Founders Day | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on May 9, 2024:

After living in Rains County for thirteen years, I finally made it to Founders Day last weekend. It’s not that I didn’t want to attend the event, but Winnsboro always has a book festival the same weekend. They usually send out their invites early in the year, and I always signed up before I realized what I was missing right here in Emory. This year I checked my dates more carefully, and I’m very glad I did. Not only is the local event less expense and much closer, it confirmed once again why I’m glad I’m no longer a city girl.

Most vendors at these events are friendly. After all, we’re there to sell our wares, and people don’t tend to buy from grumpy sellers. And after you “work the circuit” for a few years, you get to know each other on a casual acquaintance level, but there’s not time to develop a deeper relationship. At Founders Day, though, it was like a family get-together. I knew some of the vendors from the Fair and other events, and I knew a lot more from church or the Senior Center or just from running into them at Brookshire’s.

The atmosphere at the festival was less commercial than some, partly because of the venue. When your table is set up right in front of the playground or right across the park from the bounce houses, it’s hard to get too serious about selling merchandise. In fact, many potential customers passed right by my books as they hurried to make sure a grandchild was safe on the climbing bars. But that was okay. I sold enough to cover my entry fee plus a little. I can always count on Marianne to buy at least one to replace a copy she has lent – or given – to a friend.

Kitty can still be entertaining | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on May 2, 2024:

After a couple of serious columns, I wanted to share something lighter. Although she doesn’t provide the writing material she did when she was a kitten, at nine years old Kitty still provides a line or two now and then.

One thing she hasn’t outgrown is her interest in the great outdoors. When I open the front door, she likes to sit by the storm door and gaze out, dreaming of her days of chasing lizards and climbing trees. And we still have to be careful when going in and out because, if she’s not napping somewhere, she sometimes tries to sneak out. In fact, she made it onto the porch twice in the last couple of weeks, although she never made it onto the ground.

The first time she became so interested in sniffing the steps that I walked up behind her and picked her up. When she was younger, she would have dashed between the steps and continued her olfactory investigations out of my reach. But this time she submitted to being carried until we were almost inside. She struggled and hissed a bit but never hit me with tooth or claw. In the next escape, she never made it past the porch. I was watering flowers so all I had to do was block the steps and shoo her back inside while David held the door open.

What does it all mean? by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on April 25, 2024:

Pastor Jason is taking us through Ecclesiastes in a sermon series titled “Life After Eden.” Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon who succeeded his father David as King of Israel. After his coronation, Solomon took all the leaders of Israel to the tabernacle and offered a huge burnt offering. God was so pleased with him that He appeared that night and said, “Ask what I shall give you.” This young ruler, realizing the huge task that was in front of him, asked for wisdom to rule the kingdom. God not only granted his request but threw in riches, possessions, and honor.

Throughout his reign, Solomon became world famous as the wisest man who ever lived and also the richest. And yet he wasn’t satisfied. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon recorded his personal search for the meaning of life. In Chapter 1 he used his wisdom to keep from going off the deep end, but he tried personal pleasure, entertainment, personal achievement, attaining possessions, and women without finding the answer. In Chapter 2 he reflected on the benefits of wisdom over folly as well as his frustration about leaving everything he had worked for to someone else. He hit rock bottom and expressed a hatred for life, and then he saw a glimmer of truth. He realized that the material things of life are gifts from God meant to be enjoyed in the moment, but true meaning was found in something else.

I look forward to hearing Solomons final conclusions in the rest of the series, but in the meantime, I spent some time thinking about Solomon’s dilemma. Spoiler alert: in the end, he found an answer to his questions, but we have records of others who have continued to search for meaning and satisfaction in life.

I remember reading “The Fisherman and His Wife” when I was a kid. It’s a German fairy tale first published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. It’s about a very poor fisherman and a very dissatisfied wife. One day he catches a fish that turns out to be an enchanted prince. The fish assures him that he wouldn’t taste very good, so the fisherman releases him. When he tells his wife what happened, she is furious and sends him back to ask for a wish. She wants a pretty little cottage in place of the shack they live in. Reluctantly, the man goes back, and the prince grants her wish. Of course, she’s not happy, so she sends her husband back to ask for more and more. When she finally asks to rule over the sun and the moon, she finds herself back in the shack where she started. She not only failed to find the satisfaction she sought, but she also lost everything she had gained. 

The Eclipse | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on April 18, 2024:

North Texas hadn’t experienced a total solar eclipse from the perspective we saw on April 8 since 1878, and we won’t experience being in the path of totality again until the year 2317. I don’t know about you, but I probably won’t be around to see that one.

Total solar eclipses aren’t all that unusual. The events happen every one to three years but are usually only visible from the North or South Pole or from the middle of the ocean. The recent eclipse was notable for its wide path of visibility from Maine straight through Texas and on through Mexico. The longest duration of totality was 4 minutes and 28.13 seconds in Nazas, Durango, but Emory was not far behind with a 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

Expectations were high that this once in a lifetime event would bring an influx of visitors that would overrun the limited resources of our little town. Some thought that would be a good thing – others, not so much. Businesses prepared for larger than normal crowds by expanding hours while schools and other organizations closed to allow families to view the eclipse together. Large parties were planned and parking lots were blocked to keep out uninvited campers.

Libraries have been around a LONG time | by Linda Brendle

Published by the Rains County Leader on April 11, 2024:

Libraries, or at least collections of written records of all kinds, have apparently been around since – well, since written records have been around. Ruins of a Babylonian temple from the 3^rd millennium BC included a stash of clay tablets in several rooms that are believed to have been a library of sorts. Either that or they had a big supply of office supplies. A thousand years later Assyrian clay tables were found in Egypt, and the last great king of Assyria who reigned around 650 BC had a library of around 25,000 tablets.

Sir Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman who lived from 1561 to 1626, is credited with the quote knowledge is power. As a side note, there is some evidence that he wrote some lighter works under the pen name of William Shakespeare, but that’s still a matter of dispute among those who know about such things. Some ancient rulers apparently shared Bacon’s belief about power because they often destroyed the records of rulers they defeated. One Chinese emperor, Shih huang-ti, a member of the Ch’in dynasty, took this idea so seriously that he destroyed all previous historical records so history would seem to begin with his dynasty.

Of course, the Greek philosophers were the champions of knowledge, spending most of their time thinking and talking about thinking. They probably also spent a lot of time writing about what they thought and collecting those writings. Several Greek collections are mentioned in the history of libraries, with the most famous collection having been amassed and organized by Aristotle. Copies of writings he collected formed the basis of the famous library in Alexandria which is believed to have held over 700,000 volumes at some point. The history of this library is rather jumbled. When I was in school, we were taught that Julius Caesar burned the library as part of a military action, but no one seems to be able to confirm or deny that through archaeological findings. In fact, some sources say they can find no evidence that the library existed.

The Ark Encounter | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on April 4, 2024:

It’s hard to believe that I began writing about our trip to Kentucky a month ago and am just now getting to the main attraction of the trip – the Ark itself. We spent two days at the Ark and could easily have spent another day or two.

Before we left home, one of my friends who had already made the trip told me that one of her most memorable experiences was as the shuttle bus from the parking lot rounded a curve and she got her first full view of the Ark. You can read the dimensions of the huge vessel – 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high – and you can look at pictures and videos, but until you see it for yourself, you can’t really comprehend the enormity of it. The marketing material calls it a modern engineering marvel, but the real marvel is how Noah accomplished his task without the benefit of the internal combustion engine. That and how to photograph something of that size with a device that fits in your shirt pocket.

We arrived at the welcome center just in time to watch a thirty-minute video called “The Building of the Ark Encounter.” which answered a lot a lot of our questions but raised even more. Like the Museum, the Ark contains fascinating displays with lots of explanatory reading. Our group was usually spread out with the guys being first through any given section, me being third, and Fawncyne bringing up the rear. Robert wanted me to point out that this was because she read every single word of every display. I was third simply because I’m a slow reader.

God Provides | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on March 28, 2024:

One of the rotating duties of the deacons at Believers’ Baptist is to set up the table for The Lord’s Supper. That ordinance is usually celebrated on the fourth Sunday of each month, and this month the duty fell to David – and since we’re joined at the hip, I always help. Normally we set up on Thursday when the church is already open, but we were visiting my brother last week, so we left Conway, Arkansas after breakfast on Saturday and drove straight to the church when we arrived in Emory. We managed to disarm the system and unlock the door without setting off the alarm, and we brought in the mail that included a box from Christianbook.com.

Serving the Lord’s Supper has become more complicated since COVID with its concerns about spreading germs through dirty hands and so forth. BBC’s first solution was the prefilled cups that are double sealed with a plastic cover over the wafer and a foil cover over the juice. This was sanitary enough, but the noise of the plastic and foil were distracting, not to mention those times when someone struggled to open the cup, especially if that someone was the pastor. In addition, the cups were too large to fit into the holes in the tray inserts. We tried removing the inserts and setting the cups on the bottom of the tray, but some of them refused to stay upright. Regardless of how carefully they were arranged, they ended up in a jumble by the time the tray was passed around making it difficult to pick up just one.

We tried the cups that are shaped like a chalice with the juice in the top and the bread in the bottom. The cups were sealed on both ends with a “silent” peel-back lid that reduced the noise. The problem with these cups was that, if you tried to use them in the inserts, they were too small and rattled around, making more racket than the foil lids. And if you arranged them on the bottom of the tray, they all tipped over and made a bigger jumble than the first ones. Then someone came up with a safe way to use the original plastic cups that were made to fit in the tray inserts.

The Creation Museum | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on March 21. 2024:

After three columns, I’m finally ready to tell you about Wednesday, the sixth day of our nine-day trip to Kentucky and the day we finally made it to the Creation Museum. It was a chilly, windy day with a fine mist in the air that threatened to put a damper on the day (pun intended). Since the school year had not yet ended and because most tourists prefer to tour in shorts and t-shirts, we were able to park close and get through the security line in record time. But the winding walkway that later in the year will be lined with decorative plants and flowers felt like a wind tunnel. Even Fawncyne, who had talked about zip lining since she discovered that The Ark Encounter includes Zip Line and Canopy Adventure Tours, conceded that flying through the canopy wouldn’t be much fun under present conditions. All we could think of was getting inside where hopefully it would be warm, but as soon as we rushed through the door, the weather was forgotten.

We were handed a museum map and guide along with the day’s events, but the exhibits are laid out to more or less lead you through the experience. We worked our way through the Dragon Legends and were amazed at how similar some of the descriptions were to several references in the Bible. Then we met the Burning Tree Mastodon, a cast of a skeleton found in Newark, Ohio about twenty years ago. There was also a large aquarium incorporated into a natural-looking setting with a couple of animatronic squirrels and a young person “fishing.” This exhibit was a favorite of children of all ages.

The main exhibit is basically a tour through the Bible from Creation in Genesis to the Second Coming in Revelation. The descriptions of the displays are fascinating with lots of explanations that give both the biblical and secular views of what you’re seeing. Some of the more scientific sections – like the part about carbon dating and other methods of determining the age of fossils – were over my head. But the Garden of Eden with life-sized plants, animals, and Adam and Eve were attractive to all ages. The Museum is both entertaining and educational as evidenced by groups of students who were on a “working” tour, taking notes and filling out question sheets. In addition to the displays, there were videos and live lectures that added even more understanding.

The first video we saw wasn’t in one of several theaters but was projected on a brick wall in a kind of rest area between exhibits. The film was like an animated graffiti presentation or an old-fashioned chalk talk. In five minutes we were taken through the Creation, the Fall, and the Crucifixion. Later in the day we visited the 4D Special Effects Theater where we experienced not only three-dimensional visuals of Creation but also the stormy wind of the flood and the rough landing of the Ark. 

The designers of the Museum gave a lot of thought and effort to the comfort of their guests. Restrooms were conveniently located throughout the building and Noah’s Café offered tasty and affordable lunch options. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked for a courtesy cup for water and was given a full-sized cup rather than the tiny ones most fast-food places offer. There were also smaller shops that offered coffee, ice cream, and other snacks. I don’t know how affordable they were because, although Robert bought each of us a treat for one of the lectures, I said thank you and didn’t ask how much it cost. 

The lecture involved some unusual insects and spiders which they displayed live. If you’ve read my column for any length of time, you know that bugs are not among my favorite creatures. But they had close-up cameras with large screens so you could get a good look at what they were talking about without getting up close and personal.

Several people have asked what my favorite part of the experience was. That’s like asking me to choose my favorite book or my favorite child. Well, maybe not the last one since I only have one son. Toward the end of our day at the Museum, we discovered a new feature that had recently been added – a sanctity-of-life exhibit call Fearfully & Wonderfully Made (Psalm 139). It was an unexpectedly emotional experience to see four-times life-sized three-dimensional models of what my son looked like during my pregnancy. 

Aside from that very personal moment, I think my favorite part of both venues of The Ark Encounter was the people who work there. They were all friendly and seemed genuinely happy to be there. They never seemed irritated at hearing the same question for probably the thousandth time, and they went out of their way to be helpful. At one point we found ourselves turned around and asked a passing employee for directions. She didn’t give us directions. Instead she led us downstairs and through a short cut, chatting cheerfully the entire way. That being said, when I write about the Ark, I may make a liar out of myself about favorite things. Once I get started talking about what we saw there, I have trouble finding a stopping point.

Blessings

Linda

Homeschooling vs. Public Education | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on March 14, 2024:

Two weeks ago I mentioned that our trip to Kentucky with Robert and Fawncyne began with a two-day stop in Frisco to watch one of their grandsons play in a basketball tournament. What I didn’t mention is that said grandson, along with his siblings, is homeschooled, and the tournament was an activity of the HCYA (Homeschool Christian Youth Association), a support organization in the Houston area.

The Friday games were already over by the time we arrived, but that evening we all went to a minor league basketball game. The grandson’s team sat behind us, and although they were loud and annoying at times, I never heard any cursing, vulgarity, or any of the negativity that is so common in today’s society, especially among the youth. And according to Robert and Fawncyne, they are always polite and respectful and always address adults as Ma’am and Sir.

On Saturday, David and I borrowed the red Charger to drive to Carrollton for a visit with former neighbors Peggy and James (no police involved in this outing), but Fawncyne described the atmosphere of the game to me. Before the game, the players, coaches, and referees formed a circle in the middle of the court, alternating opposing team members. They all put their arms around each other’s shoulders and prayed. She said the games were very physical with an all-out effort from both teams. There were frequent collisions that ended with one or more players on the floor, but all the players helped each other up, even if they were on the other team.

On the Road Again, Part 2| by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on March 7, 2024:

Last week I wrote about the first two days of our trip with our friends Robert and Fawncyne to visit the Creation Museum and the Ark in Kentucky. Days three and four were equally eventful.

Monday morning, we set out after another complimentary breakfast buffet that totally blew away our normal routine of intermittent fasting. Just outside of Nashville, David said, “Now I have a police car behind me.” He pulled over amid confused comments of what he could have been doing wrong. A nice young officer approached the car on the passenger side, and Robert lowered his window.

“How are y’all doing today?” he asked.

Robert laughed and replied, “Fine until you stopped us.”

The officer smiled back and said, “Don’t worry. No one’s getting a ticket today.”