Hairy Humility

When i was in 7th grade my JR gym coach expected all of the boys to strip down and shower after Gym class. There was NO WAY i was going to join in that display of male anatomy so I always found a way to hide or get out of a shower. Why, you ask? Well...

PUBERTY WAS LATE! I was a large boy growing up, always one of, if not the, biggest kid in my class. (my mom used the term husky) SO in Jr High I looked like a young man stepping into Adolescence. Nothing could be farther from the truth. OK, ...be discreet Dave... I was expected to have body hair that would be noticeable in the shower. Well, I DID NOT HAVE AFOREMENTIONED BODY HAIR! Seems the puberty bus was late getting to my address.

8th grade still no showers for Dave. What made this situation worse was the fact that there were alot of Latin guys at my school and they were werewolves at the age of 8! Not true for Mr. Lilly white and hairless.

Finally I caught up with the rest of the male population in between 8th and 9th grade. I still avoided the showers though.

OK. Next expectation for me was a hairy chest. Just wait Dave it will come be patient. 18 and you will have a hairy chest. 18 came and went NO HAIR! 20 should do it Dave. 20--NO HAIR! I was complaining about this with a friend as we walked down the beach together. He was, of course, sporting a chest full of manly hair. I told him I wanted a hairy chest like his and he told me he would gladly trade half his chest hair for half the size of my chest.
22--24--30 Pitiful little sprouts but NO HAIRY CHEST! Oh i need to mention that I started shaving at 16 and needed to start at 22!

Well, if you read the title, you probably think I am done with this rant and about to say how I learned humility through this life experience. Nope! It gets worse.

Now at 49 My body has decided to sprout hair where hair is not supposed to be noticeable. My back has all the hair my chest never got! My eyebrows are attempting to imitate an amazon rain forest vine snaking across my forehead and my nose hairs ugh are attempting to become a permanent part of my moustache. WHY?! I have a theory!

God is making sure I stay humble and not overly impressed by Dave. Or maybe it is just a biological function of body hair. either way God has made me wonderfully (you too!) but i usually want to take credit. SO if my body hair fiasco helps with keeping my perspective correct, BRING ON THE HAIR!

Of Tools and Blood

Men automatically know how to use tools, did you know that? God has given men the unique ability to know how to use any tool for any purpose at any time without needing to learn how to use said tool. Well, in reality that is a little untrue.

The truth is every man is born thinking he knows how to use every tool in the world. (This is one of the facts of life that keep emergency rooms at the hospital as busy as they are.) I used to take teenagers on mission trips to the Dominican Republic in order to build chapels for local churches. We went with Time Ministries, http://timeministries.org/ ,and they provided all the lumber and TOOLS we needed for the job. After my first trip I began telling the students as we planned for the trip that the girls were better with the tools than the guys were. Of course this ruffled the feathers of testosterone high 17 year olds but hey it was true! Why was it true? Girls looked at a screw gun and said 'How do i use this?' Guys grab the screw guns out of the girls hands and in the universal Tim Taylor grunt proceed to break off and bore out as many screws as possible.

In case you did not know this TESTOSTERONE is a overpowering slavedriver. It keeps us males from stopping and asking for advice. Why? well if we need to ask for help or advice who do we have to ask? Another man? OH! I think not! that puts me in an inferior place and we simply cannot have that! Or what if we have to ask... a...wo...wo...wom...woman? Insert favorite form of ritual suicide here.

Oh wow I was gonna talk about me and tools. Well, i have matured enough to be able to admit that I am not good with tools. Mature? No not really i just have learned that when i pick up a tools of any type I bleed. Pain and stitches will eventually teach even the toughest man something.

I have:

• Mashed every digit on my left hand with hammers.
• Attempted to trim my finger nails with and electric hedgetrimmer 11 stitches i think.
• Cut my hand to the tune of 6 stitches and tendon repair while using and adjustable wrench.
• Applied pressure to a double edged carpet knife with my index finger. (Too proud to go for stitches that time.

Even now as I type i see a half healed knuckle from attempting to use a magic marker! Well, we are a sad bunch at times but we do get stuff done. Like now i must return to putting up wall paper in the hall. So, Have a great day! Now where are those band aids...?

Hmmm...

Well my daughter, Bekah http://www.countrymousetales.com/, helped me set up a blog yesterday and we were playin around with names, not really knowing where to go with this whole blog idea, so I typed in something with Noobs in the name. Well, that did not work so i began to playaround with ideas using the term noobs. (Umm noob as in Newbie. I got it from an online game i play) Bekah told my to try spelling 'noob' with an ew instead of oo so I typed in ewb in after the n in noobs. The resulting name would have gotten alot of traffic and certainly drew a laugh and alot of mocking from Bekah.

So, needless to say, i did not stick with the title newboobs!

I am a man. As such I have observed that the females on this planet don't seem to understand us men. It is my intention to use this blog to highlight some of the unfair and totally undeserved ridicule men receive.

Not really i just want to talk about men and the way they relate/don't relate to the world and specifically the women around them. Am I qualified to make such observations? HMPH! I AM A MAN! That makes me qualified as an expert in EVERYTHING!

In reality

• I am married and I have 4 (yes FOUR) daughters and a son. When they were all living at home my son and I used a tree outside as our bathroom.
• I am a pastor and I have worked with couples getting ready to be married.
• I am amazingly still alive after 49 years of being a man who cannot do anything wrong (Legend in my own mind)

Oh well, let's see how this works. Hope you like it!