You may or may not remember this story but when I was a kid I read in a magazine about the invention by a guy with a car that had wings and a propeller. The wings could fold in and the car could park in the garage. Out on the road the airplane/ car could extend its wings and stabilizers, race down the road and yes, take off. Luckily, it could land too. I often day dreamed about owning such a contraption and waited patiently for its inventor to get it on the market. My wait was in vain.

Well now it’s 70 years later and I saw that the car/airplane has been reinvented. Again. A guy named Terrafugia has it ready to go. He says. The car is just like my 1948 model and can fly 400 miles. Wait. It must be the same car. Now here it is and I’m too darn old to fly or drive it either one. But before you go out and try to buy this you may want to go for the newest one: The one with vertical takeoff. You could just back it out of your garage, extend the wings, hit the fl y button and off you go. Probably blow the roof off your garage. Just sayin’. It will hit the dealer’ showrooms in 2023.

Worse idea? Nissan has a model that steers and drives with your brain waves. If you have a habit of daydreaming you should steer clear of this thing. But here’s the thing for a young person. If you want to go into our Nation’s Armed Forces you should watch your weight. 71% of American’s in that age group are overweight. They don’t want me to use the word, Fat. But I do have an idea for the answer. Instead of crying that being too fat is a national crisis and a danger to the safety of America why not just do what Roosevelt did at the start of WWII. When his experts reported that over half of the young men being drafted were sent home because they were too thin, had bad teeth and were in general poor specimens.

President Roosevelt studied a bit and told his expert that “this is what you got. Let’s make it work. Fix their teeth, fatten them up and get them in shape.” That army went on and won the largest war in history and saved America. Roosevelt knew the bad teeth and skinny boys were a result of the Great Depression that had gripped America for too many years. He probably felt a lot of compassion for those boys and he knew America would have to fight if it was to exist in the future. Those young men worked out fine for our Armed Forces and for them, too.

I was well enough to go to Sunday School Sunday and be back with my fellow members in the “Cemetery Class.” The visits before class contain some of my favorite moments and one of our members that spends some time both in and out of the USA commented how lucky we were to live in America. “You just have to see some of those places to see what we got here,” one remarked. He was so right. Allen may just be a backwater rural town to most people but we are lucky for our opportunities and to be living in a place having adequate housing and has plenty of our needs in abundance. And not in the least of our abundance is our freedom of worship.

One more thing. Our Mustang Football Team is doing real good, defeating Konawa this past Friday night. Going back to 11 man has been good for them and our community takes a lot of pride in them and the other athletic teams, and our prize winning band and cheerleaders that represent us so well. I wish them well and thank them for all the good entertainment and enjoyment they bring into our community.

I hope you have a good weekend and don’t neglect going to your church this Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

wayneBullard@sbcglobal.net