My parents are visiting this weekend. I see my Mom & Dad twice a year. (Usually less) and it’s only for a few days. It is one of the few regrets I have of making the move from Northeast Ohio to Central Florida. There other is the sense of identity that goes along with living in Cleveland. I also miss the food. But more than anything else I miss being able to get together with my folks.

My dad can cook two things. He can cook more than that but there are two dishes that he makes better than anyone else. One is backyard burgers; we had grilled burgers every Saturday night when I was growing up. The other is French Toast. He made French Toast once a year, on Christmas morning. Since we were unable to go north this past year my dad offered to make Christmas morning breakfast in January. There is no better French Toast that my dad’s French toast. He also brought along a half-gallon jug of maple syrup. I don’t mean Mrs. Butterworth. I don’t mean anything you can actually buy in the store. I mean some guy my dad knows in Pierpont Ohio makes his own maple syrup in a shed behind his barn. This is the good stuff. This is pure liquid gold. This is a 40 dollars a half gallon miracle.

I love this stuff. We’re eating breakfast this morning and my dad says that this batch is extra good because the fire that the syrup was made over was burning wood and not gas.

Let’s leave that for a moment…

A few years ago I was at a convention of youth workers and was invited out to dinner with a small group of folks, one of whom was a “wine collector”. He knew his wine. He ordered a single glass of something I can’t pronounce and cost more than one our group's meals on mission trip. He took one sip and said, “Oh, Oak.” and I said, “Oak?” He said, “Yes, the barrel that this wine was aged in was made of oak.”

Let’s leave THAT for a moment…

My son has now informed me that I am a coffee snob. I have told him tales of buying coffee at Lawson’s Convenient Store in Kent Ohio for a QUARTER. Most of the time the guy behind the counter simply put a cup out for quarters so those just buying coffee didn’t have to stand in line. A QUARTER!

Now I go to Starbucks once a week (usually Sunday mornings) and buy a large cup of the Coffee of The Day. Once in a great while I’ll have one of their frappa-dappa things. And I’m proud to say I still mix my Starbucks ground beans with Eight O’clock beans so I’m not a COMPLETE snob, just a partial one. I’ve heard stories about the way the world’s most expensive coffee is “refined” but I won’t go into here and doubt I will ever EVER try it. But I haven’t had a convenient store coffee in years because I don’t like the taste anymore.

Once more…let’s leave that for a moment.

I heard an interview with Peter O’Toole. He had a new movie last year.  In the film he quotes a Shakespearian sonnet. The interviewer asked him if he knew that sonnet by heart and he said “I know all of them my dear.” Apparently he keeps a book of the sonnets by his bed. It’s the last thing he reads at night and the first thing he does in the morning. He travels with the sonnets everywhere he goes. She picked a number at random and began to recite… “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…”

It’s a level of fine-tuning. I appreciate coffee. I appreciate music from my BOSE system. I don’t think I fully appreciate the Superbowl the way fans do. My aunt has followed Tony Dunge’s career for a long time. She can watch a play on the filed and say, “Oh, they didn’t do what Tony said to do.” She appreciates the game on a level that I can’t. The wine taster appreciates wine on a level that I never will. I hope some day to be able to tell the difference between gas fired maple syrup and syrup cooked over burning maple planks. I want to be that good at something.

So do you.

You want to be THAT GOOD at something. Choose something. Let it be something removed from what you want to do for a living. Let this be a part of who you are. Choose something,

* I’m going to be the best chocolate chip cookie maker ever.

* I’m going to be able to quote Shakespeare’s sonnets.

* I’m going to be able to play every song Buddy Holly ever wrote.

I have this idea that Jesus was that finely tuned about everything. Being both God and Man he would have to be. To be able to appreciate every waking moment of your life the same way you can appreciate the taste of the good stuff. You would leap out of bed every morning if you could live life on that level.

Live finely tuned.