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“10-4, Theresa you could walk out to Whalers Rock right now,” I said over the radio.

“I copy you, Tom,” she replied back. “Keep an eye on the situation.”

“That’s affirmed,” I answered back.

Graveyard shift was not half over and I was hoping for a quiet night as I drove along Crescent City’s Pebble Beach Drive. This was not my usual patrol, however I volunteered to fill in and cover the northern end of the county during the first watch.

The brightness of the moon reflected well from the Pacific Ocean at Pebble Beach. As a kid, I remembered when we used to go down to the beach and collect agates.

In high school, it was a favorite place to take the cross-country runners and the track and field sprints; long open beaches of gray volcanic sand. At the North end of Pebble Beach stood a monolithic rock; Half out of the water and about two hundred yards from shore, it was known as Whaler’s Rock.

Local legend had it that the first white seafarers had used it to spot whales from shore. The native Tolowa Indians had used it as a source of food gathering for hundreds of years before that.

It was still home to a rookery of gulls and seals.

The tide had retreated into the sea. I had never seen a tide go out that far before, so I immediately called dispatch and spoke to Theresa by radio.

And as instructed I planned to keep a eye on the situation, not that there was much I could do about it anyway. The tide was still severely withdrawn and I needed to head out towards Lake Earl on my continued patrol.

As I made my turn onto El Dorado, I saw the cows in the field across the road herded up and running. I stopped and whipped my cruisers heavy spotlight on them.

They continued to run. I thought it was strange to see these normally complacent animals stampeding in their field, especially at this early hour.

My first thought was that a pack of dogs had joined together and were chasing them. I continued to shine his spotlight over them and found nothing.

If there were dogs chasing them, then the mother cows would have developed a more aggressive defensive posture. Yet they were far out pacing their calves.

Slipping my cruiser out of park and into drive, I continued down El Dorado.

“Think I’ll 10-7 at the C-H-P,” I thought.

The California Highway Patrol’s Sub-Station lay jus’ over the freeway over pass next to Highway 101. I could use their restroom and get a cup of coffee while there, then head out towards Fort Dick and the remainder of the patrol.

Slowing my cruiser down to about twenty miles an hour I scoped out the high school parking lot. I saw absolutely nothing.

I did the same at as I passed the track and the district’s administration building.

It was about this time that I first noticed the power lines wiggling back and forth. I stopped and watched them swing.

Suddenly the power poles violently swayed back and forth. The street lamps moved from one direction into the other and trees slapped into one another, making a loud brushing sound.

My mind screamed, “Earthquake.”

I was helpless to do anything about it, trapped in my cruiser heading east, so slapped the gearshift into park and stomped on the emergency brake.

All around me, I could hear glass breaking and see flashes of bright white lights as power lines snapped in two and sparkled away madly. I laid down in the front seat believing that at any time a power pole would come crashing down on me.

The vehicle shook and bounced violently, then I felt it shifting sideways as it started leaning. My imagination ran wild, thinking that perhaps a large hole had opened up beneath me and I was being swallowed up.

Jus’ then the cruiser came to rest, driver’s side down, and the quaking stopped. In the distance I heard several dogs barking and the Tsunami warning sounding.

Everything appeared dark and that added to the general confusion in his head. I was standing on the driver side door hugging the bench seat of the cruiser.

The cruiser’s engine was still running and I suddenly became aware of the radio check that Theresa was calling out for. She called me a second time as I fumbled to find the microphone, which had been tossed from the clip it normally rested on.

I answered her after the third call, hearing and feeling the stress in her voice. She was calm and still professional, yet I had grown up with Theresa and he knew the subtle tones variations of her voice.

“You okay, Tom?” she asked.

“10-4,” I responsed.

“What is your location?” she continued.

“I’m on El Dorado near the school district buildings,” I answered.

“10-4,” Theresa said, “stand-by for further information.”

“Uh, that’s affirmative;” I said back then added, “Could you send a tow truck out here. My cruiser’s on its side and I am standing by — inside.”

There was a long silence on the radio. Every officer on duty and those recalled for emergency duty had heard his call out.

“Are you hurt or anything?” Theresa asked.

“Nope,” I responded to her questioning, “jus’ embarrassed is all.”

“10-4, Tom,” she answered.

About that time I heard a car pull up. Someone climbed onto the cruiser and opened the passenger door.

It was my former partner, Dale. He was laughing.

My cruiser was the only vehicular casualty for the law enforcement community. However the front windows at the sheriff station did shatter during the quake and several prisoners escaped through a gap in the wall of one of the cell blocks.

They were honest and turned themselves in after taking a couple of hours of freedom to check on the welfare of their families.

For years the Lord had granted me time enough to work quietly on my degree, to study and write and study even more. And now when I was laid up I could not be bothered to spend anytime with him in prayer or in his word.

I felt ashamed of myself. The first thing I knew had to do was to get up off the floor and get my Bible.

It hurt terribly to roll over. I was lying on my back, knees bent, holding a mirror so that I could see the television. Once I was up, though I hobbled to the back room and got my Bible and laid down there.

I opened it up and just started reading. The second thing l had to do was pray. I prayed for Jesus to forgive me for wasting his time. I also thanked him for the backache.

I feel it was appropriate to thank him because I needed to have my eyes opened to what I was not doing. I did not blame my backache on him, claiming he gave it to me.

No! Instead, I accepted responsibility for my backache and made it mine!

Many times I find myself in a situation that I don’t want to be in and all I can do is complain and blame. That’s right, I complain and blame. I figure most people do the same thing. I decided to turn over a new leaf and instead of complaining and blaming; I’ll thank the Lord for the opportunity to live in the moment that I find myself in.

I may not understand why I am in that situation or what I am supposed to do to get out of it, but I’ll say thank you anyway. As of yet, I have not found ‘happiness’ promised to us in the Bible.

However, I do find the word ‘joy’ mentioned time and again  and that is given freely because the Lord wants us to have great joy in our lives. All we have to do is ask for it, but first we must accept responsibility f or  the circumstances we find ourselves in and treat them as a blessing because we are endowed with free will.

So here ‘s a simple 5-step plan to get in touch with the Lord and your joy:

l. Turn off the noise and clutter in your busy life, the television, the radio , the internal voice that you use to rationalize your activities.

2. Discipline yourself physically to pick up your Bible, the word of God, and read it daily so that it’s in your hearts and mind.

3. Pray daily to Jesus with all of your heart.

4.Attend church and fellowship on a regular basis, sharing in the Lord’s word.

5. Teach yourself to listen with your heart to what the Lord is saying to you. It is really that simple.

Listen for him to speak to you through prayer and the Bible. Remember to serve God through both the good times and the bad and you’ll find real joy.

As a rule I don’t spent very much time watching television sports. However, I will make an exception to the rule when big events such as the Olympics or Super bowl come on.

This time I decided to make a project out of it and write down a list of things I felt were off the mark from a broadcast and a sportsmanship standpoint. The head referee looked as nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs and it was only the coin toss.

Get that man some air before he tosses more than the coin!

Yes, the first half was dull, but it gave the players a chance to figure out the other team’s game. Football isn’t just a game of brute force anymore, you know.

You have to have a celebratory end-zone dance too.

Where was AOL Top Speed during the first twelve minutes? Probably still trying to buy a hot dog, beer and a pennant before finding a seat.

Okay, we all get it already! CBS is number one in every category — except knowing what its half-time show is all about. The multi-million dollar commercials were boring.

If beer can make a jackass into a Clydesdale, then why can ‘t Bud make me Wiser? And if beer is the number one drink of the NFL and I should drink it too, why were the team owners drinking bottled water?

The NFL Public Service Announcement where the members of defeated teams sang, “The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow” was the best of the lot, but what were they promoting? Joining an NFL team?

Tried that once, nearly died after two plays. Joining the military was safer.

Someone needed to dress Dion Sanders. Whatever he was wearing made him look as hip as a newly divorced guy in a singles club.

Then there was Beyonce, dressed as if she were a Republican. Perhaps she wanted to look like all the business executives, who are about the only people who can afford a ticket these days.

Poor Jessica Simpson: First she asks her hubby if tuna really is chicken of the sea, then she’s given only one­ line to say, announcing the opening of the half-time show .

She looked like a member of some junior high school drill team. Worse yet, she was still talking when they cut her mic off.

The halftime show was missing that something extra. Ah yes, current hit music.

All I heard were bits and pieces of songs from older hits including one from Diana Ross used by Pee-Diddy-Pitifully­ Dull and Whoa-Nelly-You-So-Smelly, proving they have no originality.

Kid Rock made me want to throw up. He misused an American Flag, wearing it as a poncho and CBS didn’t cut away or distance themselves from that.

Then he tries to be ‘cowboy’ by wearing a cowboy hat . It takes more than a hat to be one.

Anything to sell a CD.

Not for one second did I believe that Ms. Jackson’s bareness was an accident. She was wearing a ‘breakaway top’ and the event occurred on cue to the words, “I want you naked.” Thank you for admitting to it and apologizing, Janet.

Now, if she can only get her brother Mike to do the same.

CBS said it wished to distance itself from the whole debacle. Okay, I could buy that however, I believe CBS is the parent organization of MTV. It’s pretty hard to distance yourself from yourself. That’s like separating oneself from ones shadow at noontime on a sunny day in Death Valley, can’t be done.

Personally, I like to root for the underdog and in the finally analysis it was the underdog that won. It was you and I.

We had the pleasure of watching a fine game from the comfort of our own home. We could use our own bathroom and raid the refrigerator at our leisure. Lastly, we had control of the remote.

Now if I could just remember who was playing and what the final score was.

Circle the wagons! I have had random thoughts rushing in from everywhere and I figured now would be as good a time to share them as any…

MORE MONEY THAN BRAINS…

Here are a few of pet peeves I have about driving: The first one is the person who pulls out in front of me when I am just about on top of them and there is nobody behind me. I have to slam on my brakes to avoid crashing into them. I don’t understand why they couldn’t wait for me to go by.

This takes me to pet peeve number 2: The person who pulls across my lane when all they had to do is wait for me to pass by and it would have been clear to safely turn. It also seems like I see more big SUV’s and trucks exceeding the speed limit and pulling unsafe stunts and yet I observe that it’s the family van or car that gets stopped by the officers patrolling the highways.

This is my pet peeve number 3. Finally, I’ve said this before; I like people less when I am driving. Amazingly though, pet peeve number 4 is that I realize I dislike myself even more as I hear myself ranting and raving at these goofy drivers.

LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET OUT OF THE WAY…

For two weekends in a row we had snow falling like we had not seen in the last 15 years. The first six inches were okay, but after that it became difficult to deal with from the stand point that my back is killing me and we now live in a community that requires us to keep our driveway and sidewalks clear.

Still I did my best to keep the area clear of the snow but it just kept falling. By the end of the first two days I was so racked with back, hip and leg pains that my wife, Mary sent me inside telling me she didn’t want me to do anymore.

But since my son didn’t have school due to closures, we went out and shoveled while Mary was at work. We even ventured out into the roadways just to assist stranded drivers stuck in the ice and snow. It’s the only way I know how to show him what to do and what is right in the face of adversity.

AND THE ENVELOP PLEASE…

Over the last few days I have heard news stories and read articles and watched the talking heads comment about how the nearly 5,800 voting members of the Motion Picture Academy snubbed Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

Please let me help you understand what has really happened. Mr. Gibson did not make this movie for the pleasure of the Academy or its award. He didn’t even submit the film for review or send DVD’s to voting members. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19

What is of greater value is that Michael Moore’s film, “Fahrenheit 9/11” was not nominated. He spent a desperate amount of time campaigning for an ‘Oscar’ and the voting members couldn’t even see their way clear to toss him a bone. “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11

SHARPENING THOSE DEBATE SKILLS…

My son Kyle and I were in one of those office supply stores when I discovered that some of his writing lessons from school were actually sticking. We were in the pen and pencil section and he was asking me to purchase him a couple of mechanical pencils for class. I wanted to know why as I pointed out the nice bright, yellow pencils with the number two lead and soft pink erasers.

He hit me with a three-point compare and contrast statement that took me by complete surprise.

Kyle brought home the fact that if he ran out of lead he could reload his mechanical pencil right at his desk without wasting time to go to the sharpener and back, he wouldn’t have to throw the pencil away should the eraser become completely worn away, it is replaceable and lastly he said with a completely straight face, “It also keeps me from chewing on the wood.”

I bought the mechanical pencils.

It was raining when they pulled through the gates of Lackland Air Force Base. I was feeling nervous because I was not certain to expect during basic training.

The sign over the guard station read, ‘Gateway to the Air Force,’ and I thought, “That’s pretty catchy.”

During the flight from California the group had been load and boastful. Suddenly they were quiet.

The silence grew more and more severe as the hours on the bus increased. At the airport a sergeant had screamed at us and called us names.

It was no longer a great adventure, it was now serious business.

The bus made a noisy hiss as it came to a stop. To the right was a yellow building with several doors.

They were all open and the fluorescent lights threw their bright white light out onto the puddle water of the asphalt parking area. The door to the bus opened up and on stepped a man.

He wore a green poncho and smoky bear hat covered with clear plastic, “Alright ladies, off your asses and on your feet!”

A terrible tremble develop in my knees, but I did as told.  It took only a few minutes to get the bus unloaded.

And within those few minutes everyone but the sergeant was soaked. He stood there looking at us, slowly moved his head to the left to right, both hands on his intimidatingly on his hips.

Soon another bus pulled up in place of the one that had just deposited the wet group standing on the wet asphalt. They too unloaded just as quickly, which was not quick enough for us.

“Alright, Ladies,” the sergeant bellowed, “Pick up your bags.”

As quickly as we could we picked up our bags. It was not quick enough we soon found out.

“Put them down!” the man shouted.

Then as quickly as he finished the first order, he said, “Pick them up!”

Again we tried to get it right. And again we failed.

The rain beat down on us so hard that it splashed back up into our faces after it struck the asphalt’s surface. This routine continued for nearly two hours.

“Pick them up,” the man in the poncho and smoky bear hat would shout. Then “Put them down.”

Over and over this continued until he was finally satisfied that we had done it in unison. From there he counted we off in fours and allowed us into the building where it was dry.

The glass doors to the VA’s emergency room shushed open as he hobbled in from the parking lot where he had left his truck.

“Thank goodness,” I said to myself as I sat down knowing that sooner or later a doctor would be able to check out my ailing back.

The trouble began early that morning. I was lying in bed about half asleep when he rolled over; as he did he felt or mostly heard a pop emanate from someplace near his hips.

This noise led to a sudden numbing sensation that left me unable to move or even speak for several minutes. I laid there in bed next to Mary believing I was on the verge of death.

“I’m having a stroke,” he told myself as tears gently slipped down my face and onto my pillow.

Soon the numbness subsided.

A tingling sensation replaced the numbness — thousands of needles and tiny jolts of electricity shooting through my body. The pain eventually drove me to try to get out of bed.

At first my lower half did not want to respond and then once it did, it was torture. I had never felt such agony before and it caused me to cry out.

My lower back hurt worse than it ever had before. I felt a wave of panic rush around me as I struggled to sit up and place my legs over the side of the bed.

It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally stood up. I had been afraid that if I tried too soon, I might fall and find myself in worse shape.

After about fifteen minutes I could feel the bottom of my feet again as well as my legs. The horrible pain in my lower back was still there but I figured that if I didn’t twist, turn or bend I could live with it.

As I stood up the pain grew into a stabbing pain that shot through my body, from neck and foot. I knew then I had to get to the doctor’s office or an emergency room.

Sweating as I pulled on my jeans, I thought about how I had just retired after twenty-five years of working.

“I was looking forward to some relaxation,” I told myself, “now I can’t even get my own pants on. I can’t believe this is happening now.”

That’s when I discovered that my left foot and leg were very weak.

“You’re going to have to drive” I told Mary as she was getting dressed.

She helped me limp to the truck and get in. I found myself short of breath due to the pain in my back. Within minutes we were en route to the Veterans Hospital in downtown Reno.

“I hope they have good drugs,” I said aloud.

Mary looked at me in surprise because she knew I didn’t take pain medication.

After checking in at triage, I was told to have a seat, that the doctor would see me in a little while. I couldn’t find a comfortable position as every position was just as painful as the one before.

Shifting again, I looked at Mary, “I remember when rolling out of bed was jus’ something I said,” then I added, “I never really thought I’d be rolling out of bed for real!”

We both laughed. Then it occurred to me that I was in this position simply because I had rolled over in bed.

The boy in the orange and lime green shirt lifted the hammer and struck the water worn stone in front of him. It sounded dulled when the hammerhead struck — dull and uneven.

Approaching the boy, he looked at me and my Sheriff’s uniform and immediately stood up. He held both of his hands behind his back.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

The little boy of eleven answered, “Nothing.”

“Then what do you got behind your back?” I countered.

I had a smile on my face, amused by the thought that children never changed.

The boy put his head down and slowly brought his hand from behind his back. In his left hand he held a white tube with yellow and red wires dangling from either end.

I stepped closer to the boy as he extended his right hand out with the palm up.

“Can I have that please?” I asked, more coaxing than demanding.

“Now go home and go quick!” I ordered.

“Am I in trouble?” the boy asked.

I jus’ shook my head “no” and he turned and ran past me and the other Deputy Sheriff standing in the field.

Sighing, I slowly started to turn towards my partner Dale.

“What should…,” I started to say.

BLAM! The white tube exploded with a thunderous roar.

For a second the world seemed to stop for both of us. Dale was frozen in place and I was sitting on the ground blinking; blood squirting from what remained of my right hand.

I raised my hand above my head out of instinct and Dale grabbed at his radio.

As I stood up, Dale commanded, “Sit down, you’re in shock.”

But I was not listening as I was looking at the bright red blood running down my arm and the mangled stump of my little finger. My ring finger was disjointed and misshapen as well.

I looked at the ground in search of the missing little finger.

“Help me find my finger, Dale,” I said.

The words sound like they spoken from a tin can, hollow to the point of nearly an echo, yet they did not echo. The fire department and two other law-enforcement officers arrived including a California Highway Patrolman, but I didn’t realize this, I was so intent on finding his missing finger.

Sam, the highway patrol officer, walked up and put his hand on my shoulder. He said something, but I couldn’t hear it.

That’s when I panicked.

Sam walked me to his patrol car and opened the passenger side, where I sat down. Dale was directing the fire fighters and the other Sheriff’s Deputy in the attempt to recover my lost little finger.

Leaning back, I closed my eyes as Sam bandaged me jus’ enough to stop the bleeding. When I next opened my eyes I was at Seaside Hospital.

Inside the emergency room the nurses were busy making preparations for the doctor to work on my hand. They cleaned the wound which consisted of a deep gauge in the palm, the dislocated ring finger with lots of cuts at the base where it should be attached to the hand, and the absent pinky finger that had been violently ripped from the big knuckle.

My ears were also a great source of irritation for me. It was the sound of the Pacific Ocean pounding the sandy beaches of DeMartin’s Beach, a sound I normally enjoyed, except it was now so loud and I couldn’t get away from it.

“I’m going to have to sew the top of your little finger shut,” the doctor said.

I couldn’t understand him, so he wrote it down, where I stared at it blankly for a few seconds and nodded “Okay”.

I was hoping this was a bad dream and that I’d soon awaken from it.

The doctor started to close the remaining flap of skin over my finger as the nurse cleaned my face. I had a little cut next to his nose jus’ under my left eye.

The nurse felt it, then looked at the doctor and felt it again. Suddenly the cut erupted.

The nurse jumped back as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head as she collapsed to the floor. The doctor’s eyes widened with astonishment as he looked at the cut and then to the object lying in my lap.

The cut burned deep as the nurse had touched it a second time and was a momentary sharp pain jus’ before the nurse fainted. I had my eyes closed tight against that pain.

When I opened them, the doctor was holding the missing part of my little finger. He was busy cleaning it off and getting it ready to be sewn back on.

I leaned back and drifted off.

The medication the doctor had given me was taking affect and could relax now. The bad dream wasn’t so bad after all; I had my little finger back.

A new year has begun and it hardly seems like the old one got started.

I feel like I am still working on projects I initiated in the year 2000. Yet I look around me and I know it’s not true. It’s just a feeling. Perhaps it is something that comes from age and the perceived movement of time.

For me the changing of the year is a reminder that there is only so much human time in our lives yet an infinite amount of time as God would measure it . It is so hard to wrap my mind around it that I would much rather do winter cleaning than think about it.

Either way God was bound to appear in the mix.

It has been amazing to discover that as I start to clean out drawers and old boxes, some of the items I have run across. I have found papers that I figured were long ago lost.

These are papers that I had first started writing as a child of about nine. My mother saved them all through the years and I did not know it.

I only found out after her death and growing brave enough to open some of the things she left behind. These have become kind of a mini-time capsule of sorts from me.

I read them and discover that I thought some extraordinary things as a child through my young adulthood. I can also see how .come my parents ended up with all those gray hairs, too.

I write about all the many times I found myself in trouble at school or with my schoolmates and such. There are also objects that I had put away so well that I figured that I had tossed them out with the garbage or something.

It is amazing to find a military patch that I once wore over twenty-five years ago tucked under the fold of a cardboard box. It brought back memories that caught me of f guard. It also made me feel young and old all at the same time.

Often times when I get on a cleaning jag it is because I am afraid that I will end up like some pathetic old pack rat, hording every little piece of paper until it is nearly impossible to move around my home. Yet there is a small fear inside me that says that if I should throw out a certain paper or file or item, that’s exactly the time when I will need it.

That’s has happened before and then I’ve found myself stuck, either calling around to get a copy of something I needed or going out and buying a new whatever it was I threw out.

Of course I know I am not that bad, just yet. But that’s why I go on these cleaning terrors and amaze myself by the things I find. This last cleaning jag and the turning of the year got me to thinking about how the Lord works to clean or lives out too, if we let him.

Stop and think about this if you will. I found a file filled with a bunch of old bills dated from 12 years ago. They were telephone bills and I started to put them in the save and review file. My thinking was that perhaps I would find a telephone number of a person in them that I had forgotten about.

After awhile it occurred to me that I was being silly. It had been more than a decade and I had all the current telephone numbers of all the people I needed to know in my life right now. Why waste my time with the past and searching for something that is worthless?

That’s when I heard that gentle voice deep inside me say, “That’s what forgiveness is all about.” It was at that moment that I knew I had to tell as many people as I could about how simple the idea of forgiveness really is for them. It is like getting rid of unwanted and unneeded trash.

All I had to do was decide to get rid of them. I did not really outwardly ask, I just said, “I don’t want to live with these feelings anymore Lord.”

It was instantaneous for me. I cannot say that it will be the same for you as we all work differently on some basic level.

For the longest time I worried about how come I never felt relief after asking for forgiveness. It’s because I insisted on taking my trash back.

Perhaps it is human nature to do that, after all there is a saying that goes something like, “We are always are own harshest critics.”

This is an ongoing process.

Everyday, sometimes two, three and four times a day I have to tell Jesus I don’t want the feelings of guilt, of shame, of uselessness, or remorse, or bitterness or whatever may be shadowing me at the time. I have to decide I don’t want them and then give them up.

One of the best examples I can cite is the thief on the Cross beside Jesus as they were crucified together. Be simply decided to believe and therefore was rewarded with the promise of seeing God in Heaven by the end of that day.

There are still a couple boxes I have to tackle and a closet to clean out and I have no idea what I’m going to do about the garage just yet, but I have .found some peace in my soul through daily prayer and talking to God. It doesn ‘t hurt either that, I allow myself a little quite time too so that I can listen for that quiet little voice to tell me what I need to know .

The letter said I was the baby’s father. I sat there with my mouth wide open, in shock and having a very difficult time comprehending what I was reading over and over.

I had come in early to the station so I could complete my production assignment prior to my shift.

“What’s the matter?” my co-worker asked.

He was standing next to me as I re-read the letter.

“Some chick is accusing me of being her kids father,” I stated flatly.

“What?” he replied, ”Let me see that.”

I handed him the letter so he could read it.

“You best go talk to the P.D.,” he said.

I agreed.

The Program Director’s door was open as normal, but I knocked any way.

He looked up from his paper work and said, “Come in”.

I felt my hand shaking as I handed the letter to him.

He knew something was wrong as I was also pale as a ghost. He read the letter.

“Is it true?” he asked.

At first I was insulted that he would ask such a thing but I remembered the P.D. never one was never one to assume anything.

“Its not” I answered,”I don’t even know who she is.”

He read the letter again. Then he said, “Lets go talk to the General Manager.”

The G.M. was in a meeting with some station lawyers as luck would have it. The P.D. picked up his telephone and buzzed the G.M.’s office.

The P.D. gave the G.M. the run down on the letter and hung up the phone. A moment later the G.M. was standing in the P.D.’s office and he had the station’s attorney with him.

They both read the letter over. “Tom, you didn’t have sex with her did you?” the General Manager asked.

“No, I didn’t,“ I replied.

Then the lawyer piped in, “Okay, here’s what I suggest we do. Since she sent the letter here, the station is involved and I can help out. Of course that is if you don’t mind?”

He was looking at me.

“I appreciate any help I can get,” I answered.

“Alright,” he said as he clapped and rubbed his hands together, “Lets get a hold of her attorney and arrange a meeting as soon as possible.”

With that he picked up the telephone and dialed the number of the lawyer she had written down in the letter to me.

The following day, I got up and put on a suit and a tie. I had not slept much that night and I had a terrible show from the evening before.

I was under a lot of stress knowing that this woman thought I was the father of her baby.

The worst of it yet was that I had no knowledge of who this woman was. And it made matters worse to know that she had gone as far as to name her son after me.

I felt bad because she truly believed I had given her a baby. But I also knew that I didn’t want to be held responsible for something I hadn’t done.

The meeting was scheduled for ten that morning. I arrived early along with the Program Director and we sat quietly in the conference room waiting for the G.M. to arrive along with the lawyer.

Soon everyone was there including a young woman of about twenty years old. She had in her arms a baby. She was sitting next to her attorney and she had her mother with her for obvious morale support.

I sat jus’ behind the station’s attorney and the P.D. The G.M. sat next to me.

Introductions were made around the room. The young lady and her mother went first out of politeness. I introduced myself last as instructed by the station’s attorney.

The young lady’s eyes flashed open wide and she gasped, “No your not!”

Her attorney looked sharply at her then back at me.

“What’s going on here?” he asked brusquely, “Are you trying to put one over on us?”

”No,” responded the station’s attorney.

“Then where’s Tom?” the young woman asked.

It was a struggle for me to remain quiet. I wanted to jump up and shout “I’m right here.”

But I was told to keep my mouth shut until I was told to do other wise.

“Is that him?” her lawyer asked her.

“No,” she said as she started crying.

Her mother called me a few choice names as well as a liar. But I held his tongue as instructed.

The room was full of tension. The General Manager pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to the young woman, so she could wipe her eyes.

Then she started, “Tom is short with dark brown hair and that’s not him!”

She started crying again. I glanced at the P.D. as he looked over at me.

We were thinking the same thing; each of them had recognized the general description of a former employee. This employee had been fired by him about five months previously.

The Program Director leaned over and whispered in the ear of the station’s attorney. He nodded his head.

The station’s lawyer then said, “Tom, please provide them with you driver’s license.”

I stood up removing my wallet from my hip pocket, pulled out my license and walked around the conference room table, handing it to the other attorney.

I stood there as the woman’s attorney examined it. He handed it to the young lady and she looked it over and burst out in tears again.

“Guess that settles that,” her attorney said as he handed my license back to me.

I felt a wave of relief rush through my body as I walked back to his seat. My knees were shaking and if I had to walk a few steps more I might have fallen over.

“It’s obvious that you are who you say you are and since my client doesn’t know you, you’re not the father of her child,” her attorney continued.

With that the meeting was over.

Later that evening I was on the air when I answered the request line. It was the young lady.

My first impulse was to hang up on her, however I didn’t. Instead I listened to what she had to say.

First she apologized, then she told me how stupid she felt for having been duped into believing that the jerk she was romantically involved with and had got her pregnant had lead her to believe he was someone else.

Then she said,”I don’t even know his real name!”

I was all but too happy to oblige her with the name of that person. I also gave her all the information the Program Director had supplied me with, reading it straight from the guy’s employment file.

On the surface, “Journalism is Literature in a Hurry,” sounds like a wonderfully, poetic statement. However, after awhile of studying this phrase, a person begins to see the awful truth.

Journalism used to be the profession of gathering and reporting NEWS. It was unbiased and straightforward.

This is no longer the case.

Now, society is bombarded with live-feeds from around the world that are nothing more than opinion and gossip coupled to pictures designed to alter our way of thinking much like commercials advertisements.

If you question this theory, ask yourself this: When was the last time you heard a complete enemy body count of Iraqi dead in conjunction with an attack on U. S. troops?

You haven’t.

But daily, you’ll hear how many U. S. Soldiers were killed. What Peter, Tom and Dan want you to believe are our fighting men and women are so demoralized that they will not or cannot fight back.

Don’t you believe it! Never have I felt as proud as when I saw our President in Iraq, on the chow line, serving Thanksgiving Dinner to our service men and women.

The President is their Commander-in-Chief. Typically, they serve him.

What a wonderful role model those men and women have as a leader, for as Jesus said, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:16 (NIV)

Within a few minutes of the first viewing of this tape to come from Baghdad it was immediately followed by file footage of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) visiting the troops. The CNN talking-head reporter was decrying President Bush’s arrival in Baghdad days ahead of the Senator as nothing more than a photo-op for re-election.

Where am I going with this, you ask?

The Senator was not the NEWS. Period.

She should have had no mention in the story what so ever. Somewhere in his job, the talking head stopped reporting the NEWS and started issuing his opinion.

Here is a solid litmus test for what is and is not NEWS, ask these four things of a story: Who, what, where and when. Most NEWS stories can be summed up in a very concise sentence. If they start talking about ‘why’ or add information not relevant to the story or are unable to directly quote sources, then they have crossed that threshold into opinion and gossip.

Here are four very current examples. They are taken directly from the various media resources including television, radio, newspaper, magazine and Internet.

Where is the story, the opinion and the gossip in each of the paragraphs?

“Michael Jackson was arrested on child molestation charges in Los Angeles, yesterday. The Gloved-one invited the boy to spend the night with him at his secluded ranch. It is believed that they may have shared the same bed together.”

“Rush Limbaugh is seeking treatment for a prescription drug addiction in Arizona starting immediately. He may or may not have purchased them illegally. He could be out of a job after he completes rehab.”

“Kobe Bryant has been arraigned on one count of rape in Colorado today. He purchased a large diamond ring for his wife after being arrested. It was purchased to buy her silence.”

“Scott Peterson will stand trial Stanislaus County for the December 2002 murder of his wife, Laci. Mr. Peterson is known to have had several affairs while married. He may have killed her to get out of his marriage.”

The answers are the same for each paragraph. The first sentence is the story. The second sentence is purely gossip. The third sentence is strictly opinion.

It is so easy to be misled by what we hear, see and read. We must safeguard ourselves against this eroding of our hearts and minds. Not everything that happens should be reported in its fullest and lurid detail.

Do not mistake this as a call to censor the media. Instead it is a call to responsibility on our parts as the listener, the watcher, the reader and the consumer, to censor ourselves.

Solomon wrote, “Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.” Proverbs 10:14 (NIV)

Finally, all of this is brought to our attention in the hope that we might more closely focus on what the season of Christmas really means. It isn’t journalism and it isn’t literature.

It’s the good NEWS and it’s the truth. It passes the ‘who, what, where and when’ test.