MY HOPE IS IN YOU
As I am writing this entry, Easter 2005 is fast coming to an end in the mountain standard time zone. I hope you had a great one. Easter is my favorite holiday as it reminds me of the hope I have and that Hope lives.
Oh, how I was needing to be reminded of hope as I been lacking it for a few weeks. Events have hidden hope from me. Events like my health being horrible for weeks has worn down hope. Another event that has been chocking my hope is the stress of work. I have a new contract for a good friend that has an important deadline, but it is not going well for so many reasons. I don’t want to let him or his employees down and I need the money, but nothing is working right which is causing my hope to slid away.
However, with Easter I am remind of my hope and I found hope again Sunday afternoon as I went hiking alone with God in the open space near our house. I found a trail that I had never taken before and it was a good one. It helped me to start getting myself back into shape and rebuild my hope as I walked mostly alone with God. He lifted me up and reminded me that there is hope.
So I thought I would list some of the things I wished for as I hiked for a few hours this afternoon. This are not things that brought hope back, but things I found fun to think about.
- I hope that my health is back to normal now
- I hope I get in shape to hike this summer.
- I hope that my NCAA Basketball Bracket picks someday will be good.
- I hope I will be given wisdom tomorrow to finish my work.
- I hope I a miracle happens so I can afford new laptop in the next few weeks as mine is dying fast or that mine last longer than I think.
- I hope the Rockies winning ways of spring training continue to into the real season and we do not have to take the capital R away from them.
- I hope our tax return in enough to afford replacing our 25+ year old carpet in the house.
- I hope that the friends and family that fought for Terri will be at peace with their lost, that she will not suffer too much as she is staved to death, and that the American people learn from this sad event.
- I hope that I get the shed in the back yard painted in the new few months. (Oh, wait I think that is my wife’s hope rubbing off on me).
- I hope this entry did not bore you .
LikeIT’S AIN’T THE YEARS, IT’S THE MILES
Well, it is early in spring training, but so far the Colorado Rockies, aka, Kiddie Corp have played well. The way they are winning is nice, with good starting pitching and aggressive play on the basepads. Still the question remains, is Drew Litton right about the bullpen?
Western Skies
Yes, fiinally, as I write this, it is really snowing here in the Denver Metro Area. It is so needed and looks so pretty. The mountains have gotten good snow this year, but it has been about a month since we got really anything in the foothills. The snow inspires me and reminds me that it is time for me to get some snowshoeing in this year before the season is over.
Bang A Drum
In my current reads, I have listed Praise Habit by David Crowder. I am almost finish with it and I must say, this is a great book. I do sure enjoy David’s insights and humor.
This Cowboy’s Hat
A course, I would not make this post without a tip of the hat to my favorite cowboy singer, Chris Ledoux. My prayers goes out to his family, as he passed away March 9, 2005. I truly enjoyed his songs and I will miss him. My top five favorite Chris Ledoux songs are the following:
- 5. Copenhagen Angel
- 4. Bareback Jack
- 3. This Cowboy’s Hat
- 2. Western Skies
- 1. Five Dollar Fine
ALL THE WORDS
For about five months, the voices have been quiet, but then the other afternoon they returned. It seems to be like this every year, the voices are silent from October to March. Then come March, they start talking just for a little bit, mostly on weekends at first. Then towards the end of March till October they are nearly every day.
The Beginnings
I first heard the voices back when I was in first grade. At that time, they claimed to be Fred White and Denny Matthews. They brought me so much joy and a lot of sadness. They brought me joy by telling me the Royals had won a game, but other times they gave me heartache by explaining that the Royals had lost. It was tougher to listening to the voices when it involved a lost to the Yankees.
I still love listening to baseball on the radio. It allows my imagination to join with my love of baseball. I love hearing the sound of the ball hitting the bat and guessing where the ball is going.
The game I remember listening to the most was on a Sunday night, October 27, 1985, to be exact, and it biggest game that any Royals team had ever play. Our family went to church on Sunday nights and I am not sure I ever remember a longer service. Really it could have been short, but my heart was wanted to hear Fred or Denny till me how the game was going. When the service ended, dad kindly gave me the keys of the old Scooby-Doo car (as we called it) and I ran out to get the score of the game.
Oh, the voices were slow to give me information I wanted. Little by little, I learned the Cardinals were batting and Saberhagen was still pitching. Then they told me it was the top of the 7th, which was a good sign that Saberhagen had pitch that late in the game. Then the joy came, as the voices told me it was 11-0 Royals and I knew my team was going to be the World Champions. I love those baseball voices that day.
Another Voice
In high school, I continue to listen the Royals broadcasts, but I sometimes got to listen to the Denver Zephyrs (Denver’s AAA team at the time) games on the radio, too. This is where a voice that I still hear started to speak to me, the voice of Jeff Kingery.
The Dark Years
Funny how many people that I know have dark years and dark times involving Pueblo, Colorado. See I moved to Pueblo for college and when I did I no longer could pick up games for the Royals or the Z’s on the radio. The voices were gone for a few years. I thought I could hear the Colorado Springs Sky Sox games, but in the Pueblo zone my radio could not pick them up either. So times became very dark for me as the voices were gone for more than five months and I did not know how my teams were doing (before you could use the internet to find out scores, yes a very long time ago).
New Voices
Then after a few years of darkness, a miracle happened, Denver got a major league team. Then because of the miracle, a local Pueblo station join the rockies radio network for the games and in the year of 1993, I heard voices again. The voices were different in a way. See Jeff Kinery, the voice of the Z’s, joined the rockies broadcast team and I got to listen to his humor and joy of baseball again. His new partner was a man named Wayne Hagin. Wayne was great and a very good voice to listen to. So good that in 2003, he was taken away from us and given the honor to replace the late, great Jack Buck on the Cardinal’s radio.
Now days, Jeff has a new a partner bringing the games into my ears, Jack Corrigan. Jack and Jeff are not quite as good of voices as Jeff and Wayne, but they are not bad. It does not matter, through, I still love hearing the voices telling me about the games. I am glad that spring training is here and the 2005 season is just around the corner. I am just waiting to hear phrases like, “Helton hits a deep fly ball, and it going way back to wall and you can kiss it goodbye cause it is not coming back, a home run for Todd Helton.”
Yep, it is good to hear the voices again.
