“Spreading your wings in a perplexing world”
August, 2020                                    James P. Hurd    

Please forward this Ezine to anyone. Thank you.

Contents

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New story: The Great Debate

. . . Sean knew that TBI housed speakers on Norbert Hall’s sixth floor, but still he was surprised when he walked into the elevator and almost bumped into a scowling G. Victor McGraw. Sean stood transfixed, feeling like Moses gazing at the burning bush. But this “bush” didn’t say anything, except: “I’m going to first floor,” spoken as if someone had put sand in his toothpaste. In his sixties, gray-haired, furrowed brow, he exuded the demeanor of a man of God. He didn’t look at Sean as they descended, but when they exited the elevator, he broke wind.

Sean had loved to listen to McGraw’s radio messages—“Dear friends, all people on the topside of God’s earth need salvation. . . .” In his TBI chapel talk, he seemed the epitome of charm and grace. Sean wondered which man was the real G. Victor McGraw. . . . To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2020/08/10/the-great-debate/

(*Request: After reading the article, please leave a comment on the website. Thanks.)

New Challenge for our Ezine readers!

Send in the name of one of your all-time favorite books (author and complete title) and one sentence telling why it is your favorite. I’ll publish some of these in the next Wingspread Ezine.

Puzzler of the month:

(From Malcolm Ross McDonald) I will use a fountain pen with black ink and write my signature on a plain, blank paper, anywhere on the paper. Now, I will draw something else on the paper which will be plainly visible.

When you look at my signature through a magnifying glass, you’ll not be surprised to find out that it’s enlarged. But when you look at the other thing, it is NOT enlarged. The question is: What is the other thing? (Answer next week.)

Answer to last week’s puzzler: 

You have a four-ounce glass and a nine-ounce glass. You have an endless supply of water. You can fill or dump either glass. It turns out that it’s possible to measure six ounces of water using just these two glasses. What’s the fewest number of steps in which you can measure six ounces?

First, fill the 9-ounce glass with water.

Next, pour the water from the 9-ounce glass into the 4-ounce glass, until it is full. This leaves 5 ounces in the 9-ounce glass.

Now empty the 4-ounce glass.

Now, fill the 4-ounce glass, using the remaining water from the 9-ounce glass. Once the 4-ounce glass is filled, you’ll be left with just 1-ounce of water in the 9-ounce glass.

Empty the 4-ounce glass of water again.

Transfer the 1-ounce of water from the 9-ounce glass into the 4-ounce glass.

Again, fill the 9-ounce glass with water.

Pour water from the 9-ounce glass into the 4-ounce glass, until the 4-ounce glass is full.

Since the four-ounce glass already has 1-ounce of water in it, it will only take an additional 3-ounces of water. Guess how much that leaves in the 9-ounce glass? You

Writers’ Corner

Author of the Month:  James Albert Michener was born in 1907 and lived for ninety years. His breakout novel, Tales of the South Pacific, later became a motion picture. Some of his other novels: Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, and Texas. Many of his books are multigenerational, with long time spans in one geographic area. He donated millions of dollars to Swarthmore College; the University of Texas, Austin; and the Iowa Writers Workshop. A postal stamp was issued in his honor in 2008.

Watch for my upcoming novel: East Into Unbelief (provisional title). Kathleen’s mother raises her in a Fundamentalist hot-house environment. But then, disaster. How can her mother accept Kathleen’s choices? And how can her boyfriend, Sean, ever forgive her?

Words to ponder

Now that we’re into our seventh month of fighting COVID-19, I’ve got some thoughts and questions:

What you’re telling me is that my chance of surviving all this is directly linked to the common sense of others? You’re kidding, right?

So lemme see, there’s no cure for a virus that can be killed by sanitizer and hand soap?

Is it too early to put up the Christmas tree? I’ve run out of things to do.

When this virus thing is over with, I still want some of you to stay away from me.

If these last months have taught us anything, it’s that stupidity travels faster than any virus on the planet.

Wait a second—what you’re telling me is that my chance of surviving all this is directly linked to the common sense of others? You’re kidding, right?

People are scared of getting fined or arrested for congregating in crowds, as if catching a deadly disease and dying a horrible death wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

If you believe all this will end and we will get back to normal just because we reopen everything, raise your hand. Now slap yourself with it.

Another Saturday night in the house and I just realized the trash goes out more often than I do.

Whoever decided a liquor store is more essential than a hair salon is obviously a bald-headed alcoholic.

The spread of Covid-19 is based on two factors: a. How dense the population is and b. How dense the population is.

Did a big load of pajamas so I would have enough clean work clothes for this week.

It may take a village to raise a child, but I swear it’s going to take a whole vineyard to home-school one.

Remember all those times when you wished the weekend would last forever? Well, wish granted. Happy now?

And another gem for our Catholic friends:

Buy James Hurd’s Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying.  How childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America—and Barbara. Buy it here:  https://jimhurd.com/home/  (or order it at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.) 

See pics here related to Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

Follow “james hurd” on Facebook, or “@hurdjp” on Twitter

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