I have noticed over the years that young men have reactionary thinking. What I mean by this is that we, the males, are not thinking about anything in particular until something strikes us, either visually or physically. I know I have always been looking for something to think about or something to write, but when I look at girls, women, or the female gender in particular, it seems that they are constantly thinking about how to manipulate, or how to get what they want. Young men, on the other hand, wait till they see something they want and then try to get it. It's not that we don't think in those terms, it's just that we have to have motivation to think. It's like going to the beach, a guy just makes sure he's got his swim trunks and the girls, they pack beach blankets, umbrellas and sunscreen because they thought about what they needed beforehand. Us, the guys, we either do without or get it once we get there.

When I was a young man, I was programmed in that very way. Didn't think much about anything until something struck me. I can remember to this day my mother asking me, “what are you thinking about young man” and I would reply truthfully, “nothing”. She would always ask again, “you have to be thinking about something, what are you thinking about”.  That's why mothers usually get some really stupid answer because we really were thinking about nothing. It's almost like we're saving our minds for something special, or maybe it's just it takes a lot of effort to think. When you get us going though we do relatively well. I know when I would go to bed at night, I would think of anything in the world to keep from sleeping, how many men actually live in the moon, if a train left Chicago at 1:00 and a train left New York at 2:00 would they meet, oh, and would they be on separate tracks.

Have you ever seen a couple of guys talking about something, nothing in particular, just anything? Take for instance one guy asks the other guy “what do you think of Kathleen?” The other guy replies “pretty” and the first guy goes, “yep”, and they sit there for hours saying nothing, just fishing and you want to know what they're thinking about. I will tell you the truth. You won't believe it, nothing!

Even take two scientists looking at a board full of mathematics on what it takes to make up a black hole. One scientist says to the other, “I think we're close”, the other one says “yep” and they stare at the board for two hours and you know what they’re thinking about, nothing!So girls, you remember back when the first guy took you to the movie theater and it was one of those movies that wasn't very interesting and you thought, “I wish he would kiss me” and he never did.

He just continually stared at the screen and you got so mad trying to figure out what in the world he was thinking, you guessed it, nothing.
Even taking you home from that date, and you're walking back home and a pretty girl walks in front of you and you notice his head turns to follow her and you slap him and you're thinking, what's he thinking about, he's with me. Yep, even this time he was thinking about nothing.

 I just want to clarify the situation. Now that I'm older and wiser, when I'm sitting for hours watching TV and my wife looks over at me and asks that dreaded question every man has to answer, “have you been listening to me, what were you thinking about all this time?” Even though my thinking has not slowed down much with old age, I have to tell her that “no, I wasn't listening to you”, and as far as what I was thinking about, even though I know I'm going to get in trouble, I tell her the truth, I tell her, “nothing at all”. And my wife looks at me with that look and says, “I know what you’re thinking about, it’s what you men think about all the time”, and she’s right, it’s nothing. 

Our founding fathers were smart enough to understand the fact that other religions have destroyed civilizations and that our religion would be under attack in a free nation were all beliefs must be tolerated. Most of them came from countries where, if they did not believe the same religion as their King did they were persecuted and they have seen the other great religions of the world almost destroy themselves trying to destroy democracies and that’s the reason that they put in our Constitution, separation of church and state, it is so that no other religion could take over our nation. When you see the Bible not being read in schools any more, just think about the fact that there are many schools today in our country that have a majority of other religions living in that community and if we were allowing religion to be taught in schools the minority of Christians would have to be learning their religion. I for one believe that our laws were set up with Christian values in mind and our founding fathers smarter than most of us, devise the most intricate way of protecting those Christian laws and that was to separate church and state, so that no other religious beliefs could take over our laws.

I also believe that changing these laws would weaken our ability to keep the laws that we have that were made up of Christian values. I am a tolerant man and my beliefs are my own and yes, I am prejudice for my religious beliefs, but freedom is not about my beliefs it is about allowing you, yours without sacrificing that freedom for both.

Many times I thank God for the intelligence and wisdom that he gave a group of man that never totally agreed on the Constitution the ability to write a way of keeping Christian laws into a Constitution that would allow everyone the freedom of their religious beliefs. You may not like the fact that atheists, Muslims and others have found ways to annoy us, for example, suing to remove nativity scenes at Christmas time in front of courthouses, but they can never attack our Christian laws unless we make it week by changing the laws that separate church and state. I have prayed and argued with myself for many years about how God has disappeared from our government but He hasn't. He is written into our Constitution with the very ink that makes the words of our Constitution visible. So instead of asking God to understand why our Constitution has forsaken him, I pray now to thank him for making it almost impossible to take him out of our Constitution.

Growing up in Memphis was a musical treat, you heard every single kind of popular music here in Memphis there was in existence. Most of the clubs in Memphis have live music, not just on the weekends like you'll find in most major cities. Memphis had several things going for it one of which was the Memphis music industry back in the day was very important for an up-and-coming artist that clawed their way from the Mississippi Delta to the big city of Memphis. I can remember as a teenager walking Overton Square and hearing blues, rock 'n roll and soul music from all the various clubs and when Memphis threw a party the big names would come out. I don't know if any of you remember the headliners for the Memphis cotton Carnival or the Midsouth fair, but we had the names everyone knew. Unfortunately one more of those voices that we all loved so dearly, has now gone silent on our earth and this one was one of the brightest and best sounds to come from this large backwater town.

Someone once said that these artists owed there beginnings to Memphis and I believe it should be the other way around Memphis owes its musical roots to these pioneers of both blues and rock 'n roll to these great voices and musicians that we will never see the likes of again. BB King was loved by all for his beautiful blues music it is not that we mourn the passing of a great musician it is that we are mourning the loss of a great human being and I know that the Angels in heaven are rejoicing at his latest and best concert ever. God bless you. BB King, because you have blessed us with a legacy of sound the likes of. We will never hear again.

A Freak

  By the time I was in the sixth grade, I was 6 foot tall and weighed 170 pounds. I felt like a freak because I was so much taller than anyone that I went to school with and my curly hair didn't help things either and everyone treated me differently, or at least that was my perception. I have thought a lot about that over the years and I have very good memories of instances that would prove that. I remember watching a movie called Frankenstein at a relatively young age

I did not understand the concept of man creating man, nor did I care. What I saw was a human being that was different than everyone else. I felt empathy with the monster as the towns people tried to kill him.
  Things changed for me in junior high school, I gained some respect and I gave respect back to everyone. Elementary school was a steady fight for me, I was either being picked on or protecting myself from one kind or another of prejudice against either my curly hair or my size. I don't necessarily have those fond memories of Charjean as I did Airways. When the coaches cut my sideburns, it was as if it had all started, all over again, because I was different. I was being treated differently, but I hold no grudges, everyone did what they thought was right at the time. I just wish that so many of my detractors had walked a mile in my shoes. Just because someone is different or thinks differently than you do is no reason to label them as a freak. Why I even embraced the connotation of freak when I became a Christian and the term Jesus freak was being bandied around and I thought it fit me because I both felt invigorated as a Christian and a freak as a person, it helped me to come to terms with how I felt about myself.

It's hard to put into words the feelings that I had as a young child and then into adolescence at Airways everything started to come together and I no longer felt freakish as a matter of fact I almost felt as if people like to me and wanted me to be their friend. We all have our own cross to bear, as we grew up and I know that a lot of you felt in your own way the same as I did. The changes in how we became who we were at Airways had hit a positive note for me and that's why I called my three years at Airways. The most magical time of my life, because I learned to like me and I thought a few of you did to

I get somewhat frustrated at people, our age and older, who come in to the store and ask questions about technology and preface those questions with “I know absolutely nothing about technology”. You know that is an oxymoron right, because we grew up in an era of technology that grew at a fascinating rate. They come to me and they say which one of these tablets would be the easiest to learn how to understand and I can't help but think that that in itself is a defeatist attitude, because it shouldn't be in your mind that you're not going to understand an operating system.

They are made to be user friendly, emphasizing the word user. I always ask these customers do you know why a six-year-old knows more about a tablet or laptop then we do and their answer is always wrong. they say because they grew up with it and that is wrong. The right answer is they have no fear. They have not learned fear as of yet. The question that they should be asking is which one of these tablets is going to bring me the most fun. I guess I'll have to explain myself because most of you are thinking this stuff is not fun. So, just calm down and try and understand a few little basic things of life.

Did you ever see one of those kids in school that just seemed to have a blast with everything the teacher put forth for us to do. Yes, I know they made me sick to, but that's not my point. My point is that they did the very best in school. They seemed to enjoy it the most and made the absolute best grades. Why are we so afraid of technology - because we're afraid of breaking something. The chances of breaking your computer by pushing the wrong key are probably astronomical, especially if you do certain steps to back up your computer before you ever do anything else to it and, every so often, make another backup so that anything that gets lost can be recovered.

Now, the thing that I want you to understand here is that when you were a child and the most fun thing you ever did, you understood backwards and forwards, did you not? The reason is because you approached it with the proper attitude. Attitude is not going change the frustrations that you will experience with the computer because you don't understand something at first, but that old adage, “if you don't succeed at first, try, try again” is absolutely the best mantra to have when you're dealing with a computer or, for that matter, any technology.

In today's technological world there are several operating systems. The major ones being Apple's IOS, Microsoft Windows, Google's android operating system and Linix and all of these operating systems require you to be in control. If you don't understand how to do something and you're getting slightly frustrated with trying to figure out how to make it work go to You Tube, type in a question about what it is that you're trying to do and, I'll assure you, someone has already made a video telling you step-by-step how to do it. I love building computers.

I love working with computers because I find them fun and engaging and I look at every new thing that I try and do as a mystery that I have to solve. Okay, yes, I can hear you back there, sighing, but you don't understand, you've been doing this for ever. That's not true! I'm right at 59 years old and, yes, I was fascinated with technology since the time I was a little boy.  I remember the first radio I had. It was a little transistor Channelmaster radio that, late at night, sometimes could pick up the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, all the way from Memphis. It amazed me that a voice could be transmitted through the air without anyone ever seeing it, how could that be. Television, now there was a mystery. How in the world could “Happy Hal” bring me cartoons at 3:30 every day without fail. Where did he get them, where are they coming from. I looked up in the sky and I couldn't see anything coming to our house, how were they doing it? I figured out it didn't really matter,  I was enjoying it. I wondered why we couldn't get television stations like we did on my transistor radio late at night. Why couldn't I get a Nashville television station? I just chalked it up to the mysteries of the universe which made the universe pretty interesting.

My point is we don't have to understand everything about something to have fun with it. You do need to learn certain things. The first of which is, if you're still alive today, you grew up with technology. If you just don't want technology in your life, I feel sorry for you, you are missing out on so very, very much. If you have grand babies in some faraway state you could use Skype to talk to them, to see them, to enjoy having them in your life. And yes, it's not as good as being there with them, but it's better than nothing, isn't it. You moved away from your family and your mother and you’re missing them greatly. Wouldn't it be nice to have a hangout on Google and talk with the whole family all together.

 Of course, it's a virtual reality and they're not really there with you but you can have the conversations that you used to have at the dinner table with everybody, and how wonderful could that be. Instead of having your family send you pictures through the mail and getting lost or damaged, they could be e-mailed or texted to you right from the very spot, the very second the picture was taken. It's so amazing the technology that's before us today that could affect our lives for the good. I don't want you to think that I believe that every bit of technology is good because it's not. But let me ask you, is anything man has done ever been totally good. There are some security measures that you must learn to take and, yes, sometimes it costs money but there are a lot of free options out there as well so you don't have to let it break your bank. Not all tablets are ultra expensive. You can get a pretty nice tablet nowadays without breaking the bank. There are several under a hundred dollars, tablets that work okay. In saying that, the more expensive tablets definitely do work better but don't let anyone talk you into spending a lot of money on your first device because, first of all, you're not ready for it, and secondly, you may be one of the few that just does not like it.

There are so many options nowadays for television, one of which we've had around since television has been in existence, on an antenna. Yes, it works exactly the same way that it always has. If you have an old CRT type television, which is the great big picture tube type television, you will need a converter box (which you can get at any department store) and an antenna to receive your local television stations and some independent stations are available on the free antenna television. If you have a newer type flat screen, all you need is the antenna, you do not need a converter box to get free over the air antenna television. My goodness, even where I live in the rural area of Sevier County, Tennessee, I get as many as 25 television stations over free antenna television. My favorite is the channel called “meTV”, because it plays all of the old television shows that we all knew and loved when we were growing up. That's technology at its best. I can remember when we had our first television and there were only three television stations to be had in the Memphis area and shortly PBS came about and that was all until cable finally appeared on the horizon.

If you haven't heard of it by now I would like to tell you about “Roku” television streaming system. The first thing you have to have is a Wi-Fi Internet access with a relatively good speed and unlimited access, because streaming movies takes up a lot of bandwidth. So, unless you have unlimited Internet access this technology is not for you but if you do, boy, do I have a television system for you with over 2000+ Internet television channels. If you don't know what Internet television channels are let me preface this by saying that they are nothing like your cable channels and they have nothing to do with them.  It doesn't matter if you have cable, satellite, or whatever, you do not have access to these channels unless you are streaming from an Internet service like a smart TV, a Roku box, or something of that nature. If I have piqued your interest in technology, that is what I wanted to do. I am going to give you more on the ROKU BOX, but let me tell you just one little thing about it before I stop my little story and that is, I have exactly 337 channels and I pay for only one and that's Netflix and all the other channels are totally free. Oh, and that's just the ones that I'm interested in. There are so many more in the Roku channel store that are free but, okay, they're just not something I’m interested in. So do yourself a favor and go to YouTube or even to roku.com and check out a Roku. Remember, you will need a wi fi connection and you will need to pay for the Netflix subscription (cheaper than cable).  And as a point of interest, young people don’t even subscribe to cable, because they get most of their shows on their personal devices and don’t need to pay the high cost of crappy cable.

So if you know someone that is in need of technology to give them more enjoyment of life, especially as we get older and it's necessary to have some sort of entertainment that doesn't cost very much, technology can provide that for us.  Not to mention all of the breakthroughs that technology has given us for medical purposes such as I heard today, doctors are saying that an MP3 player full of music that someone loved when they were growing up , in the era that they grew up in, will help them battle Alzheimer's. So please, the next time you go into a store to buy a tablet, a television, or yes, even one of those dreaded computers, find the most knowledgeable salesperson, and ask which one would be the most fun for you and make his or her day.