01 Jul Summer Sabbatical Scoop 4
This has been a great week. Jonathan & I are really enjoying our time together. He doesn’t outright say it, but I can tell it’s been good for him too. He’s not only had me, but a couple of buddies as well. Their family has a timeshare in Solvang, so they’ve been able to be together almost all day each day since Monday afternoon.
Today, my friend, Craig and I had the chance to golf at The River Course at Alisal in Solvang. I had heard a lot about the course and it definitely lived up to the expectations. Beautiful setting, great course in awesome shape. Craig was able to get us a decent deal for the round as an owner of his timeshare. Didn’t do too bad, shooting 102 for the day.
Funny thing was that last time I golfed was June 1. Today is July 1, and I golfed with the same friend then. We joked about setting a tee time for August 1!
Early in the afternoon, I got a call from the Police Department about a shooting that occurred in Simi Valley this morning. Most reading this will know I serve as a Police Chaplain in our city. There are five of us.
Though the shooter ended up killing his wife and injuring four others, the incident was over relatively quickly, the shooter is in custody, and our Officers are safe. They did a stellar job bringing the incident to resolution the way they did.
That’s the kind of stuff that I honestly struggle with in terms of being away. Not for the adrenaline rush of it, but the struggle of, “I should’ve been there for the Officers, the victims and their families.” I was greatly relieved to hear that all of our other Chaplains WERE able to respond to the incident when I called in to say I was out of town.
After our round of golf, we met our boys back at the RV park while they were frog hunting, which has turned into crawdad fishing. The frogs have been a no-go for whatever reason. Maybe the season isn’t right. So they’ve turned to trying to catch crawdads.
They were quite resourceful, having asked the front desk for a makeshift hook paper clip, and then spending their own money to buy string at the camp store. Then they took some lunch meat for bait. They ended up bringing home a good sized crawdad! I’ll try to post a picture of them and their crawdad in the next few days.
I was personally relieved to hear the news that Michael Jackson’s family had backed out of holding his funeral at the Neverland Ranch. We are only a few miles south of that location, so we knew this weekend would be jam packed with people trying to get there and be there.
At the grocery store tonight, I struck up a conversation with the checker, who admitted to being very relieved they had backed out. She shared her feeling that the entire Santa Ynez Valley breathed a sigh of relief when the news broke earlier today!
Enough for now …..
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