The Council for Short Buildings and Rural Habitats

In the I can't believe what I just read department, police say two teenage girls who fell asleep while sunbathing on a rural Pennsylvania road were struck by a car. The Beaver County Police Department told a local television station that 13-year-olds Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George were hit by the vehicle Sunday afternoon. Two of Samantha's cousins said that their 19-year-old brother had stopped at a stop sign and made a turn before striking the girls with his car. Nicole and Nicholas Beck say the girls were conscious and told them that they had fallen asleep while suntanning. The cousins say their brother was questioned by police after the crash.

Sunbathing ... on a road ... asleep ... struck by car.

Now, I know you're thinking that I can't possible get something spiritual out of this, and perhaps you're right, but let me try.

Have you ever (and I mean ever) felt you're running out of time and time is gaining on you? I mean, really gaining on  you?

I look around sometimes and notice all the things I'm not getting done, and without getting depressed about it or overly maudlin, I think there are plenty of those things I will never get done. I just don't have the time. The time, thus the list, is growing shorter for all of us. Well, not all of us ...

 One World Trade Center, the giant monolith being built to replace the twin towers destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks, lay claim to the title of New York City's tallest skyscraper Monday. Workers will erect steel columns that will make its unfinished skeleton a little over 1,250 feet high, just enough to peak over the roof of the observation deck on the Empire State Building. The milestone was a preliminary one. Workers are still adding floors to the so-called "Freedom Tower" and it isn't expected to reach its full height for at least another year, at which point it is likely to be declared the tallest building in the U.S., and third tallest in the world. Bragging rights, though, carry an asterisk. Crowning the world's tallest buildings is a little like picking the heavyweight champion in boxing. There is often disagreement about who deserves the belt. In this case, the issue involves the 408-foot-tall needle that will sit on the tower's roof. Count it, and the World Trade Center is back on top. Otherwise, it will have to settle for No. 2, after the Willis Tower in Chicago. "Height is complicated," said Nathaniel Hollister, a spokesman for The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats, a Chicago-based organization considered an authority on such records. No, it's not. Height is scary, period. There's nothing complicated about DON'T LOOK DOWN.

First, I'm stunned there is a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats. Second, who considers this an authority? Third, what does one do when one is not speaking for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats. Finally, is there a Council for Short Buildings and Rural Habitats? Does the one council constantly pick on the other? Is the CSBRH depressed much of the time?

Just wondering....

Ever since I saw that Bucket List movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, I've been walking around with a bucket on my shoulder. After finally figuring I would never do all the things I've never done, I began preparing another kind of list.

Today I debut my kicking-the-bucket list. In honor of the Council for Short Buildings and Rural Habitats, it is a short one.:

1) I don't have time nor money to check off vacations to Hawaii, the Rocky Mountains, a trip to Europe, one of those ship-trips to cover Paul's journeys, one to Washington, D.C., one to New York City, etc. So, if I were to pick one more huge vacations, and the cost estimate alone didn't kill me, Mary would decide where we would go. I imagine she would choose to go be back to Israel, where we flew together in 2009. I remember getting up early on our second day there, walking down a hill from the hotel, sitting on a huge square plank near the Sea of Galilee (or Sea of Tiberius or Lake Galilee -- what's with the multiple names of everything over there anyway?) and watching the mists rise like an ascending Jesus. You can never duplicate a perfect moment, even trying to. But If I could, oh, if I could, that would be one of those moments (like our wedding ceremony) I would try.

2) If I was creating a kicking-the-bucket list of things I haven't done and might, just might be willing to try, I don't have time nor money to check off bungee jumping, airplane door opening out the side etc., highest and fastest roller-coaster ride, etc., rides. Since I have no desire to do anything that involves heights more than my knee, I guess what I would choose in that grand category would be none of the above

3) And finishing the top three of my mini-kicking the bucket list is bank robbing. I understand that some folks believe armed robbery is a "rush." I am not in that category. I want nothing to do with guns, robbery, running from police or anything to do with anything that has anything to do with guns, snakes or knives. If a robber is holding a snake that has a knife in its mouth, I will die of something akin to heart attack before the gun is fired.

So, there you have it all. My kicking-the-bucket list. My fears, condensed into a small list. However, sunbathing on a county road (which sounds an awful lot like a country music song title), would be in the honorable mention actions.