71. Call Me Johnny Boy------------------------------------------
Call Me Johnny Boy was written for a Veteran's Day Program at Maple Hill Church of Christ, 2008.
You know me, I first made my appearance at the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and they called us the minutemen. It took a few years to wrap up that little scuffle with King George’s regulars - them in their shinny red coats, but we kept at it and had that job wrapped up by 1782 – a free country at last – or so we thought.
But those pesky Brits popped back up again in 1812, and we had to convince them all over again that we weren’t joking – All men had indeed been created equal and these United States are and of rights ought to be free and independent States.
Then there was that little misunderstanding with Mexico concerning Texas in 1846, and we demonstrated to our neighbors down south that the lone star really was going to be “one among many” other stars, on that field of blue on the old Stars and Stripes. We do like to do a job up right though, and we ended up not only with Texas, but with California and the whole southwest thrown in for good measure.
Our next job came in 1861 and it might have been the saddest and hardest of all. They called us Johnny Reb or Billy Yank, and we had to fight brother against brother and brave men on both sides sacrificed and died for hearth and home. Five Aprils that job dragged on – from 1861 to 1865 and no war has ever been more costly. The first battle was just off Charleston Harbor at a place called Fort Sumter and the Last one – Well, it was right here, over in Nashville.
Some say that as many as 700,000 of us didn’t come home from that one and a lot of those that did would never be the same. But the Union – it lived on.
For our next little frickkas they hung the name of Rough Riders on us and we sailed off to Cuba in 1898 with old Teddy Roosevelt himself. It wasn’t much of a war unless you were one of he ones there. But to the soldiers who are there, every war is the biggest war – the only war – To them it was the war in which they gave the last full measure of their devotion.
By 1917, we were called on to go help our friends in Europe as German aggression threatened freedom all around this old world. Doughboys – that’s what they called us for this one, and we fought and suffered in a whole new way as our enemies gassed us in the mud filled trenches where we huddled. Between the Hun’s 88s, the wretched trenches, and the Spanish flu – we suffered terribly, but we Yanks went over the top on command. We didn’t start it, but we sure ended it, and by 1918 it was over, over there. In fact it was over 90 years ago this very day. On the eleventh month, the eleventh day, and at the eleventh hour, those big guns stopped, there was silence, and a new wreath of freedom was laid at the feet of the Statue of Liberty.
That last one had been the war to end all wars, the Great War, we called it, but Hitler and His Nazi cronies didn’t play by our rules and by 1941 we were called on again. This time the Japanese had attacked our fleet in Pearl. Dog Faces, Leathernecks, fly boys and swabbies, we were, and we were on the move around the globe. On Normandy Beach, and on the sands of Iwo Jima; we fought for the things we held dear, and for the loved ones we left back home. Finally it was over when President Truman dropped the big one and convinced Emperor Hiro Hito to stand down..
In 1950 we had a little job over in places like Wiejombu, Pusan, and at the Chosan Resovior, and even though thousands of us never came home – the politicians didn’t want to call it a war, so they said it was a police action. 169 Thousand Casualties – some police action.
In 1962 we got involved in a little country in Southeast Asia none of us had ever heard of, and most of us couldn’t pronounce – Vietnam they called it – that one was the big winner as far as time goes because it drug on for 13 years. We didn’t have any pet names for that one – in fact most people stateside didn’t seem to like us for the job we had to do. But like always, we just went and did what we had to do, then came home and quietly went back to work in the world – just thankful we were not one of the 58,000 that got shipped home in a bag.
Now we have a whole new part of the world to worry about – a place called Iraq and we are in the middle of our second war, where sunglasses and desert battle fatigues are the uniform of the day. Oh, and by the way there is a little side job in Afghanistan thrown in just for good measure. I guess we don’t have all of the outcome pegged on this one yet, but we have always done the job before – even when the politicians didn’t exactly cooperate. You see, a soldier’s job has never been to consider the politics of the matter, just to do what we were sent to do, and let the politicians, the professors and the civilians ponder the right of it.
We are American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, and we have fought, suffered, sacrificed, and died for your freedom. Our families have waited with dread, fear, and loneliness for our return – sometimes waited in vain. It is the price of freedom and we are proud to have served –
I guess it doesn’t much matter what you called us, because whatever you called us, we always answered the call.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Remembering Private Ryan
Remembering Private Ryan-----------------------------------------------------------
I was thinking to myself, what would I have been doing this weekend in May of 1958? The answer that came back to me was that this was pretty much like any other weekend in 1958. Tobacco setting was almost, if not altogether, finished, summer was full on us, the garden was all put out, but few of the vegetables were at a stage of even early harvest, and frying chickens would not be of size for another week or two yet. Watermelons were not yet ripe, and “brought on” melons were not a common commodity in the grocery stores in Carthage.
In 1958 Memorial Day was not a holiday, at least not one that we recognized. Oh we remembered the day and Daddy always bought one of the “buddy poppies” that the VFW guys sold at the red light in town, but it would be twenty years before someone invented the term “Memorial Day Celebrated” and created a three day weekend in its honor. Before that, Memorial day was May 30th and many southern states did not recognize the day as official. It seems the day had originally been a creation of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) which was a veterans organization of the northern army which had fought the civil war. The GAR thought it would be right to commemorate the “last full measure of their devotion” given by those in the Yankee army with a day in which the graves were cleaned and decorated.
For instance, Tennessee celebrated “Decoration Day” on June 3rd which eventually morphed into the first Sunday in June. It is altogether common, even these days, for “decoration day” to be held on the first Sunday in June. For instance, I am speaking at a decoration day in Silver Point Tennessee on June 6th which has extend back for many years.
What did happen on that weekend, on Friday to be exact, is that several unidentified bodies of U. S. soldiers form WWII and Korea were placed at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington Cemetery and it was broadcast on television. Only two weeks before that the Russians had launched Sputnik 3 and Americans were in general, feeling uneasy as one was able to go out and look into the night sky and watch the booster rocket from Sputnik tumble end over end in its orbit above the United States.
A Federal Law which took effect in 1971 changed Memorial Day to be observed as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May, there by creating a three day weekend, and also cheapening the holiday and obscuring its real meaning in the mind of many.
Today many do no know that the flag is to be flown at half staff, it is traditional to decorate the graves of veterans with flags, and it is specifically to honor those KIA (killed in action) or who had died as a result of their wounds received in battle.
The VFW sold the “buddy poppies” in tribute to the poem that achieved note in World War I In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Enjoy the long weekend, celebrate the start of summer, renew your family relationships, but don’t fail to remember folks like my friend PFC Frank Ryan, a young soldier from West Virginia who wore his Baptist Sunday school metals on the breast of his uniform and left a young widow and twins when he failed to return from his first mission in Vietnam. Freedom is indeed not free, but purchased with a price.
Have a blessed day, Bob
I was thinking to myself, what would I have been doing this weekend in May of 1958? The answer that came back to me was that this was pretty much like any other weekend in 1958. Tobacco setting was almost, if not altogether, finished, summer was full on us, the garden was all put out, but few of the vegetables were at a stage of even early harvest, and frying chickens would not be of size for another week or two yet. Watermelons were not yet ripe, and “brought on” melons were not a common commodity in the grocery stores in Carthage.
In 1958 Memorial Day was not a holiday, at least not one that we recognized. Oh we remembered the day and Daddy always bought one of the “buddy poppies” that the VFW guys sold at the red light in town, but it would be twenty years before someone invented the term “Memorial Day Celebrated” and created a three day weekend in its honor. Before that, Memorial day was May 30th and many southern states did not recognize the day as official. It seems the day had originally been a creation of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) which was a veterans organization of the northern army which had fought the civil war. The GAR thought it would be right to commemorate the “last full measure of their devotion” given by those in the Yankee army with a day in which the graves were cleaned and decorated.
For instance, Tennessee celebrated “Decoration Day” on June 3rd which eventually morphed into the first Sunday in June. It is altogether common, even these days, for “decoration day” to be held on the first Sunday in June. For instance, I am speaking at a decoration day in Silver Point Tennessee on June 6th which has extend back for many years.
What did happen on that weekend, on Friday to be exact, is that several unidentified bodies of U. S. soldiers form WWII and Korea were placed at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington Cemetery and it was broadcast on television. Only two weeks before that the Russians had launched Sputnik 3 and Americans were in general, feeling uneasy as one was able to go out and look into the night sky and watch the booster rocket from Sputnik tumble end over end in its orbit above the United States.
A Federal Law which took effect in 1971 changed Memorial Day to be observed as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May, there by creating a three day weekend, and also cheapening the holiday and obscuring its real meaning in the mind of many.
Today many do no know that the flag is to be flown at half staff, it is traditional to decorate the graves of veterans with flags, and it is specifically to honor those KIA (killed in action) or who had died as a result of their wounds received in battle.
The VFW sold the “buddy poppies” in tribute to the poem that achieved note in World War I In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Enjoy the long weekend, celebrate the start of summer, renew your family relationships, but don’t fail to remember folks like my friend PFC Frank Ryan, a young soldier from West Virginia who wore his Baptist Sunday school metals on the breast of his uniform and left a young widow and twins when he failed to return from his first mission in Vietnam. Freedom is indeed not free, but purchased with a price.
Have a blessed day, Bob
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Miss Sarah's Little Silver Beau - Faithful Companion
Faithful Companion-------------------------------------------------------------
He was just a little sausage of a thing the first time we ever saw him; no more than 4 or 5 inches long looking for all the world like a black, fat, knockwurst with fur. We weren’t allowed to touch him, only look at him. Miss Jean, who ran Foxcroft Kennels, had strict rules about such things, and the fact that you had already paid a healthy sum of money for the little spud did not change anything.
We counted the days until he became six weeks old and drove out to the kennels in Lapeer Michigan to pick up our new “baby.” With the help of Patrick, who always referred to him as his little brother, we named him Beau after General Beauregard of Confederate Army fame. His full kennel name was Miss Sarah’s Little Silver Beau. Miss Sarah had been “with puppy” when we had gone to Jean Buchard looking for an addition to our family, and we could not resist her shy and gentle nature.
Beau turned out to be everything we could have hoped for; regal in appearance, carriage of a champion, and gentle to a near fault. He was smart and trained easily and performed willingly and with enthusiasm on command. Not surprising given that he was from a line of champions – after all, his daddy, Rambo, was a Canadian Grand Champion Toy Poodle.
The thing that stood out the most about Beau however, was that he was never demanding. He never was a dog who pushed in front of others, even when the others were newer dogs to the household. He would stand back, let them have their fill, then eat his food leisurely, as if knowing that there would always be an adequate supply. He endured the foolishness of a couple of puppies appearing on the scene with good nature and never offered to bully them, though he was several times their size. Groomers loved him, for he never offered to be ill and stood with stoic silence in the face of the shampoo, the clippers, the blow dryer and other indignities.
It was perhaps three years ago that he, then at 12 years old, began to fall into declining health. His eyes went dim, then near complete blindness overtook him. Finally one eye simply shrank away. His hearing had gone a year or so before leaving him in a world of his own except for smell, touch, and taste.
The joys of life had nearly gone for Beau when I cleaned the shriveled eye last night, but he was still able to sniff out a jar of peanut butter which stood nearby. He loved peanut butter, and I fingered our a big swab of the stuff and let him eat his fill. Such chewing and smacking you never heard.
Today we allowed him to go to sleep for the last time, and to rest for the ages in the back yard garden under the shade of an althea bush. He was again snuggled up next to Buttons, his companion of ten years, and although there is a giant hole in our hearts and home, we are somehow at peace knowing that he is at rest. The marker reads Faithful Companion.
There are many lessons that could be learned from Beau concerning selflessness, gentleness, self control, and trust. But most of all, the lesson that one could learn from Beau is faithfulness. One could never come through the door or enter the room in which he resided without seeing a frantically wagging tail – saying, “boy I’m glad your home, you are my person and no one else fills my heart like you.”
Patrick had been home from college the summer Beau came to live at our house and the two “brothers” played a game whereby Beau would wiggle underneath Patrick’s tee shirt and work his way up to stick his furry little head our the neck of the shirt. He never forgot and years later when Patrick was married and had kids, Beau would still try to wiggle under his shirt, completely missing the fact that he was now way to big to make that crawl to the neck.
Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” If heaven went by merit, I’m sure there would be a place for Beau – “Faithful Companion."
Have a blessed day, Bob
He was just a little sausage of a thing the first time we ever saw him; no more than 4 or 5 inches long looking for all the world like a black, fat, knockwurst with fur. We weren’t allowed to touch him, only look at him. Miss Jean, who ran Foxcroft Kennels, had strict rules about such things, and the fact that you had already paid a healthy sum of money for the little spud did not change anything.
We counted the days until he became six weeks old and drove out to the kennels in Lapeer Michigan to pick up our new “baby.” With the help of Patrick, who always referred to him as his little brother, we named him Beau after General Beauregard of Confederate Army fame. His full kennel name was Miss Sarah’s Little Silver Beau. Miss Sarah had been “with puppy” when we had gone to Jean Buchard looking for an addition to our family, and we could not resist her shy and gentle nature.
Beau turned out to be everything we could have hoped for; regal in appearance, carriage of a champion, and gentle to a near fault. He was smart and trained easily and performed willingly and with enthusiasm on command. Not surprising given that he was from a line of champions – after all, his daddy, Rambo, was a Canadian Grand Champion Toy Poodle.
The thing that stood out the most about Beau however, was that he was never demanding. He never was a dog who pushed in front of others, even when the others were newer dogs to the household. He would stand back, let them have their fill, then eat his food leisurely, as if knowing that there would always be an adequate supply. He endured the foolishness of a couple of puppies appearing on the scene with good nature and never offered to bully them, though he was several times their size. Groomers loved him, for he never offered to be ill and stood with stoic silence in the face of the shampoo, the clippers, the blow dryer and other indignities.
It was perhaps three years ago that he, then at 12 years old, began to fall into declining health. His eyes went dim, then near complete blindness overtook him. Finally one eye simply shrank away. His hearing had gone a year or so before leaving him in a world of his own except for smell, touch, and taste.
The joys of life had nearly gone for Beau when I cleaned the shriveled eye last night, but he was still able to sniff out a jar of peanut butter which stood nearby. He loved peanut butter, and I fingered our a big swab of the stuff and let him eat his fill. Such chewing and smacking you never heard.
Today we allowed him to go to sleep for the last time, and to rest for the ages in the back yard garden under the shade of an althea bush. He was again snuggled up next to Buttons, his companion of ten years, and although there is a giant hole in our hearts and home, we are somehow at peace knowing that he is at rest. The marker reads Faithful Companion.
There are many lessons that could be learned from Beau concerning selflessness, gentleness, self control, and trust. But most of all, the lesson that one could learn from Beau is faithfulness. One could never come through the door or enter the room in which he resided without seeing a frantically wagging tail – saying, “boy I’m glad your home, you are my person and no one else fills my heart like you.”
Patrick had been home from college the summer Beau came to live at our house and the two “brothers” played a game whereby Beau would wiggle underneath Patrick’s tee shirt and work his way up to stick his furry little head our the neck of the shirt. He never forgot and years later when Patrick was married and had kids, Beau would still try to wiggle under his shirt, completely missing the fact that he was now way to big to make that crawl to the neck.
Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” If heaven went by merit, I’m sure there would be a place for Beau – “Faithful Companion."
Have a blessed day, Bob
Monday, May 24, 2010
A Stroke of Luck
A Stroke of Luck----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was 2:00 a.m. and for some reason I came wide awake. Being a nearly 66 year old man, I decided that since I was awake, and since the bathroom was only a few feet away, I might as well get up. At my age one never misses an opportunity. As I began to sit up, I noticed that my right arm had fallen asleep and was not doing its part in the effort to raise my body to an upright position. Must have slept on it wrong, I though, then it hit me – I was not sleeping on the arm, it was lying stretched out by my side. From shoulder to finger tips, there was nothing but a wooden feeling, someone else’s arm swinging heavily at my side. “Can’t be any really big deal,” I thought, “probably it just needs to be moved around a little.” I began to move it around and there was some sensation, but certainly nothing like I had ever felt before. Every nerve in my body seemed to be vested in the hairs on my arm and alternate sensations of cold and hot rushed through my arm, caused by nothing more than touching the arm with my other hand. It was when I actually got to the bathroom and the arm crashed into the raised toilet seat, causing it to come slamming down that reality began to slam down. I was having, or perhaps more accurately, had already experienced, a stroke.
“What in the world are you doing in there, is something wrong,” came the sleepy voice of the brown eyed girl from the bedroom.
How exactly does one go about telling your wife you have had a stroke, was the question of the moment.
“Honey, the funniest thing happened while I was sleeping….” Or
“You know how you have been wanting me to slow down a little…..” Perhap,
“Hey, do you remember Matt Surdurski? The guy I worked with we all called lefty….”
The fact is, there is no good way to break that kind of news to your wife, so I just said, “I think I may have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I think I may have had a stroke.”
Well, if you are ever looking for a way to get your wife out of bed really fast …. I don’t recommend that one. Oh, it will get her out of bed fast but you need to be ready to deal with what comes next.
In her case it was hardly a word, she just began getting her clothes on and discussing to where she should drive me. We settled on heading west on 70 highway and deciding on the way if our destination was St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, where all my doctors are located, or UMC in Lebanon, which was closer.
In the interim, I was struggling in a one armed way to get my own clothes on and for some reason felt incredibly calm. My mind was making a list of things I could and could not do with one arm that would not work.
I could probably still drive the tractor on the farm but shifting gears would be a challenge.
I could probably not use my zero turn mower.
I could probably not play my guitar any longer – although that was probably no great loss to the musical world, it is like an old friend to me.
I would have to learn to sign my name with my left hand.
Using a keyboard for writing would be torturously slow.
Taking assessment, I discovered that I had a little movement in my wrist, and made a few practice strokes but decided that I was not likely to be invited to join Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this assessment, I had the presence of mind to go to the medicine cabinet and chew up and swallow without water, three whole full strength aspirin – not the kiddy kind the big boy stuff. I knew that somewhere deep within my cerebral cortex was what my neurologist called a “puny” artery, underdeveloped at birth, which had caused me to have a TIA in 2004 and I knew that blood had a tough time passing freely through its punyness.
I had been placed on Plavix, a medication which makes one’s platelets slippery, and a daily aspirin following the TIA and had remained continuously on the medication for 6 years until being taken off a few days prior in preparation for a mildly invasive medical test. I took two of the aspirin, then thought, man like, if two are good, three would be better. As we roared down 70 highway, we came upon the Round Lick Creek Bridge, which had been closed to all but one lane and a stop light at each end controlled the traffic flow though the single lane. I knew that in the daytime the sign read, “Maximum time Red, Three Minutes.” The brown eyed girl did not wait the three minutes much to my consternation. Instead she took the law into her own hands and roared across the bridge in spite of my protests. She was firmly in charge and I knew it. I wondered if it was a harbinger of things to come.
Well to make a long story short, I was transported to St. Thomas Hospital by ambulance from UMC enduring a harrowing 27 minute ride in morning rush hour traffic arriving at the destination just before 7:00 a.m. Somewhere on the way the arm began to regain feeling and some movement and by the evening of the first day, I was able to have limited usage of the limb.
It is now 6 days later and most of the paralysis is gone, with the exception of a shade of fine motor skills that will likely return in time, according to the doctor. “Miss Daisy” is still driving and I am reluctantly sitting in the passenger seat. A neighbor and his two sons showed up this morning and cut my lawn while I sat and watched – grateful but somewhat embarrassed, I must admit.
When I went to bed the night before, I had thought through the next day‘s agenda;
1. Ride out to Defeated Creek Campground and see if it was water damaged. (I still don’t know the answer to that.)
2. Pick up the shirts in Main Street Laundry at Carthage. (They are still there waiting for me – at least I hope so.
3. Check out the rest of the fence line on the farm to see if any tree tops twisted out on the fence. (They had but Randy found them and sawed them off – not me.)
4. Have breakfast at Timberloft with the brown eyed girl. (I finally got something to eat after noon, which was snatched away by a stern nurse who said I was having tests and shouldn’t have gotten a tray.)
5. Check on getting a new roof on the Carthage house. (The old patches will have to last a while longer)
All of life’s priorities can be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and it can come slamming home to us exactly how fragile we are, and how fragile is life. When the ambulance carrying me to St. Thomas Hospital turned onto Interstate 40, we passed the white Chevy Trail Blazer with the brown eyed girl driving, looking fearfully at the disappearing back of the paramedic vehicle, and it hit me. This is real, this is serious, and all of my plans of yesterday have no further meaning or importance in light of new developments.
“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil.” James 4:14-16
If my life is like a vapor, Lord, let it be like the steam that drives a useful engine, not like the fog that obscures the vision of others.
Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill church of Christ. Bob
It was 2:00 a.m. and for some reason I came wide awake. Being a nearly 66 year old man, I decided that since I was awake, and since the bathroom was only a few feet away, I might as well get up. At my age one never misses an opportunity. As I began to sit up, I noticed that my right arm had fallen asleep and was not doing its part in the effort to raise my body to an upright position. Must have slept on it wrong, I though, then it hit me – I was not sleeping on the arm, it was lying stretched out by my side. From shoulder to finger tips, there was nothing but a wooden feeling, someone else’s arm swinging heavily at my side. “Can’t be any really big deal,” I thought, “probably it just needs to be moved around a little.” I began to move it around and there was some sensation, but certainly nothing like I had ever felt before. Every nerve in my body seemed to be vested in the hairs on my arm and alternate sensations of cold and hot rushed through my arm, caused by nothing more than touching the arm with my other hand. It was when I actually got to the bathroom and the arm crashed into the raised toilet seat, causing it to come slamming down that reality began to slam down. I was having, or perhaps more accurately, had already experienced, a stroke.
“What in the world are you doing in there, is something wrong,” came the sleepy voice of the brown eyed girl from the bedroom.
How exactly does one go about telling your wife you have had a stroke, was the question of the moment.
“Honey, the funniest thing happened while I was sleeping….” Or
“You know how you have been wanting me to slow down a little…..” Perhap,
“Hey, do you remember Matt Surdurski? The guy I worked with we all called lefty….”
The fact is, there is no good way to break that kind of news to your wife, so I just said, “I think I may have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I think I may have had a stroke.”
Well, if you are ever looking for a way to get your wife out of bed really fast …. I don’t recommend that one. Oh, it will get her out of bed fast but you need to be ready to deal with what comes next.
In her case it was hardly a word, she just began getting her clothes on and discussing to where she should drive me. We settled on heading west on 70 highway and deciding on the way if our destination was St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, where all my doctors are located, or UMC in Lebanon, which was closer.
In the interim, I was struggling in a one armed way to get my own clothes on and for some reason felt incredibly calm. My mind was making a list of things I could and could not do with one arm that would not work.
I could probably still drive the tractor on the farm but shifting gears would be a challenge.
I could probably not use my zero turn mower.
I could probably not play my guitar any longer – although that was probably no great loss to the musical world, it is like an old friend to me.
I would have to learn to sign my name with my left hand.
Using a keyboard for writing would be torturously slow.
Taking assessment, I discovered that I had a little movement in my wrist, and made a few practice strokes but decided that I was not likely to be invited to join Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this assessment, I had the presence of mind to go to the medicine cabinet and chew up and swallow without water, three whole full strength aspirin – not the kiddy kind the big boy stuff. I knew that somewhere deep within my cerebral cortex was what my neurologist called a “puny” artery, underdeveloped at birth, which had caused me to have a TIA in 2004 and I knew that blood had a tough time passing freely through its punyness.
I had been placed on Plavix, a medication which makes one’s platelets slippery, and a daily aspirin following the TIA and had remained continuously on the medication for 6 years until being taken off a few days prior in preparation for a mildly invasive medical test. I took two of the aspirin, then thought, man like, if two are good, three would be better. As we roared down 70 highway, we came upon the Round Lick Creek Bridge, which had been closed to all but one lane and a stop light at each end controlled the traffic flow though the single lane. I knew that in the daytime the sign read, “Maximum time Red, Three Minutes.” The brown eyed girl did not wait the three minutes much to my consternation. Instead she took the law into her own hands and roared across the bridge in spite of my protests. She was firmly in charge and I knew it. I wondered if it was a harbinger of things to come.
Well to make a long story short, I was transported to St. Thomas Hospital by ambulance from UMC enduring a harrowing 27 minute ride in morning rush hour traffic arriving at the destination just before 7:00 a.m. Somewhere on the way the arm began to regain feeling and some movement and by the evening of the first day, I was able to have limited usage of the limb.
It is now 6 days later and most of the paralysis is gone, with the exception of a shade of fine motor skills that will likely return in time, according to the doctor. “Miss Daisy” is still driving and I am reluctantly sitting in the passenger seat. A neighbor and his two sons showed up this morning and cut my lawn while I sat and watched – grateful but somewhat embarrassed, I must admit.
When I went to bed the night before, I had thought through the next day‘s agenda;
1. Ride out to Defeated Creek Campground and see if it was water damaged. (I still don’t know the answer to that.)
2. Pick up the shirts in Main Street Laundry at Carthage. (They are still there waiting for me – at least I hope so.
3. Check out the rest of the fence line on the farm to see if any tree tops twisted out on the fence. (They had but Randy found them and sawed them off – not me.)
4. Have breakfast at Timberloft with the brown eyed girl. (I finally got something to eat after noon, which was snatched away by a stern nurse who said I was having tests and shouldn’t have gotten a tray.)
5. Check on getting a new roof on the Carthage house. (The old patches will have to last a while longer)
All of life’s priorities can be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and it can come slamming home to us exactly how fragile we are, and how fragile is life. When the ambulance carrying me to St. Thomas Hospital turned onto Interstate 40, we passed the white Chevy Trail Blazer with the brown eyed girl driving, looking fearfully at the disappearing back of the paramedic vehicle, and it hit me. This is real, this is serious, and all of my plans of yesterday have no further meaning or importance in light of new developments.
“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil.” James 4:14-16
If my life is like a vapor, Lord, let it be like the steam that drives a useful engine, not like the fog that obscures the vision of others.
Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill church of Christ. Bob
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Waiting Room
The Waiting Room ----------------------------------------------------
Sunday the brown eyed girl and I, along with our son Patrick and his sweet family, went to the homecoming at Morrison’s Creek Church of Christ in Jackson County, Tennessee. It was the eighth such event and it was an overcast day with lots of rain in the forecast. Since it has only been two weeks since the flood of the century hit Middle Tennessee, most of us are still a little skittish when the dark clouds descend, the lightening flashes and the thunder rolls. The river road had been closed twice during the flood and the creek had been out of banks as was obvious by the driftwood washed up on the roadside. Still 129 brave souls showed up to worship together in a style reminiscent of a hundred years ago in a little brick building that has neither indoor toilet nor running water. Quite a crowd for a congregation that usually has 18 to 20 in attendance.
My cousin Roy at age 85 was in charge of the worship service and he simply called on those who were to participate in leading the worship. As the singing started, he moved silently around the room and whispered in your ear that you would be called on for prayer or to serve at the Lord’s table. Three songs, a prayer, two songs, the Lord’s Supper, a song, preaching, an invitation song, announcements and dismissal. No confusion, no surprises, just people doing what they had done for a lifetime – raising their voices to God and worshiping Him while encouraging each other to “walk worthy of their calling.”
Afterwards, plenty of fried chicken and banana pudding under the tent outside, served up with an abundance of love and good will towards one another and our Creator. Not much different than what I can remember from my childhood, except that cars were parked where mule and wagons were tied long ago, and we didn’t carry the homemade benches outside and turn them together to create a table to hold the “dinner on the ground.”
At 2:30 in the afternoon several of us gathered under the shelter of Gwen Lynn’s carport, just down from the old family cemetery and spoke of the reason for gathering together. It was to remember those who had gone before us and lay waiting in the cemetery.
The folks in this little family cemetery were not famous, they were not celebrities, and I am certain that most of the world did not long remember them, but we know something of them and that for which they stood. Over in one corner rested Abner and Elizabeth Chaffin who had purchased this home-place farm in 1858 and moved to their new home around Christmas that same year. It was a good sturdy yellow poplar log house but in 1869 Abner had become the first recorded resident of the cemetery. Over in that corner was Bailey Peyton McClellan, brother-in-law to Abner who had joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and having served out his year of enlistment had simply walked away in 1862 and returned home to tend to his farm, his family, and his own business. According to the army records, he deserted but in his own mind he had fulfilled his commitment and had a family that needed care.
My grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandparents lie in this little plot of ground adjacent to the, now falling down, house in which I was born on the kitchen table. They were honest hard working folks who forged a life and a living out of a wilderness. Most importantly they are family, and to those of us standing around sheltered from the rain, they are our people and this is our place. There is something compelling about roots and we are fortunate that ours run deep. We are planted with our toes deep in this soil just like the big sycamore trees down by the river.
When those who lie in this plot died, those who could afford it carved the names of their children, their brothers and sisters, or their parents in stone and went back to their daily life – coming here periodically to tend these graves, to clean them and to put flowers on them. Oh, I suspect they knew that only the mortal dust lingered in this spot but they did it out of respect, as a way of saying, I remember that you were, I know you existed and I am thankful for the part you played in my own life.
Sunday, 141 years after Abner was lowered into his final resting place, we came one more time – because our roots compelled us; because we realized that these people who lay around us played an important role in shaping our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and through this linage, ultimately in shaping us. By our presence and our actions we say, “thank you.”
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that "For as in Adam all die, thus also in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Therefore, this cemetery is not just a place of rest, but it is also a place of expectation, a kind of waiting room for those who trust that God will open these graves and waken these dead, and they, having been found faithful, will have nothing to fear from God’s judgment.
In a letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 1 Corinthians 15: 51-53
Yes, it was a good day of remembering, of worshiping, of reflecting on the brevity of our own lives, and of resolve to “walk worthy of that to which we were called.”
Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill, a church of Christ in Lebanon, Tennessee. Bob
Sunday the brown eyed girl and I, along with our son Patrick and his sweet family, went to the homecoming at Morrison’s Creek Church of Christ in Jackson County, Tennessee. It was the eighth such event and it was an overcast day with lots of rain in the forecast. Since it has only been two weeks since the flood of the century hit Middle Tennessee, most of us are still a little skittish when the dark clouds descend, the lightening flashes and the thunder rolls. The river road had been closed twice during the flood and the creek had been out of banks as was obvious by the driftwood washed up on the roadside. Still 129 brave souls showed up to worship together in a style reminiscent of a hundred years ago in a little brick building that has neither indoor toilet nor running water. Quite a crowd for a congregation that usually has 18 to 20 in attendance.
My cousin Roy at age 85 was in charge of the worship service and he simply called on those who were to participate in leading the worship. As the singing started, he moved silently around the room and whispered in your ear that you would be called on for prayer or to serve at the Lord’s table. Three songs, a prayer, two songs, the Lord’s Supper, a song, preaching, an invitation song, announcements and dismissal. No confusion, no surprises, just people doing what they had done for a lifetime – raising their voices to God and worshiping Him while encouraging each other to “walk worthy of their calling.”
Afterwards, plenty of fried chicken and banana pudding under the tent outside, served up with an abundance of love and good will towards one another and our Creator. Not much different than what I can remember from my childhood, except that cars were parked where mule and wagons were tied long ago, and we didn’t carry the homemade benches outside and turn them together to create a table to hold the “dinner on the ground.”
At 2:30 in the afternoon several of us gathered under the shelter of Gwen Lynn’s carport, just down from the old family cemetery and spoke of the reason for gathering together. It was to remember those who had gone before us and lay waiting in the cemetery.
The folks in this little family cemetery were not famous, they were not celebrities, and I am certain that most of the world did not long remember them, but we know something of them and that for which they stood. Over in one corner rested Abner and Elizabeth Chaffin who had purchased this home-place farm in 1858 and moved to their new home around Christmas that same year. It was a good sturdy yellow poplar log house but in 1869 Abner had become the first recorded resident of the cemetery. Over in that corner was Bailey Peyton McClellan, brother-in-law to Abner who had joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and having served out his year of enlistment had simply walked away in 1862 and returned home to tend to his farm, his family, and his own business. According to the army records, he deserted but in his own mind he had fulfilled his commitment and had a family that needed care.
My grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandparents lie in this little plot of ground adjacent to the, now falling down, house in which I was born on the kitchen table. They were honest hard working folks who forged a life and a living out of a wilderness. Most importantly they are family, and to those of us standing around sheltered from the rain, they are our people and this is our place. There is something compelling about roots and we are fortunate that ours run deep. We are planted with our toes deep in this soil just like the big sycamore trees down by the river.
When those who lie in this plot died, those who could afford it carved the names of their children, their brothers and sisters, or their parents in stone and went back to their daily life – coming here periodically to tend these graves, to clean them and to put flowers on them. Oh, I suspect they knew that only the mortal dust lingered in this spot but they did it out of respect, as a way of saying, I remember that you were, I know you existed and I am thankful for the part you played in my own life.
Sunday, 141 years after Abner was lowered into his final resting place, we came one more time – because our roots compelled us; because we realized that these people who lay around us played an important role in shaping our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and through this linage, ultimately in shaping us. By our presence and our actions we say, “thank you.”
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that "For as in Adam all die, thus also in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Therefore, this cemetery is not just a place of rest, but it is also a place of expectation, a kind of waiting room for those who trust that God will open these graves and waken these dead, and they, having been found faithful, will have nothing to fear from God’s judgment.
In a letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 1 Corinthians 15: 51-53
Yes, it was a good day of remembering, of worshiping, of reflecting on the brevity of our own lives, and of resolve to “walk worthy of that to which we were called.”
Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill, a church of Christ in Lebanon, Tennessee. Bob
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