Tony’s son asked him if he or his brothers had ever “cheated death” without any embarrassment at the possibility that few people used that phrase. Tony reflects on this and the time he has seen death denied its claims.
It reminds me a time recently when I walked around the neighborhood with my daughters, pulling one or two in a wagon and following the others on their bicycles. One of the bikes had poor brakes, so I worried a little about the hills, but not enough. Even now if I dwell on it, I can work up my fear and self-condemnation, thinking of my daughter speeding down a hill, right in front of a truck, and crashing into the grass beyond. How could I be so naive and nonchalant? She couldn’t slow down on that hill, and if she’d crossed the street a second later, she would have hit the truck. That’s one of many ways I could convince myself that I’m a totally fool.
But the Lord has had mercy on me.
Where is “swiped” considered an old-fashioned, literary word? It’s been common parlance in these parts all my life. Or at least if people are laughing behind my back at my use of it, nobody’s told me about it.
I can’t call it cheating, since I was pretty oblivious to a very close call until I turned on the 9:00 news later that evening, but I came up the Northern Line escalator in Kings Cross Station in London a half hour before a fire killed 31 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire
Wow, Greybeard. That’s almost like leaving the World Trade Center half an hour before the first plane hit–which could be life-shaking.
I was a bit surprised at someone balking at “swiped” too, but I was teased once for saying “item.” It was teenager-on-teenager mockery, but I think teachers fall into that realm of interaction, so it’s similar.
I’ve never heard of “swiped” being problematic. But then again I don’t run in very modern up to date circles.
One of my kid’s more obnoxious videos (That they are no longer allowed to check out from the library) had a character named Swiper and every time he appeared all the kids were supposed to yell, “Swiper, Don’t Swipe.”
At a mini reunion of my seminary classmates last summer, a fellow student remembered how one of his classmates used the word “intercourse” in a practice sermon. He was used to reading 19th century British literature where the word was frequently used for the common interaction between individuals without taking into account that modern American usage has narrowed the meaning down to a specific kind of physical contact.
The extremely observant student has proved to be the smarter of the two since he is now an Old Testament Professor while the student with the over wrought vocabulary now serves a small rural parish at the back of the north woods. However, I know an extremely smart seminary librarian who will find a way to put the rookie Old Testament Professor in his place.
I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.