Bob's T-Shirt Quilt

During the last round of t-shirt quilt making, Gail took a bunch of my old t-shirts and made me a quilt.  The quilt tells a bit of my story, from my favorite football teams to churches I've attended, to places I've lived and worked and other interests.

Each of these squares has a story or a memory that makes it special.  You can see National Parks on here, maps, ice cream, minor league baseball, old tuba shirts from college, NPR programs and mementos of trips I've taken.

The oldest shirt dated from 1975 (grey shirt on the left edge).  That's the year my sister went off to college at St. Olaf and bought me a handful of t-shirts for Christmas.  There's a map of Milwaukee from the 70's, an Immanuel Lutheran Chapel shirt from the 80's, Richmond Rooster's shirt from the 90's, Bethany Lutheran shirt from 2000, and a Yellowstone shirt from the 10's.

40 years of my life, keeping me warm.

Punk'd by the Pastor

We were running late to church one Sunday and we arrived right as service was about to start.  When we got there, the usher handed us a bulletin like he usually does.  Pastor Scott was standing at the door, and he quickly asked us for the bulletins and gave us two others.  We didn't think twice about it, but we should have.  We figured we were running low or he needed the inserts or something. 

Earlier in the week, I mentioned to Pastor Scott that I had an annoyance with a traditional offering prayer because it went straight from scattering grains of wheat to collecting them, totally skipping over the whole sprouting and growing thing.  He obviously listened, since he updated the wording slightly for the Offertory Prayer. 

 We didn't realize it until we started to read along with the version that he had printed in our bulletin. 

We soon realized why he had special bulletins printed for just us and that he had to figure out how we would get them and no one else. 

Well played, Pastor Scott.