My BORING and UNEVENTFUL LIFE

by Ken Simmons

Let's see. I've been up to my neck in quicksand; attacked by a big tiger shark while scuba diving; barely escaped as an alligator chased me while I was swimming; was three feet away and face-to-face with an angry mama mountain lion protecting her cubs; met the world's oldest man three years before he died at age 137; had a private lunch with a future U.S. president; had dinner at the home of a U.S. senator who later became governor; while a broadcast journalist I had my life threatened by a chief of police and told if I didn't forget about what I knew concerning a major gambling ring involving federal judges, county commissioners, and many of the wealthiest people in Florida, I was told I'd end up in the bottom of a lake wearing a pair of cement boots before the day was over if I ever aired the story.

Two guys tried to rob me at gunpoint in my truck, and on my next trip two more tried to hijack me, chasing me down the highway shooting at me. I was interviewing a man in a car when this crazy guy set the world's speed record for a car while driving it up on its side on two wheels (72 mph). I was in a phone booth when I had a rattlesnake crawl over my bare feet, so I picked it up, finished my phone call, and then had the snake for supper; and I've been upside down in an open-cockpit airplane holding on for dear life because my seat belt wouldn't fasten.

I was holding a private interview when I was manhandled and thrown out of the room by a U.S. senator's aide when I asked the senator about Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick; was in the middle of a riot with bullets flying everywhere with bikers shooting at the cops and the cops shooting back; was attacked by six or eight strikes of lightning within a few feet of my car while heading to Florida.

I was there with my team of new converts at a rock festival when a cursing, mocking rock 'n' roll lead singer took the microphone and began shaking his fist, screaming out at God, shouting "If God's so f---ing real, make him stop this rain . . . if God's so f---ing real, give us a sign," and immediately God gave him the sign he asked for as a bolt of lightning and a ball of fire struck less than ten feet from him as thousands looked on in horror, and he jumped off the stage and ran off screaming, disappearing into the woods; I saw my mother brought back from death and alive again after flatlining in the hospital for some ninety minutes; I saw an auditorium full of high school students as dozens of them came running to the front and falling to their knees surrendering to Jesus; I saw a group of Presbyterian teenagers all miraculously touched by God, as everyone got saved, then they all broke out in praise singing in a heavenly language; I've seen drug addicts healed with no withdrawals, and I've personally lived the prodigal's story. I came running back to my Father and He welcomed me with open arms!

Yup, I've lead a really boring and uneventful life.