I am blessed.

For about a dozen years or so, I've been fortunate to spend two weeks every summer at a Christian youth camp in Wisconsin, working alongside some great people. A handful of those people have been there consistently, year in, year out. They are an integral part of my faith family.

One of few regrets I have from those many weeks is that most of my extended blood family lives several states away, and because I get only limited vacation time each year, I don't get to spend nearly as much time with my blood family as I have with these special members of my family of faith.

As it turns out, I didn't get to spend that two weeks in the woods this summer; and as I expected, I missed my time with the people far more than I missed the smell of the pine trees, the cold water of the upper falls, the sand in my sleeping bag, the mosquitoes on my arms, legs, face, neck, growing bald spot and wherever else.

Today I started a long trip from Oklahoma to Ohio to visit blood family, with an overnight stop in St. Louis. After dropping my parents off at my aunt's house, I made a little side trip, 62 miles up the highway to visit Dianne Kinzer.

Dianne is an inspiration to me for many reasons. While I've worked at camp for a dozen or so years, Dianne and her husband, Bill, were counseling the camp when I was a camper, which if you're counting, is closer to two dozen years ago.

I wasn't much at 17 or 18, not that I'm much at 40. But at that time, I was very socially awkward, not very popular and the textbook definition of "nerd." Today's pic is me as a teenager. That should give you some idea. I don't know what Dianne saw in me then, but she saw something. She took an interest, and she took time to care when it would have been just as easy not to.

And I've never forgotten it.

So nothing could have made me happier after 560ish miles of driving today than the opportunity to spend a couple of hours drinking coffee with Dianne Kinzer in a Ruby Tuesdays in Litchfield, Illinois. It wasn't quite the same as two weeks together in the woods, but I'll take what I can get.

Thanks, Dianne.

My good friend Dianne Kinzer is a visitor to my blog. But she didn't like the picture in my profile. Said I wasn't smiling, which I wasn't.

So, in honor of Dianne, and to bring back a sense of nostalgia, I decided that for the next several days, I'll change the picture in my profile to various pictures taken throughout my life, mostly from my youth. If you wanna see them, check back often. I'll be seeing Dianne, if all goes well, sometime on Wednesday on my way to Ohio with the family. I'll try to post now and then from the road.

For the last couple of days, I've done nothing but rant. So today I thought I'd switch gears and give you something you can really sink your teeth into. I'm gonna share a recipe. After all, momma used to say: "If you can't say something nice, say something nice to eat."

Or something like that.

Today's recipe is for lazy peach cobbler. It's lazy because you don't have to make pastry for it. But it's yummy regardless. I'll give you the recipe straight like I learned it first, then give you some ideas for adapting it.

Preheat oven to 350.

Ingredients:
1 29 oz can of sliced peaches, drained well
5 slices of white bread
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 T flour
1 egg, beaten
1 stick butter or margarine, melted

Layer the drained peaches on the bottom of one of those 8- or 9-inch square baking dishes. Remove crust from the bread slices, and cut each slice into four equal strips. Layer the bread strips over the fruit until the fruit is completely covered. Mix the other stuff together, and spread over the bread, coating the bread completely. Bake 35-45 minutes or until brown.

Dave's suggestions:
Multiply the recipe as needed. I always use the longer, oblong baking dish, so I use two cans of peaches. Doesn't really matter how much fruit you use, except that there are few things sadder in life than fruit cobbler that doesn't have enough fruit. So be generous. If you use a bigger dish, you'll need more bread. You can be even lazier I suppose and buy the bread that already has the crust removed, but I'm neither too busy or too proud to buy the cheap bread and cut the crust off myself. For the remaining four ingredients, just increase the amounts in equal proportions. For an oblong dish, I double it.

I've found that regardless of how well you drain the peaches, the fruit under the crust gets pretty watery. If it's gonna take you awhile to eat the cobbler, do this: mix a tablespoon or two of cornstarch with twice as much sugar, and sprinkle that mixture over the fruit before you put the bread on. The cornstarch will help the liquid thicken as it cooks, but you need the sugar to keep the starch from clumping.

Yes, you can adapt the recipe to use other fruits. I've used frozen raspberries, fresh blackberries....both did well. Haven't tried fresh apples yet, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work, so long as they're sliced thin enough to cook all the way through. But if you're using a juicy fruit, add the cornstarch. It'll turn out better for ya.

Now, if you're gonna go to the trouble of making cobbler, have the decency to serve it with some fresh whipped cream. That's easy too. Just get you a pint of whipping cream and whip it -- with an electric mixer, on high speed, until it's thick like whipped cream. Then add some sugar, 1/4 cup or so, and a dab of vanilla. Use the mixer to blend. Much better than Cool Whip.

If I was a lesser man, I'd gloat.

Well, maybe I am gloating. But if I was a lesser man, I'd be doing the obnoxious "I told you so" dance whilst I gloat.

If you're unfamiliar with the "I told you so" dance, watch the Maury Show for a couple of days. The topic of most Maury Shows is "who's your daddy?" — shows where women who have a child but no clue who the father is bring a guy on national TV for a paternity test.

First, the woman comes out and tells her story, expressing in R-rated terms her disdain for the fact that the man has been such a deadbeat dad to her darling little child, though she's 350 percent sure that of all the people she was sleeping with at the time, he's the daddy. Then, the man joins her on stage, talks about how easy the woman is, and how about half the studio audience has just as good a chance of being that baby's daddy as he does. When we've had all of that we can take, Maury opens the big yellow envelope and reads the results: "When it comes to 14-month old Shayronda... Tyreshon....you are NOT the father!" Tyreshon then breaks out into dance, usually in the face of the stunned, devastated woman. He's overjoyed that he can continue to spend his money on gold jewelry and boxer shorts and all the other essentials of being a playa, instead of having to sell more heroin to school kids or mug more old ladies to buy diapers and formula. Unless Tyreshon IS the daddy, in which case momma do the dance in Tyreshon's face. It's riveting entertainment. Would be funny, except that these are real people -- real babies. But anyway....

It's time to introduce you to Alex, who was supposed to be kinda like my son. Except he isn't. But given the previous reference to the Maury Show, I wouldn't want you thinking a paternity test was necessary to figure that out.

Alex's mother and I were friends since college. When she suddenly found herself a single mom a few years back, I offered to help, giving some free babysitting and such while mom was making the adjustment from single and carefree to single and less carefree.

Then, one day I heard the lie. And I bought it. Hook, line and sinker.

The lie, guys, goes something like this: "You know, I really love you, and I wish you could/would be (child's name)'s father." When you hear it, save yourself the heartache you have no idea is coming. Run fast and far.

Translated, when she SAYS "I love you, I want you to be the father..." what she MEANS is "Hey, I'm really diggin this free babysitting so I can hang with my friends. I love the fact that you have no problem changing diapers or giving baths. It's great to be able to trust and use you until the child gets old enough where he/she is less work or until his/her real daddy starts coming around, at which time you'll be on the curb like yesterday's garbage."

So when you hear "I really love you, and I wish...." don't even let her finish. Fast and far. Trust me.

But back to Alex. When I bought the lie, I immersed myself in it. So I do love the little feller like he were my own even though I don't get to see him much anymore. I do my best not to hold my issues with his mother against him.

Alex started kindygarden this year, and apparently he's not doing well. Teacher tells mommy that Alex won't mind, acts bored, and makes animal noises at inappropriate times. All of the other children get smiley faces on their daily report cards every day. Alex hasn't gotten one yet. Instead, he gets notes to take home to mommy. Less than two weeks into his kindygarden career, mommy and teacher have already had a conference. Mommy was stunned. Devastated.

I'll spare you the dance, but not "I told you so!"

For five years, "no" in Alex's house hasn't meant "no, and if you do it anyway, you'll regret it" but "no, and please, if you'll just let mommy have her way on this one, King Alex, we'll go get an ice cream cone or maybe a doughnut." Inapproriate behavior doesn't get punished; good behavior gets rewarded. So Alex learned early he makes the rules. He can behave as he wishes until the reward for doing it the parent's way reaches a level that satisifies him. I'm no Hebrew scholar, but I'm pretty sure Proverbs 13:24 wasn't originally translated "He that spareth the pastry hateth his son." At this rate, by the time he's a teenager, he'll be insulin dependent.

Oh, that every child would obey their parents out of love and respect from the day they were born. That's the means to the end of obedience you hope they'll grow into. Meantime, if fear of punishment is the reason for obedience, that's just as effective and justified a means to the same necessary end. Worked for me.

I'm trying not to take it too seriously. Wouldn't matter if I did, since I have no input into how the child is raised anyway. When I bought the lie, I assumed I would have input. But I was set straight pretty quick, the first time I smacked his bottom in front of mommy because "no" was going in one ear and out the other.

It's just kindergarten, and it IS a big transition. I don't think animal noises today necessarily mean axe murderer tomorrow. But it's time for the parent to be the parent, and the child the child. If that doesn't happen soon, I'm sure next year at this time, some quack will think Alex has attention deficit disorder. Maybe a drug would help, they'll say. That's when I'll come unglued. The only disorder the child suffers is firm-hand-on-the-bottom deficit disorder. Being a parent fixes that. No prescription necessary.

Maybe this weekend Alex and I will have to spend some time together. Then we'll sit down and have us a man to boy chat about his behavior in school and how disappointed I am that he doesn't behave as I expect him to. It won't be the kind of chat he's used to. There will be no promise of sugar or toys if he changes his ways; only that I'll continue to be disappointed in him if he doesn't. Guilt is powerful. And appropriate. I have no problem using it.

But knowing Alex, at the end of our chat, he'll just look at me with those pouty "Uncle Dave is mad at me" lips, the big puppy-dog eyes, and say "Meeeeeoooooooow."

"I am NOT a crook!"

I was a mere lad of eight when President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase to reporters in 1973 while denying his involvement in the Watergate scandal. As presidential soundbites go, that one ranks right up there with "Read my lips: No new taxes!" and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman — Miss Lewinsky."

But more than three decades after Nixon's attempt at damage control, I now know how the late president felt. Well, except that I REALLY am not a crook.

Or at least I'm not a cook.

The (long) story begins on Monday with a trip to a local pharmacy to order a couple of bottles of Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia, a chemical or "medicine" that was commonly stocked in the drug store of yesteryear. In the old days, folks would mix a little Spirits of Ammonia with Coke as a home remedy for everything from upset stomachs and headaches to hangovers and menstrual cramps. (For the record, I've only suffered the first two.) We have better medicines these days, so the demand for Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia has decreased to the point that if you want it, usually the pharmacist has to order it for you.

Why my interest? Glad you asked. Some time ago I read a newspaper story about how the head trainer of a major league baseball team would soak cabbage leaves in a solution of ice water and ammonia spirits. The players would wear the cabbage leaves on their heads -- under their caps -- to help keep cool on the field, where temperatures can exceed 120 degrees during some day games. Online, I found references to "ammonia towels" used by college sports teams, high school marching bands, and even sports officials. Instead of cabbage leaves, you simply soak a towel in ice water and ammonia spirits then wipe yourself down with the cool towel during breaks in the action. They say it's refreshing, a sensation akin to a cold shower on a hot day.

So I want to try it. Why? It gets hot here in Oklahoma, and when you're outside in the heat, such a remedy might be helpful. Second, anyone who knows me at all would tell you that putting a cabbage leaf soaked in water and a smelly chemical on your head and under your cap has David Hartman written all over it. Why cabbage? Why not iceberg, or perhaps a big leaf of romaine lettuce? Beats me.

In case you're wondering, Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia essentially is smelling salts dissolved in alcohol and some other stuff. So yeah, it has an aromatic bouquet. I'm not sure exactly what the aromatic ammonia is supposed to do in the mixture, but I suspect it just gives the respiratory system the same "Hello!" the nervous system gets when you douse ice water on it.

So Tuesday, I strolled back into the local pharmacy to pick up my two bottles of Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia.

I got suspicious when the clerk -- who I think was the manager or owner -- asked me for my driver's license, which I'm not accustomed to having to show when I buy something with my Visa debit card. Then she wrote all my driver's license information on a preprinted sheet that was designed for pharmacists to report who buys pseudophedrine and how much they got. She wanted to know how I'm going to use it, etc. I resisted the urge to tell her it was none of her business, and explained the whole ammonia towel/cabbage leaf principle. She seemed skeptical. I asked her if in the future I could get a larger, perhaps cheaper per ounce bottle of it rather than the two, two-ounce bottles I got that day. Then she went from skeptical to snippy. Told me I wouldn't be getting any of the stuff from her in a larger quantity, and for that matter, I wouldn't be getting more from her anytime soon in any quantity at all.

As I was driving back to work, it hit me: she thinks I'm cooking meth. A 2004 Oklahoma State Law (House Bill 2176) now restricts the sale of all cold and allergy medications containing pseudophedrine, because it's the key ingredient in the manufacture of meth, and Oklahoma has the distinction of having more meth labs per capita than nearly any other state. We don't have many honest high-paying jobs here, so when people figure out they can turn about $50 worth of ingredients into a drug with a street value of about $1,500 in a matter of three or four hours, a lotta folks here become entrepreneurs. You can still buy pseudophedrine, a package or two at a time, but you have to sign for it, and the pharmacist has to report the sales -- including who's buying it -- to Big Brother.

Besides that restriction, law enforcement agencies have gone to great lengths to educate merchants about precursors -- ingredients used to make meth. Things like lithium batteries, wooden matches, drain cleaner, rubber tubing, etc. Be the poor schmuck who puts enough of those things in your shopping cart at any one time, and you might just get the chance to wear the shiny metal interlocking bracelets during your free ride to the police station. There, you'll enjoy a complete physical -- or at least a full cavity search -- compliments of the State of Oklahoma.

Another key ingredient in cooking meth is ANHYDROUS Ammonia -- a chemical farmers use in large quantities to fertilize crops. That particular chemical also is regulated, so the meth cooks have to steal it from farmers instead of buying it themselves. So my pharmacist, who I'm sure was well-intentioned, confused anhydrous ammonia with aromatic spirits of, and decided to do her civic duty to save society from my evil scheme. Except of course that it isn't her job to restrict me from buying something I'm legally entitled to buy. If she's gonna be a pharmacist, she ought to know the rules.

I Googled. I felt guilty afterward and wondered if I need to go forward in church on Sunday because of it. Seriously though, I Googled "aromatic spirits of ammonia" and "meth" and got all of four hits. None of them made any reference to spirits being used as an ingredient in meth. Google "anhydrous ammonia" and "meth," and you'll get more than 30,000 hits. Hmmm.

So now I'm indignant. Mine might be a face only a mother could love, but it's not the face of a drug dealer. But now, any time I go back into that pharmacy, I'm a drug dealer. It's about principle for me.

Reminds me of the time when I was a junior in high school and got a detention. I was late for class, and was running in the hall toward said class. A teacher, in his write-up to the principal, said that he told me to stop running; I refused, and therefore was "willfully disobedient." I've never been willfully disobedient in school in my life. The hall was crowded and noisy. I never heard anyone say "stop." You wanna write me up for running in the halls, fair enough. I did that. I'll serve that detention. Willful disobedience? Not a chance. So I didn't show for the detention. It was about principle. Later, the principal called me in after I passed on the detention and told me I had the choice of serving the detention or spending three days at home under suspension. Then it became a matter of where my parents would line up on the issue: with the principle, or with the principal? And what would the consequences at home be if that didn't go my way? But I digress.

So I reckon in the coming days I'll just march back into that pharmacy, educate the pharmacist on the law and clear my pretty good name. I might also insist she cross out the information she took off my driver's license from her log. If she won't, maybe I'll threaten litigation. Or just write a good story for the newspaper. When we're finshed, she'll be smarter and I'll still have a place to get more aromatic spirits of ammonia overnight whenever I decide I want or need more.

Of course, she could also kick me out of the store and tell me to take my business elsewhere. In that case, I'll find me another ammonia supplier, and she won't have David Hartman to kick around anymore!

I never met Vera Mae Eversole. And I'm poorer for it, because her life is an inspiration to me.

Vera Mae lived most of her life in Alva, a somewhat remote city in northern Oklahoma that we sometimes jokingly refer to as Alvatraz. She taught high school math in a school across the Kansas border and lived a quiet, modest and uneventful life.

Those who knew Vera Mae say she never owned a car newer than 10 years old, and didn't drive far in the ones she did own. She rarely bought new clothes for herself, spent a big chunk of her adult life caring for her aging mother and sick brother until they died, and had a soft spot in her heart for stray dogs and cats, often to the irritation of her neighbors. Her "extravagance" in life was regular trips to the hairdresser.

Vera Mae was an avid gardener and a longtime member of the First United Methodist Church in Alva, where she sang in the choir. She was engaged once, but never married. By all accounts, Vera Mae Eversole loved and was loved.

Because of the outward appearance of her life, when Vera Mae Eversole died in 2003 at the age of 85, it would be easy to assume that she would live on only in the memories of those who knew and loved her — not through the things she couldn't take with her. So the Oklahoma City-based Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation — who had never heard of Vera Mae Eversole — and the Oklahoma United Methodist Foundation were surprised to discover they had been remembered as joint beneficiaries of her estate.

An estate valued at about $3 million, including property, mineral rights and other assets.

I'm inspired by Vera Mae not for what she could teach me about saving, investing or living the frugal life, though I'm sure she could teach me a thing or twenty there. I'm inspired by her life, which was undeniably rich even without the bells and whistles she chose not to collect along the way.

I'm a gadget man. If it lights up, makes noise or has an insatiable appetite for batteries, I'm all over it. Yet none of them bring me true happiness or lead me closer to where I ultimately want to be.

...

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.'"

"Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger... "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." ...At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there... "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
...

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?
...


On the surface, Ken Moore seems like a normal guy. Nothing special. A single parent with sole custody of a seven-year-old daughter and two-year-old son, Moore was just trying to make a living for his kids as best he could.

On Dec. 16, 2004, Moore was southbound on Bryant Avenue in north Edmond, heading home from work with his daughter in the family's Dodge Durango. That's about all Moore remembers of that day.

What he can't remember is how his life was changed by George Crafton, who hasn't gone to trial yet and is innocent until proven guilty. Crafton was northbound on Bryant that evening in his Chevy Suburban, munching on a taco and sipping a vodka and Coke he fixed for the road at his girlfriend's house. Drawn later at the hospital, the alcohol level in Crafton's blood was 0.23 percent, nearly three times Oklahoma's legal limit.

The collision left Moore with compound fractures in both arms and legs, a ruptured aorta, liver damage and a punctured lung. His daughter also was hurt in the accident, though not as badly. During Moore's hospital stay, his heart stopped beating seven different times, so he now has a pacemaker to go along with the titanium rods and pins that hold the bones in his arms and legs together.

Moore is looking forward to Sept. 1. He's hopeful, without getting his hopes up. That's the day Moore is tentatively scheduled to go home from the hospital for the first time. Eight and a half months after the accident. Only two things have to happen in the next week for a Sept. 1 discharge. First, the abscess on his liver has to heal so the tube in his chest can be removed. After that happens, he'll need another surgery on his right leg to replace the original rod and pins that were inserted there.

Perhaps going home would be more exciting for Moore if he had a home to go to. Because he hasn't been able to work for eight months, the house was lost long ago. He probably won't be able to go back to work when he's released from the hospital, either. Moore had no health insurance, Crafton only minimal insurance, and the medical bills already exceed $1 million. The kids are in Kansas with a relative. Moore hasn't seen them in forever, but he calls them every night from the hospital.

Ken Moore doesn't know what he's going to do on Sept. 1, other than trust in God to provide. Sometime in the future, Moore will meet Crafton at Crafton's trial, which, if the state has its way, will result in a lengthy prison sentence.

But Moore doesn't want Crafton to go to prison. He'd much prefer a deferred sentence, with counseling, rehabilitation and a chance for Crafton to get his life back together again. That, he says, is what God has put on his heart.

"Everything happens for a purpose. That's what I believe," Moore says.

On the surface, Ken Moore seems like a normal guy.

Oh, the joys of being a cop reporter and reading an endless assortment of police reports every day. Cops are good folks; they're just not always English teachers in waiting. Here's the gem of the day from Monday, Aug. 22nd:

According to report #200504720, a victim told police his 18-foot car-hauling trailer with wench was stolen from a self-storage location. I asked, and there's no word yet on the wench's identity or what she was wearing when she was last seen. If I find out more, I'll let ya know.