Oktoberfest 2008

Picture taken by Pam Roberts

It’s that time of year again, the leaves are turning their bright orange and reds and will fall ever so gently to the ground. But before that happens, on this very weekend in October, the small town of Walhalla, SC will have thousands of people attending their annual Oktoberfest. It’s a three day event celebrating the town’s German heritage. This weekend Walhalla will swell with the aroma of German foods, the laughter of children on the kiddie rides, and people selling eye catching arts and crafts. The “Little German Band” plays under the beer tent and many people will be introduced to the “Chicken Dance” for the first time. It’s a lot of fun for everyone, and in many cases the proceeds are donated to local charities.
It’s always fun to see people trying to learn the chicken dance. I have to admit I’ve never actually given it a try, but I do intend to at some point. Being a good Southern Baptist and having lived in this small town for 30 years, I have always been a by-stander; I’ve watched but never participated in any of the beer tent festivities. It reminds me of a joke I heard, “what’s the difference between a Catholic and a Baptist?” The answer is, “A Catholic will speak to you in the liquor store.” Meaning, of course, as a Baptist you may partake in a drink or two but you’re not suppose to broadcast that you do, and you’re surely not supposed to drink out in public. Every good Baptist knows you do your drinking out of town. (I’m just kidding don’t write me letters.) As it is, most of the revelers under the beer tent enjoying themselves, are out-of-towners.
It’s the one time of year this community is host to families stopping to spend their money, then driving through town to get to the beautiful mountains so they can admire the leaves and waterfalls and maybe play a round or two of golf. Saturday night will end with a fireworks display that can be seen and heard for miles. Young and old alike crane their necks to see colorful blossoms explode in the air as they ooh and ahh long enough to forget about the economy or any of their other troubles and just focus on being the best chicken dancer they can be. Who knows maybe I will learn the chicken dance this year.

Just Saying !
oer

The Rules Of The Game

When people ask me if I gamble, I instinctively say no, even though life itself is a gamble. The first thing that always comes to mind is when my in-laws invited my wife, our son and me to go to Florida. I should have known the trip was going to be a disaster when I was backing up their new RV/van and backed in to a 100 foot motel sign where we were staying. This was not a good way to start out on a vacation with her parents who already listed 25-30 things they didn't like about me.I had never been to the dog races and when her father mentioned that he would like to go I was hesitant but a willing participant. I can still remember the filling of electricity in the air as people were placing bets on their favorite dogs to win or place or whatever and after watching a few races we decided to place a bet. As luck would have it for a newbie we won $80 on like a $10 bet. I had never been so excited in all of my days here on planet earth. I turned to my wife and I can still remember the words that came out of my mouth, "Babe, we're going to have to buy a wheel barrow to take this money home!" I clearly didn't understand the rules of this game of chance, but I knew I liked it!I figured since we were playing with the track's money we might as well bet big and get this show on the road. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out quite like we had planed and within 30 minutes I was betting our money, within an hour I was betting money we had put back for our rent that month. Oh yeah, I was learning a very valuable life lesson. Our mood had gone from being "on top of the world" to "what in the heck just happen"? To make a long story short, my wife made one last bet and as I remember the odds were really high. I think it's called a trifecta when you pick the 1st 2nd and 3rd dog to win. She placed everything we had left on a dog named Fast Eddie. I can still see Fast Eddie making the turn in second place and as he passed us he overtook the lead and won all or almost all of our money back. It was one of the most exciting moments of our young lives and a really good lesson on gambling, you have absolutely no control over the outcome. We were so thankful to have our money back and to be able to pay our rent on time. We finished the night out by puting a dollar bet to place on the remaining races and won most of them. We later learned that some were down a thousand dollars and here we were upset over a couple of hundred. I guess it was all relative. When you lose all you have, well that's all you have no matter what the amount totals! Never bet what you're not willing to lose! That was our first and last time at the track.
oer

Life Can Be A DiTcH

There's nothing that will bring a family together any quicker than a family project.Two weeks ago the much needed rain finally arrived and after many days of down pour the ground was finally saturated with water that had to find a place to go. The place it found was our basement. We spent the night pumping out water and shampooing our carpet. We had a definite problem. So what do you do when you have a problem, of course you call on family. Neither son was thrilled to get this phone call but both showed up bright and early ready to help (cash didn't hurt as a little incentive). We dug for 26 hours over a span of 4 days. We not only got a really good work out we actually learned several things.The first area we dug was a 5 ½ feet deep, 12 foot long ditch. We found a drain that had previously been put in when this house was first built. The builder had put the French drain (Google it)in around the foundation but with nowhere for it to drain, and it also was tilted back toward the house so of course this is why we were getting so much water. It finally filled the pipe up with mud. This was a lesson in itself. If you try to take shortcuts and don't do the job right, it will show up sooner or later, and someone will have to do it again.Have you ever thought things were just going too smoothly? Well that's when most things happen in life isn't it? Things were going well until the ditch caved in. We had been trying to chip away at a large rock that was covering the existing pipe, and finally had cracked enough of the rock away, that we were able to cut the clogged pipe out. A French drain requires gravel before laying the new pipe down. What we didn't know was the old pipe was supporting the rock we were trying to remove and the rock was supporting the entire bank of dirt. The huge rock fell into the ditch and the entire bank of dirt fell on top of the rock. We were back to square one. I look into my sons eyes and saw the look of defeat. I took a deep breath and told him, "This ditch is your life. Life has its ups and downs. The trick is to never stop digging until you succeed". I handed him a shovel and I grabbed one myself and we started to dig together until we reached the rock. It was a really big rock. It was too heavy for us to lift, so we found a chain and come along and winched it out of the ditch. It was a wonderful feeling to overcome such an obstacle in life, I mean in our ditch. We were full of energy again and felt we could actually succeed. We were laughing and actually enjoying working side by side and feeling great about what we had accomplished so far and of course we hit another obstacle, more rock. This was more than just a rock; this was a 10 foot long boulder that was in our way. We had to have enough of a drop in our 50 feet of drain pipe to carry the water away from the French drain. This is why the builder had stopped. He hit a wall of rock and just gave up. We worked for 3 hours trying to drill and chip away enough stone to lay the drain pipe. It was impossible to cut through this with the tools we had on hand. We had decided to stop and regroup. Just by chance we started digging further over and to our surprise the rock actually ended just 6 inches over from where we had stopped digging. It reminds me of stories I've heard about the difference between people that succeed and the ones who fail, and how many times those people that did fail could have reached their dreams if only they had given it one more try.We had some really good conversation over these past 26 hours, and not only accomplished our mission, of replacing a failed drain, but also repaired some relationships that had unknowingly failed. The forecast is rain again today. I can’t wait to find out if all that work pays off!It Did!oerI decided to repost this little story after hearing from someone that is obviously hurting. We all have rainy days in our life, but it takes the rainy days as well as the sunny ones for us to grow.When you can truly be happy for others, you’ll find out your on successes are so much sweeter, and if you do fall down, you’ll have one more friend to help pick you up!
All Smiles
oer