Tag: airport

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Two-Year Old Whose Grandpa is Arrested?!

Then the other officer came… he was polite and professional but he was not about to be taken into Emmy’s conidence.

Ok, perhaps “arrested” is not exactly the right term and Emelia isn’t quite two. It all began on our trip to Orlando as Emmy and I were at the Cleveland Airport going through passport control and security. Now, before I tell the entire story, allow me to say that Emelia has the greatest deference for police oficers. She should, at least. I am a retired Chief of Police. Emelia’s father is a county corrections officer and her uncle is a local police officer, not that this 1 year and so many month old little girl really understands that. I also need to say at the outset that we fully understand the dificult task that TSA officers have and why they needed to do what they did with me at the airport.

Now… for the story. It was just Emmy and me, waiting our turn in a VERY long line at security. Thankfully, Emmy was in a stroller so we moved ahead a little more quickly. I got all of our stuff on the converyor belt to the x-ray machine and we were waiting to go through the detector a second time. I say a second time because the first time, as I carried the little munchkin through either my brand new knee or my old steel rods along my vertebrae activated the detector. As we waited, a TSA officer tried to make nice with Emelia and gave her a stick on TSA badge which she wore proudly on her shirt, at first anyway. Then the other officer came, an older gentleman. He was polite and professional but he was not about to be taken into Emmy’s confidence. Time came for the second trip through the detector. This time I had to walk through on my own and then call Emmy to follow me because if I carried her, she would have to be patted down too. Finally, she came through, now her emotions were beginning to boil. She wanted held but I could not pick her up or, again, she would have to be searched. So, she gets placed in her stroller and she sits and watches while this officer takes her Papaw and frisks him very thoroughly. The longer he takes to search me and the more he is putting his hands on her Papaw the angrier she becomes. And then, it happened. It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words so here…                                                                                             Continue reading “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Two-Year Old Whose Grandpa is Arrested?!”

Flying – by the seat of your pants

Rev. Ross L. Riggs, D Min.   RIGGS MINISTRY MINUTE: When there’s only a minute for ministry  7 August 2012

When my son, Daniel, was still in preschool, during the short time we had between dropping off his sister at the elementary school and his class, he always wanted to go out to this small “airport” to see the planes. It didn’t matter that the planes were tiny private planes, sitting just off of a grass runway. It didn’t even matter to him if it were the middle of winter and snow covered everything. He just was happy to be among the airplanes. A few years later a friend and neighbor took him up in his private airplane and Daniel was literally swept up into the heavens in that small plane. A couple of summers ago, Daniel attended a Baptist camp and missionaries there from Missionary Aviation Fellowship took students up into the clouds to learn the basics of flying.  Daniel was immediately in his element and took to the air like a duck takes to water. As he began to consider serving his country in the U.S. Army, his long-range plans involved becoming a warrant officer and flying military helicopters. He is in the military now and still working his plan to someday fly. It is taking a great deal of fore-thought and planning. Classes he took at school, the way in which he maintained his grades and now, the specialty that he has chosen to keep him closer to his dream are all part of his preparation and planning.

As Daniel was flying high above the Baptist Ranch, where other ‘campers’ were all around the grounds involved in various activities, his instructors would have him climb high and then stall the engine, allowing the plane to drop in the air until they would restart the engine and again climb into the sky. It was a controlled way to know how the plane felt when it lost power, that it could ‘glide’ for a time’ because of the way the plane was designed. It was aerodynamically sound in the structure of the plane and was designed to fly. I believe that Daniel was created by God to be aerodynamic in his own inner-self; that God has designed him to fly. The result of that shows when Daniel does get behind the joy stick, he makes it look so easy. It is as natural to him as when he was swimming in competitions. It looked so effortless, yet I knew all of the training and preparation that went into his being able to swim so smoothly and naturally. I watched as he flew that small plane with confidence and joy as a sixteen year old teen. Observers might think that a veteran pilot was there behind that stick. The way in which Daniel slipped into that pilots seat, donned those headphones, cleared with the tower and slipped up into the sky; another person might have thought he was flying ‘by the seat of his pants’ when, in reality, he had been preparing for that time his entire life.

My daughter made the analogy just recently about the first place runners we were watching in the Olympics. They and the other top contenders made it look so smooth and effortless while those in the back of the pack were struggling to stay on their feet. Sometimes, perhaps, when someone seems to perform a task so smoothly and confidently, we might be quick to think they put little effort into the task that they too, are flying by the seat of their pants. More likely than not, God has been preparing them for quite a while and they have dedicated themselves to the task in which they take so much joy. Like a duck that seems to glide effortlessly across a pond, when in reality, under the water, out of sight two little webbed feet are flapping as fast as they can just to keep up!

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