A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope all who are reading this have had a very merry Christmas and that you have a healthy and happy New Year. I also hope that you keep the spirit of Christ Jesus with you into the new year remembering that at Christmas we celebrate his birth and that we keep his message of peace in our hearts at all times.

I hope that Oakmont grows and prospers in the coming year and that we as a town and a nation can put ourselves back on a path that will be beneficial to our fellow citizens and our children and grand children. God bless.

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas has been wonderful so far to day. I have all of my children and both grand children here for most of the afternoon and we all attended services at church this evening arriving home just about half an hour ago. The grand kids are playing a new game on the Wii and having a good time. God has blessed my family and life is good. I hope you all have a blessed Christmas and I hope that you keep all of our service men and women in your hearts and prayers. God bless them and their families.

We all knew it had to come

Well we have been very lucky here in Oakmont and the Allegheny Valley for the last several years. We haven't had a winter like those I remember as a kid growing up for some time and it looks, depending on your point of view, that the luck has run out. The photo is of my lovely wife Linda out clearing the walks and digging out the car this morning. I have already had posting on Face Book scolding me for making her clear the walks and I hate to wimp out but my heart currently put show shoveling off limits to me. Maybe I'll buy her a snow blower for Christmas! :-)

I was born after the big snow of 1950 and all I heard about growing up was how much snow we got that winter and how long it lasted. According to my parents there was a flag pole in the base ball field across from our house where the borough dumped the snow that they plowed from the streets. According to family legend that year snow was piled up till only the ball at the top of the flag pole was visible. Further more, there was still a small pile of snow that had not yet melted at the base of the pole in late May.

Some folks call it an "old fashioned" winter and they love it. Me, I have never enjoyed winter not even as a child. I did like the thrill of sled riding on some of the steep hills that surrounded the area I grew up in. Unlike some kids I didn't have to travel out into the county to have a terrific down hill sledding experience. I only had to have someone posted to watch for traffic when I zoomed across an intersection and out on the ball field.

Even so, I never enjoyed being cold and wet. I had no desire to build snow men, snow caves or engage in snow ball fights. I did manage to get into a few snow ball battles on the way home from school a few times though.

I have always thought of snow as something that if you had to describe it to someone that you should have to take a book down from the shelf and show them a picture. Or if you were so inclined you could travel into higher elevations and "visit" it if you were struck with an overwhelming desire to do so.

This often makes me wonder why I have chosen to spend the bulk of my life in the Pittsburgh area. I suppose the love of family and the feeling of being "home" has been stronger than my distaste for standing ankle deep in slush while scraping ice off my car windows so that I could get to work. Don't let me dissuade you. Pittsburgh in general is a great place to live and Oakmont is about as ideal a small town as you could wish for. It looks like however from all of the predictions that have come from the local weather prognosticators that we are in for "typical" Pittsburgh winter this year and I guess I will just have to endure it with a smile.

I'm sorry............

This isn't going to sound very "Christian" of me especially at this time of the year but I just have to rant. While getting back to health I have been working from home for a while now and I usually have the television on most of the time tuned to the Fox News Channel. One of the main stories that was reported on during the entire day was about the search for some climbers who were stuck somewhere up on Mt. Hood one of the loftier peaks in this great country.

One of their companions has already been discovered having lost his life for his endeavors to reach the summit of this mountain. I am deeply sorry for this man and his friends and family that he has died. If the same fate befalls his companions further up the mountain I will also say a prayer for their families and be saddened by their grief.

What gets me upset is that so many other people will now put their lives and limbs at risk in an effort to go up and save these guys who chose on their own to take on this very hazardous hobby. In my youth I have done some things for the thrill of it which in retrospective were not particularly intelligent and most of them I don't regret. However, when I did these things the only hide I was risking was my own.

I think the fact that we have organized units of rescue personal that are on stand by to go and retrieve these adventures that climb mountains or go deep into caves and suddenly find they are unable to extract themselves from the place that the have gotten into is not only ridiculous but immoral. I think they should add to the adrenalin rush when they start that journey knowing that if they find themselves stuck several thousand feet above the earth in a snow pack that they will either get back on their own or that conditions permitting someone will come in the spring and reclaim their bodies for popper burial.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem what so ever pulling out all of the stops and doing anything necessary to rescue a lost child or elderly person. A family traveling a well known route that finds themselves stuck by a sudden snow storm or similar circumstances. These however are people who did not deliberately set out to put themselves in harms way. I even understand those that feel that they have to climb the mountain "because its there" and God bless them if they are able to do it. I just don't want to see other people die in the process and to a lesser extent I don't want to pay tax dollars to maintain crews and equipment some of which is very expensive to pull these folks back from the breach when needed.

Like I said not a very kind thought really any time of the year but it is just one of those things that push my buttons especially when it becomes a national news story. That is my 1.835 cents on the matter feel free to comment.

Where the heck have you been?

I'm sure all of the readers of this blog, both of you, have been wondering where I disappeared to. I have been on somewhat of a hiatus for a number of reasons. My work schedule has been increasing exponentially for some time now and shows no sign of letting up.

I have had a number of health issues some minor and some serious that have thrown me off track and has taken some time to bounce back from. I am doing better right now than I have been for several months but still have some issues to face.

My point being that it is not that I haven't had anything to say, to the contrary I have some very strong opinions on things that have been happening in our town and our country. I have just had a great deal of difficulty getting myself to the keyboard to put my thoughts into writing. So I will try to post some things of interest here that I hope will give readers something to ponder as they go through their day.

God bless the family of Officer Crawshaw

Tragedy has once again struck a Pittsburgh area police department a fact that I am sure all of you are aware of by now.

Office Mike Crawshaw of the Penn Hills Police Department will be laid to rest today as he is honored by his fellow police officers and emergency workers from all over the nation. At a time when we are normally looking forward to a joyous season with the advent of celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ his family, friends and fellow officers find themselves filled with grief at his loss.

The only words that I can write to offer comfort at this time is to say that I am assuming from news reports that Officer Crawshaw was a Christian and the only solace that we can take is knowing that his soul is now in God's hands.

I pray that God will also comfort his family and fellow officers as they morn the loss of their son and friend. I also hope that members of the Penn Hills community and the Pittsburgh area will give thought to the men and women that protect our cities and towns everyday. They are unsung heroes in the everyday world until such a tragedy strikes and the dangers they face and the sacrifices they make are brought to the cold light of day.

Please keep Officer Crawshaw's family and all of our emergency personal in your prayers.