Blog 2171 – 09.26.2021

The Road Less Traveled

Adventuresome spirits often choose the road less traveled, ever hoping to find what the crew of the Starship Enterprise signed on to do – “to boldly go where no one has gone before.” Last week for the first time, three private citizens launched into space and made several orbits around the earth. When I was a boy, like most boys and girls of my generation, I wanted to be an astronaut. When I was in the sixth grade they rolled a TV into our classroom so we could watch the first American launch briefly into outer space. Alan Shepard before the decade barely begun, the nineteen-sixties, was over was also the first person to walk on the moon, fulfilling President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon and bring him safely back to earth before the decade was over.

Astronaut John Glenn was the first American Astronaut to circle the globe. I saw inside his space craft, it was no Enterprise, mostly wires, and only one small window to watch the earth below him and the stars above. This Twentieth Century American Magellan went on to serve as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Ohio for four full terms, one more than the three circles he made around the earth in his tiny craft.

I never, at least not yet, made it to outer space, but the sweetest, deepest, and dearest of my boyhood dreams have already come true. I have a lovely wife who loves me, and a handsome intelligent son, recently married who may yet make some grand babies for us to love and spoil as we tried to him. For thirty-two wonderful years I had a daughter, Emily Elaine White, whose songs and sweet laughter still echo in my daddy’s heart. And a dearer dream even than being an astronaut came true for me five and a half years ago when I began this daily blog – I am a writer read around the world.

I may never be as famous in this world as Alan Shepard or John Glenn. I certainly have no plans go to outer space, the moon, or to run for public office, but there are still roads beckoning, down which few if any have ever gone before, subjects to write about that few have dared. A favorite line from the Old Testament of the Bible that was an inspiration for me as a young man recounts the prophet Isaiah having a vision of himself in heaven overhearing a conversation that God was having with his lieutenants. Isaiah heard God say, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us.” Volunteering himself, Isaiah spoke up, “Then said I, here am I, Lord, send me.”

Newspapers they say are dying, but blogs are a plenty. Among doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief (Native American top banana), Astronaut and many other jobs I once considered pursuing, writer, speaker, singer, song-writer, and teacher are the five I hope to continue working at even after I retire. They say your true job is the one you would do even if they did not pay you. There you have it, sharing the encouraging word in every way I can, is my road less traveled, my dream job come true.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12u-VjGg82HE-cnCBLV6sk3TExkMmiEq0/view?usp=drivesdk

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