GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE, NOVEMBER 4, 2025

I am so glad you are here with me this morning. It is a might airish outside, but not truly cold, but we are set for some borderline cold in the coming week or so. Speaking of barndominiums, do you realize they are the very first completely new style of home to surface and become widespread in decades. The brick ranch house was really the last before these, preceded by bungalows, Queen Annes, and others.

I like them, and see them as having been an inevitable "thing," since they are so very natural as a well liked structure. They fill a need, and that is often the key to success. It allows the owner a way to have all of his eggs in one basket, without a real downside. I used the word basket and it reminded me of the time I had a young man in our ministry, riding with me.

We were recounting the piling on of bad things that seemed to be happening all around, when he said, "yessir Mr. Wade, the world is going to hell in a ham basket!" Yep, a ham basket. I liked that so much better than handbasket. Getting some things wrong can be an improvement, or at least make us laugh. As I have said before, I enjoy watching true crime shows, and police video programming, and now and then you will hear a non-genius statement from a crook trying to protest their innocence.

For example, upon finding drugs in a perp's pocket, they will say, "that ain't my dope." To which the cop says, well, it's in your pocket, and the crook replies, "but these ain't my pants." Or a classic line from "Bait Car," "why you arresting me?" "For driving a stolen car." And the boy-genius says, "you mean this car is stole?" "If I had knowed it was stoled, I wouldn't have drove it."

Cogitate on the brilliance of that statement. "You are under arrest." "But I ain't do nothing." I love that phrase, "but I ain't do nothing." It always makes me smile. Now, let's talk about this, a funny thing lil Merle did today. I had set my phone's alarm for 2:00pm as a reminder of an errand I needed to run, but I did not turn it off ahead of time, actually I had forgotten it.

While I was in the shower, the alarm sounded, and of course it was going to just have to ring its bells until after my shower when I could get to it. After it rang for a bit, lil Merle began howling like a wolf, and it was so funny to hear him howl, and he had never done that before. Dogs will howl sometimes when someone sings, or if a piano is played, but it was lil Merle's howling debut, and was triggered by my alarm bells.

Speaking of ham, I like good quality...that might be an oxymoron...canned hams, like those large Hormel ones. But I saw they are priced at sixteen dollars, so there will be no canned ham in my future. Grocery prices are astronomical, and meat prices verge on insanity. A small piece of beef for a roast will cost almost thirty bucks.

Ground beef, beef steaks, and any cut of beef is astronomical compared to beef prices from recent years. Poultry and pork are more affordable, but they are also at all-time highs. My grocery budget has reached an all-time low. But, if you take a good look at me, you can see that I am not malnourished.

Of course, lil Merle and babee Conway believe "shicken" money grows on trees!" I want to bid you adieu for today, but look forward to tomorrow when we see each other again.

..... NUMBERS 6: 24-26 KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me