Author: Wick

We grew up getting some pretty short haircuts. Whether it was lice, cheaper to cut ourselves, or the actual facade of a well-behaved boy simply because his hair is shaved tight…it was done.

Nevertheless, when I became a teen, I branched out. Which led to a horribly awkward phase of growing out a pony tail (which never amounted to much more than a rat tail, with gelled up hair to make it seem it was one long mass of well wrapped hair). Sure, I pretended it was cool, had it in dread-locks a couple times, and even had one odd instance of “fish-braid?”.

But as much as I made fun of them for looking like little girls, I envied the long, straight hair of Hanson (mmmbop), and those like them. My long hair was wavy. And not Hasselhoff wavy, more like…well….the kinda hair you’d look at in the morning and would promptly yell “shove off!!” back to you (if it was British).

Take that past, and add it to the fact that I’m very much thinning a nice bald circle toward the back. It’s presence is amplified as the hair around it thickens. All of this, plus simplicity, leads me to a nice short hair cut. One that I’ve never thought worth paying someone to actually do. Until I met John. His shop is located at 2645 N. Oakland St. at the Tru Temp Plaza, Decatur, IL.
John has been cutting hair for over 40 years. 40 YEARS! Take that, you Supercut novice who smells of cigarettes and talks about your boyfriend drama. He cut hair for the Navy quite some time, before opening his own shop right here in Decatur, IL.

One annoying thing about getting your hair cut, is the itchy neck feeling that usually requires a shower afterwards. John uses a buzzer with a vacuum, leaving NO itchy neck. And towards the end? Shaving cream around the edges, and a nice clean finish with a straight razor. He’ll talk weather, sports, economy, or whatever the other elders in the waiting chairs bring up. Bring your kids, too, and John’s got a sucker for each of ’em. No appointment necessary, just walk right on in. If you got one or two in front of you, it’s usually a great time to hear/participate in discussion on what’s going on in the world. You may even find yourself letting the next guy go ahead of ya’!!!

(reposted from Dec. 14th, 2008)

..because I’ve seen it done oh so wrong…I figured I’d share this with the general public.
(from our friends at Wikipedia)

Gifts are wrapped, but are not labeled to reflect a specific sender or recipient. Gifts are typically inexpensive, humorous items or used items from home and sometimes, they are just plain trash; the term white elephant refers to a gift whose cost exceeds its usefulness. While the first use of this term remains an item of contention among historians, a popular theory suggests that Ezra Cornell brought the term into popular lexicon through his numerous and frequent social gatherings, dating back to as early as 1828.

All participants draw a number (from a hat, perhaps) to determine their order.

The participant with #1 unwraps any gift from the pile and then shows it to everyone. Each successive participant, in the order determined from the drawing, can either 1) “steal” an already opened gift (if there’s one they really like) or 2) be adventurous and go for a wrapped gift from the pile. If the participant chooses to steal, the person whose gift is stolen now repeats their turn and either 1) steals another person’s gift (they cannot immediately steal back the gift that was just stolen from them) or 2) unwraps a new gift.

This cycle of stealing can sometimes continue for a long time, until a new gift is chosen, at which point the turn is passed to the participant with the next number from the drawing. (An alternative to the drawing is to sit in a circle and take turns in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.)

Since items can be stolen, the item in your possession is not yours until the game is over. However, this is often amended with a rule declaring a gift “dead” or “safe” after it has been stolen a certain number of times (usually two or three). This helps the process go more smoothly (avoiding, for example, the hypothetical scenario of the same gift being stolen by every successive participant) and limits the disadvantage of being among the first to choose gifts.

(I particularly like that they created links to explain “clockwise” and “counterclockwise” 🙂 )

I’ve been chiseling through some essays in honor of Richard Shaull, who was an author and missionary largely to South America. It’s a book I purchased a long time ago on a clearance rack, and never actually read until recently I was stuck without a book for a day or two.

The essays focus on “Ecumenical Theology in Global Context“, 1998, featuring authors who approach the hope of Jesus Christ as it relates to many different disenfranchised communities around the world. It’s been a good read for sure. I’ll leave with you a few quotes from Maria Marta Aris-Paul’s essay, “Latin American & Caribbean Immigrants in the USA: The Invisible and Forgotten”.

“One of the things that confuses us when we come to this country is the notion of freedom. We confuse being free with doing only what we want. We forget about responsibility and moral principles. This is where our spirituality comes in.”

“Many go to church on Sundays, where they expect to receive spiritual comfort and where the priest is supposed to supply whatever it is that will provide that support. When a community is physically and emotionally drained from daily living, how is it going to learn to be that new model of church which requires of its members time, commitment, responsibility, and more hard work?”

“I believe that to reconstruct the church we need to have small projects. We need to gather in small groups, in mutuality, forming small communities of faith who can look at our own lives and see where the Holy dwells among us. Our small communities can have a ripple effect on the larger society.”