Truth and Grace Above All Else

The fire bell is ringing My younger years were spent adventuring and finding out all my town had to offer. My brother and I would ride our bikes around town and go to the local candy store to buy Snickers and other sugary goodies. On many of these adventures our next door neighbor would join us or they might even take place on his property. We would build forts, talk about baseball, try and dig to the center of the earth with a post hole digger, create massive piles of wood for bonfires and throw boomerangs the wrong way so that they wouldn't come back.  Anytime that we would go over to our neighbors house we would have to ask permission to do so from our parents. Usually when both of us would go over to our friends house it was because we had some crazy project in mind. On this particular day, our father was working on an old fire bell. Something was wrong with the mechanism that actuated the hammer to hit the bell. Both of us asked permission to go over our friends hou...

Playing the right notes I was told a few years ago that I am one of the most eclectic people this person had ever met. I had to look up what the word meant, but after doing so it gave me a sense of accomplishment. The reason this guy told me that I was really eclectic was because I carried around an instrument that very seldom is recognized. The instrument is called an ocarina. It is a wind instrument that is made of ceramic. The ocarina is a very strange instrument to hold and play because it is not conventionally shaped. I own what is called a, "potato ocarina". This is because it is literally shaped like a potato. The ocarina was just small enough that it fit into my backpack so I could carry it everywhere I went. I didn't have to worry about it breaking because of its design and shape.     When playing the ocarina, you have to contort your hands in a very strange way in order to cover the air holes properly while also holding it in place on your lips. It to...