A women's right to bare arms

Every day I look forward to getting on my porch my Marion, Indiana small-town newspaper (the Chronicle Tribune). Not because I get much news there (I don’t) but I get a great chuckle almost daily at their junior high spelling and grammar. Today’s editorial affirmed our “right to bare arms” in the headline. I wonder if the editor even knows the difference between baring arms and bearing arms?

If the editorial had been written by Ken Schenck or Bob Black I would have guessed it was one of their clever turnings of a phrase…

I thought it would be a GREAT headline for conservative holiness people if I were writing columns in the summer.

For instance I’d trace the history of how conservative holiness women used to be expected to wear long sleeves (as late as the 1950’s). But even in the 1950’s women started pushing against this “collective conviction.” The more racy women (often “song evangelist’s” wives) started wearing long sleeves of material that was see-though so that men could ogle their skin peaking out through the material.

By the end of the 50’s these racy women moved to “¾ length sleeves” and bared their lower arms for others to see—it was getting sexy.

Sure enough the women’s “right to bare arms” continued so that at Sunday school picnics in the 1960’s some came in “short sleeve” dresses showing off to the public the skin on their arms from the wrist all the way up to within 4” of their shoulders. It was stimulating to the men who had never seen so much skin of their church women!

Of course it wasn’t long until women took their "right to bare arms" all the way. Some started wearing “sleeveless blouses” to regular church services! Yikes—full appendage nudity! I recall sitting in Lakeview church (Marion) with my 75 year old mother in the 1980’s when a girl came into the service late and plopped down in front of us wearing a slinky blouse and only spaghetti straps—my mother was as shocked as if she had come in topless. By now I had accepted the women’s right to bare arms but she was so distracted that she talked about it the rest of the afternoon. She angrily responded when I just chuckled at her conservative standards but she argued back with this: “If things change as much in your lifetime as they have in mine, women will be coming to church completely naked by the time you're 75.”

I turn 75 in 2020… ;-)

. --keith drury

My Big Fat SUV

My
Big
Fat
SUV



Four dollar a gallon gas along with reducing my carbon footprint, has got me thinking about my own carbon footprint sins—I own a Big Fat SUV, a 1992 Chevy Suburban. I did some calculating this morning as I considered full repentance for my sins. Here are my notes:

800 miles driven per year—all in-town
11 miles per gallon in town mileage
72 gallons of gas used per year
@ $4.20 per gallon gas
----------
$302 annual cost of gas

Really, shouldn’t a person with pro-environment leanings drive around town in a Toyota Prius like my nifty colleagues Steve Lennox and Todd Voss do? Better yet maybe I ought to get one of those cool plug-ins and disconnect forever from middle eastern oil.

So I calculated a trade. I paid $10,000 for the used Suburban when it had about 100,000 miles on it. I could now get maybe $5,500 if I sell it outright—I could put that toward a lower emission car maybe. So I checked the cost of the cheapest used Prius within 500 miles of my home. I found a “clunker” for just over $17,000. (A true plug-in was far more than that so I dropped the plug-in idea altogether.) So if I sell my Suburban for five grand and add just $12,000 to that money, I too could be a cool low-carbon guy. How much would that investment of twelve grand save me on gas?

TOYOTA PRIUS
800 miles driven per year—all in-town
44 miles per gallon (in town mileage)
18 gallons of gas used per year
@ $4.20 per gallon gas
----------
$226 annual savings in gas

In short, if I fork out just $12,000 extra for the used Prius, I could save $226 every year at the gas pump and “it would pay for itself” in just 53 years—in time for my 115th birthday.

I need a quicker payback.

So I guess for a while yet, you’ll still see me running around town in “my Big Fat SUV.”

(Of course more commonly you’ll see be around town on my bicycle).

Ready for Fall semester

All week I have been preparing for Fall semester and my last syllabus is now done and all the first week's classes are prepared. My office is all packed up and in boxes for the move back into the newly renovated CM building August 1--but I'll be long gone so I will come back at the end of August for classes with these boxes all moved into my new office...so I had to prepare for fall early this year.

Now I'm thinking about the rest of summer.

I have three weeks here in Marion to
-Pack for the rest of the summer, and
-Do all the little chores professors say "I'll do that this summer."
...Today I'm painting kitchen cabinets and hardware
...cutting grass and caring for the garden-I-won't-be-here-to- harvest
...just being summer-lazy a bit
...I've got a bunch of other little things to repair, fix, organize, and throw away
...visiting with my local grandkids..

To be honest I'm blogging here just to delay finishing the kitchen painting.

I leave July 13 for the rest of the summer...
--Hiking in Wyoming with Paul & Brooke Kind
--Wandering Wyoming three extra weeks with Sharon
--returning in August just time to leave the next day for Colorado with Kerry Kind, Dave Ward and Phil Woodbury for an end-of-summer hike on the CT.

OK I better get back to painting before Sharon comes home to find me having done nothing at all today...

Family Reunion @ General Conference

Perhaps the best highlight of the Wesleyan General Conference for me personally was the reunion of all my family.

Left to right are

-David, Kathy, (College church ex pastor)

-Sharon and me, (IWU)

-Amanda and John, (Princeton)

-my late brother Elmer's son Scott & Elizabeth (World Hope) whom I consider like a son

All are members of my own denomination (Wesleyan), Dave, John and Amanda are ordained, and Scott is pursuing it now.

We all sat together on the front seat of the observers section and whispered, chuckled, sighed, cheered and grunted through every minute of every session. We do not claim to have a perfect denomination but we are all in this one and it is ours and we love it.

In 1988 at the General Conference I made a big bet on a family/career decision.

At this General Conference, twenty years later it reminded me that it paid off in spades.

--Keith Drury June 17, 2008

Back Home from General Conference

We flew back from Orlando last night and I’m in General Conference detox now. It was a GREAT conference and I loved every moment. Here are a few personal notes the morning-after.

- I shaved off my beard for this week. Most of the folk at CG know me clean-shaven and I didn’t want every single interchange with people to start with remarks about my beard or the “have you become Amish?” question. The only folk who mentioned facial hair were people I already see every week—and that didn’t matter since I merely explained the above to them and they understood. The beard starts growing back today.

- I am in relational detox now. Crowds recharge some people’s batteries (most of my family); constant relationships exhaust me so I must plan alone-time to recharge my batteries. I love so many people I saw this week, yet I get exhausted “relating” from 7 AM to midnight every day without alone time.

- I was reminded how much I love these guys. Man do I have great friends in this church. I skipped “The Gathering” last January due to a wedding (one that never happened it turned out) and regretted it. I’ll not skip the next one—or general Conference either. I got to see bunches of former students and youth workers.

- The highlight for me was being able to sit with my two sons in the front seat of the observer’s section and comment to each other on things like those guys on Mystery Theater or the guys in the Muppets. I represented the old folk and they the younger ones.

- I was suprised at how many 20-30somethings care about General Conference and showed up at their own expense. The boomers like to pretend it is all irrelevant. They are out of sync with the coming generation who really cares about stuff like this.

- I blogged real-time from my cell phone live reports on the conference…they are here. http://wesleyanstuff.blogspot.com/

- NEXT FOR ME: After resting up with alone time a while I am making all my Fall semester syllabi before leaving for the rest of the summer in 3 weeks.



-- Keith Drury June 12, 2008

Sharon's new pack

Sharon got a new pack--Golite's LiteSpeed

It weighs a bit over 2 pounds which is too much so we are adapting it now (removing the alum stays etc) to get it under 2# but it is a sweet pack.

She is "moving beyond" her trusty Golite "Breeze" 15 oz pack because she wanted 1) waist straps, and 2) a cooler looking pack ;-)

Sharon has endlessly long legs but is short-waisted so she actually fits a woman's small pack--her pack holds about 2000 cubit (cubic). inches which will be enough for about any long distance hike as a lite-packer.

I think this may be a revision of the old "speed" pack that Paul Kind (and maybe Mark Schmerse) used once... she liked that one so I think she'll like this one too

Ok gotta go register freshman... just wanted to report a new pack in the family ;-)

Finished 500 miles of Applachian Trail

On Thursday at nine o'clock we rolled into Damascus, Virginia... about 500 miles from our starting point at Springer Mountain Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. I had only hoped for 350 miles at the best but we rolled along quite nicely with light packs and long walks. In the final week we were doing 20-even 25--miles a day....

In Damascus we went out for supper with a half dozen other hikers we've been running with for the last week or so... they are celebrating our finish and their entry into the second quarter of the trail for themselves....

Ethan Lennox was my partner for the whole hike--all 500 miles. he is faster than I am but I can walk long. We were counting up and discovered we passed more then 150 long distance hikers (thru hikers going to Maine or those hiking 500+ miles).... only two have passed us which was quite a feat for someone who has never backpacked before the first night on Springer mountain (Ethan) and an old guy in his 60's... (me). Light packs and long walking were the secret. Burt Webb joined us for two weeks and Phil Woodbury for Three weeks of this hike

We got back to Marion by Midnight Friday and I had a "normal" weekend here at home preparing to leave for General Conference.

I am now experiencing PTTSS.... "Post Trail Traumatic Stress Syndrome"... my mind won't settle back into noisy town life... it seems like I don't belong here but have snuck away from where I "belong." Happens every year.... and I am exausted...I think I'll go back to bed and sleep until August!

Actually I head to general conference Friday, then I will start planning for the Continential Divide hike in July... Sharon will join me in the Wind River Mountains where we're be double-date-hiking with Paul & Brooke Kind... that will be great...a bit slower pace and more beautiful mountains..(and since Sharon is going) we'll take one of those "jet boil" stoves and make coffee daily!!!! After that hike Sharon and I will stay out in the Tetons and in Yellowstone for three more weeks before returning here to marion the day or so before I leave with Kerry Kind, Dave Ward, Phil Woodbury (& maybe Chris Bounds too) for our annual before-faculty-retreat hike on the Colorado Trail--this year form Creede to Durango...

I love summers!

--Keith Drury 6/2/08

Headed out hikin'

I've turned in my grades and been drying food and packing stuff to head off for the summer... I will sleep on the Appalachian Trail near Springer mountain Georgia this Sunday evening (April 27). Then on Monday I should have gotten on top of Springer Mtn and the official start of the Appalachian Trail. Sharon and I were here in March, 1972 on a wet wet rainly day. (see Sharon here in "pauncho"--the latest rain gear at the time... We started north from here to do the bottom thousand miles of the AT.

I won't get that far this time--I only have a month or so... 300-350 would be a good total.

I will return from the AT in time to go to the Wesleyan General Conference June 7-11. I should check my email next that week.

--Keith Drury (April 24)

I'm under the porch

My grandfather Anderson described his way of recovering from sickness this way, "You don't see a dog going to the doctor when he's sick--he just crawls under the porch and waits..and sure enough time almost always heals him."

I go under the porch every winter--usually from Christmas until Spring break. I generally get the flu or cold or whatever other bug is passing by in January which "settles" (my mother's word) in my chest and I hack all night requiring my emigration to our guest bedroom for the rest of the night so Sharon can sleep. I wake up exhausted, drag myself to classes, and barely keep up with my email--basically I just crawl under the porch and wait for time to heal.

So if you've written to me recently and have not heard back... I'm under the porch waiting for time to do its work.
--Keith Drury

UPDATE FEB 11
I see improvement and am grateful to the Lord for it...all healing comes from God--fast or slow.... still no voice--it has been 7 days without a voice, which makes "lecturing" difficult ;-) the other day in LCE I typed my lecture into a PowerPoint while they took notes... funny, they still asked me to slow down..I could type faster then many could take notes ;-) I probably waste many words anyway--that made me be more economical ... one student said it was "the best class this year": hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

UPDATE AFTER SPRING BREAK
Like a miracle I Slowly have recovered. lost my hacking couch over break... but like a curse I got it back again within 24 hours of returning to work. Turns out the leaks in our offices in Old College church had gotten my officemate's books all soaked in January... and they were sitting unpacked all this time growing mold... when Chris unpacked them over break they were covered with black mold. A HA! They moved me to a temporary office in the World Impact section of OCC and within a week I was fine...

Second Semester begins tomorrow

OK..I'm all moved into one of the Sunday school classrooms at OCC--"Old College Church"... I share an office with Chris Bounds (who likes the average temp about 85 degrees) and classes begin tomorrow.

The inside of noggle is being gutted... the "staging area" is on the (former) lawn by the Jesus-patting-students statue. We have a bunch of classes all outfitted in OCC and the famous leather coaches in the hallways. Tomorrow students will start swarming in the building and we'll see if we treat it as a temporary wandering in the wilderness or we actually like it better than 'ol Noggle... Pictures later on...