This past weekend I stopped to visit with an Amish friend and purchase some delicious baked goods. We were joking about the affects of power outages from Friday’s massive storm. Jokingly she said to me, “We didn’t have to change anything. We were already prepared.”

I laughed and also recalled a different time and era when we were much more prepared for power outages than we are now.

In small Ceylon where I was raised, in the summer, food was as close as walking out the door. The garden, full of vegetables, was on the east side of the property and the orchards of apples, cherries, pear trees, grapes, strawberry patch, raspberries and rest of our fruit was even closer to the house.

ROTTEN EGGS?

One of my favorite foods to eat is eggs. Eggs are not just for breakfast anymore, I love to cook eggs, bacon, toast and potatoes for an evening meal.

We use eggs so much in cooking, baking, and even in crafts. Eggs can be cooked so many different ways. I love them fried, scrambled, poached, boiled, in omelets, and in sandwiches.

My opinion is that although Americans consume over 75 billion eggs a year, the lowly egg has gotten a bad rap as a food item. Some doctors will tell you not to eat eggs, because they are full of cholesterol and can cause a heart attack. Then I read another report that said if you ate eggs you would live longer lives.

With the recent John Paulding Days and fair festivities, I began thinking of amusement parks and the rides I loved as a child. And of course, there is no better amusement park than Cedar Point. Yes, Disney World and Kings Island are pretty awesome, but for a true, mind-blowing, riding experience, nothing beats Cedar Point.

I find roller coasters so exhilarating and I love the rush you get from some of these mega coasters. The crazy thing is that I am deathly afraid of heights, but for some reason, I can convince myself to get on the biggest, highest, and fastest roller coasters.

Isn’t it amazing how much difference a little can make when you haven’t had any?

Late last week, several spots in the county received the first rain drops received in several weeks. When the first drops started to fall, people came out to the sidewalks and from their homes to experience refreshing wetness and smell that has eluded us most of the summer.

I was driving in the country when the first big drops started splashing against my windshield. At first, I soaked in the pleasure so much that I refused to turn on the wipers but eventually that had to change. Still, the sound of the swishing wipers almost seemed like a novelty again.

COLD CROCK? DOODLESS?

Last week in “Pennies” I wrote about how difficult it can be to speak the English language. We take English in school and it was always my favorite subject.

Back in my day, we used to diagram sentences. We would draw lines for the subject, predicate and descriptive words. Then we would take the words from the sentence and put it where it belonged on the lines.

We actually had races between students to see who could diagram a sentence the quickest. I will say I was pretty good at it, mainly because I love words and talking, which of course goes hand-in-hand.

The 3 little pigs and wolf stew

I have always been a speculative person, always wondering, “What if?” Even when I was a child reading books, I would find myself creating a different ending to the story and pondering that ever present question, “What if?” I was always putting happy endings on sad stories. Such as, I did not want to think of the Big Bad Wolf eating any of the Three Little Pigs, so I made up my own story. I had the three pigs eating wolf stew for supper with carrots and potatoes.

For years people have talked, speculated and even prophesied that Jesus was coming back to earth and rapture up his people at a certain time and date.

It has been 22 years since my lifelong buddy, Meredith Sprunger, experienced one of the most faith-building journeys of his lifetime.

It all began the day school left out in at the middle school where he taught eighth grade history near Marion, Ind.

He left school and stopped to purchase gas for his automobile. As he was walking from the car to the station to pay for purchase, he noticed a penny laying on the sidewalk in front of the entrance.

One thing about Meredith that I always appreciated was that he bent towards conserving anything in sight, rubber bands, paper clips, pencils, ball point pens and stray coins. He never passed any retrievable item of value, regardless of how meager its worth, because he believed that the “big picture” was a huge savings if he were to consider the total accumulation of recovered valuables.

THE HOMOS ... NYMS AND PHONES

I am sure the title of this article grabbed your attention. First, let me explain the reasoning behind the name of the title. It has been said that the English language is one of the most difficult languages to learn to speak. Making it more difficult are the homonyms, homophones and homographs. They all begin with the prefix homo.

Homonyms are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings.

Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings.

Have you ever noticed how the sense of listening seemingly comes into play more in darkness than it does in light?

Sometimes, this is due to a sense of danger. Our car breaks down on an obscure road and another vehicle pulls up behind us to assist. The first thing we listen for is the familiarity of the voice of the one approaching.

A jogging athlete caught in descending darkness suddenly becomes tuned to sounds of animals, passing vehicles or approaching footsteps. A child tucked into bed often “hears” things not perceived when light is available in the same environment. It’s amazing how darkness can shift our focus from the sense of light to hearing.

THE COON AND I

I have never been one to eat, hunt or get close to wildlife. As a kid, I remember my grandpa going hunting with a big heavy slingshot. He would go hunting for rabbits and pheasants and he had pretty good luck with that slingshot and a few round silver balls for ammo.

A few years ago, we had an opossum on our front porch. It was big and ugly plus it was growling and raising Cain at midnight. You could hear it from the living room as it ransacked back and forth. Then I got brave and peeped out the window. The creature was big and looked fierce with that big ugly nose and snaggly teeth.