Today was a good day. I got up with Lisa and helped with the kids this morning. Later I went to visit my Pawpaw Adam. We had a great visit. I heard a few new stories and laughed hysterically a couple of times. Mrs. Esther (my step grandmother) invited me to dinner (diner is the true name for what is these day called lunch). Mrs. Esther is an elderly Cajun lady and today she had made chicken gumbo, potato salad and baked sweet potatoes. It was all very good and I left full.

Pawpaw and I did not tour his garden today (this is very rare) because it was cold outside and I did not want him out in the weather.

My mom and sister showed up at Pawpaw and Esther's while I was there. That too made it a good visit.

After leaving there, I ran some errands and then took the little boys grocery shopping. Lisa thinks that I must be crazy to take those two little boys shopping, but I find it to be great fun. They get excited about everything. I remember them getting all excited about some Sponge Bob frozen waffles. (No I did not buy those, I bought the generic [cheap] brand)

Lisa and I have two teenagers and a six and seven year old. Things can be, and usually are, very hectic around the house, but I love the life I have with my wife and children. I would not trade this life for all the boy's toys in the world.

I believe true joy is in the seemingly mundane life of family. It is found in loving and serving your wife and children. Scripturally I am the head of this house, but we learn also from the Word of God that headship and rule means service. The head is the servant of all those whom he rules over.

I fall far short of being the perfect husband and father and I pray constantly that the Lord will make me to be far better than I am and that my children will learn from my mistakes and do better than I have done.

I am a man most blessed by the Lord God.

Dominus vobiscum,
Kenith

Today (now yesterday) was a good Lord's Day. Lisa, the kids and I went to Church. The worship service was excellent. We have started using a different liturgical format which I think is wonderful. The worship service was a great blessing.

This evening I was asked to speak to a group of men that are struggling with some of the teachings at another local Reformed Church. I think we had a good and productive discussion. I hope all these men will continue to persevere in the Reformed Faith.

After that I went over to my buddy TK's house. TK is the one who arranged for me to have the discussion with the men above. At TK's house we had a couple of beers and discussed how things went with the group earlier. We were both encouraged by the way things went.

After that I came home to the family. The little boys were finishing up with their baths. I was able to visit with them a little while before I said prayers with them and sent them to bed.

At 10 PM my buddy MK came over with a couple of bottles of red wine. He wanted to do a blind taste test, so I got four classes from the cabinet and we did the taste test.

It is amazing how wines differ. the first wine was a Beaulieou Vineyard - Costal merlot (2000) and the second wine was a Fonte AL Sole - sangiovese/merlot (2001). The first wine was ok, a good everyday wine, but the second wine was very smooth and nice.

After our wine tasting we went outside to walk around the block (several times) and pray. We had a good time praying before the Lord our God. It's always a pleasure to pray with MK. We've been doing this for 15 years now. Its always a joy.

Saturday I did go to Eunice with JD. We went to the Savoy Music Center and caught the (Cajun music) jam session. It was great fun, and I can't wait to bring pawpaw and my little boys to it next time,

I did buy a tape about playing the Cajun Accordion. I own an accordion and need to learn how to play something.

BTW: I picked up a CD by Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. The CD is La Musique Creole and it is "WoW" good.

It is late and I need to get up early. I will write more when I can.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

It has been a little while since my last blog. Things have been busy at work and we or off line at home (computer problems). I will try to catch up on things now.

Last Saturday night Lisa and I went to a Mardi Gras ball that we were invited to. They had a really good band there and we had a good time. Our (Lisa’s) niece, and here boy friend, both belong to the Mardi Gras Krewe (Krewe de Sauvage ) that but own the ball, and we were their guests.

The rest of the time between my last post and now have been uneventful. I have been on day shift (working from 5:30 am to 5:30 pm). Days during the week are almost always busy and there is not much blog time.

When on days I usually get home between 6:00 and 6:30. The little boys have a bed time normal bed time of 8:30, so most of my time is spent with them and helping Lisa get them ready for bed. They have to read to one of us (they both prefer to read to their mom) and I usually read to them as well. We have also started doing flash cards (addition) before bed. I always say their evening prayers with them when I’m home.

Our older children have their own things keeping them busy.

Yesterday I got home a bit late. After work Mitch T. and I went to Gary J’s house. We had a few beers and a good visit. Gary ordered some cigars for Mitch to hand out when his baby boy is born next month. So we had to try each a cigar to make sure it was worth handing out for such a momentous occasion.

Tomorrow I am hoping to go to the Saturday morning jam session at the Savoy Music Center in Eunice. I plan to go with my little boys, and Jeremy D. I hope my buddy David (pronounced--Dah veed) H. can meet us there.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

I just finished watching The Pianist. This is a powerful, heartbreaking film. It cut into my soul.

Adrien Brody's portrayal of Wladyslaw Szpilman surviving the atrocities done to the Jews in occupied Warsaw, Poland is magnificent.

I wish everyone could see this movie. It portrays man’s inhumanity to man. It shows human courage and dignity, as well as human cruelty and depravity. It present good and evil among the Jews, Poles and Germans alike. It doesn’t glorify any one group and demonise another as you might expect. It shows that there were kind, good, courageous people among the Jew’s, Pole’s and Germans and it depicts some from each people who chose evil. This is true of the Germans, Poles and Jews as well.

I was really struck by that part of the movie where Szpilman is shown to be starving. In these scenes his hair is straight and long, he is bearded and his face is gaunt and withered. At this point in the film Brody looks hauntingly like my brother Gerry did in the weeks before his death from cancer last July. I was taken a back by how much he resembled my beloved brother in those scenes. It broke my heart. This too added the power of the film for me, but even without that personal experiance, the film is a very powerful statement.

I am a man blessed so greatly. I know that I am no better than those millions of people swept up and shattered during World War II. I am no more worthy of peace and happiness than they were. Yet I do live in peace and prosperity, while they were swept up in a overwhelming tidal wave of death and destruction. Why? God alone knows.

Time and again in history individuals and masses of people have been brutalised and slaughtered by their fellow man for the most senseless of reasons. We all have ancestors who were brutalisers and who were brutalised. This is part of our common heritage. It is a product of the fall, and only the New Creation in Jesus Christ will finally end our corporate inhumanity and bring true and everlasting peace.

Dominus vobiscum,
Kenith

This morning I went and picked up a tux for a Mardi Gras ball that Lisa and I are going to tomorrow night. After picking up the tux I went to visit my grandfather. It is always a joy to visit with him.

His name is Adam (pronounced ah-dahm) and he is old. When he passes away my link to the old Cajun world will die with him. Pawpaw, like his generation, grew up knowing little English. French was his first and only language as a child. Even my mom could not speak English before she started school.

I love to sit and talk to my grandfather. He is full of stories of his child hood. He has a strong old Cajun accent and often he has to stop because he can not think of how to say something in English. He will then revert to French, most of the time I can follow these short excursions. But like most Cajuns of my generation, I speak very little French. I find it very sad that here in South Louisiana, our native Cajun language is almost dead.

Pawpaw has told me many stories from his childhood and young adult years. Most of them I have heard a number of times, but they're always worth hearing again. He's a good story teller, even in his broken English.

Pawpaw, like his father before him (and so many others back then) was a sharecropper. He is a man of the soil, and even now at eighty-three he maintains a garden year around. We have a pattern to our visits. I will sit in a chair next to him and we talk about some current events and family matters. I then ask about old things and listen as he tells his stories.

After a good conversation, I tell him that I need to leave and stand up. He has a bad hip and it hurts him to stand, but he always insists on standing even though I tell him not to. His answer is “I have to get up some times.” We then go outside. He then invites me to look at his garden with him, so instead of leaving I go with him on a tour of the garden and fruit trees. This always takes a minimum of thirty minutes, and I usually leave with something to plant in my own yard. This morning he gave me a Japanese plum tree. I will plant it this afternoon.

We look at each crop, discuss how it is doing and if it is not doing well discuss the reasons for this. Today we looked at the sweet potatoes he dug up this morning. They were mostly small and we talked about why that was so. Next we looked and the mustard greens and cabbages. And on and on.

These times spent with Pawpaw are threads of gold in my life’s tapestry. He is a wonderful man and I love him dearly.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

This is my last graveyard shift. I work off in the morning and plan to go to Gary J’s house and have a beer or two before going home to sleep. A beer a 6AM is pretty good if you've been up all night working. We just rotated to our new shifts. Gary and I were on seperate shifts of the last year, so we have not been able to do our early morning, after work beer and wine sessions for a while. I an a few ours we begin again.

Gary has some old missionary friends staying with him this week. I have wanted to meet this friend of his for some time. He is supposed to get up and visit with us. These folks are with New Tribes Missions and are serving with some Indians in Mexico, as did Gary and liz.

We started the shift this evening with one extra person on shift, but JW had to leave because his wife’s grandmother is gravely ill, and Craig C. bailed out of here a short time later. Craig wife called and said that the baby was on the way.
Craig just called from the hospital a little while ago. He and his wife have a brand new baby boy who weighed in at 7lbs. 15 oz. Momma, baby and dad are all doing fine.

I've started reading a biography of Nathan Bedford Forrest titled That Devil Forrest by John Allen Wyeth. It was first published in 1899, is still in print and comes highly recommended. This is the second biography of Forrest that I've tackled. Several years back I read Andrew Nelson Lytle's Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company which is published by J. S. Sanders & Company as part of their Southern Classics Series. It is a fine book as well.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

At work we are, as of tomorrow night, changing shifts, so my beloved shift from 2003 is no more. Friday most of us, along with our spouses (if you had one) got together an went out to eat and then went to OB’s and then Yesterdays to continue our “passing a good time.” Lisa was, of course, most beautiful. The other ladies looked nice as well, especially Dee.

Saturday my daughter, the little boy’s and I went to Longville to visit with family. We had some well seasoned, (Cajun style) boiled shrimp for dinner (the noon meal) and then my dad, brother, young sons and I went outside to do some shooting with our guns. This is always fun.

Tonight Lisa went to see the Elvis impersonation national championship (the prize was $50,000) and the local favorite won. I came home and got the little boys ready for bed and then put them to bed, after that my buddy MK came over with a couple of bottles of wine. We drank a nice bottle of Sangiovese and opened a Yellow tail Shiraz-Cabernet blend before he had to head back home.

I have to get up for church in the morning so I have to shut this down. Bonne nuit.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

I did make the trip to Lafayette Tuesday, but My son and his friend bailed out on us so it was just me and Israel “Izzy” P. It was his first trip and we had a good time. I enjoy climbing but just as fun was the trip over there. Since it was just two of us, and not four as we originally planned, we did not go in the minivan as I had planned. Instead, Izzy picked me up in his Corvette Z06. (his Z06 is yellow like the one in the pictures)

This is a fine automobile and was fun to ride in. Izzy did show me some of what it is capable of. All I could say was WOW!! I am very impressed with this beautiful car.

After we climbed around at the Rok Haus for a few hours, we went and got us a bite to eat and headed back to Lake Charles.

Izzy invited my son and I to go to his place and play video games. He has three computers hooked up together (LAN) so we were all in the same games. We played Desert Combat and Battlefield 1942. This was a blast and my 17 year old son thought it was great. When we left he told me that we needed to get set up like that.

Izzy and Christian both did a lot better than me. Izzy’s really good and Christian was pretty good. I was glad I was able to do just a little bit of good in the game.

On Wednesday I ran a few errands and then took a nap so I could work tonight. I am here now and it is quiet. I have 3 1/2 hours to go. This is my last day on shift with my 2003 crew. Next week we go to our new shifts and I am loosing three of the five guys that were on shift with me this year. I really like these fellows and hate to part with them.

Our crew and the crew of the unit we share a control room with are scheduled to go out to dinner and then to a club Friday night since we will not all be together next year.

Gotta go to work.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

LSU did it. We won the Sugar Bowl!!!

What a game! Lisa and I went to watch the game at the house of some of our friends. We ate, drank and watched the game. I also paced back and forth, chewed my nails, cheered, and moaned. Lisa said I was the most energetic and loud person there. The Tigers scared me a few times but the came through it victorious.

After last night Nick Saban could be elected dictator for life if there were plebiscite held in Louisiana today.

Now back to the daily grind I am at work again today, but tomorrow I am off and hope to do a couple of important things. I plan to visit with my grandfather in the morning and then tomorrow afternoon I hope to go to the Rok haus with my son, Izzy and perhaps Paul S. and do some indoor rock climbing. I will be the oldest and the plumpest person in the group, but I think I can still hang (somewhat) with the younger crowd.

I have to go so I so can finish up my work and head home.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

Today is the last day in our work week here at the refinery, and at days end I will have put in 76 hours this week. I can’t complain because they are paying me nicely for working all the overtime.

Today has been a pretty typical Sunday. Things are going well and it is quiet out here. Yesterday was a busy Saturday so a slow day to day is welcomed.

We had and awesome dinner (lunch for those addicted to modernity). It was a gumbo with wild duck and deer sausage. The deer sausage was very good and the duck too was very tasty. We also had the requisite potato salad to go with (in) the gumbo. It was a true South Louisiana Cajun feast. Walter D. and Mitch T. provided the ducks, the sausage and then cooked everything. Those fellas can cook!!!

I finally got around to reading Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard. It was certainly different. Kierkegaard is arguing against Hegelian concepts that are not at issue today, so much of the book is (IMHO) no relevant to our day. At the same time I did find some of the discussion and insights in the book to be very interesting and wonderful.

Lisa and I are going to some friends house to watch the Sugar Bowl this evening. I hope LSU can pull off a victory tonight. Geaux Tigers.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

New Years eve has come and gone. I was awake at the stroke of midnight, even though I had gone to bed at 11. I purchased some fireworks for the kids and Mike S. came over with his son and we all popped firecrackers and other assorted items. The little boys had a great time.

Lisa watched television while we did the firework thing and our daughter went to her cousins house to bring in the New Year. Mike and I enjoyed a bottle of Yellow Tail Merlot while we popping the fireworks. Yellow Tail is an Australian brand of good inexpensive wines.

We did not celebrate at midnight because I had to get up at 4:30 this morning to come to work. This morning has been a busy one for me a few others, but I hope we can still have a nice day here at work.

Kenith

The doctor gave me the go ahead to come back to work, so here I am. I actually returned to work Monday. I started my shift at 2PM and worked a sixteen hour shift. It was good to get back with my crew here at work. They are a good group of guys.

It was a quit shift, but I was still very tired when I crawled into bed this morning. I am at work again tonight and all is going well so far. I sleep pretty good today so tonight should be ok.

I will be home tomorrow night so I plan to pop fireworks with my children tomorrow evening. My buddy Dr. Mike may come over, and if he does we will pop the cork on a good bottle of wine while we enjoy the kids, the bottle rockets and the firecrackers.

I won't be able to stay up until midnight though, because I am scheduled to work overtime New Years day, so I will be getting up at 4:30 in the morning so I can come to work.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

I've not posted because of hectic events leading up to Christmas and now it is here I want to say a few things. It is great that we are able to celebrate the birth of our Lord. Many people consider Christmas to be little more than a day to free from work and a day to get and receive gifts. These are certainly good things but it is important that we remember that this day is set aside to celebrate the birth Jesus Christ who is of God incarnate.

I have indeed celebrated during this time. It has been a time of good food and drink. Wine, fine meats, and great desserts are fitting food and drink when celebrating the birth of our Lord. I have endeavored to eat and drink in a manner fitting the birth of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

I am doing well and am supposed to return to work Monday. But I am sore from a little bicycle ride I went on with Izzy the other day. It was a somewhat rough ride and I got banged up a bit. It was great fun though and I hope to do it again.

Soli Deo gloria,
Kenith

I have been a Tolkien fan ever since I read The Hobbit and the Lord of Rings as sophomore in high school. I have been anxiously awaiting Return of the King , which is the last movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy ever since I saw Two Towers , which came out December of last year. Monday I purchased 5 tickets to for the movie Return of the King which opened on Wednesday.

I purchased a ticket for my older two children (ages 19 and 17), my niece and nephew and for me. During the night (early morning) our youngest son, who is six, got sick so instead of going to see the Return of the King I spent the day with my sick son and my daughter returned my ticket. I was undaunted.

Wednesday evening I called Izzy (a good friend from work) and asked him if he wanted to catch the last feature (11:20 PM) with me. He said yes, so I went to pickup the tickets. There was one person ahead of me in line. I got to the ticket window and asked if the still had tickets for the last feature and he said sure. I asked for two tickets; he looked at his computer screen and said, “Oh; I’m sorry the guy in front of you bought the last two tickets.” I was heart broken.

Izzy and I did go to the 10:20 AM feature this morning. We meet two more guys from work Bryan J. and Mike Ph, at the show. There was a power failure about half way through it, so we had a short artificial intermission that worked out well. The Movie is great.

Frodo Lives,
Kenith

Saturday afternoon I was headed back to town after my trip to the marsh earlier that day. On either side of the road were rice fields. Off to the north west I saw what at first appeared to be smoke, but after a moment it became obvious that it was not smoke that I was looking at but a large flock of blackbirds. I took a turn off the highway to get a closer look at the birds.

They were everywhere and making quite a racket. I clapped my hands and thousands of birds lifted into the air and began to fly a short distance away.

The blackbirds bring back fond memories for me. My first hunting trips were with my dad and other men who also had small kids. We would ride around the rice farms looking for large flocks of blackbirds. When we found some, the men would sneak up on them and all at once the men would start blasting away with their shotguns. I was only a small child and it was my job to run into the field and gather up the dead and dying birds. I thought this was great fun, especially chasing after the wounded birds.

I always loved blackbird hunting, but I haven't done it in years. Of course blackbirds are not very big, so my dad had to kill a bunch of them to make a meal for our family of six. I need to find some land where I can bring my young sons and let them have the experience that I remember so fondly.

When I got older and received my prized pellet gun (along with my brothers) then our prey changed. My brothers and I (along with all our friends) spent countless afternoons hunting robins, which was illegal of course, but it is a very old Cajun hunting tradition. My 83 year old grandfather assured me that he too hunted this delectable red breasted bird when he was a child.

Robins are much larger than blackbirds, so it takes less of them to make a good meal. My two brothers and I supplied the family with many a winter meal back then. Robin breast cooked in onion gravy and placed over rice is a wonderful treat. (I think that the law should changed. If it were not for young Cajun boys with pellet guns the world would be over run by these birds :-)

Coram Deo,
Kenith

My good friend MK has just left for home. He and I enjoyed a very nice bottle of wine. Mike brought over a Greg Norman Estates' Cabernet Merlot (2001). It was a smooth enjoyable wine.

Lisa and I missed church this Sunday because our seven-year-old had a fever and was throwing up during the night. But he was feeling much better Sunday evening. It looks like it was only a 24-hour bug. We were praying that it was not the flu.

I really need to go to bed I will blog again another day.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

This was a pretty good Saturday. The low point is our 7-year-old is under the weather. He was fine this morning, but did not feel good this afternoon. The good news is he is feeling better now, but because he feels better he has made a good size mess.

Today I went to meet a friend at his duck camp. I had not seen him in a few years and we meet at a wedding last week. He invited me over for duck gumbo and to listen to a couple of CD's he has. It is easy to tell when my friend is at his camp because when he is there the Confederate Battle Flag (actually the Confederate Navy Jack) is waving over it. My friend's son and a couple of buddies finished hunting just after I arrived and they came in from the marsh with a load of ducks.

We then all sat down to eat. The gumbo was great (I only found one bb in mine), plus we had potato salad and mustard greens to go along with the gumbo. I brought a bottle of my blueberry wine, and it did not survive the meal. It was a feast!

After the young folks left my friend and listened to White Mansions and The Legend of Jesse James. The music was really good and the view of the marsh was awesome. There were plenty of blue wing teal flying and feeding right near the camp.

These are two great CD's that should be made into movies.

When I arrived home I found that the Seven-year-old was sick, but Lisa was mothering him, and he was feeling better. Lisa sent me to the get medicine and some groceries, so while I was out I stopped at Lake Street Liqueur Store. My duck camp buddy recommended I try some Rebel Yell Bourbon so I stopped and picked up a fifth. I'm sipping on it as I write. It's not bad for the price, but Knob Creek is still my favourite bourbon followed by Old Rip Van Winkle Hand Made Bourbon with Jim Beam Black a little further back. Rebel Yell is cheaper than the others and so I will keep it around.

As I write, Lisa is off to the mall for some Christmas shopping. Our daughter is there as well (working). Our oldest son is at a friends house So I am home with the little boys, one of whom is sick, so I have to go.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

My books are stacking up and I am doing other things and not reading. But my house is looking better. Several rooms have been repainted and rearranged and my bookshelves have been arranged in a way that I can find a book when I look for it.

I was able to go sit on a deer stand on Tuesday. I loved that. It was a full moon that night and so the odds were not real good. I also spent some time at my sister-in-law’s place on a tractor clearing a field. I also took out my shotgun and did some shooting.

Last night I bottled five gallons of blueberry wine that I made back in June. It’s color is very nice and clear and it taste pretty good.

Last Sunday I taught Sunday school. We are finishing up a series on Church history that has taken well over a year to present. I spoke on the subject Religion in the Ante-bellum South. Of course slavery had to be discussed. I hope to get what I spoke on typed up and blogged at some point.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

I finished the painting project yesterday afternoon. But to do so I had to take all the books off my bookshelves, so I could get the bookshelves out of the way and paint behind them. It took forever to get the books back on the shelves once I had finished.

I haven’t even started to read Kierkegaard yet, and I still have to finish getting ready for Sunday school. Tonight we have a wedding and reception to go to, and then tomorrow night we have a Christmas party to attend. So Søren is going to have to wait until next week sometime.

I have work to do around the house. Gotta go.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

Not much has happened since my last blog. I did teach Sunday school again last Sunday. The Sunday before last I spoke on the "Religion and the Revolutionary War" and this last Sunday I spoke on religion in the Ante-bellum North. Next Sunday I will speak on religion and the Ante-bellum South (Lord willing).

MK has asked me to write that Sunday school stuff out and put it on the blog and I plan to soon, but for now it will have to wait. I'm still not supposed to strain or lift things. But I have finally convinced Lisa that I can do more than sit around. I finally talked her into letting me start some long overdo indoor painting. I have to wait for her and our oldest son to get things out of the way for me, but I am making good headway.

Sunday school preparation has really cut into my book reading (cause I am rereading a lot of stuff to teach these classes). But I am hoping to read a little book titled Fear and Trembling, by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

I've never read anything by Kierkegaard, but I have read about him and his views in countless books. I am excited about having this book next to my bed, and hope to get started on it tomorrow, that's if I can get finished with the painting.

Earlier, Lisa came in the living room to help me with the painting. She turned the TV to CMT where they ran a Toby Keith interview by Dan Rather. I like a lot of Toby Keith's music, and after seeing this interview I have a new found respect for the man himself. I like the way he came across.

Coram Deo,
Kenith