Eccles' Stories

                                                          The 25th day of May is the real Thunder's birthday                                                        so part of celebrating his birthdate I'm writing this  story.                                                   It was eight O'clock in the morning when Thunder's butler,                     Chucko  (the ape) came into the room serving Thunder breakfast in bed.  Thunder                     asked, why he was bei...

            Vacation time, what is it really?  Is it not something for the upper-class or those who are rich  only? When I was young, I was taught that it was a time to go visit family or go to church meetings.   For some reason the church meetings have ceased to be for me.  I do, however still visit my one  surviving parent once a year.             Yet I see some families go here there and yon.  I know that for myself one day taking a vacation will mean staying at home by myself.  To go to another country is possible for only a few, but not for  me.  For me vacation time will soon come to an end.   For when my Papa passes away where will I go  on vacation?               Then again there is the magnificent places I go when reading or writing stories.  These  vacations are created by the mind.  In the vacation to th...

  Thunder's Mother             As we open our story up we find a old white dog with apricot spots getting out of a checkered  cab.     The cabbie gets seven bags out of the taxi and carries them out for the old dog.  The old dog moves her hat around on top of her head as all old dogs do.  Chucko (the butler) greets her at the door  asking her what her name is, as well as what her business was.               The old dog pounded her walking stick into the Cobblestone Pavement.  She then stated, "Look here you overgrown ape, I have come over six hundred miles by bus to see my son, Thunder.  I demand  to see him now!  Do I make myself understood, sonny?"               Chucko let her in all the while being beaten up by an old dog.  While all this was going on he  was attempting to make a call to Thunder.  Thunder said t...

          It was a sunny day out nothing like the morning before.  Yet later as the day went by clouds  gathered over head.  No rain came out of those clouds it just became dark.  Then as I went on social  media I got news from our Elder at church that a dear old friend of mine had passed on.          It was not unexpected for she had been sick for many a year.  As Solomon had said in Ecclesiastes 3:2 "there is a time to be born, and a time to die."  This was our dear friends time to die.  Her husband  had died a month ago, and perhaps now she saw no reason to go on living as she was.  She just wanted to go home, and now she was at home with God.             As I talked with my father about our dear friends death I learned his sister was shutting down.  I was told that the family was putting her on hospice, to put it plain and simple it was almost time f...

                          Notice: No names of persons, places or things                 mentioned in this story being alive or dead,  is real but are a complete work of fiction. As is so in all my Thunder stories.                   Thunder had just gotten a telegram making him and his roommate Jimmy heads of the Pizza House.   Thunder was so excited that he jumped six feet off the ground, but did not know what Jimmy would think.   Thunder figured he would speak to Jimmy later that night, and got on with his  next therapy client.  After all, Pizza House, was where Jimmy worked.                   Bella, the health inspector, came into the Pizza House, asking to speak to the manager, as  well as Jimmy.  The manager brushed her long, s...

                                                       It was early one Saturday morning in April, and Jimmy had just cleared the table. Thunder was doing the dishes, as each adjusted their voice translator boxes.  They each started  drinking a cup of coffee.  As they each reminisces over the first time the two of them had met.                    Thunder sipped his cup of coffee, and asked Jimmy if he recalled the first time the two of them had met.  Jimmy's reply was, "Well, as I recall right I had replied to an add in the local news paper.  It said applicants must love dogs, and pizza.    I loved all animals with the exception of Canadian Geese, who leave their messes all over the place.  I work for the Pizza House, so that was just a bonu...

              As I look back in time to my teen years, I think of going to a small congregation of about  fifteen to twenty-five people.  Yet it was from that church that I was heavily affected.  It was there  that my concern for the size of the church became so strong.  It was there that I learned that the average  adults attention span was fifteen to twenty minutes long not thirty or more for a lesson.               My concern for church growth grew.  I was in the wrong area, and by the time I was in the  correct area none would work with me.  They were either afraid of me due to the fact that I spent time in the south or were unsure of my ideas.  I often wonder if we will let the dead run our lives today, or work with the living that we have with us.                I strongly believe that a church can live longer than seventy ...