Dear Lord,
Thank You!!
You’ve allowed me to live in the greatest country in the world for a grand total of 86 years as of today. In jest, I’ve stated that I’ve gotten to St Peter’s gate a few times since September, 2000; but he always sent me back, saying, “I’m not finished with your Sitcom yet, so go back home to family and friends and do good things.”
That order is not easy and I’ve slipped up a bunch, usually with words comin “out my mouth”. LOL.
Lord, I do hope you have a great sense of humor and can forgive my poor attempts at levity. My latest sitcom example of my weakness was just yesterday.
I had a minor tantrum with the front desk of our celebration hotel, The Daytona Hilton Oceanfront in Daytona Beach. I had called Room Service to get ice and glasses sent to our room. They didn’t answer, so I clouded up and rained all over the front desk about it.
Only to find out later that Housekeeping took care of such menial requests as ice and glasses. They answered almost immediately when I asked the right people. Oops. I hope they don’t ask us to leave. Seinfeld would be proud of me.

Getting back to my prayer of thanks.

After the gift of longevity that you granted me, I thank you most for my wonderful family and great friends.

First, of course, for my absolute miracle wife, Marjorie, who has loved, helped, protected and put up with me for over 60 and 1/2 years. She is our family “rock star”. Her loving patience, perseverance, kindness and achievement, in spite of almost constant pain from arthritis and other physical challenges, are miraculous.
Thank You from the bottom, top and middle of my artificially beating heart, for allowing me to have her as my life partner and loving wife.

For our three children, Christine, Jim and Jeffrey who continue to make us so proud.
Thanks for helping Christine decide to come back to Charleston and allowing me the privilege of helping her a bit in raising our superb grandson, Joshua. Josh and his lovely bride, Ciera, are now living in Robinson, Illinois and You have blessed them with two children, Lucy and Harrison, our great grandchildren.
We so look forward to seeing them at Folly Beach July 12-19. Grandma Christine will also be ecstatic.

Thank You so much for my editor, son Jim. Wow! What a source of chest thumping pride he is for me and his Mom.
A super model of husband to his lovely wife, our daughter-in-law and dear friend, Kiersten.
An absolutely outstanding dad to his three, that’s right, three, beautiful, so accomplished daughters, Sydney, Erin and Caroline. Thank you so much for letting me stick around above ground long enough to witness their many successes.
Sydney graduated from Luther College and has been able to continue to work in her beloved art of music, while passing her skills to other young folks as a school band director and educator.
She is married to Tristan, who is also a music educator, as a band director, albeit at a different school in Austin, Texas. Yep, they are competitors.
Marjorie and I were so blessed to be able to attend their beautiful wedding ceremony.
Erin has also graduated from college. She is working in her chosen skill as an cultural anthropologist (I think). She is not totally satisfied with her long hours and time away from home. She still strives to participating in her love of the marching arts, but as an outlet rather than a vocation. Even though she is still searching for her true calling, I’m sure of one thing–she will excel at whatever path she chooses My beautiful and talented Erin.

Caroline, our youngest granddaughter, is already a teacher. She is teaching middle school youngsters about World History. Wow. I’d be happy to talk to her about it anytime cause I witnessed a bunch of it in 86 years. Of course that’s like a grain of beach sand when compared to World History.
Our three beautiful granddaughters are a continuing source of pride, for which we are eternally grateful, Lord.

Our youngest son, Jeffrey has not shirked his duties to make us continually proud. He lives in Oregon with his lovely wife, Angela, and their super successful son, our youngest grandson, Apollo. That’s right. Apollo, the sun God.
Jeff has worked in Portland for several years now serving his city in the ever continuing social endeavor to keep our young people on track to become productive, accomplished citizens. No end to that job, unfortunately. Specifically, he tries to find productive employment for juvenile sex offenders.
If he can sell that, he can sell anything. He’s had many successes, but many efforts don’t succeed.
While doing that. He served several years as caregiver to Angela, who has been very ill with a rare form of endometriosis, which kept her bedridden for years.
Thanks to You, Lord, she is doing much better now and is actively pursuing a medical degree We are so proud of her as well. Jeffrey has every reason to be proud of himself. We sure are.
As for Apollo, he has been “awesome”. He is cruisin through an Electrical Engineering program on full scholarship from Oregon State. A senior soon, he has been accepted for a prestigious internship. We are so very proud of him, even though geography has pretty much kept us apart.

Lord, these are but a few of the many things I am thankful to you for, on this 86th birthday of mine. Please continue to bless this wonderful family of mine and our many other family members and friends not mentioned in this short prayer. Enuf for now.