Ladies and Gentlemen –
The next few days right up until Christmas, I will have some of my favorite Christmas stories on every day that I hope you will all enjoy.
Merry Christmas to you all
Enjoy….
My Last Christmas
Do not be alarmed by the title, to my knowledge I am not planning an early departure anytime soon, although I have to say several times this past year I had my doubts.
Christmas is approaching and I was thinking of all the Christmas’s I have had in my life.
Some good and some not so good…
Fact is I still have a popcorn ball from an elementary school Christmas party lodged somewhere in my lower intestine.
Don’t those damn things ever dissolve?
But like you, I have had some good and some not so good Christmas’s over the years
Some memorable and some I would just as soon forget
That was the way I felt a few years ago….
Now all of my Christmas’s are memorable ones and would you like to know why?
I will let you in on a little secret
Two secrets actually
I approach each Christmas as if it’s my last, because it very well may be…
And the last secret, I want you to keep to yourself
I know Santa Claus
Seriously I really do
In fact, I kind of do some side work for the “Big Man” this time of year
But I am getting ahead of myself here, let me back up for a minute.
There was a time when I was younger that all I ever wanted to be called was “a good football player” and in some regards I guess I was.
Later when I went into the Marine Corps, I wanted to be known as a “good Marine”
And to some people I suppose that was true
But as I get older all I really want……
Is to be remembered and known as a “good man”
This isn’t an invitation to email me or post a message about how “good” I am.
I think we know that isn’t the truth, but I am working hard at it.
Real hard
This year I am “helping” Santa to deliver a whole bunch of bicycles to Children….
These children come from homes where abuse was commonplace
Let me say that again, where abuse was commonplace
Some of these children have seen and experienced things that I cannot describe here.
Because it is too graphic, too horrible and too disturbing, even for me.
I can’t think of anything worse than a child that doesn’t feel loved, needed or wanted.
They now live at the Big Oak Ranch in Alabama
But I want to make this real for you readers, so you will understand
Recently John Croyle, the Founder and Executive Director of Big Oak Ranch, received a call to go pick up a couple of children in Steel Alabama, some of you may know that town, it just a flashing light and a truck stop.
More specifically he went to meet a woman at the truck stop in Steel Alabama
John came in the truck stop and a woman was setting at a nearby table smoking a cigarette with two young children setting on the dirty floor near her.
She said “Are you him?”
John replied with “Ma’am?” because he wasn’t sure this was the person he was supposed to meet
“Are you him that’s here to take these kids?”
“Yes, ma’am I am”
The woman introduced the seven year old boy who kept his head down and she told John that “he just got back from Florida with some friends and he had a real good time”
John said she really emphasized “a real good time”
Then the woman introduced the six year old girl that also kept her head down…
The woman told John that “this little one has been down in Anniston Alabama with some friends”
John found out that those children kept their heads down because they thought that John was there to “rent” them
Because that was what this mother did to her children
She rented them to pedophiles she found online so she could get money for drugs
These children and others just like them have a second chance at life at the Big Oak Ranch
So why am I sharing this with you here?
Don’t get ahead of yourselves; I don’t want your money.
I already have enough money to burn a wet Rhino, or at least a wet hamster
I want you to have a chance to be a part of a Christmas miracle
It will do your heart and soul good, I promise you
Go online or send a check to the Big Oak Ranch this Christmas
http://www.bigoak.org/
Doesn’t matter how much, or how little
Don’t send it because I said too….
Do it for yourself
Do it for some children that you may never meet but are getting a real chance at life
Children that need hope
Children that may need a Christmas miracle
I am working real hard this Christmas to ensure those children have hope
Even if that hope comes in the form of a little Barbie Bicycle
That my friend’s is the magic of Christmas
Believe it
RTR
MEB