Thomas Wheeler, CEO of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company was driving with his wife when they stopped to buy gas. After Wheeler filled their tank, he went inside and noticed his wife was engaged in an animated conversation with the attendant. As they drove away he asked if she knew the man. His wife acknowledged they had seriously dated in college, and had even considered marriage. Wheeler couldn’t help bragging a little. “You were sure lucky I came along. If you’d married him, you’d be the wife of a gas station attendant instead of the wife of a CEO.”

Did you know in Connecticut it’s illegal to sell a pickle that doesn’t bounce? And if you’re in Hawaii you're not allowed to put a coin in your ear. In Oklahoma you can’t give yourself a haircut, and in Maryland it’s against the law to curse whole driving. These are called “Blue Laws,”

I stepped out of our taxi at the Chennai train station in South India. Thousands of people milled about like ants. A cacophony of noise arose, as confusing as the Wall Street Stock Exchange. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Once we were stationary, a horde of porters barraged our party, desperately desiring to handle our baggage. Our host, Babu, negotiated with them, and quicker than you can say “chicken masala,” porters snatched up our bags and toted them off on their heads.

On July ninth a Dutch museum honored recently deceased artist, William Schippers by covering their floor with more than 800 pounds of peanut butter—enough to make 15,000 sandwiches. It was a re-creation of his 1969 work aptly entitled “Peanut Butter Floor.”  Two museum employees labored for days, spreading forty buckets of peanut butter with a drywall trowel across a framed 270-square-foot hexagon. Instructions to visitors stated, “No one is to stand in, or lie down on the peanut butter.”  Good suggestion.

Recently I made a shocking discovery. My father is actually older than sliced bread. Sliced bread debuted on July 7, 1928. On Monday, July 6, we celebrated my dad’s 98th birthday, which makes him older than sliced bread … by one day.

On July 4, 1776, fifty-six men signed a document that changed the world, the Declaration of Independence. Did they have any idea that 250 years later, the nation they created would stand as the world’s greatest super-power, as today we celebrate our semiquincetennial? (Try saying that really fast five times!)

Don’t ask me why, but a few weeks back, in a curious moment, I calculated the number of days since Linda passed. As it turns out, today (06/26/26), marks exactly 1000 days. I guess I’m feeling a bit pensive today, as I contemplate the frailty of life.

Recently I laid to rest two old friends. We shared global adventures together—visiting the pyramids, cruising the Caribbean, and ministering in Uganda. These were devoted companions. Their names?  Flip and Flop, my old sandals.