Christ-follower, bush pilot, teacher, writer, speaker.
New book of stories and essays---planned for late 2026.
Other books available on Amazon, etc.: Blessed Unbeliever (a coming-of-age novel), Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying (memoir), Horse-and-Buggy-Mennonites (documentary).
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It’s a normal smoggy day at Chino airport. I’ve just taken off with my student, Stan, whom I’m checking out in his two-seater, fabric-covered Taylorcraft. The takeoff goes normally but after we level off and pick up speed, Stan can’t keep the plane’s nose down.
“Trim forward, Stan.”
“I am.”
“Trim down more.”
“I am!”
The plane is still pitching up violently, threatening to stall. I see Stan straining to push the control wheel forward, but it isn’t helping. What’s wrong?
I’m studying anthropology at Cal State Fullerton and need a little extra cash so when Hank Bradford lures me over to Chino with the promise, “I’ll give you a twin-engine checkout in the Aero Commander” (a larger twin-engine plane), I jump at the chance to work for United California Aviation—the outsize name for Hank’s dubious fixed-base operation. UCA consists of an office, a small workroom with a picture of a naked woman hanging on the wall and a few hundred square feet claimed from the vast and empty adjoining hangar. Hank has opened a small café and offers hamburgers to a few army personnel temporarily stationed here. He acts as a maître d, circulating through the room chatting up the troops as he follows a waitress around, pretending to grab her hips.
I never see the promised Aero Commander. Rather, I end up doing routine maintenance on random aircraft that show up. No tools available—I bring my own. But one day I arrive at work about noon on a Thursday and Hank says, “Wanna’ take the Apache and fly some fishermen down to Baja for the weekend?” Immediately I say yes, even though I’ll miss a day of my classes and even though I have little time to prepare for the flight. But you never turn down a chance to fly a multiengine plane. A fun weekend.
Now today I’m still trying to figure out why Stan can’t control his airplane. “Stan! Give me the wheel.” I grab the dual control wheel and it just about hits me in the face! The airplane is still trying mightily to pitch up. If the nose rises a bit more, the airplane will stall and plummet us to the ground. I barely keep it level, forcing the control wheel forward. “Stan, we have to turn back to the airport; something’s wrong. I’ll land the plane because I don’t know how it’ll react if we slow up.” I hold forward pressure on the wheel all the way through the landing.
I walk around the plane, suspecting something’s wrong with the elevator control system, those “flippers” at the tail that pitch the airplane up or down but they seem to be operating normally.
Then I notice the small trim tab hinged at the rear of one of the elevator surfaces. This tiny deflector moves the larger elevators up or down. So I yell to Stan who is still in the cockpit, “Stan; turn the trim tab crank counterclockwise.” As Stan turns the crank to lower the nose, I see the trim tab moving downward. In flight, this would force the elevator up, which would pitch the nose up—the opposite of how it’s supposed to work. The mechanic (probably my boss, Hank) had hooked up the trim tab control cable backwards! “Stan; we’re done flying until I get this control fixed!”
This flight could have been a disaster—I hate to think what would have happened if Stan had been flying without an instructor. In the future I determine that after maintenance is done on an airplane I need to perform a more thorough preflight check—including the trim tab.
Spreading wings in a perplexing world March, 2025 James P. Hurd
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Contents
Writer’s Corner
Blessed Unbeliever
This month’s story: “Brave New World of Cooking”
This month’s puzzler
WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
Word of the month:RECRUDESCENCE. The return of something terrible after a time of reprieve. E.g., the recrudescence of the polio virus. Remember Faulkner’s critique of Hemingway: “He refuses to use a word that would send a person to a dictionary.”
Task for you: If you’re stuck, try responding to a probe. Here’s one: What was the most embarrassing incident in your life? Another: Choose a memorable incident. How would that incident have unfolded if you were the opposite gender? Different age? Different ethnicity?
Book of the month: I write this WINGSPREAD on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, the great saint who led a non-violent conversion in Ireland in the 5th century. Some of his writings have come down to us. Just Google “St. Patrick’s Confession” and you can read his Confessio where he recounts being hauled off to Ireland as a slave, his miraculous escape, and his years of service to the people of Ireland.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
I confess I enjoy talking to atheists who seem honest about their doubts. Although my own doubts have been answered, they have not been quenched. Since I am a doubter, I find much in common with atheists. I believe we are all on a spiritual quest and I wish to know the quest of each person I meet. Unbeliever (below) is the story of one such quest. Much is autobiographical (I won’t tell you which parts!). But the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward becoming an atheist—while attending Torrey Bible Institute! Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: “Brave New World of Cooking”
I was no stranger to cooking; It was what happened before Mom or Wife called you to the dinner table. Most people on the planet know how to cook. This story is for the rest of us.
After I left home at eighteen, I ate institutional food at Moody Bible Institute for two years. When I moved out to Wooddale Airport for flight training I boarded at Mrs. Volle’s house and ate her excellent cooking. Then back to dorm life at Cal State Fullerton and eating in the cafeteria. When I departed to fly in southern Mexico for Mission Aviation Fellowship, I roomed in a boarding house. Great food—refried beans, eggs, rice, tamales and tortillas, sliced papaya, fresh tropical fruit juices, café con leche. I used to sit in the kitchen smelling the simmering pots and watching the Indian women scraping the leftover refried beans back in.
Moving to Honduras, I lived with Mario who worked as an assistant to the MAF dentist. A maid cooked all our meals—until Mario spied her lover’s shoes under the closet curtain and dismissed her. . . .
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This month’s puzzler (courtesy of “Car-Talk Archives”)
Many years ago, when I was vacationing in upstate New York in a sleepy little town called Cold Springs, I had occasion to go to an antiques auction.
One of the items that comes up was a child’s sled, a wooden sled that the auctioneer claims was made by George Washington himself.
The auctioneer turns the thing over and carved into the one of the wooden slats on the back is this:
“G Washington, September 10, 1752.”
Now I remember from sixth grade that the square root of 3 was George Washington’s birthday. The square root of 3 is 1.732. And George Washington’s birthday is in 1732.
So, if this carving on the sled is accurate, that would make him 20 years old at the time. So it stands to reason that at the age of 20, before he started his military career, he might be making a sled for a niece or nephew or for his own kids. Who knows.
So, I’m ready to bid 20 bucks on the thing, when someone in the crowd pipes up and says, “It’s a fake.”
He was right. It was a fake. But the puzzler is, how did he know that?
Good luck.
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
Recall Holmes told Watson he was 35 the day before yesterday and will be 38 next year. How is this possible? Tricky, right? Here is the answer. The conversation took place on January 1. Holmes’ birthday is December 31, when he turned 36. He was 35 the “day before yesterday.” Got it? Great, huh?
(Whoops! A careful reader reminded me I had used this puzzler last year.)
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Wisdom
When I was young, I was told that anyone could become President…. I’m beginning to believe it.
I didn’t realize how unsocial I was until there was a pandemic…. And my life didn’t really change all that much.
Don’t wear headphones while vacuuming; I’ve just finished the whole house before realizing the vacuum wasn’t plugged in.
I gave all my dead batteries away today—free of charge.
I just ordered a life alert bracelet. If I ever get a life I’ll be notified immediately
To the guy who invented “zero” … Thanks for nothing.
The Disappointment Club is pleased to announce that the Friday meeting is cancelled.
When telephones were tied with a wire—humans were free
Self-esteem is the feeling which makes us attribute our failures to bad luck, and our successes to good judgment.
A woman adopted two dogs and named them Timex and Rolex. Her friend asked her how she came up with the names. She replied, “They’re both watch dogs.”
Doctor: I’m afraid your condition is fairly advanced. Patient: It was in its early stages when I first sat down in your waiting room.
How does my doctor expect me to lose weight, when every medication he prescribes says, ‘Take with food.’
Me: Doctor, I’ve swallowed a spoon. Doctor: Sit there and don’t stir.
I was walking past a farm and a sign said: “Duck, eggs!” I thought, “That’s an unnecessary comma. Then it hit me.”
If you’re not familiar with the work of Steven Wright, he’s the famous Erudite (comic) scientist, his mind sees things differently than most of us do. . . here are some of his gems:
1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2.- Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.
3 – Half the people you know are below average.
4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 – All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, …… But she left me before we met.
12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
13 – How can you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
I was no stranger to cooking; It was what happened before Mom or Wife called you to the dinner table. Most of the people on the planet know how to cook. But this story is for the rest of us.
After I left home at eighteen, I ate institutional food at Moody Bible Institute for two years. When I moved out to Wooddale Airport for flight training I boarded at Mrs. Volle’s house and ate her excellent cooking. Then back to dorm life at Cal State Fullerton and eating in the cafeteria. When I departed to fly in southern Mexico for Mission Aviation Fellowship, I roomed in a boarding house. Great food—refried beans, eggs, rice, tamales and tortillas, sliced papaya, fresh tropical fruit juices, café con leche. I used to sit in the kitchen smelling the simmering pots and watching the Indian women scraping the leftover refried beans back in.
Moving to Honduras, I lived with Mario who worked as an assistant to the MAF dentist. A maid cooked all our meals—until Mario spied her lover’s shoes under the closet curtain and dismissed her.
During my language study in San Jose, Costa Rica, my landlady, Doña Maria Eugenia Odio de Esquivel, turned out wonderful meals which she served at her formal dining room table. While there I met Barbara Breneman. Just before we married I moved to Venezuela to live alone in the MAF house‑without a maid. I would buy a loaf of bread and have the storekeeper slice it, a big loaf of ham and have him slice it. Big loaf of cheese and have him slice it. I would freeze all this, then periodically buy onions and tomatoes to create sandwiches. I survived on sandwiches and rice until I married Barbara who cooked for me for the next fifty-four years.
But in December, 2024 when we were living in our Minneapolis apartment, Barbara died. I not only lost my greatest treasure, my loving and faithful companion; I also lost my cook. Kind friends thronged my door with soup, sympathy and casseroles, gifts of mercy which I stuffed into an already-full chest freezer. Today, months after Barbara’s death, I’m still eating out of the freezer.
I did not want to be a needy widower who orders Meals on Wheels and eats TV dinners so I began a timid foray into the world of cooking. I searched online for recipes—rice, fish, various kinds of eggs (scrambled, poached, omelet), chicken and salads (sweet or salty). This opened a new world of unfamiliar ingredients: paprika, cumin, parsley. And unfamiliar processes: sauté, simmer, dredge, mince. I would copy these recipes into a computer file and print them out when needed.
Turned out though, finding recipes were the easy part. The first time I opened the fridge door I was shocked. All I saw in there were ingredients. For some ingredients I had to search the whole house. I found that the spices, for instance, were stored in multiple containers placed in different locations around the house—laundry room, coat closet, random dining room, kitchen cupboards or under the sink. Some were in tiny unlabeled jars (chopped green stuff, mixed spices); some had lids with the wrong label. Mysterious, unmarked frozen somethings in the freezer.
I learned that before you cook you need to create a grocery list of stuff you need to go buy. First, you should verify that you really need all the items. Check recent mailings for store specials and check for other coupons on your phone. When you go shopping, remember to take along your cloth bags to avoid paper or plastic. If the list is long, it’s helpful to group the items based upon their location in the store.
Buy only stuff you can consume in one or two meals. Otherwise, you’ll be condemned to eat only things that are beginning to rot. Yes, rotting. Important to figure out how long things can last in the fridge before they rot. When shopping, pick up the frozen items last so they won’t melt on your way home. Remember to use your coupons at checkout. (The Ht-Vee guy scans a barcode on my cellphone for coupons and loads special gas discounts.) When you return home, immediately empty your bags and put stuff away. (You should really wipe stuff off like we did during Covid but life is too short for that.)
On those momentous occasion when you invite someone over, it gets much more complicated. Don’t forget to check with your guests for allergies and food preferences before selecting recipes. The night before the meal, print out the recipes you’re going to use. Thaw out the frozen stuff. You can even pre-prepare or pre-cook parts of the meal at this time. Then you need to set the scene. Pick up, clean and organize the dining room, living room, bathroom and kitchen. Set the table with placemats, plates, silverware, glasses and napkins. Can you find a centerpiece? Think about the lighting. Pick out appropriate music for the evening. If you really want to go crazy, plan an activity after dinner.
Do as much prep work as possible ahead of time. Warm the oven to heat the plates or keep foods warm. Organize all the ingredients on the counter, measuring them out. Put skillets on the stove, then get out bowls and serving plates and all utensils you’ll need. Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and all liquids in another bowl (unless you need to add these at different times).
Decide what needs to be cooked before it’s used as an ingredient (e.g., sauté the onions, brown the butter). Then cook the items that will take the longest (e.g., rice or potatoes). Mind the stove burner temperature. (It was a breakthrough when I discovered there were settings between “off” and “high.”) You can put some of these cooked foods in the oven to keep warm. Use a thermometer to check internal temperature of the meats. Use a timer for critical cooking times. When cooked, transfer the food into serving bowls or spoon directly onto the plates. Seat your guests. Sing a hymn, read a scripture, say a Celtic blessing. Then enjoy!
Dining together is one of the great joys of life. For the first 80 years of my life I took all of this for granted—it just happened. But these days, I’m scrambling to learn what I should have learned 70 years ago.
Spreading wings in a perplexing world February, 2025 James P. Hurd
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Contents
Writer’s Corner
Blessed Unbeliever
This month’s story: How does a widower work a washer?
This month’s puzzler: Sherlock Holme’s age
WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
No matter the genre in which you write, your published work can transform you into a change agent. When your words get read, you have an impact in your readers’ lives that ripples out into the world.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu, or The Conspiracy
“Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Tip for writers: Most writing can be improved by tightening. But how? Try going through your piece and eliminating all the adverbs and adjectives. Then go back and insert only as many as you absolutely need.
Writing task for you: Write an opening line or two for a novel or a short story. I will include some of your efforts in the March WINGSPREAD. Here are some things to help you:
Introduce the protagonist
Give a hint of time and place
Never start with a backstory or flashback, or with a dream
Introduce a problem/conflict/mystery facing the protagonist
Introduce your “story-worthy problem.” If you don’t have one, you don’t have a story.
Signal the genre of your story (your title may help do this).
Reveal your voice. Things like: what “person” you write in (1st, 3rd), what tense (present, past), what dominant point-of-view?
Foreshadow: give hints of trouble to come, for example, “But things were not as they seemed.”
Book of the month: David G. Myers, How Do We Know Ourselves? Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 2022. 253 pp. I have read this with great profit. Myers uncovers secrets of human behavior—egotism, paying attention, two-brain processing, judging others, divisions and a host of others—and briefly explains each one. A gold mine for the non-professional who is curious about understanding, and even changing, others’ behavior and even their own! Short chapters. The book does seem choppy and many times the reader would desire a deeper discussion.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward atheism—while attending Torrey Bible Institute! Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: The Widower and the Washer
Housekeeping has always been a mystery to me. Right up there with how you deal with small children. I don’t even remember actually meeting any of my children until they started kindergarten. My loving partner unselfconsciously assumed childrearing tasks while I concentrated on more important problems such as “How do we fight climate change?” Or, “How do we end the war in Afghanistan?” . . .
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This month’s puzzler
Holmes and Watson were sitting in Holmes’ study at 221B Baker Street when Watson said, “Holmes; I’ve been rooming with you for several months but you’ve never told me how old you are!”
Holmes replied, “The day before yesterday I was 35 and next year I’ll be 38.”
“Impossible!” replied Watson.
But Holmes was correct. The question is, how would that be possible?
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
Recall I left something at my friend’s house and he mailed it back to me. However, I cannot now use it nor use it in the future. What is it?
It is a stamp on an envelope I had left at his house. He mailed it back to me.
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Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/ for a free subscription to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.
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Wisdom
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
—Emily Dickinson
“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naiveté. Maria Popova
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Elmore Leonard
Why is ‘abbreviated’ such a long word?
___________________________________
Why is it that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?
___________________________________
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
___________________________________
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
___________________________________
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
___________________________________
Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
___________________________________
Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
___________________________________
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
___________________________________
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
___________________________________
Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
___________________________________
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
___________________________________
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
Housekeeping has always been a mystery to me. Right up there with how you deal with small children. I don’t even remember actually meeting any of my children until they started kindergarten. My loving partner unselfconsciously assumed childrearing tasks while I concentrated on more important problems such as “How do we fight climate change?” Or, “How do we end the war in Afghanistan?”
When Barbara passes away in December, I sink into grief. I discover that I have not only lost the joy of my life, but also lost the one who knew how to do things. I panic, with visions of dirty dishes piling up in the sink, food rotting in the fridge, dust gradually burying all the furniture and the floors accumulating coffee stains, miscellaneous shreds of paper and food scraps. I’m appalled that I will become “that needy man” who is incapable and incompetent, a charity-target for all the females in my life. I have heard about “friends with benefits.” It’s true—I find that the chief benefit of my female friends is providing me information about how to run a rice cooker, counseling me on how long before food in the fridge rots or telling me how often to wash the bedsheets.
Take clothes, for instance. When Barbara was here, I would put my dirty clothes in a white plastic basket. They would briefly disappear and later reappear—folded in my dresser drawer. (One of my friends calls me a “kept man.” I greatly resemble that remark.)
But today I boldly determine to do two loads of laundry—my first such attempt in fifty-four years. I heard somewhere that you have to separate the coloreds from the whites. We have an over-under washer-dryer so I lift the lid of the washer and throw the coloreds in. How full can you fill the washer? My friend Lennie says not much more than half full. I attempt to consolidate two jugs of liquid laundry soap, spilling about a cup of liquid on the floor. So, paper towels and twenty minutes cleaning it up. Finally, I pour in half a cup of soap and close the lid. To be safe, I just leave the settings where they were before: “Normal, chime off.” I push the button. Three beeps but nothing happens. I push it again. One beep, the machine starts and I walk away, not knowing how long it will run. In a few minutes I check back and it has stopped. I lift the lid—no water has come in.
So, I call my daughter who serves as my loyal friend and life coach. (She nursed Barbara in her last days, got me started attending “Grief Share,” and now closely supervises my health, couture and meal preparation.) “The washer’s stupid,” she says. “You sometimes have to push the button more than once.”
“I did push it—four times. It starts; then after a few minutes it stops. Oh, and no water comes in.”
[Pause.] “Dad, you do know there are two sets of controls on the panel—one set for the washer and the other for the dryer? Are you sure you’re pushing the washer button?”
[Pause.] “Oh, right. I guess I was pushing the dryer button. That could be the problem.”
Chastened, I start over. This time the coloreds wash without a hitch. When the washer stops, I grab the sodden mass of clothes, dump it into the dryer and punch the button. I call Kimberly again, “I see no numbers on the dial. How long does it run? Shall I set the timer? I don’t want the clothes to sit there; they might get wrinkled.”
“Dad, if they get wrinkled you can just run water on a hand towel, throw it in with the clothes and run it for twenty minutes or so. That’ll take out the wrinkles.”
Thankfully my clothes come out without wrinkles. Meanwhile I throw the whites into the washer and after they wash, I move them into the dryer. I even remember to clean out the lint in the dryer filter.
I live in a complex world where I don’t know how to operate stuff, say nothing about how to repair it. But I have to confess I’m enjoying learning new skills and building confidence each day. These small successes encourage me to move on to the next task—vacuuming.
Spreading your wings in a perplexing world January, 2025 James P. Hurd
Please forward and share this Ezine with others. Thank you!
Contents
Writer’s Corner Blessed Unbeliever This month’s story This month’s puzzler WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
Tip for writers: Memoir writers commonly agonize over how to write about bad actors. When a friend complains about what she wrote about them, Anne Lamott suggests telling them, “If you wanted me to write better things about you, you should have been a better person.” That might work, but you might lose a friend. 😊 Task for you: Try writing your whole piece in the present tense, first person. Great exercise but hard to do. Book of the month: Jim Wallis, The False White Gospel. St. Martins, New York. 2024. Rejecting racism and white nationalism, Wallis uses biblical texts such as Matther 25 to present what Jesus-followers should believe and do. No surprises here for those who have read Wallis before, but a great book “for times such as these.” Here is a person who still calls himself an Evangelical but rejects the false gospel of white American exceptionalism.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward becoming an atheist—while attending Torrey Bible Institute! Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: “A Blessed Death”
This blog is very personal. On December 13, 2024, I lost my dearest treasure. Here is the edited eulogy I wrote for Barbara’s memorial service. held on December 28.
Each life is sacred to God. Thus, it is fitting that we meet today to celebrate the life and faith of Barbara Ann Hurd (Breneman). She was born during the Great Depression to a strong Mennonite family on a dairy farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Farming life taught her the virtue of hard work, a virtue she demonstrated throughout her life and inflicted on her husband and children. In 1967 Barbara began her work with Latin America Mission when she taught school in Costa Rica. We met each other there and, after a few months, became engaged on a remote airstrip in Venezuela where I was flying for Mission Aviation Fellowship. Later, we adopted our three children from Costa Rica and Colombia. Barbara never complained about where we lived. , , , , To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2025/01/18/a-blessed-death/
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This month’s puzzler (thanks to Car Talk archives)
Super short. I lost something recently at a friend’s house. My friend mailed it back to me. But it is of no use to me now, from this time forward, since he mailed it. What was it? Good luck.
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler: You guessed it! Recall that a ship’s porthole was nine feet above waterline but the tide was coming in. The question was how high would the porthole be above the water after the tide came in. Of course, the porthole would always be nine feet above the surface of the water because as the tide comes in the boat will float on the higher tide.
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Click here: https://jimhurd.com/home/ to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc. If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread Ezine, send an email to hurd@usfamily.net and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.
Wisdom
Here is my informal attempt to define these words listed in a previous Wingspread: Sycophant A self-serving, servile flatterer Doomscrolling Getting depressed scrolling through social media Catfishing Creating a fake online identity to deceive and control others Hacking Breaking in to a computer program or using it in a new way Clickbait A seductive posting that gets you to click on it Frenemies Being friendly with someone whom you may dislike Ghosting Withdrawing from a (social media) conversation without notice or explanation Phishing Attempt to steal someone’s personal digital information Troll Constant, unwanted posting on someone’s social media Blogosphere The world of blogs and social media Meme Images or words that go viral (see below) Crowdsourcing Using social media to raise money Viral post A posting that quickly gathers many followers Mash-up Combining two or more unlike things Avatar A computer image identified with a certain person Argot Slang or jargon of a particular group of people (“teen argot”)
Seen in the paint section of the hardware store
Winston Churchill quotes: • You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks. • Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision. • A nation that forgets its past has no future. • Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. • A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest. • A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. • One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions. • I’d rather argue against a hundred idiots than have one agree with me. • An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping he will eat him last. • Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.
On December 13, 2024, I lost my dearest treasure. So this blog is very personal. Here is the eulogy I wrote for the memorial service on December 28.
Each life is sacred to God. Thus, it is fitting that we meet today to celebrate the life and faith of Barbara Ann Hurd (Breneman). She was born during the Great Depression to a strong Mennonite family living on a dairy farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Farming life taught her the virtue of hard work, a virtue she demonstrated throughout her life and inflicted on her husband and children.
In 1967 Barbara began her work with Latin America Mission when she taught school in Costa Rica. We met each other there and, after a few months, became engaged on a remote airstrip in Venezuela where I was flying for Mission Aviation Fellowship. Later, we adopted our three children from Costa Rica and Colombia.
Barbara never complained about where we lived. In Venezuela she would stare up at the cockroach-eating geckos on our ceiling who would lose occasionally lose their grip and land on our supper table. As I was flying over the Venezuelan jungle, she stayed home alone with Princessa, our German Shepherd, checking my progress with our short-wave radio. When our water supply failed, she took our laundry down to the Orinoco River to wash it and beat it out on the rocks.
When we moved to Colombia she comforted me after an airplane crash, nursed me through a bout of Typhoid fever and, when we were evicted, found us a new home.
During my years at Penn State, Barbara never complained about the poverty of grad school. She worked as an overnight nurse’s aide. She planted a productive garden in rocky soil. She sewed and patched clothes. Our 100-year-old house had no furnace so we bought a free-standing woodstove and Barbara helped me build a 30-foot-high cement-block chimney for it. On trash days, Barbara would lead the whole family out to scavenge the garbage cans and dumpsters. She made her own tortillas, except once, when she brought some hard taco shells home from a local garage sale. She linked us up with the local Christian and Missionary Alliance Church and directed their program for seniors. She took the lead in forming some of our life-long friendships.
We moved to Minnesota in 1982 where I taught at Bethel University. She painted and wallpapered our two-story colonial house and turned it into a home. We would drive at night up University Ave. to Main St. to gather what she called “used carrots,” discarded in a field by the green grocer. I would shine the headlights out over the field and she would dash out to fill a large bag with carrots while our kids would all bend down so their friends would not see them. She made ice cream with cream from a nearby Amish farm, churning it with ice that we harvested from our yard and crushed in a burlap bag. She frequently hosted students and faculty and linked us into a strong, loving network of friends. Barbara entered into the life of each church we attended and served them well—Sunday School superintendent at Good Shepherd Church and 28 years as a volunteer counselor in the North Heights counseling clinic.
In 1988 we uprooted our whole family to live for a year in Costa Rica where I taught in a missiological school. When I was caught in the eye of hurricane Joana in Bluefields, Nicaragua, she volunteered at a local shelter and awaited word from me. Several years later, she joined me for five months in northern England when I was a visiting fellow at Durham University. We explored Holy Island together, along with other wonders of the Celtic Christian world.
Barbara suffered through the many stories we told at her expense. For instance, the healing service where she said, “I wanted to go down for healing but if I got healed, I would never know what was causing it.” Like Mary Poppins, she was an Almost Perfect Person. We would joke that Lent was the hardest season of the year for her since she never could think of any sins to confess.
Barbara was the beating heart of our home. Always loyal to her husband. A sacrificial wife and mother, she fiercely fostered our social, emotional and spiritual development.
Her life motto was “To know Christ and to make him known.” She forgave people who hurt her, including her husband, and poured her life into her kids and grandkids. In the larger community, her charity was natural and unpretentious.
We lived Barbara’s last days in sacred time. In our own bed, I would hold her hand and speak my gratitude to her. Her condition waxed and waned and in the low times she would say, “I just want to go and be with Jesus.” Barbara was embarrassed at all the care we had to give her—the last words she spoke were “thank you.” She trusted in Christ and his death on her behalf and confidently looked forward to a resurrection when she would dwell in the house of her Lord forever. She died without regrets, with no unconfessed sin and with no unfinished business. It was a blessed death for her and a gift to all of us.
Barbara, I bow before your example, your faith and your service. You have distributed your rich gifts to many and now I release you to our Lord. May eternal light shine upon you.
Spreading your wings in a perplexing world October, 2024 James P. Hurd
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Contents
Writer’s Corner
Blessed Unbeliever
This month’s story
This month’s puzzler
WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
Tip for writers: Never use a metaphor you’ve heard before. If possible, invent your own.
Task for you: When you are reading, select a paragraph you love very much. Then write your own paragraph for your own purposes copying the ideas and structures in your model paragraph. In this way you benefit from the skills of other writers.
Book of the month: Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night. Originally published in 1936, this novel imagines a women’s college at Oxford University immersed in sinister doings. Harriet Vane, an alumna, is pressed into service to solve the crime. Sayers conducts us on a marvelous tour of Oxford and of the inner workings of the female mind, both student and professor. One of Sayers’ best. Other of her novels: The Nine Tailors, Whose Body?, Murder Must Advertise and Clouds of Witness.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Sean McIntosh left his Fundamentalist childhood and walked the road toward becoming an atheist—while attending Torrey Bible Institute. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out very well. Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New story: The Annual Physical
Doc: Now, let’s test your memory of elementary school. How do you spell Mississippi?
Me: The state or the river?
Doc: (pause) Never mind . . . Look, I want you to look at this clock face and I’ll tell you a time to draw on it. Could you draw the hands to indicate 10 minutes after 11?
Me: Would that be daylight time or standard time?
Doc: Well, it doesn’t really make any difference.
Me: AM or PM?
Doc: (pause) Either one.
Me: (I write the numbers: 11:10).
Doc: That’s correct, but I actually wanted you to draw the clock hands.
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This month’s puzzler (thanks to Car Talk archives)
Imagine, if you will…
There is a yacht tied to a dock in a harbor at dead low tide.
So, the tide begins to come in at two thirds of a foot per hour. It is a steady rate. So if you were in the harbor and you were measuring the rate of the tide, after a half hour, it would have come in a third of a foot.
The porthole on the side of the yacht is nine feet above the surface of the water.
How many minutes will it be before that distance is reduced from nine feet to seven and a half feet?
Good luck.
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
You remember the boy who wanted to carry his fishing pole aboard the bus, but was rejected because it was more than the allowable four feet long. How did the boy legally get on the bus with the five-foot fishing rod without breaking it or altering it and how did he do it legally?
Here is the answer.
He had a brilliant idea. He went back into the store and he asked them for an empty box that was 3 feet by 4 feet. And then, he put the fishing rod in the diagonal of the 3 by 4 foot box, which is exactly 5 feet.
So he was able to get on the bus with his 5 foot fishing rod, set in the diagonal of the 3 by 4 foot box!
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Wisdom
Social Media acronyms
ICYMI (in case you missed it)
IMHO (in my humble opinion)
LOL, LMAO, LMFAO (variants of laughing, including crude ones)
Spreading your wings in a perplexing world September, 2024 James P. Hurd
Please forward and share this Ezine with others. Thank you.
Please email comments or suggestions about this Ezine to: hurd@usfamily.net.
Contents
Writer’s Corner
Blessed Unbeliever
This month’s story
This month’s puzzler
WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
Wisdom
Writer’s Corner
Tip for writers: Ideally, the first paragraph of your story should do the following: 1. Introduce the main character(s), characters whom readers are willing to invest time getting to know, strong characters. 2. Give some idea of the world of the story: location, time period. 3. Hint at the main conflict or challenge. 4. Establish the tone of the story. 5. Fill the first paragraph with not only narrative or description; fill it with action.
Favorite metaphors: cow-flecked hills, moon with upturned horns, poster child for the human condition.
Book of the month: Isaac Azimov’s Foundation Series, 1950s. At some time in the distant future ships traveling faster than light ply the starry field of our Milky Way, knitting together several billion solar systems and quintillions of people The First Empire is destroyed and now it’s up to Hari Sheldon and the Foundation to construct a new empire. Nuclear blasters, mind control, a dangerous mutant—all this and more in a cosmic drama that unfolds across several millennia and the vast reaches of the galaxy.
BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel
Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.
New Story: The World of Center Street Elementary
September, 1946. Mother took my hand as we walked the dirt along Mr. Wheeler’s avocado orchard, turned to walk the three blocks of Culver Street, then crossed the playground toward Center Street school. I raised my eyes to view the enormous three-story wooden cube with its green-shingled hip roof and windows that stared out with unblinking eyes. I was excited about the classroom work but worried about meeting new kids. Mother pointed to a cave-like opening under the entrance stairs. “That’s the boys’ bathroom. The girls’ is on the other side; never go in there.” She said goodbye as I climbed the wooden steps to where Mrs. Brennan extended her carefully-tended white hand. She wore her greying hair up in a bun and her blue dress reached to her calves. I glanced behind me to see my mother disappearing across the playground. . . To read more, click here.
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This month’s puzzler (thanks to Car Talk archives)
An 11-year-old boy is standing at a bus stop in a very small town waiting for the #12 bus and holding his just-purchased fishing pole.
The bus finally arrives, but as the little boy begins to step up onto the bus, the bus driver stops him.
“You can’t get on here with that fishing rod,” the bus driver says.
“Why not?” the little boy asks.
“There’s a new city ordinance that prohibits anything—packages, bags or anything at all—being carried on the bus that’s longer than four feet. And that fishing rod is longer than four feet. I’m sorry.”
“Well, how am I supposed to get home?” the little boy asks.
“That’s your problem, kid. That fishing rod is five feet long, so you can’t ride the bus.Sorry,” says the bus driver.
So, the kid figures he will have to return the fishing rod, get his money back, so he can get home on the bus. He goes to the store, and the clerk tells him, “No refunds. Sorry kid. You’re stuck with it.”
So he’s stuck with the fishing rod and no way to get home because he can’t take a cab because it’s too expensive.
He walks back into the store again, realizing he can’t return it. He stands thinking for a second.
Five minutes later, he’s on the bus legally, riding home with the fishing rod, without altering it, breaking it, sawing it in half, or collapsing it.
He does nothing whatsoever to alter the fishing rod.
How does he do it?
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)
Answer to last month’s puzzler:
You recall Julie’s dad had five daughters: June, July, August and September. What was the fifth daughter’s name? The fifth daughter? Julie! (Please don’t unsubscribe; the puzzler will be harder next time.)
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Wisdom
Disappeared words
Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory when you read this and chuckle. Here are some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included: Don’t touch that dial; Carbon copy; You sound like a broken record; and Hung out to dry.
Eeyoring (being glum, despondent)
Mergatroyd ? Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word? “Heavens to Mergatroyd!”
The other day a not so elderly (I say 75) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her quizzically and said, “What the heck is a Jalopy?” He had never heard of the word “jalopy!” She knew she was old . . . but not that old.
Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie . We’d put on our best bib and tucker, to straighten up and fly right.
Heavens to Betsy!
Gee whillikers!
Jumping Jehoshaphat!
Holy Moley!
We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!
Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.
Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Or, “This is a fine kettle of fish!” We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.
Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone. Where have all those great phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper.
Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses.
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter’s Little Liver Pills are gone too!)
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth.
See ya later, alligator! Okey Dokey .
From the heart
Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited Until you try to sit in their pews.
Many folks want to serve God, But only as advisers.
The good Lord didn’t create anything without a purpose, But mosquitoes come close.
Opportunity may knock once, But temptation bangs on the front door forever.
We’re called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.
I don’t know why some people change churches; What difference does it make which one you stay home from?
Be ye fishers of men. You catch ’em – He’ll clean ’em.
Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.
God grades on the cross, not the curve.
He who angers you, controls you!
What more could we want than to be a healing presence in each other’s life?
The prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair. Walter Brueggemann
I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope from a mountain of despair. Martin Luther King Jr.
