Christy opening the door to go downstairs to find out what was going on – only to find a naked man passed out on the top step of of the stairway. “There’s a naked man on our steps” will long be remembered as an iconic beach memory and one of those statements you just don’t expect to hear on vacation.

Christy always does such a fantastic job with a recap video – we tried to do a re-enactment of naked man but it just doesn’t have the same effect with clothes on. Enjoy and remember and…

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

Today we say goodbye to Sunset Beach. Another family vacation is in the books, more memories to hold onto, and back to real life. But it only seems appropriate to remember for you what happened 20 years ago today. It was perhaps THE most culturally defining day of my lifetime. And I have lived through a lot of defining moments – a presidential assassination, Watergate, Vietnam, a moon landing, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, etc. What happened 20 years ago today dramatically changed our country and we feel the ripple effects every. single. day.

It was a Tuesday. Sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 AM. I was in the parking lot at the Post Office down the street from my church when it was announced on the radio that a plane had crashed into the side of one of New York City’s Twin Towers. At the time it was reported as a crazy air mishap. But 30 minutes later when another plane crashed into the other Twin Tower we began to understand that this was more than accidental.

Little did we know how much more. I was meeting a friend for lunch at Elmo’s Diner in Durham when we got the news  that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon and another plane (Flight 93) had crashed in Pennsylvania. We would later find out that it was targeting either the White House or The US Capitol Building. I can remember saying to my friend, “What is going on?”

As the day unfolded we learned that these four planes has been hijacked by  terrorists – later to be associated with the group known as al-Qaeda and masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Almost 3000 people died that day. The attacks resulted in the largest loss of life by a foreign attack on American soil.

Your parents were in middle school and high school when 911 (as it is referred to) happened. I was planning that coming weekend to raft the Gauley River in West Virginia (and its class 5 rapids) with a buddy to celebrate his 40th birthday. That did not happen as he got grounded in Toronto when air travel was shut down. Overnight the world became a scarier place to live.

Things that we are quite familiar with today did not even exist prior to 911. The Department of Homeland Security, The US Patriot Act, The War in Afghanistan (which just ended, sort of), ISIS, the TSA, Immigration Reform, the TV show 24 and it’s hero Jack Bauer.

September 11, 2001 will rightfully get talked about and remembered a lot today. But there are other things worth remembering as well…

• The God that we worship and serve was not surprised by anything that happened on that day.
• A quote that bears repeating: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
• A Scripture from Matthew 16:33 where Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
• A reminder that when things seem out of control, God is still in control.
• Our faith is built on the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus and the  blessed hope that He will return one day to make all things right.
• People are capable of incredibly heroic exploits – but the most heroic thing that we can do is to demonstrate love to the people around us every day.

There will no doubt be more days like 911 in our future but as a people of faith we are not to live in fear, but rather to hold out the hope of the gospel. God’s good news always trumps the world’s bad news.

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop