{"id":199,"date":"2013-05-26T12:42:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T20:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/?p=199"},"modified":"2013-05-26T13:27:03","modified_gmt":"2013-05-26T21:27:03","slug":"sunday-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Sunday afternoon…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A guest at a meal in Serbia – where he was also helping setup medical facilities to care for people’s mental, spiritual and physical well-being.<\/p><\/div>\n

We don\u2019t have any great news or lots of activity from yesterday. There are few leads on where Dad might be, sightings etc.<\/p>\n

Yesterday was a quiet day in the search. Many of you following, are also Adventist, and realize the significance of Saturday to us.<\/p>\n

Others of you who are not Adventist may not realize the significance of Saturday for us. [What religious label one puts on people, means little to me. I know there are many who know us, or know Dad and who offer their kind words and thoughts who have no organized religion, or are Baptist, Mormon, Catholic, and a myriad of others \u2013 I don\u2019t think God puts much stock in our religious affiliation, and a lot more in where our hearts are, and how we respond to his calling of us.]<\/p>\n

So, if you\u2019re not acquainted with Adventists, and Saturday \u2013 I\u2019ll just give a short description, so perhaps things make a little more sense. Saturday is, to us, Gods day of rest. If you\u2019re aware of how devout Jews observe Saturday that\u2019s pretty close to our observance of \u201cSabbath\u201d too. From sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night, we try to step away from the rush and bustle of the world, and take special time to spend with God. That generally means not doing work for our own benefit or profit, and not doing many of the things we\u2019d do any other day of the week.<\/p>\n

Again, it\u2019s intended to be a time when we just step out of \u201cregular\u201d work-a-day life to take special time with God to reflect and communicate with him.<\/p>\n

Ok, so enough with the mini-theology lesson.<\/p>\n

—
\nSo, Saturday, we tend to step away from the usual work-day events.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t prevent us from looking for Dad, and it didn\u2019t today either. But given that there\u2019s less and less we can do directly, and more and more that the police are doing \u2013 we did take less time actively working on the search, and more time with God.<\/p>\n

I know that Sergei and his wife, Randy and others spent time walking the area and checking if posters were still up etc.<\/p>\n

They also followed up on reported sightings. These can verge into the ridiculous \u2013 but they do need follow-up. In one case, a reported sighting was followed up on, and the person reporting having seen Jay Sloop described his appearance as \u201csomeone in their 30\u2019s with a beard and smoking.\u201d Randy commented, wryly that being lost a week did the most unbelievable things with your age, appearance and habits. [Dad, being in his late 70\u2019s, clean shaven, and having never smoked in his life. And one would expect to see him torturing puppies or something, before he smoked.]<\/p>\n

We have not heard much if anything from the police. We\u2019re not sure if we will hear anything substantial \u2013 at least detail wise \u2013 so we may not have lots to tell you in the coming days with any real detail.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about some times we spent together with Dad and here\u2019s one trip that comes to mind.<\/p>\n

Here in Yakima, we spent quite a lot of time in the mountains. We\u2019d go up on the weekends to cross-country ski, or hike \u2013 depending on the season. Spending time outdoors in physically tough exertion [read: death-march, by my definition] was \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n

One such trip was to Surprise Lake. I don\u2019t believe I\u2019ve been back since this trip, so I\u2019m sure my recollection of it is probably not accurate. But it\u2019s the recollection of the boy-me, I\u2019m guessing 10-12 years old.<\/p>\n

It seemed an endless hike, hot, dusty and all while carrying a heavy pack and climbing up, up, up.<\/p>\n

The trivia we recall is interesting too: We came across a bull snake eating a frog. A large frog was only partly in the snake\u2019s mouth, with most of the body and legs still hanging out. \u00a0I was, and still am, a total softie, and wanted to rescue the frog \u2013 but that tendency doesn\u2019t seem as strong in the rest of the family, so I kept my mouth shut. [I don\u2019t care for snakes very much, and like frogs, so that certainly increased my pity for the poor frog.]<\/p>\n

However we carried on, and the \u201cdeath-march\u201d continued. We did eventually arrive in camp, and stayed a couple of nights. [If I recall correctly we went out on Friday and stayed through Sunday morning.]<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall much of time in camp \u2013 I think it was mostly the parts with lots of adversity that I recall best.<\/p>\n

So the final morning we were planning to stay rolls around. We start working on breakfast and breaking camp. I may recall this wrong, but I think this is how it happened \u2026 we started to eat our hot-cereal [not a Greg favorite anyway] and it just tasted off.<\/p>\n

After several queries about what was odd about the cereal, we learned that there had been a complication that was fixed in a particularly Dad-Jay way.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the amount of cereal needed for the trip had been insufficient. So, when Dad added all the cereal to the pot of water he had, it was not enough to thicken the cereal sufficiently and it was like soup. [And I\u2019m sure that wouldn\u2019t have gone over well either.]<\/p>\n

So, Dad\u2019s solution? Presto! Add mashed potato flakes and it\u2019s now \u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 at least in consistency. We were very unimpressed. I\u2019m not sure how much this bothered my brothers, but I am a fairly picky eater. There are certain things you don\u2019t mix together, and foods should NOT be liberally mixed together on the plate either. [They *can* touch, but they shouldn\u2019t be holding hands!]<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, this \u201csolution\u201d to runny cereal wasn\u2019t my idea of a \u201cgood\u201d fix. As I recall, it wasn\u2019t considered a good fix by either of my brothers.<\/p>\n

To this day, Dad still defends his solution by claiming that it couldn\u2019t have been all that bad, since everyone ate their portion. Bah! It was that or nothing, and with a death-march imminent for the return trip, not eating wasn\u2019t one of the better options.<\/p>\n

The trip out must not have been quite as bad as the trip in, since I can\u2019t recall much of it. I guess it was<\/strong> downhill.<\/p>\n

[I don\u2019t know if everyone else\u2019s mind works as mine does, but it would be nice if all the really good things were what we remember, instead of the bad things. As Charlie Brown says\u2026\u201dGood things last eight seconds, bad things last three weeks.\u201d]<\/p>\n

So, we were planning to meet Mom who was going to meet up with us and spend some more time in the area. She was planning on bringing more food and we\u2019d enjoy the rest of the day together.<\/p>\n

[For those of you who know Mom, you\u2019ll be fully aware that she isn\u2019t the outdoorsy type. So, she wasn\u2019t along for the backpacking portion of the trip. I\u2019m sure she is eternally grateful, especially after hearing our story.]<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if Mom was running late, or we were running early, or exactly what happened \u2013 but when we got to where we might meet Mom, there was no Mom to meet us. This wouldn\u2019t have typically been much of an issue, except that we didn\u2019t have any food, we were tired and feeling a little put out \u2013 at least I was!<\/p>\n

We drove to a tiny little store on Highway 12 where there was a pay-phone where Dad could call Mom and see where she was, and when to expect her. [In the days, long before ubiquitous cell phones. (and birch-bark for lunch.)]<\/p>\n

While Dad was making the phone-call, I decided to see what was available to eat in the store. I couldn\u2019t have had much money, and given Dad\u2019s focus on good-health and eating right, donuts probably weren\u2019t an option \u2013 even if I\u2019d had the money.<\/p>\n

So, while I can\u2019t recall much of the thought process selecting my delicacy, I picked the cheapest loaf of plain bread I could find. Though it wasn\u2019t quite doughy white bread, it was certainly close. And no, we didn\u2019t have butter or peanut butter available. It was just going to be the delight of plain slices of bread \u2013 one slice, right after the other. But when you\u2019re hungry, even hot-cereal with mashed potatoes mixed in seems palatable! Plain bread, some miles and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of calories later looks positively delicious!<\/p>\n

When I arrived back at the car, I was horrified to find my brother Randy \u2013 who seems to have little care for how something tastes and isn\u2019t the slightest bit picky about what he\u2019s fed – had gotten out the dry cup-o\u2019soup packets, and was finishing up dumping the dry powder into his mouth!<\/p>\n

Gulp, cringe, shut-my-eyes to shield myself from the sight! To make things even worse, it was split-pea soup! I hated peas \u2013 I can still remember gagging and feeling I was absolutely going to die, one time when Dad felt I needed to eat some. The flavor is horrible, they pop in your mouth, the consistency is awful \u2013 ugh!<\/p>\n

So, Randy was dumping dry soup powder, split-pea no less, into his mouth and eating it. His lips were a nice, very attractive, powdered, blotchy green.<\/p>\n

<Shudder!> It still gives me the willies thinking about it.<\/p>\n

Well, when I arrived on the scene with a nice fresh loaf of bread, it was amazing how friendly my brothers became.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame I didn\u2019t think of the \u201cJacob and the birthright story\u201d in the bible just then, because that could have been a very good return on a measly loaf of bread.<\/p>\n

In a very few minutes, the loaf of bread was gone.<\/p>\n

But even more amazing was Dad. I don\u2019t recall if he got back to the car before the whole loaf of bread was consumed or not \u2013 but I do absolutely recall what he brought back.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said, Dad was pretty serious about eating right. And since he didn\u2019t fix our meals, I just never considered what he might bring from the store for us to eat. [Figs and parched corn, perhaps? Something \u201chealthy\u201d was likely in any case.]<\/p>\n

I still remember being astonished that he bought CANDY BARS for us. I didn\u2019t see it as a fancy candy-bar, just \u201cBig Hunk.\u201d \u00a0But my Dad, having purchased a candy-bar?! A candy bar for me to eat?! I\u2019m not sure it could have been any more startling if the angel Gabriel had stopped by to give it to me! Yeah, a candy-bar, from Dad! Unthinkable!<\/p>\n

We ate the bread and candy-bars and eventually Mom showed up with even more attractive food.<\/p>\n

But I still remember the mashed potatoes, the green powdered lips, the loaf of bread and the candy-bars!<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s surprising how the little things stick in our minds, and how we can sometimes break the way we see each other, and act in new, delightful and surprising ways.<\/p>\n

So, do something nice, new and thoughtful for those you love and care for today.<\/p>\n

—
\nWe continue to search and pray. We ask that you keep Dad in your thoughts and prayers too. If someone is holding him, I hope they take him doughnuts today.<\/p>\n

We will leave it in God\u2019s hands \u2013 he\u2019s in charge.<\/p>\n

-Greg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We don\u2019t have any great news or lots of activity from yesterday. There are few leads on where Dad might be, sightings etc. Yesterday was a quiet day in the search. Many of you following, are also Adventist, and realize the significance of Saturday to us. Others of you who are not Adventist may not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}