Author: Jon Gauger

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International airport.  You’re familiar with it, aren’t you?  It’s the airport that spans the border between Luzerne and Lackawanna counties in northeast Pennsylvania. Actually, I’d never flown there myself until this week.  Couldn’t help but notice there were still a few Christmas decorations around, including a lovely set of brightly lit “Wishing Trees.”  The ornaments on these trees were round cardboard discs upon which people wrote their wishes for the new year.  Here’s a sampling of the wishes I discovered: I wish for love, financial stability, no pain and justice for my court battle I wish and pray I…

He sniffed the winds and smelled trouble.  When Georges Loinger heard Hitler on the radio, he shuddered.  When he saw Hitler’s book in the store, he gasped.  And began to prepare. In the late 1930s, Loinger, an engineer by background, became a physical education teacher with the intention of “preparing and training Jewish youth for the ordeal that awaited” (UK Times).  When the Nazis invaded France in 1940,  Loinger—who fought with the French army—was captured and hauled to a prison camp near Munich.   After escaping, he joined the French resistance force. The blond-hair, blue-eyed Loinger routinely lead groups of Jewish…

When a ten-year-old jumps into your arms, you had better… A. Be ready B. Be thankful We picked up Joslynn (or rather, intercepted her mid-air) at her church youth group, noting a green balloon with a message on it clutched in her hand.  I initially paid little attention to the scribbling on that bulbous bit of latex, because my wife and I were so glad to see Joslynn. She is just plain fun to have around.  Plus, she is helping me transition to a new office at Moody Radio.  Frankly, she’s become an excellent administrator, conquering cantankerous copy machines, learning…

Saturday morning.  We are standing around the massive oak table in the farmhouse where my wife, Diana, grew up.  Her brothers are there along with a few other family members.  This place is Christmas and Easter and crowds and kids. This is the table you gather around where smoked ham melts in your mouth.  Where your plate is so heaping, melted red Jell-O streams like edible lava down your mountain of mashed potatoes. The house is empty now. Diana’s mom passed away more than a year ago, her dad 12 years before that. So the estate needs to be cleared out and cleaned…

Two-year-old Sadie lives for “by-YAY” (her pronunciation of ballet). It’s the first thing Sadie does when she wakes up, and often her last waking activity.  She takes her Park District ballet class quite seriously, easily agitated when others prance about rather than follow their routines. Attending a performance of the Nutcracker, Sadie wept at intermission—fearing it was over.  At a holiday basement sleep-in, her three older siblings nestled themselves into their “tent,” while Sadie performed her ballet routine—at 10:30 at night, no less! So it should not have surprised us when, upon pirouetting across the floor of our home, Sadie…

There is something sobering about facing a new year.  For some, it’s the intimidation of the unknown. But I’m not referring to the slew of latent fears and unanswered questions of 2019: Will I hang on to my job? Will my cancer stay in remission? Will our daughter return safely from her tour in Iraq? No doubt those are huge questions.  But the sobriety I speak of comes only with a careful scan of the previous year.  Glance back upon the last twelve months and consider with me… There were opportunities to build bridges into the lives of unsaved friends…

“Remember that song, All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth?”  Jack asks me. “Of course,” I tell him. “Saw a homeless person the other day that reminded me of that tune.”  Leave it to Jack to connect an iconic Christmas classic with a homeless person. “The guy had almost no teeth—only one in front,” Jack mused. “That’ll get your attention,” I offered, wondering where he was going. “As I walk by, this semi-toothless person looks directly at me and says, ‘Have a safe weekend.’  And he shoves a plastic cup in my face. Didn’t say anything about…

  It’s the job nobody wants.  So it rarely gets done.  I speak of the Great Refrigerator Clean Out. But my fearless friend, Chris, recently undertook the task on the 10th floor where we work, as he knelt before the Great White Beast that chills our lunches.  Arms flailing, he yanked drawers open, blasting through shelf after shelf of post-dated delicacies.  Me?  I, umm, stood by and typed careful notes on my iPad.  Among the things we encountered: A partially consumed water bottle—best used by 2017. A bottle of sriracha sauce—best used by September 16, 2016. A jug of Catalina…

The young man was spiritually open.  Though he’d come from a Hindu background, he actually attended a Bible preaching church for several weeks, then wrote down this assessment: “The church did not make a favorable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbors, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service.” In other words, this guy was bored….

We are on board a Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 headed for O’Hare.  Since leaving Chicago, Diana and I have flown through or to Iceland, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey. Given the speed of flight, one day we had breakfast in Oslo, lunch in Warsaw and supper in Bucharest. As I write this, we have just flown over the Shetland islands, about 180 miles off the coast of Norway.  I only know this because of the handy maps, animations, and statistics presented in the “My Flight” app.  As anyone who has traveled will relate, it’s interesting to track your flight conditions. …