Ramblings Of An Old Codger

By Larry Edwards

"You'll understand when you grow up." "Just wait until you have kids." "Well, when I was a kid..." "Just do as I say." "You're going to thank me for this someday." Gap: a space between two people or things; a hole or space where something is missing. (Merriam-Webster) Generation Gap: the difference in opinions, values, etc. between young and older people. (Merriam-Webster) Generation gaps are timeless. The first one was probably between Adam and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel. Occasionally, this gap is used to transmit wisdom from one generation to the next as it was intended. Solomon, possibly the wisest man who ever lived, gave us a whole book of the Bible called Proverbs for the purpose of bridging the wisdom gap between his generation and the next. But even after writing 9,921 profound words, the next generation ended up a divided nation and eventually were conquered. So apparently, a lot of wise words from a really smart guy is no guarantee that one generation will listen and learn from their predecessors. But that didn't stop this author from trying. Instead of just shaking his head and saying, "Kids today!" Larry has consolidated his thoughts and observations of life into a set of "ramblings," sometimes "tongue in cheek," often humorously, but always with the intent to "pass on" practical insights and attitudes to his offspring. Larry admits his error in realizing his duty to "pass on" vital life or death truths came late in his life, but better late than never. This plain, ordinary old dad extols readers to learn from him and to determine to begin their own set of "ramblings." Our original Father even commands us to "pass it on" in Deuteronomy 6:6. Who knows, there may be some people still willing to listen to "an old codger."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645151173

Larry Edwards

Larry Edwards is a classically trained chef and internationally renowned food writer. He is the author of Edwardian Cooking, Style and Spice, and The American Table. His recipes have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the National Examiner. He lives and works in Tucson, Santa Fe, and San Francisco.

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Ramblings Of An Old Codger

Larry Edwards

Copyright © 2019 by Larry Edwards

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Last Chapter or the Opening Chapter

Retirement

American Exceptionalism

Holidays

Funerals

Creation/Evolution

Marriage

Family

Faith and the Scriptures

My Testimony

Making Scripture Personal

Miscellaneous Ramblings

This book is dedicated to

I hesitate to dedicate this book to anyone because it may make them culpable in my propagation of mindless and controversial ramblings.

I have not allowed family and friends to read ‘Ramblings" at any point in the organizing process of my writing, even though many of them have heard much of it at various times. The reason for this clandestine publication process is to keep my thoughts pure and undiluted and not influenced by more reasonable and intelligent input from others. In this way no one can be accused of being complicit in spreading my drivel.

My wife and family are the most deserving of receiving this book’s dedication since for many years they have encouraged me to write a book, and they have unknowingly provided much of my source material.

I can sense that my wife, however, is concerned about the release of this book. How many people will he embarrass? Will it cause family derision? Will I be able to go out in public anymore? etc.

Regardless of the public response caused by this book I know they will support me. If it turns out to be less than positive they can use the argument…..What did you expect? It’s just the Ramblings of an Old Codger."

Thanks Rita and the rest of you guys……..and……. I’m sorry.

Larry (the old codger)

Introduction

Ramblings of an Old Codger…and how he sees things after seventy-some years of experiencing life.

Codger (noun)—an elderly man, especially one who is old fashioned or eccentric

If I had it to do over again… is often said when we regret our past failures. Whether or not we would actually do things differently depends on our motivation. We don’t usually have a chance to do things over, so it doesn’t matter if we would make changes or not unless our desire is to help other people gain from our experiences. This is my feeble attempt at doing just that. The fulfillment of that purpose may not be immediately evident to the reader, and it may seem incongruous.

These pages are a collection of my thoughts and observations concerning my life and life in general. Most things I have written were written for my own benefit to organize my thoughts and notes from my reading, study, and contemplation of other things I have seen and heard or things I wished to share with family and friends or just to relieve my frustrations concerning things I feel helpless to change. My overriding motive for compiling my writings is to condense the contents of my desk drawer containing these ramblings into one binder so that after my wife and I are gone, my kids won’t look at the drawer and say, What do we do with this? Possibly, a neat binder will make them feel guilty enough to at least skim through it before throwing it in the dumpster. My ramblings are not educational from a scholastic point of view. My factual research is shallow in many areas, and I have borrowed from the research of smarter and more dedicated writers. Everyone has opinions, and thanks to social media, almost everyone has a simple way of expressing their opinions. Unfortunately, most of these opinions have not seemed to have been given much thought before being shared with the world. I too have been guilty of knee-jerk expressions of half-baked responses to issues of the day. While there may be value in getting it off your chest and you may get likes from like-minded Facebook friends it seldom changes anyone’s point of view. In fact, it usually only instigates a war of words ending in both sides of an issue being even more polarized. I found myself getting caught up in this with a high school classmate whom I consider a friend but with whom I disagree politically. Rather than jeopardize our friendship, I unfriended her, and we agreed to disagree.

So what is the difference, if any, between being opinionated and having strong convictions? Having sometimes been accused of being opinionated, I have been forced to recognize the difference and to do some soul searching and determine in which category my ramblings belong. Opinions are like appendix. Most people have one, but they are mostly useless. Convictions are beliefs you can and should build your life around. I’ve tried to weed out my unsubstantiated opinions and only include those convictions founded on facts or at least common sense. But my opinions may have slipped in from time to time. The value of someone taking the time to read my ramblings may be measured by responses ranging from That was a complete waste of time to Yeah. That puts things in a different perspective, and it makes more sense now.

There is no chronological or progressive order to my ramblings, so do not feel obligated to read from front to back. You don’t have to feel guilty skipping to the last page to see how it comes out because I have put the last chapter at the beginning. Therefore, you won’t be disappointed since there is no ending anyway. My purpose is not to answer all questions about a particular topic but only to stimulate your thinking so that you can begin your own ramblings. This is in light of our modern government-sponsored education system, which has almost made independent thinking extinct substituting information and facts for critical thinking. I will get into this in more detail later.

I have earmarked some of my ramblings by assigning a [crotchety alert] to help you prioritize your reading. A crotchety alert you may want to skip until you’ve nothing better to do since they provide very little social or spiritual value.

Crotchet (noun)—a perverse or unfounded belief or notion

Crotchety (adverb)—irritable; bad-tempered; grumpy; grouchy; short-tempered; crabby; cranky; cantankerous; testy; peevish; etc.

If some of my writings seem repetitive, remember—these are ramblings. I have tried to eliminate most duplications, but others I have retained in order to maintain the thought. I have tried to assemble my ramblings coherently, but senility has already begun and…what was I saying? Oh, yeah. If you don’t understand where I am going with a particular point or it doesn’t make sense at all, don’t think that I am writing over your head. It was probably just that it was past my naptime.

Before We Get Started… Let’s Set the Record Straight

They say there are two things you shouldn’t talk about when making polite conversation—politics and religion. Then it is a good thing this book isn’t polite conversation because it is full of both taboos. Not that I am expecting to convert you to either my religion or my political ideology, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I believe that, in this era of seemingly diametrically opposed views, it is important that more people take the time to think about what they believe. It is very easy to have our thinking swayed by emotional rhetoric given by gifted speakers who usually have an agenda they are purveying.

It’s easy to go off half-cocked and engage our mouths before putting our brains in gear, resulting in proof to anyone who may have suspected that we truly are a fool. After you read my ramblings, you may determine that I resemble that remark. But I hope you catch my drift and understand that I realize the world doesn’t’ revolve around me, and it is possible I might be off base. I admit this even though I thought I made a mistake once, but I think I was wrong.

Clichés are colorful and spice up a conversation and, if we don’t get the cart before the horse, can be useful in hitting the nail on the head and proving a point. My point is instead of shooting from the hip, it is wise to do more listening than talking and to organize your thoughts before exposing them to the world. I’ve found that by writing my thoughts down on paper, it forces me to analyze before I verbalize. This saves me the embarrassment of immortalizing my half-baked ideas. Once loose words pass your lips, your credibility slips.

You may be more comfortable using a keyboard and computer than a pencil and paper, but whatever transcribing device you choose, I encourage you to convert your thoughts to a visible medium. Looking at your thoughts and reading them to yourself helps you to consider what you really think and to make any needed adjustments. No one need ever see what you have written, but the exercise will stretch your brain, give you confidence in conversing with people and, if nothing else, keep you from staring at the mind-numbing boob-tube for a little while.

As you read my simple ramblings, consider the source. They weren’t written by a Rhodes Scholar, or a man of the collar, but a man from the holler. Just a down-home dumb butcher who has lived a lot of years, shed a few tears, kicked a few rears but never drank beers. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I know where to find the ones that are important. I am on a crusade for the truth. I’m not alone. There are many like-minded people who are silently seething because of the popular lies that are being forced upon us, undermining our moral, ethical, and spiritual underpinnings. Instead of being made to feel guilty for being intolerant of alternative viewpoints, people who know there is a standard of truth are waking up. There is a new kind of truth being peddled, especially to our youth. This pseudo-truth is flexible. It conforms to the situation and the individual and is disguised as your truth. It is in the mind of the holder. This truth is fake and is causing irreparable damage to our society. There is only one truth and it never changes. Find it! And share it…before it’s too late!

The Last Chapter or the Opening Chapter

Notice

Read this chapter first if (1) you are a self-motivated, pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps, I-am-a-rock kind of person. Congratulations! I hope you are finding success in all your endeavors. Hopefully, you have support of like-minded people who help each other meet their goals. Team building at your work may keep you motivated, even during periods of personal stagnation or unrealized objectives. We were not built to go it alone. We all need at least one other person, possibly a spouse, to keep us focused. I am, by nature, a loner. In my business, I had to learn to involve other people. I am more comfortable doing everything myself. In the beginning, I had to do most everything because I couldn’t afford to pay many employees. But I was also proud to be building the business by myself. (I’ll tell you what I learned about pride in a later chapter.) I eventually learned to include other people in my plans—not just employees but also fellow business people who shared common interests and concerns.

But unfortunately, even though other people can help us build and maintain our dreams and ambitions, they all have one thing in common—they all have their own faults and failings, and over-reliance on other mortals often leads to disappointment in them and discouragement in us.

Whether or not you consider yourself religious, it is good to consider searching for a higher power or source of strength to assist your five senses in interpreting and responding to a sometimes confusing world. Regardless of the source, it is a fact that the couple pounds of grey matter between your ears is more than just a command center directing every action of your body. It is capable of originating thoughts beyond self-survival and pleasure. The human brain is the only brain in the entire animal kingdom that can reason. This unique characteristic of reasoning is influenced by factors such as environmental and social relationships. Therefore, it is critical to understand and control what you allow to influence you.

Or…read this chapter first if (2) you haven’t decided if you want to read this whole book. This last chapter placed at the beginning tells you all you need to know about what I have learned concerning life and how to live it. The remainder of the book merely substantiates the validity of the basic truth. This is similar to a newspaper or magazine article. You get the gist of the story in the first couple of sentences. The rest of the article provides more details. Plus, the other chapters include fluff. If you are not into fluff, you can just skip over these sections. They have conveniently been labeled fluff in consideration of your time.

I have placed the last chapter first for people who can’t resist going to the end of the book to see how it comes out. I never understood why people do this. Why would you want to find out that the butler did it or that so-and-so lived happily ever after? At an amusement park, you don’t go to the end of the roller coaster ride to watch the characters exit. You ride the roller coaster to experience the thrill of it. I suppose these are the people who crave instant gratification and stare at the microwave as it counts down the two minutes required to make popcorn or look at the picture on the box to know how to put together the kid’s Christmas toy instead of reading the directions, etc. If this describes you, I am not judging you. In fact, I empathize with your impatience. I too have prayed, Give me patience, Lord, and give it to me now!

Last Chapter

…or this entire book in a nutshell

Ramblings: noun (plural)—talk or writings that go on for a long time and are boring, annoying, or confusing.

But please read these ramblings regardless because as you read my ramblings, I want you to be thinking about what you would like to tell your kids and other loved ones before the undertaker drops the lid on your coffin.

Having started my ramblings many years ago, I was going to call them Ramblings of a middle-aged man. Having passed that milestone, my title had to be revised. Ramblings of an Old Man was the logical change but I decided to make it more descriptive and am calling it Ramblings of an Old Codger. (See the definition of codger in the introduction.) It’s good that I procrastinated for a few years since a lot has happened since then, providing more material for my ramblings.

My ramblings started when I began to seriously ask myself… What am I doing here still? and I put my thoughts on paper.

What Am I Doing Here Still?

The chance of me being born as me was infinitesimally small, mathematically, when you consider all the factors that had to come together. For example, my father had to produce that one sperm that made it to one of my mother’s eggs that specific time that became me out of all the other sperm and eggs that they produced over their lifetime. They had to have first met out of all the millions of other human possible combinations. Each of their parents was also the result of the same random combinations of genes going back to Adam and Eve. In fact, with each succeeding generation from Adam and Eve, the chances of me being me decreased logarithmically because there were that many more possible combinations of pairings of sperm and eggs.

I flunked statistics in college my freshman year and was never very good at poker or other bid card games because I have a difficult time grasping probabilities, but I know that the number of possible human pairings is a lot.

But so what? If I am lucky (or unlucky) to have been born, how should I respond to this fact? Should I celebrate my good fortune because I’m here and my might have been siblings and might have been ancestors are/and were not?

It depends.

If I was born, live, and then die to be no more, then the only thing that matters is how satisfying a life I will have. If I was randomly born by chance, then there is nothing special about me and whatever I do in life, good or bad, great or small, I have to accept. The only factors affecting the kind of life I will have is the environmental influences on me such as personal relationships, health conditions, etc.

However, if I wasn’t born by chance, if all those combinations that led up to my being here were directed, then I must look at my life differently. If I am here by purpose, why am I here, and who or what caused me to be here?

Everyone, at some point in their life, asks that question. Many people ignore the question and live their life in default mode. If I don’t think about it maybe the question will go away. But deciding not to decide is still a decision. Apathy is not an acceptable excuse. All decisions are made based upon something. If a decision is made based upon facts or evidence, the results of that decision are determined by the accuracy of those facts or evidence. If a decision is made based upon emotions, feelings, or other unreliable stimuli, the results of that decision may not be desirable. Of all the creatures on earth, we humans are the only ones with the ability to rationally make decisions based upon desired future outcome.

There is sufficient evidence to prove that there must be something or someone directing our world. Things left to themselves will deteriorate, not stay the same or improve. Stars burn up. Science-fiction movies about meteors hitting and destroying the earth would be real events if something or someone wasn’t controlling the movements of the universe. It takes a lot of faith to believe that a long-time-ago protein was formed from a massive explosion and then that protein developed from a single cell into a complex mass of intricately put together cells that form our bodies today. There are a myriad of influences that would have prevented this process from continuing if left to chance, even if it had started this way.

Statistically, me being me and you being you couldn’t have happened on its own. If I am here on purpose, shouldn’t I attempt to find out what the purpose is?

So why are you here, or more specifically, why are you still here? And, where are you looking for the answer?

Several years passed and my frustration grew with world events and, more specifically with human behavior. As I tried to understand the reason for man’s degenerate thinking the following ramblings explain what I see as the problem…

The Way I See It…

This world is going to hell, and is well on its way. But this doesn’t mean that we as individuals have to take part in its demise. A person’s final destination isn’t realized until after he takes his last breath but is determined while he is still breathing by the decision he makes based upon the information or enlightenment he allows himself to assimilate. All of us are without excuse concerning where we will spend eternity. Nature itself is enough to convince us of the existence of a creator. To doubt or deny creation requires that a person allow himself to believe altered facts concerning natural history and logic.

If we allow ourselves to be led to believe that we are only physical beings made with flesh and blood, we will have difficulty comprehending that which we cannot see, here, touch, smell, or taste. We will even have a hard time explaining how, who, or what made us. But unlike any other creature, we were created as spiritual creatures as well. Our physical bodies are temporary and begin wearing out very soon after we are born. But our spiritual being, or soul, lives forever.

There is another reality that affects what we believe. Satan is real and was created by God to be the head of all the angels. Pride, the original sin, occurred when Satan became stuck on himself and decided that he wanted some of God’s glory. This caused his eviction from heaven and his demotion to Prince and Power of the air. Hell was created for him and is his destiny along with any humans he can win over to take with him. He knows he is already defeated. He realized this after Christ’s resurrection. His only goal now is to take as many people down with him as he can out of spite. Satan is a sore loser. Satan uses his favorite sin, pride, to trap humans. If he can convince us like he did Eve who convinced Adam that we can share power over our lives with God (or ourselves exclusively) by deciding for ourselves how we are going to run our life, then Satan has us.

God has written a book which he dictated to various men over many centuries