1. Christopher Columbus discovered the "new world" in 1492.
   
   
2. In 1956 Elvis Presley sang "Heartbreak Hotel" and it became a nationwide hit and it sold more than 10 million copies within one year. Elvis very quickly became a popular singer and motion picture star.
   
   
3. Every Christmas I was reminded that Jesus Christ was born in a stable. And I was also told that if I was good then Santa Claus would bring me some presents on Christmas Eve. As a young child I did not understand that Jesus Christ was real and that Santa Claus was just pretend. Santa Claus was a lie that the devil successfully used to distract my attention away from Jesus Christ every Christmas.
   
   
4. In school World War II was usually mentioned in one way or another in most of my classes.
   
   
5. The taste of a bowl of cereal had no relationship to the picture of the cartoon character on the outside of the box.
   
   
6. Elvis Presley's singing career was interrupted and he was drafted into the U.S. Army in March of 1958. After completing his "boot camp" training in Texas he was deployed for 18 months in Germany. He became a role model for military service to the young men who looked favorably on his example.
   
   
7. Every Easter I was reminded that Jesus Christ was crucified with two thieves but Jesus rose from the grave on Easter Sunday morning. I was also told that the "Easter Bunny" would bring good children some candy on Easter. As a young child I didn't know that Jesus was real and that the Easter Bunny was a lie. But the "Easter Bunny lie" was one of the reasons why I had serious doubts about some of the things my parents tried to tell me as I gradually got older.
   
   
8. If I didn't do all my chores at home then I would not receive my weekly "allowance" of 25 cents.
   
   
9. In the 1950s and the 1960s I was told to avoid products that were "Made in Japan" because they were cheaply made and they would not last very long before they broke.
   
   
10. A baseball player named Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in a 162 game season in 1961 (or 0.377 home runs per game) and he broke the home run record set by Babe Ruth of 60 home runs in 1927 during a 154 game season (or 0.390 homes runs per game).
    
    
11. Television was more fun to watch than listening to the radio.
    
    
12. According to most adults in the 1960s, the 1939 color movie "Gone with the Wind" was the best movie ever made.
    
    
13. In 1961 "Alan Shepherd" was the first USA astronaut to orbit the earth and then safely return to the earth alive. In 1971 he became the fifth person to walk on the moon and he was also the oldest person (age 47) to walk on the moon.
    
    
14. Noah and his family survived the flood by building an ark and they took a male and a female of each animal into the ark with them.
    
    
15. In 1962 a new rock-n-roll group called the "Beatles" became more popular than Elvis Presley. (Note: In the year 2023 many people all around the world still like the music of Elvis Presley but a lot of people have never heard of the Beatles.)
    
    
16. President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by a man named John Wilkes Booth in 1865. In the 1960s we had a picture of President Lincoln on the wall of our home.
    
    
17. Although I had heard that all politicians were "mud slingers," every politician I saw on television wore a nice clean suit and a necktie.
    
    
18. The world famous actress Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 and the court ruled that her death was a suicide.
    
    
19. A teenage boy named David killed a giant named Goliath with a sling and one round rock.
    
    
20. If I didn't do my homework I would get a bad grade and my parents would be very upset with me.
    
    
21. A person should go to church on Sunday unless the person was sick.
    
    
22. We should always "Remember the Alamo" because Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie died there in 1836.
    
    
23. A man name Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the shooting death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in 1963. Oswald was killed while in police custody before he could appear in court to defend himself. Shortly thereafter the news media slandered the reputation of the murdered President in every way that they could fabricate. Since President Kennedy was dead he couldn't defend himself against all the lies that the news media told about him.
    
    
24. If you wanted to become a smart person then you had to read the "classics" and especially William Shakespeare. Unfortunately I only read a summary of a Shakespeare classic when it was a required reading assignment in High School.
    
    
25. In 1964 a rock-n-roll group called "The Rolling Stones" released a song called "Time is on My Side." Like many other teenagers, I liked the lyrics of that song. (Note: As I gradually got older I realized that the song was a lie and that time was not on my side. "Time" and "death" were two of my very real enemies.)
    
    
26. In 1966 the state of Virginia added a "temporary" 2% sales tax to the price of everything you bought. That tax was never repealed and it was gradually increased. In 2023 the sales tax in Virginia is currently at 5.3%.
    
    
27. At the movie theaters "color" movies were more fun to watch than "black and white" movies in the 1960s. (Note: In the year 2023 I frequently watch old "black and white" movies on television because they have excellent plots, superior acting, no profanity, no nudity, no sexual perversions, and criminals and assassins are not portrayed as heroes. And God's name and the name of Jesus were never used inappropriately in one of those old movies. Therefore I personally prefer those old movies to many of the more recent color movies. It is sad that the moral standards of our society have almost vanished in just 50 years.)
    
    
28. I had better luck with girls if I went to a dance alone instead of going to a dance with several other guys.
    
    
29. In 1967 I received an unsolicited bank credit card in the mail with a pre-approved credit limit of $500. In huge print on the attached letter it said the interest rate was only 1.5% per month. In the tiny print it mentioned the annual interest rate was 18%. But at the age of 18 I did not understand the significance of those two numbers. When I received that credit card in the mail I thought I must finally be someone special. I didn't realize that I was just another turkey that was being baited to walk willingly to the slaughterhouse.
    
    
30. If you didn't go to college after you graduated from high school then you would never get a good job.
    
    
31. Most of the stuff I was exposed to in school only had to be remembered until the exam was over. (Note: I have never had to answer a history question at work, or at a family reunion, or at a party. However, I did enjoy history in school when the course explained the reasons why things happened and we were not tested on names, dates, and places. The names, dates, and places never repeat but the cycles that societies go through repeat again, and again, and again. It is sad that we are not able to learn from the mistakes our ancestors made and that we are so easily deceived into making those same exact mistakes ourselves.)
    
    
32. The famous heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay Jr. changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He became a Muslim at the age of 19. He refused to be inducted into the military and he spent 5 years in court battles until he was acquitted of all charges by the Supreme Court in 1971. He then went on to become a heavyweight boxing champion.
    
    
33. Some guys only liked "Fords" and some guys only liked "Chevrolets" but I could never really understand why.
    
    
34. In the 1960s any car or truck that had 100,000 or more miles on it was worn out and you shouldn't buy it.
    

"Be still, and know that I am God;

1. At the age of 3 I fell off a boat dock into the deep water of a lake. A stranger jumped into the lake and saved me from drowning.
   
   
2. At the age of 16 I got into a fist fight while my entire family was out of town visiting some of our relatives. As I walked away from the playground where the fight had occurred I noticed that there was a lot of blood on the front of my overcoat. I felt my lower lip and blood was oozing out of my lip. Almost immediately one of my friends "just happened" to drive by and he stopped and told me to get into his car. And he drove me to the hospital and the doctor put several stitches into my lip.
   
   
3. At the age of 20, while I was a junior at college, my mother died of a heart attack at the age of 50. I have never cried so much before then or since then. I didn't tell any of my professors that my mother had died. Instead I simply finished my classes and I received passing grades in all of my classes. But after completing the final exam in my last class I put my tobacco cigarettes in the trashcan in the hallway outside the classroom and I stopped smoking. My father also stopped smoking tobacco after my mom's funeral. My mother's death was the catalyst that brought my father and myself to our senses and we both stopped doing something that was slowing killing us. My dad lived until the age of 93 and I am still alive at the age of 74. (Note: My younger brother quit smoking a few years after our mom's death and he is still alive at the age of 71. My older brother never quit smoking and he died at the age of 60. My younger sister never smoked and she is still alive at the age of 64.)
   
   
4. At the age of 23 I was on the roof of a large factory because I had to measure the roof to get the square footage of the building for insurance purposes. Suddenly my metal measuring tape slid off the side of the roof and it fell onto some high-voltage electrical wires. My metal tape sent a shower of fireworks up into the air and my metal tape separated into two pieces. One short piece fell to ground and the loose end of the long piece also fell to the ground. I was holding the other end of the long piece in both of my hands and I was standing in a puddle of water on the roof of the factory. I realized that I was the "ground terminal" for those electrical fireworks and that I should have been killed but I was still alive.
   
   
5. When I was 25 I was driving on an interstate highway in Arkansas and it started snowing. After driving slowly for a few miles my car skidded off the road. It was dark and snowing and there was no traffic on the interstate. Mobile phones had not yet been invented. The next exit was more than a 2 mile walk away but it was snowing and it was dark. And I didn't know if there would be anything open at the next exit due to the snow. When I was a teenager my father had warned me to not abandon my car in a snowstorm because people who did that usually froze to death. About two minutes passed and a tow truck came driving down the interstate and he stopped beside my car. For $10 cash he pulled my car back onto the interstate. Then I was able to slowly continue my journey to my destination.
   
   
6. When I was 27 I attempted to buy our first home. But the lawyer didn't complete the paperwork on the date he had originally promised and my financing plan fell apart the next day. I was so disappointed that God hadn't answered my prayers that I told God I still believed in Him, and I was still going to attend church on Sundays, but I would take care of my business affairs myself in the future. That evening I had a terrible pain in the center of my chest. My wife drove me to the emergency room at the hospital. After about two hours they couldn't find anything wrong with me. So I prayed and I told God I was sorry for acting like a spoiled brat and I asked Him to please forgive me. The pain immediately disappeared and I was released from the emergency room. The following week we closed the deal on our first home. That experience helped me to learn a little bit about patience (a virtue I still need help with) and I also learned to be prepared in the future on those occasions when God would say "No" to my prayers.
   
   
7. When I was 29 I was trying to find the home of a person who had a item for sale that I wanted to buy. It was dark and the directions he had given me were not very good. I was driving on a country road and I turned onto the first road after a bridge based on his instructions. After about one mile I knew I was on the wrong road because there were no houses on the old dirt road. Therefore I stopped and I turned around. About 100 yards later my car became stuck in a rut in the road. Mobile phones had not yet been invented. It would have been about a one mile walk in the dark back to the main road. And I couldn't remember seeing any houses on the main road after I had crossed the bridge and before I had turned onto the dirt road. About two minutes later a pickup truck drove towards me from the direction of the main road. The truck stopped beside my car and a man and a woman got out of the truck. Together the three of us pushed my car out of the rut and back onto the dirt road. I offered them some money but they refused. After I got back into my car I prayed and I thanked God for His assistance. Then I continued on to my destination.
   

Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com