Recover, Remember, Reiterate

11/12/2018

“Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots…” “…but I got Friends in Low Places” — Garth Brooks big old hit in 1990. That’s what wins the prize as the SIMH today. Written just the year before it hit the big time, it became #1 in 8 weeks and stayed there for 4 weeks. Among other things it means Garth made a good bit of money from it. DeWayne Blackwell and Earl Bud Lee wrote this from an idea while sitting amongst other songwriters in a restaurant. One of them said he’d forgotten to bring his money. The waitress asked how he expected to pay for his meal and he replied, “no worries, cause I got friends in low places, I know the cook!” and so it goes, success is an accident!

In the hills of East Chattanooga, is a short railroad from a beautiful old station to a “turntable” where we watched the engine turn a complete “180,” take a siding to the other end of the cars, hook up and go back to the station. At the station, the train went past and angled out to the right a little; reversing, we went on a different siding, angling away from the station and main track until we were going straight backwards; then switched to another siding which took us forward to the station’s opposite side, coming to a stop right where we had boarded to leave an hour before. The ending of the trip turnaround is called a ‘WYE.” I had forgotten how it works. Did you understand my description of it? Comment for me, I’d like to know how well I describe things.

Anyway, we then went to a great Italian restaurant called Tony’s, up on hill above the river in the downtown art district. Great food, yet I fear the last of that rich stuff for a while, too many carbs and cals!

When I first went to a breakfast specialty restaurant, it was called The Egg and I.There were several of them, very nice, excellent food, always light and airy atmosphere and clean. When I heard a couple of years ago they had sold out, I thought they would go down hill. But, yesterday morning, in Chattanooga, we ate at the same restaurant under the name of First Watch. It was terrific!  The menu was great, the food was delicious, the service and atmosphere was outstanding. The name comes from a term for the first work shift of the day onboard a ship. The Company (over 200 stores) is from University Park, FL, after first being founded in 1986 in CA. Glad they were smart enough to leave CA. Good place for breakfast, but they don’t open till 7am. Seems late to me.

The weekend was very refreshing for me. (I’m sure for Barb, also.) I come out of it feeling like some new ideas and new spirit of mind are intact and anxious to do some stuff a little bit differently, hopefully a little bit better.

In the past 7 months, the real estate market across the middle states has boomed and expanded. In May, a friend in Indiana told me houses were getting bids to buy higher than their asking price. Just this week, a friend in Chattanooga sold their house the first day on the market and then were offered 3,000 more after that. I hope this trend continues to spread for a couple of years.

Something good coming around the bend? Sounds like the economy really has changed, doesn’t it?

I think tonight I will be back at my usual “studio” where my white board resides for the online bible class. Join us, if you like, go to zoom.us/j/2103785748 and when prompted add the zoom receiver if you haven’t already. 7 PM Central time, 1 hour class.

Last week, I spoke about some terminology I hear from time to time which tends to over-state the biblical case for the Lord’s special call of our Apostle Paul. Tonight, I plan to followup with a lesson on why Paul was the first person saved into the body of Christ, our church in the world today.

Hope you can make it, or find me tomorrow on YouTube channel, Brother Jerry Lockhart.

Thanks for reading, the Elder