A couple of spring-themed brain teasers and other things that have been on my mind:

Who would have been represented by the numeral 4 in your baseball scorecard, if you were recording a double play that was turned by Tinker, Evers, and Chance?

First person (church members only) to email me the correct answer gets 10% off next year’s per capita.

What demon is it that possesses dogs when, with a perfectly suitable bowl of clean water on the floor in the usual place next to their food dish, they go and lap water up out of the toilet?
Does it really matter if it’s a spring cold or spring allergies? Does it make you feel any worse or better if it’s one or the other? Achey, fluish, wrapped up in a blanket and coughing your lungs out at 1 o’clock in the morning, does anyone ever say to him or herself, “Well, I’m glad it’s not a cold!!?”

I told Margarita (my secretary) recently about a funny thing that happened to us at the St. Louis Zoo last year:

Next to the penguin exhibit, they had a life-sized ceramic penguin, painted so that it looked very realistic, and it startled my daughter Hannah who, noticing it out of the corner of her eye as she was walking towards it, thought it was real, an escapee, and jumped out of the way. We were out there last spring for Hannah’s brother’s graduation from college. It reminded me of a funny thing that happened to him - Victor that is – at the Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand, when he was about five years old. He was reaching across the fence to feed the monkey a peanut (- which, by the way, they allow you to do at the Chiang Mai Zoo - ) and the monkey grabbed hold of his wrist and tried to yank him over the fence into the monkey pen. I had a firm hold of his waist, though, so, although it rattled young Victor briefly, he was definitely not going anywhere with the ape. And that was the end of the feeding for the day.

After I told Margarita this story, she told me a funny thing that happened to her aunt at the Bronx Zoo. You should ask her about it. That one involved an ape, too.

What are some of your family’s, favorite funny incidents that happened at the zoo, at the ballpark, a graduation, or other springtime activities? Send them in. The best ones will get printed in our newsletter, the Spire.

One last question: What in the world could possibly be more important for you to be doing at 10:30 on a spring Sunday morning than coming to church?!?

There’s lots more here than meets the eye.
Jesus is alive!
And so am I.
May the Lord Jesus grant you a blessed Spring!

            Rev. Jim Thomas