Some thoughts on our personal GPS

My daily calendar of funny sayings joked the other day about a bridge engineer who, on the stand in a court room, was unable to subtract two simple numbers because he didn’t have his calculator with him.

I think about my father’s neighborhood grocery store back in the 1940s.  There was no electricity to the checkout counter, because it wasn’t needed.  We used a hand-operated adding machine to tally up the prices.  And then when the customer paid, we had a hand-crank cash register.  It was up to the cashier to figure out how much change to return to the customer.

The next time you make a purchase in any kind of a store I’m sure you’ll notice that the cashier cannot figure out how much money to give back until he/she looks at the machine.  If the total isn’t there electronically, the cashier is stumped.

Marcia and I just returned from a trip to Alabama.  We didn’t need a road map, like in the olden days.  My little I-Phone gave us instructions all the way there.  A couple times I didn’t pay attention, but the kind lady in the telephone gently got me back on track.

Whether making change or driving on the highway, modern-day technology can give you all the answers.  Not much need to think or calculate any more.

I was thinking about that in the shower the other morning (that’s when I do the most serious thinking!), and concluded that we all have a divine GPS system.  The father/son team heading up the HFP operation is an excellent example of how it works. 

It took more than 60 years before I ended up in this full-time prison work.  A lot of twists and turns, curves and hills along the way.  I formed what is now known as HFP in 2001.

For Matt, it took about half that long, but the route was equally as circuitous.  Matt came aboard in 2013.

Had you asked either of us earlier in life, this goal was nowhere on the horizon. 

But the message from our divine GPS, when we finally got here, was equally as satisfying:  You have reached your destination!



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