Time and again I have said God has a sense of humor. Here’s another case in point.

Yesterday I stepped out of my right shoe. That’s to say: it tore along the side and my foot popped out. I had to throw that pair away.

Then this morning I went to church and found out it was “Barefoot Sunday,” a program designed to aid the people of Haiti who are without footwear. The stage was filled with bags and boxes of shoes.

Then there was an invitation given to take the pair from off our feet at that moment and give them with a glad heart. And that’s exactly what I did.

The pair of tennis shoes I gave was never very comfortable anyway. I sat through the service, happy as a clam, with the knowledge they’ll end up on someone’s feet who will appreciate them more than I had.

About half way home it dawned on me—I don’t have another pair of shoes at all. Now I’m down to jus’ a pair of slippers, until I get to the store.

Every day after school, Adam and I would come home and look in the icebox.  As we grew into men with wives and children of our own, coming home for visits, we continued to look in the icebox. 

On one visit to see Mom, I committed a serious breach of civility.  I looked in the icebox before kissing her “hello”.

To Mom it seemed that I was more concerned with feeding my face than I was with seeing her.  And she let me know about it.

Fortunately for me though, Adam arrived about the same time.  He gave Mom a hug and a peck on her cheek and said, “Hello.”  

Then he proceeded to the icebox.  As he opened it, Mom yelled at him, “What are you looking for in there?” 

Her eyes were on fire.  And if she could have spit fire I’m certain she would have done that too.

Adam looked at me because he knew that I had done “something wrong” before he had gotten there and Adam was certain he was catching the blame for it now. I just looked down at my feet.

“Well?” Mom shouted.

“I was looking for penguins,” Adam calmly replied.

In complete exasperation Mom turned and walked away.  I had to fight off a chuckle. 

As for Adam, he shrugged his shoulders, and continued to look for penguins.

The Continental Airliner landed and taxied up to the gate. Within moments everyone was deplaning including me. As I walked down the companion way, I could see the sign. It read “Tommy Darby.”

Tulsa has the largest airport near Muskogee. I wasn’t going to Oklahoma for fun as I had jus’ gotten word that my father had jus’ had a severe stroke and was not expected to live.

My old man and I hadn’t spoken in at least 12-years, though we had corresponded a few times. So to get a call out of the blue from a woman claiming to be my father’s wife, was something of a surprise.

He had not mentioned having gotten remarried. And I didn’t know what to expect.

In fact, I was struggling with the idea of Dad at deaths doorstep. Plus, it still had not fully sunk in that I now had a half-sister.

It was my birthday as quickly made my flight reservation. The next day I headed out, the same day the doctor would be kind enough to list as my father’s date-of-death.

As I looked at the sign, I followed the arm downward until I could see the face of the woman holding it. It was my father’s wife and my step-mom.

My first thought was, “Oh, crap. Dad married a woman younger than me.”

Later, I found out Jere was four-years older than me, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

It was the Fourth of July and I had only been on station three days, when Dave Barber and I were invited to go shoot off some fireworks. We were packed into one car and it’s trunk was loaded with lady-fingers and salutes.

What started out as lighting off fireworks denigrated into an all-out free-for-all, as we were throwing lit firecrackers at each other. And it didn’t take long for someone to get hurt.

Dave was on his knees, bent forward, holding his face after being hit in the eye with an M-80 firecracker. The ensuing explosion blasted the lens out of his glasses.

We ended up rushing back to the base, and the hospital. Once there, Dave was hurried into the emergency room where the doctor examined his eye.

It took a while, but the doctor eventually declared Dave’s eye undamaged.  He told us Dave was luck he didn’t get his eye blown out of his head.

Then he added: “You ought to get your brains examined, too.”

Putting my foot in my mouth and saying inappropriate things has always been a forte’ of mine. I was working at KONE with Paul Stewart when he had to set me straight after I opened my fat-yap.

The day before I had purchased a brand-new car; a Hyundai for $6,000. I was feeling pretty happy with myself and I came into the radio studio as if I were walking on clouds.

Paul and I were discussing my purchase when I started bragging about how I had managed to get nearly $900 shaved off the over all price of the vehicle. I said: “I jude them down nearly a thousand-bucks.”

He looked at me over the rims of his glasses and responded, “I’m a Jew.”

My heart felt like it had come to stop. I hadn’t ever thought of the term as, “Jewed down.” I had always thought the term was spelled after St. Jude, the saint of hopeless causes and that’s what I told Paul.

He explained that I had it all wrong in both spelling and in orgin. Then he told me what the term actually meant.

Without hesitation, I told him I was sorry for making such a slur towards his faith. Paul was gracious enough to accept my apology.

It was obvious I still had alot of learning to do.

Adam Maynard Darby, 46, passed away on January 25, 2010, in San Francisco, California. He was born on August 4, 1963, in Sacramento, California.

He attended school at Margaret Keating Elementary and graduated from Del Norte High School in 1981. Adam served honorably in the U.S. Army as a Ranger.

Adam is survived by his wife Kelly, his son, Jace, and daughters, Jasmine and Lynda. He also leaves behind two sisters and a brother and their families.

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It’s hard to believe I had not spoken to my brother Adam since I had to call the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department and have him removed from my home. It started the second day he was visiting us for the first and only time.

Adam had been drinking all day long. He brought booze and finished what booze we still had in our cupboards. Eventually, his mood shifted from being a nice guy to a man with a lot of anger and hostility towards me and my family.

He threatened sexual assault on my bride and our roommate. The threat scared Mary so badly that she locked herself in our bedroom. The threats escalated to violence as Adam tried to choke me out.

Luckily, he failed and that’s when I told him to leave.

At first, he wouldn’t go, then I called the law. He told me that if he stepped out of my front door, he’d never talk to me again and that I could consider myself to be ‘brotherless.’

I told him to go before he got arrested and ended up in prison. He was a two-time loser in that department.

Yeah, ‘tough love,’ is hard and it is made harder still by the things in life one cannot control. I had no control over Adam’s death and I have no control over those withholding information about his passing.

All I can do is forgive them and myself and continue living a good and decent life. It’s the only way I know how to honor my younger brother.

I’ll miss my younger brother all the rest of my life…

The cowpuncher pulled on his chaps,
Then he cinched up on the straps.
That commenced the real fun
As he pulled them undone,
‘Cause his gut decided to prolapse.

“What makes you a cowboy?”
A ‘slicker asked my friend.
My friend scratched his chin,
“Ain’t no tellin’,” my friend replied,
“Jus’ the way its always been.

“Is it the hat or the boots you wears?”
The ‘slicker asked my friend.
My friend just smiled some,
“Naw, it ain’t that,” my friend replied,
“At least not where I come from.”

“Is is that horse you rode up on?”
The ‘slicker asked my friend.
My friend just grinned real wide,
“Cain’t be that either,” my friend replied,
“Guess it comes from what’s inside.”

Grease the palm that earns the bread,
Wringing hands together in nervous frenzy,
Running fingers through the hair of the head,
Reflecting hard on what’s yet to come.

Time for a parting of the ways,
The grand brush off comes painlessly.
Hope is gained for the division stays,
Everything swept aside in a couple strokes.

Crossing over where things grow gray,
Streaks in a field of yellowed grass,
Each blade must have a perfect lay,
Things will never be black or white again.

Victimized by age and time of life,
It is a vain mans thoughts that betray,
That give him pain and strife,
To at least have hair to run a comb though.

The perfection that once was his head
Has been replaced by the need of magic.
At least he’s not like his Dad whose dead,
Who died with something less than a comb-over

It was a simple trip out to a medical ship via helicopter and back again. However, the craft would never make it back to dry land.

The four of us zipped over the near-white beaches, where tourists played and laid in the sand. It was a far cry from the interior less than 20 miles away where Marines were hunting the drug cartels on a daily basis.

It was a Navy craft, an SH-2 Seasprite, originally designed to hunt down Soviet submarines. The Seasprite I was aboard though had been converted to Search and Rescue craft.

As we left the safety of the firebase, we came under small arms fire. It was routine for snipers and those working the coca trails to shoot at any helicopter leaving the fortified compound and they didn’t care if it has a large red-cross painted on it or not.

After we picked up our needed supplies and were in-bound an alarm sounded in the cockpit. I was sitting in a jump seat, further in the rear of the craft and knew the loud beeping meant some sort of mechanical trouble.

In the distance we could see the beach and the tourist enjoying their tropical vacation. I could tell we weren’t going to reach the safety of that sand as the craft drew closer and closer to the sea below.

The pilot, a Captain, pushed the Seasprite as hard as he could in hope of reaching land or at least get close to it. I watched as the water became so close to the craft that I could have easily stuck my hand out the hatch and touched a wave.

Then he announced, “Hold on!”

The helicopter bucked violently backwards then pitched forward with even greater violence as we hit the water. The ocean immediately started pouring in to the craft causing it to sink.

The pilot and co-pilot opened their doors and swam out into the sea. The flight engineer and I popped open the side hatch and did the same.

We had nearly made it — another 25 to 30-feet to go and we would have been able to remain completely dry.