Category Archives: B words

Bath

Bath: (n) a process of immersing and washing one’s body in a large container of water.Dictionary B

I grew up in a small, two-bedroom house–one restroom and seven people. It is similar to having three people walk into a phone booth and make a call by committee.

It was many years before I discovered the importance of boundaries. For in my home, growing up, simply possessing the territory of the bathroom did not guarantee you privacy. I would occasionally be sitting on the pot and have one of my older brothers burst through the door, apply Brylcreem to his hair and comb away while I decided whether to continue my stinky endeavor.

Most humiliating was the fact that until I was about thirteen years old, my mother often came in during my bathtime to make sure I was being thorough. Being a kid, I never questioned this practice since I had no point of reference and certainly would not compare notes in the locker room with my friends.

She used these occasions to get chatty, sitting on the nearby toilet. She would discuss her day and even suggest various ways that I might choose to clean my private parts, which, for the time being, had become public domain.

I was uncomfortable with this, but keep in mind–she was my mother. It gave her almost martial law over my space.

Looking back, I realize that this was a bit bizarre.

Matter of fact, early on in my planning for a family, I recommended knocking before entering … and always celebrated the glorious wisdom of locks on doors.

 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

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Bated

Bated: (n) in great suspense; very anxiously or excitedly.Dictionary B

When asked recently what would make the world a better place, without delay I replied, “Excitement.”

Feeling we are too mature to wiggle and squirm in anticipation, the average adult plows through a day’s activities without much emotion.

We call it control.

We insist it’s grown-up.

We fear the appearance of childishness, and in the process, lose the better parts of being childlike.

  • So we declare that “Christmas is for the children.”
  • The roller coaster was exciting, but well within the scope of our coping.
  • And romance and its pleasures are a matter of well-timed course.

Excitement is what allows us to believe that things can get better. If we are fully aware of all the possibilities, then we are no longer able to be surprised. And any creature who is incapable of being astonished at the beauty of creation soon loses the true significance of living.

I like to be excited.

Sometimes I like to excite myself, just to make sure it’s not broken.

But mostly, I feel the need to let my breath be bated by the beauty of something unknown. 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Batch

Batch: (n) a quantity or consignment of goods produced at one time.Dictionary B

Christmas cookies.

They are delightful–and unfortunately, limited to one season instead of being sprinkled throughout the calendar.

We happened upon a great recipe for such a batch of treats which was so simple to put together, but so delicious, that we often made them in huge quantities.

All that was required were corn flakes, marshmallows, butter, green food coloring and red cinnamon candies to simulate holly.

The first batch of these delicacies were so moist, chewy and delicious that we quickly decided to make a second and then a third.

About a week later, I got a hankering for more of these sweet treats, so I opened up the cupboard. I discovered we had plenty of corn flakes, not so many marshmallows, and just a little bit of butter. We had lots of green food coloring and cinnamon candies.

I thought to myself, what difference would it really make? After all, what is a marshmallow, or a teaspoon of butter here or there?

So I stirred up the mixture, and immediately realized that this particular batch seemed stiffer. I didn’t think much about it.

I put them on the cookie sheet to set for a few minutes. When I returned, I discovered that my Yuletide yummies were as hard as rocks.

But I persisted. Honestly, I nearly broke a tooth trying to bite into one.

I was angry. Or was I disappointed? I’m not sure–but somewhere suspended between those two emotions, I lamented that my new batch had failed to fulfill my taste buds.

Someone mentioned the fact that I had altered the recipe, thus tainting this particular batch, but I pooh-poohed that idea, saying, “It should still have worked.”

I have since recanted such foolishness. I am now fully aware that if you want to make a good batch of anything … you’ve got to follow the recipe.

 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Bat

Bat: (n) a mammal whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making it capable of sustained flightDictionary B

To a certain degree, everything in life seems normal until you have a chance to escape the circumstances and reflect on the weirdness.

I traveled the country with my family for a season, sharing music and ideas with audiences in coffee houses and churches. That in itself might be viewed as bizarre. But we were together, loved each other, attempted to maintain civility with the world around us–and laughed a lot.

So it didn’t seem particularly odd to arrive in rural Nebraska at a church in the middle of nowhere, which had invited us to come and share, and set us up to lodge in the fellowship hall so that we could save money on a motel (which did not exist anywhere nearby.)

We were grateful.

I should have known there was something wrong when we arrived at the location, set up our equipment, and I went to the men’s restroom to urinate. Totally preoccupied, I failed to look at where I was peeing and suddenly discovered there was a bat which was fairly upset over my splashings.

Yes, I peed on a bat.

I quickly departed, figuring it was just an aberration. But that night, as we lay on our makeshift mats on the floor, we began to hear the scratching, creaking and high-pitched squealing of creatures directly above our heads, in the ceiling.

It was very disconcerting–a soundtrack from the worst horror movie you’ve ever heard.

I suddenly realized that the bat I had pissed off–or pissed on, depending on how you look at it–had friends in high places.

We were surrounded.

Matter of fact, turning on the lights we discovered there was a hole in the ceiling where the bats were obviously finding an exit to fly around and check out the rest of the building.

We went on a frantic search to find a place where we would be safe. After careful inspection, we found that the only place in the building that was closed off and private seemed to be the nursery–and only a small portion of that room.

So we all huddled together in the midst of the bassinets, stuffed our ears with cotton, covered our heads with blankets and tried to sleep, praying for morning.

Needless to say, we checked out early … just in case the bats were getting up for continental breakfast.

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Bastion

Bastion (n) an institution, place, or person strongly defending or upholding particular principlesDictionary B

I have been invited, from time to time, to pontificate on the issue of parenting.

I suppose I receive the requests because people have looked at my children and deemed them to be acceptable human citizens.

I never accept these opportunities.

Why? Because I have no idea how to parent.

Any good parent will tell you that somehow or another, they lucked their way into ending up with decent children. It could have easily gone the other way.

Children are not born bad, but one bout with narcotics can make them look like they are hell’s spawn.

So truthfully, there is really only one bastion for the human spirit. Without this particular quality, everything we do is overwrought, inconsistent, and foolish.

The only hope for the human race is humility.

I don’t care if it’s popular or not; I do not check the polls to find out if it’s favored by the masses.

Whenever I promise to do anything in my life, I always follow it with a disclaimer.

Sometimes I say the old-fashioned, “God willing.”

On other occasions, I warn people that the success of what I allege is dependent on my limited ability.

But human beings, without the bastion of humility, are similar to dogs … who think they own the master’s bed. 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Bastard

Bastard: (n) a person born of parents not married to each other.Dictionary B

Words of separation.

Perhaps our greatest mission during our Earth journey is to find terms, insults and references that separate us from one another, expose them for their prejudice and make them unpopular to use.

Without this, we begin to let the self-righteous and the domineering elite control the dialogue.

When I was eighteen years old, I got a girl pregnant. We loved each other. She got pregnant the same way people get pregnant who have marriage licenses. We just didn’t have the paper.

Yet there were people in my home town who had the audacity to refer to my unborn son as a “bastard.”

A little smile came across their face as they said it. It was reassuring to them that they found a way to be superior to me without needing to blame themselves for pridefulness, but instead, claiming to be advocates for morality.

About four months before my son was born, my girlfriend and I got married and have remained so for forty-five years.

Yet I will tell you, if I were to go back to my hometown and any of those judgmental people were still alive, they probably would recall that brief season when they were able to belittle me and relegate my child to insignificance.

What are the buzz words of bigotry? They are everywhere.

  • Hunt them down.
  • Mock them.
  • Kill them.

And bury them as quickly as you can in the cemetery of ignorance.

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

Buy today.

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Bassoon

Bassoon: (n) a bass instrument of the oboe family with a double reed.Dictionary B

If the goal of every endeavor is to gain fame or money, then we will end up doing very little in our lives–for fear of ending up with something that fails to deliver the goods.

I learned this early.

I made a decision to pursue things that made me happy, giggle or feel inspired. Whether other people found them to be equally as inspirational or entertaining was only secondary to my deep-rooted concern for entertaining myself.

In the process of chasing that philosophy, I found myself in Tennessee working with a partner to begin a symphony in a town that probably was completely uninterested in even learning how to spell the word.

Intelligently, we held our first concert very near Christmas and because of that and the basic human nature to be curious, we had a huge attendance, which seemed to bode well for the project.

I was so excited about the event that I wrote a special composition called Christmas. This particular piece of music began with a sprightly bassoon solo, establishing a bouncy, joyous melody which to me personified the uncontrollable anticipation of a child at Christmas.

We hired a bassoon player who just happened to really love playing the instrument. He didn’t get to perform very often in Tennessee, since there isn’t a high calling for bassoonists among the populace. So when he discovered he was going to get to play this delightful ditty, he practiced and practiced–and by the time of the concert, he literally exploded the musical magic off of his double reed.

When the audience heard the tune being played, they giggled like school children because it was such a pleasant representation of childhood memories.

I love the bassoon because it cannot hide its true personality. It is a growly, jubilant tone foretelling of grandfatherly wisdom … with just enough mischief.

 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Bass

Bass: (n) a voice, instrument, or sound of the lowest rangeDictionary B

Tom was my friend.

I think that’s why we hated each other so much.

There are people we meet that we were never meant to be linked with, but because of projects, proximity and maybe even personality, we get slammed together with them in an uncomfortable relationship of tension. Unwilling to call them adversaries, we resort to the generic term, “friend.”

Tom and I sang together in a quartet. It was a group of our own making, and considering the fact that we were just teenagers, we did a good job of holding it together and doing more than practicing–on occasion actually performing in front of living people.

Tom wanted to be in charge of the group, but unfortunately, I already held that position–with accompanying diadem. So there was always friction about every decision and every musical composition we selected to mutilate in our inimitable style.

When Tom joined the group, I sang bass. There were many reasons for this.

First of all, I was the only one who could sing a Bb below middle C, which is mandatory for those with testosterone tones.

I also thought the girls really dug guys who sang low, feeling confident they were masculine simply by hearing them warm up on scales.

Tom didn’t think I was a good bass singer. He was always trying to undermine my efforts.

One day, he brought in a record to introduce us to a song that had a very low bass note, which was showcased in the middle of the tune as a solo without accompaniment. He coyly asked me if I could hit the note, and being young of years and mostly insane, I insisted it was within my range.

It wasn’t.

Honestly, it wasn’t within anybody’s range unless they were in a recording studio with the help of knobs and buttons.

So the first time we sang the song in public, Tom waited for that part to come along, where I was supposed to growl something in the basement of human vocals, and when the music stopped and it came my turn to lay in the part–well, let us say that I didn’t even come close.

Tom was ecstatic.

No one could really say that I missed the note, since I was not even able to frog out anything near its pond.

Tom later convinced the other members of the group that I was not a bass singer, and shortly thereafter, I left.

It was only a few weeks later that Tom and the boys returned to me, asking me to sing again–since I was the only one who knew how to read music, play piano and arrange vocals.

They now wanted me to sing lead instead of bass, and we launched the group again.

A few days passed of peace and tranquility.

And then Tom decided I couldn’t sing lead …

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

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Basket Case

Basket case: (n) a person or thing regarded as useless or unable to cope.Dictionary B

The most delicate journey in our Earth life is finding the balance between mercy and muscle.

When is it good to be sympathetic, and when is it necessary to exhort and challenge ourselves and those around us?

The truth of the matter is, weakness has no advantage unless it’s exposed–so that can grow into greater strength.

Being diagnosed as lacking–be it emotional, spiritual, mental or physical–does not really grant us an identity, but rather, assigns us a number and shoves us in a prison cell.

What do we do when we run across people who are basket cases, finding themselves completely overwhelmed by their circumstances, and often not comprehending why their burden is so cumbersome?

Mercy is a beautiful thing. atter of fact, without being merciful, none of us are worthy to obtain it.

Yet the predilection in our society to doctor tiny cuts and scrapes as if they are mortal wounds is not merciful at all, but ends up being a way of manipulating the frustrated brethren around us into becoming incapacitated.

I’m sure there is a true diagnosis for clinical depression, but I will tell you–not everyone who claims it has it.

I’m certain there are all sorts of diseases and conditions which infest the human body and brain, but by no means are these maladies meant to leave us dormant.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, there are too many unnecessary basket cases for us to really minister to the real ones.

Sometimes we need to stand up and accept that what is set before us is our present lot, and we would do better to buck up a bit and find a way to not only endure it … but win. 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

Buy today.

"Buy

 

 

 

Basketball

Basketball: (n) a game played between two teams of five players in which goals are scored by throwing a ball through a netted hoopDictionary B

I was the fattest kid in my class.

It is a distinction without appreciation.

But I liked basketball.

I started playing it when I was seven years old with another kid who ended up being a champion at hoops. So I was fairly good–especially for a fat boy.

But I did not look like a basketball player. This was troublesome to folks–because talent needs more than ability. It requires a “look.”

Basketball players are meant to be tall and skinny.

I was 5 foot 11—in every direction.

So when I joined the team there was a chuckle and a cynical ripple among my peers. When I competed, there was some amusement.

And when I made the first string, there were those who were astounded that there was nobody to beat me out, and grown-ups who thought I might run up and down the court and have a heart attack.

It’s been this way for me in everything in my life:

  • I am not an attractive man, so some of my friends thought I would never procure a woman.
  • I have short, stubby fingers, so most people thought it would be impossible for me to play piano.
  • I never went to college, so how do I have the audacity to compose and write?

More often than not, we require the “look” of basketball along with the skill.

And as fans, we often are not satisfied unless all the visuals are present … to accompany the slam dunk.

 

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Mr. Kringle’s Tales … 26 Stories ‘Til Christmas

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Click here to read all about Mr. Kringle’s Tales…26 Stories Til Christmas! Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

 

“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

Buy today.

"Buy