West Cocoa Chat

The weekend is finally here. It has been a long week or so it seems. As I mention earlier, Steven and I along with 3 friends from church and their sons are taking our annual trip to a football game. Since Steven was in 6th grade we've gone in this order to the following games: 1. Miami Dolphins game 2. Another Dolphin game 3. University of Miami Hurricanes game 4. Jacksonville Jaguars last year 5. Back to Jacksonville to see the Jags take on the lowly Houston Texans this year.
We really enjoyed the Jag game last year and Jacksonville is closer and seemed safer than Miami. One of my favorite parts of this tradition is the service we hold in our hotel room. The guys in the First Century knew what they were doing when they worshiped "face to face." I suppose we could find a local church to worship with but our tradition is usuallyto stay up late on Saturday night playing cards with the kids and then have a late breakfast on Sunday as well as our worship service in our room. I'll post some pics when I get back on Monday.

Now for a "Bird" story. I have always been a fan of Larry Bird since his playing days at Indiana State. The state of the NBA hasn't been the same since he, Magic, and Jordan have retired. When the Celtics played the Orlando Magic for the first time in Orlando, they took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center. One of our elders at Rockledge, Tom, was the Director of the Space Shuttle Payloads and he was given the task of taking Bird and the Celtics on their tour. Apparently the Celtics told NASA that the players just wanted to tour the Space Center without pressure of signing autographs.

Tom told me that at one point he had a chance to speak to Larry Bird while he was conducting their tour. He told Bird that he had a friend (that would be me) back at church that looked an awful lot like him. Tom said that Bird smiled and said, "Tell that good-looking guy I said hello." Although the Celtics didn't sign any autographs on the tour Tom did have his picture taken with Larry Bird. Tom gave the picture to me and wrote Bird's statement on the back.
Feel free to address me as "good-looking" any time you please. Hey, Larry Bird thinks I am!
You blones have a good weekend.