Dec

Where Is Everybody?

Fri Dec 9th 2011 @ 1:55 am

One good thing about drunks; they always have lots of friends…especially drunks with money. As long as you’re picking up tabs, you’re always surrounded by “buddies” who want to be your “friend-for-life.”   Or, if not for life, at least until you run out of money. Or… and this one is unthinkable… until you quit drinking. And I did the unthinkable: I ran into Jesus and quit drinking.

The reaction to my conversion was immediate and pretty much unanimous: “You’ve got to be kidding!” As I’ve mentioned before, I was pretty well known: partly because I owned a lot of stuff, had a lot of money and was on radio and TV. I was also known for my prodigious partying, gambling and association with bad guys.  A sort of one man "Rat Pack." People apparently found my lifestyle exciting... but that’s because they didn’t have to actually live it. They had no idea how shallow and empty that life was. And since they envied my lifestyle, they simply couldn’t believe that I would bail out to become a Christian. One guy even told me that I was "way too cool" to be a Christian.

For the first several weeks after I gave my life to Christ, I turned into a sponge: I soaked up everything I could find about this new life I had chosen. What I didn’t do was take a drink, go to a nightclub, place any bets, join any parties or hang with any of my unsavory associates. They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” They lie. In my case, absence made the rumors grow larger. I was amazed by some of the things being said about me:
• This is just a phase Ed is going through…he’ll snap out of it
• He’s suffering from some terminal disease and is trying to get his affairs in order
• A mob boss in Vegas is after him and Ed is trying to lay low, and
• The most prevalent…Ed’s gone crazy. (even some members of my own family bought into this one)

Not one person said, “Ed’s trying to clean up his life” or anything like that. That’s because for most people it was simply inconceivable. And THAT is the ultimate commentary on the life I had been living: that nobody could believe that I was capable of trying to be a better person. That shouldn’t have been very surprising to me, given some of the nicknames people had hung on me: like “Slick” and “Fast Eddie.” Not exactly trust-inspiring, huh? I’m not sure that even Ken, the guy who led me to Christ, was convinced that my conversion was genuine at first.

Then, I became aware of something else…people started dropping out of my life. People I had thought were good friends were no longer calling me. My calls to them were not returned. At first, I didn’t understand…where did everybody go? Then it dawned on me: we no longer had anything in common. I guess all we ever had in common were bars, booze and parties…and I wasn’t doing those things anymore. What the heck did we talk about during all those hours spent hanging out in clubs? Talk, talk, talk. Drink, drink, drink. But, try as I might, I couldn’t remember a single, significant conversation or thought that came out of all that whisky talk.   What a waste of time and money!

There was an even bigger reason why all my “friends for life” began avoiding me: they claimed that I was always talking about Jesus and “preaching at them.” I had no idea that I was doing any such thing…I was just excited about my newfound peace and joy and I wanted to share it with my “friends for life.” Turns out they didn’t want to share. Also turns out that my “friends for life” weren’t. They were just “friends for life,” until I “went crazy and got religion.”

Oh yeah...and quit picking up bar tabs.

Epilogue

A real friend indeed: Jackie Robinson was the first black to play major league baseball. Breaking baseball's color barrier, he faced venom nearly everywhere he traveled--fastballs at his head, spiking on the bases, brutal epithets from the opposing dugouts and from the jeering crowds in every stadium. While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. The fans began to ridicule him. He stood at second base, humiliated, while the fans jeered. Then, in the midst of this, another Dodger, a Southern white named Pee Wee Reese, called timeout. He walked from his position at shortstop toward Robinson at second base, put his arm around Robinson's shoulder, and stood there with him for what seemed like a long time. The gesture spoke more eloquently than the words: This man is my friend. He put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career.

Forward…Mail!!

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Thought for the Day

Anyone who doesn't think that Christmas lasts all year doesn't have a charge card.

Turn the radio on

Listen to God & Ed’s Excellent Adventure on the Radio. Monday through Friday at 4pm on “The Word,” 98.5/99.3 FM. Or listen on-line at KLGO.net. It’s the place for Christians of all varieties to hang out and be loved, entertained and uplifted.

Semi-interesting fact

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "Its A Wonderful Life"

Joke du Jour

A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch. "I couldn't help noticing how happy you look," she said. "What's your secret for a long happy life?"

"I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day," he said. "I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise."

"That's amazing," said the woman, "how old are you?"

"Twenty-six," he said.

Cool Music

We’ve added more cool songs you’ve never heard on radio. Check the player on the upper right, click and brighten your day.

Questions I ask myself:

Why does the sun darken our skin but lighten our hair?

Really?? Actual News Stories

Man ate frozen beer to survive When Clifton Vial crashed his truck into a snowdrift during a drive on a rarely-used road in a remote area of Alaska, he had only snow and a few frozen cans of Coors Light to keep him going. Vial was stuck in the snow for three days outside of the town of Nome, approximately 700 km northwest of Anchorage. To keep warm as the nights dipped as low as -28 C, he used a fleece sleeping bag liner and occasionally started the truck to run the heater. As for food, there was nothing but a few cans of beers that were frozen solid. So he ate the beer. "I cut the lids off and dug it out with a knife," he told the newspaper Friday. Vial was finally rescued when his boss realized his always punctual employee was very late and emergency crews started searching for him. Vial said he lost 16 pounds during his ordeal, but had no signs of frostbite and was otherwise healthy.

A great-grandmother who sold suicide kits from her home in California pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax-related offence stemming from an investigation of her mail-order business.

Sharlotte Hydorn, 93, a retired public school science teacher, admitted she failed to file federal income tax returns from 2007 to 2010, years in which investigators said at least seven customers used her asphyxiation kits to kill themselves. Hydorn, has said her “exit kits” were intended to help terminally ill people end their lives with dignity. Prosecutors said she sold about 1,300 of the kits but agreed to stop making or selling them as part of her plea deal. The kits, sold for $60 including instructions and shipping, consisted of a plastic hood that closed around the neck and tubing from the hood to a tank of helium or other inert gas that users would supply themselves. The San Diego County district attorney, a party to the settlement, agreed not to prosecute Hydorn over any of the six known deaths in that county.

Is That 'Sexual Harassment'? A couple of 7-year-olds had a fight. Then they had another fight, and one boy hit or kicked -- that's unclear -- the other in the groin. And that's led the school to investigate the puncher for sexual harassment. Do the school administrators even know what sexual harassment is?

Black Student Defends His Confederate Flag Byron Thomas is 19, black, a freshman at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and a proud Southerner.

He hung a Confederate flag in his dorm room window until the university asked him to take it down because several people had complained about it. "I know it's kinda weird because I'm black," Thomas said. "When I look at this flag, I just don't see racism. I see pride, respect. Southern pride, that's what I see." "Ignorance gave that flag a bad name, ignorant people like the KKK." Thomas said he won't put the flag back up, although he believes he has the right to do so. The university plans to host a discussion about the flag after students return from winter break. Thomas says,”To me, it means more states' rights and no bigger government. I believe South Carolina knows me better than the federal government. I personally have a lot of pride from being in the South. I see some freedom from when the South seceded from the North. I know that sounds bad. I see freedom differently than most people see it. Just that you have the right to do what you want to do and form your own opinion. The bottom line for me: I do not see that flag as a racist symbol. Only an ignorant person can say that. I have researched it and studied it. I just feel like, I should have my right to see a flag the way I see it. Just because someone takes offense to it, why should I have to take it down? They can walk another way. It's not like I have a cross burning or a noose hanging outside my room. I don't see it as a racist statement to me and that's my opinion.

Are you kidding me???

The word “Amen” appears exactly 773,692 times in the King James Bible

Groaner

A mother complained to a doctor about her daughter's strange eating habits.
"All day long she lies in bed and eats yeast and car wax. What will happen to her?"
"Don't worry," said the doctor. "Eventually, she'll rise and shine."

Point to Ponder

Pastor Andy Stanley in his book, "Choosing to Cheat" guides the reader through the journey of balancing work and life demands. A quote that jumped off the page was: "You do your job. You love your family." It's when we “love our job and do family” that the tension escalates and the tug-of-war begins. As Andy Stanley says, "Let's do our job, and love our family."

Remember, Christianity is more about walking than about talking