SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

I haven't posted lately because I wanted to have something weighty to report on and I have a fairly mundane life. But our SS class has been learning a lot about a major Bible figure. David started out by defeating Goliath and playing the harp for Saul and seemed to be the great warrior and musician. But after Saul died and David became King of Israel he developed more personal characteristics. Last week we learned that he fought the surrounding enemies and consolidated the empire, he sought out Jonathon's crippled son, brought him to the palace, restored all of Saul's land to him and took care of him and his son who would have a claim on the throne because of being Saul's grandson.

But then he looked down from his palace and saw Bathsheba taking a bath. Now we learned that David had his human nature. He took Bathsheba to bed, she got pregnant, he had her husband killed in battle, married Bathsheba and God was so angry he caused their baby son to die to punish David. But he was forgiven had another son by Bathsheba named Solomon. We are looking forward to learning more about this poet, singer and ruler.

CREATION EVIDENCE MUSEUM

Nancy and I found the Creation Evidence Museum on my GPS as a tourist site nearby and drove to Glen Rose on Wednesday. We found it and it is closed Sundays and Wednesdays. We went back Thursday morning to view the exhibits and listen to their video about the fossil discoveries that show man and dinosaurs living concurrently. They hypothesize that before the flood man and dinosaurs lived together and their tracks were fossilized in the Paluxy river.

One of their experiments that I heard about years ago was to build a hyperbaric chamber to simulate the conditions prior to the flood to see how the climate conditions affected growth of plants and animals. They had a small chamber that found that the higher oxygen and carbon dioxide and pressures did change the venom of copperhead snakes and lengthened the life of fruit flies. They are building a much larger chamber and want to simulate the magnetic field as well as atmosphere. They ran out of money to buy the large amount of copper wire they need to wrap the chamber that is long (I would guess 50'). They need at least another $250,000. I didn't see an agressive plan to raise the money. They didn't even take the names of visitors or ask for contributions. I did buy a new book GEOLOGY IN THE BIBLE by Billy R. Caldwell, Ph.D., a professional geologist from Fort Worth. Someone I would like to know better.

Nancy's second hip replacement surgery is scheduled for September 30 and we are doing doctor's appointments until then.

PEACHES AND RACOONS

My peaches are getting ripe and yesterday a racoon family with three little coons came looking for dinner. They checked the tree with small peaches but came down and went up the tree with the large freestone peaches. I went out and yelled and a couple ran away but two stayed in the branches. I got my walking stick and started a battle. They didn't want to jump out. I hit one hard enough that he fell out and ran off. The other one took a lot of blows and wouldn't fall, so I quit and presume he came down. I had picked three bags of peaches off of that tree a week ago and it is still loaded with large peaches.

Then this morning about noon I looked out and a lower branch had broken off of the tree. It was loaded with large peaches. I got a large brown bag out and picked all the good looking peaches off the limb leaving those with little flaws for the coons. I hauled the limb out to the woods.

I then picked a bag of the small peaches that were easily pulled off. I gave them to Jeff Ramsey who is repainting my front porch. He spent the morning rebuilding a complete section of railing that was dangerous. I have really appreciated him coming to help. He does all sort of handyman work and has offered to weed-eat for me. I need to mow at the Halsell House lawn but didn't get to it today.

Nancy is walking better every day and walked up the stairs to look at the painting on the upper porch this afternoon. She will meet with her doctor Wednesday to discuss the hip replacement for the other leg. It is the one that hurts now when she walks. I will be involved with the Kiwanis District Convention in Abilene Friday and Saturday and she will have her son visiting her from Kansas this weekend.

When we were in Granbury last week we visited the Granbury Live auditorium and got the listing of the events. We ate lunch across the street at the Nutery?. That was after I took Nancy to Carswell Air Base to obtain a new military dependent ID card that she had misplaced. They took her photo and produced a plastic card that is indefinite in time and her photo looks good. I asked if I could get an ID card as a veteran and found out that you have to have 20 years service to get one. So much for my service in WWII and the Korean scrape. Of course I didn't get overseas so I don't count. And I didn't spend that many years in service. I did buy a GI bill farm as a perk. Got me started in owning West Texas land.