Total Darkness

(Written in May 2014)

 

A few years ago, my husband and I took friends from Wisconsin to Cathedral Caverns here in Alabama. They visit us yearly, and we have tried to take them to different places each year. I had wanted to visit Cathedral Caverns for many years since it was so close to us. Our friends seemed interested, and Ken came along reluctantly. He is not as enthralled with nature as I am.

The setting of the cave was beautiful. On a hot summer day, the shade trees and shelter were very inviting. Everything seemed so green and vibrant. If I remember correctly, our guide took us a mile into the cave. I don’t know how many feet we dropped as we went in, but I do remember that she said the temperature remains constant inside the cave year-round. It was cool inside, and that was welcomed, too.

When we arrived at the point of the trail inside the cave where we could go no farther, there was a larger area surrounded by the same metal rail fence that had kept us on the trail on the way in. Our guide told us to all find a place along the rail to stand because she was going to turn the lights out so that we could experience total darkness in a cave. She said some people tend to panic in darkness and holding onto the rail would help.

When the lights went out, the guide was silent for a few long seconds. I had always heard the old saying, “It was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand before my face.” So, I held my hand in front of my face. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything. This was the only time in my life that I had ever experienced total darkness.

In Revelation 22:5, the Bible tells us about Heaven: “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.”

I have always thought of hell as a fiery pit where red/yellow/orange flames would burn continuously and the unsaved would experience that fire eternally as the flames licked at them. But, standing there in the cave in the dark, I thought of the darkness of hell and the human heart. The Light is in Heaven where there will be no darkness. That experience in Cathedral Caverns let me know exactly how it would be to have no Light in my life. I would be lost and wandering through a cavern with no sense of direction . . . no light to follow . . . no guide beside me to comfort me . . . nothing to sustain me . . .

“And this is the condemnation, that Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than Light, because their deeds were evil.” John 3:19.

I don’t think I have ever known an absolutely evil person personally, but I have known many who are walking in darkness. They carry their own personal cavern around with them. They have no need for the Light, but Jesus still tells us to be the light and the salt in their lives.

Get your flashlight and your salt shaker ready. Jesus is going to give you the opportunity to be someone’s guide out of the cavern.

Hosanna

“Hosanna, hosanna”

The woman who had the issue of blood did sing.

Hosanna to the Healer, she let her praises ring.

“Hosanna, hosanna”

Once-blind Bartimaeus called to the King.

No longer a beggar, palm leaves he did bring.

“Hosanna, hosanna”

No longer possessed of a demon times seven,

Mary Magdalene magnified His name to Heaven.

“Hosanna, hosanna”

Once-dead Lazarus pressed through the crowd,

Laying his coat on the ground to precede the shroud.

“Hosanna, hosanna”

The healed leper pushed his way toward the gate,

No more an outcast, never being met with hate

“Hosanna, hosanna”

Countless blind did see; countless deaf did hear.

They gathered to praise Him as His time drew near.

Before His time on earth was through

The “Hosannas” turned to “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

Accusers replaced the worshipers.

Thorns replaced the palm leaves.

The King that rode the unbroken colt,

Became broken for the sins of the world.

“Forgive them” replaced the “Hosannas.”

“Forgive them” replaced the “Crucify Him.”

“Forgive them” became “It is finished.”

Moses’ Song — A Call to Worship

When I read Moses’s song today in Exodus, it reminded me of Mel Tillis, the country music singer and songwriter, who passed away in November 2017. Mel stuttered when he spoke, but when he sang, you could not tell he was a stuttered. What he couldn’t say in his spoken voice turned into what many admired in his singing voice.

I thought of Moses. He let Aaron do the talking for him. God would tell Moses a message, and Aaron would relay it to the pharaoh. I think that even continued in the Wilderness with Aaron relaying what Moses told him God had revealed. However, on this day in Biblical history, after the Egyptians and their horses and chariots drowned in the sea, Moses sang. He worshipped God in song. He didn’t look to Aaron to sing for him. He didn’t leave it up to a psalmist to worship God for him. Moses sang! Moses worshipped God no matter what others were doing around him.

I am sure the others joined in. His sister Mariam grabbed a tambourine and led the women in dancing. There was great rejoicing among those who had been captive but were now free.

What this spoke to my heart is that we may let others lead us or others speak for us, but when it comes to worshipping God, we must do our own worshipping, our own singing, and our own dancing. Don’t even consider sitting on the sidelines. When we get to Heaven, our main reason for being there will be to worship the Great I Am. If you aren’t doing it here, you had better start practicing.

Unconditional Forgiveness

Often times when I am reading Scripture, I pause at a passage or a word that has never caught my attention before.  It catches my eye and my spirit when this happens.  It was that way this morning when I read Matthew 18:21 in my 365-Day Bible which is the New Century Version.

KJV

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

NCV

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, when my fellow believer sins against me, how many times must I forgive him? Should I forgive him as many as seven times?”

What caught my attention was the “fellow believer” in the NCV.  Peter often flew off the handle and was impetuous, so I can imagine that he asked Jesus in a rather mad tone how often he had to forgive a fellow believer—a follower of Christ—someone who was supposed to live by Jesus’s teachings.  Peter was not asking about the Pharisees, the Roman leaders, or the hated tax collectors.  And, I am sure that he didn’t like the answer of “seventy times seven.”

I also checked out biblegateway.com and used the feature that shows the verse in about 30 different versions.  Some of the versions used the term “fellow church members.”  This gives us a lesson right down where we live.  We speak of God’s unconditional love and say that we want to love people unconditionally, but what Jesus is talking about is forgiving people unconditionally—a continuous act of forgiveness.  

“Seventy times seven” wasn’t to be taken literally; it represented a number so high that Jesus knew Peter wouldn’t take the time to record each time he had forgiven someone until he reached 490 times.  And, knowing Peter, he had several people that he needed to forgive. 

To be like Jesus, we must live in a constant state of loving and forgiving people. 

Judge Not

Matthew 7:3-5 (NKJV)

3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?

5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

One night at Bible study at church, I noticed a young man standing across the aisle a little bit in front of where my husband and I were sitting. He was tall with a shaven head, and he had on a floor-length black coat. I immediately thought of the shootings at Columbine. Starring at the young man, I thought, “He could have a shotgun or rifle hidden beneath that coat.”

As a school administrator, I was very aware of signs to look for. However, the young man was standing beside a man who was very much into worshipping the Lord during our worship singing, so I figured they were friends, and I didn’t need to be concerned.

When it was time for our teaching, the hardy worshipper went to the front of the church. I don’t know his name, but he had a very good lesson, and at the end, he put this series of verses on the screen. Then he called the young man in the long black coat to the front to share with the congregation about why he was at our church.

I didn’t catch where the young man was from, but he was just about the fastest talking guy I have ever heard. My bet is that he didn’t grow up in the South. He told about moving to our area and visiting churches to find a church home. He said he went to a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, and I think he said Church of Christ. He reported that it seemed like people kept their distance from him due to his piercings and his tattoos. Not until he came to our church did people reach out to welcome him. He remarked the head usher even told him that he could use him to welcome people.

By that time, the plank in my eye was bouncing up and down like someone plucking the strings of a banjo–vibrating with sawdust flying everywhere. I don’t think I am a very judgmental person, but I do need a reminder now and then.

Something Southern in My Soul–Mayo Sandwiches

Sometimes, we Southerners talk about growing up and eating banana and mayo sandwiches or canned pineapple slices and mayo sandwiches. In the summer, tomato and mayo sandwiches were a staple. My family along with others couldn’t always afford to have bologna or potted meat or tuna around the house for sandwiches.

I remember one year, my father was laid off from the TVA when they were between building the units at Widows Creek Steam Plant. Because he had a Civil Service classification, he would travel to other government locations to do carpenter work where they were hiring for projects. I know he helped build some missile silos at Arnold AFB in Tullahoma, TN. He did something at the Red Stone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL. He traveled to those sites daily with other men from Bridgeport and Stevenson.

One year Daddy ventured as far as Houston. I am not sure what he worked on down there, but I have often wondered if it was connected to NASA. Those who have heard my stories about my father know that he often drank his paycheck away. Being in Houston meant he had to rent a room and buy food and other necessities. He didn’t send very much money back to my mother to help with our bills–water, electricity, food–things we were accustomed to having or using.

That was the summer of mayo sandwiches–nothing else–just two pieces of light bread and mayo. No tomato, no banana, no pineapple, no bologna, no potted meat, no tuna. Bread and mayo. My younger brother Max would tell me that it was probably Miracle Whip, but we called it mayonnaise. Sometimes, we would eat saltine crackers crumbled in sweet milk as a changeup. Thankfully, there were grocery stores in town that would allow us to run up a tab, but my mother must not have believed in running up a big tab not knowing when Daddy would be coming back.

My past has made me who I am today.

I’m crepe myrtles blooming in my soul.

I am the Tennessee River flowing strong.

I am Sand Mountain running long.

I am all of what my life has become due to growing up poor but not as poor as some. And, because of that, it is not unusual for me to reach for two pieces of bread and a jar of mayonnaise and remember where I came from and where God has brought me.

[For my non-Southern friends and young folks too young to know: Sweet milk is what you would call whole milk. It was sweet in comparison to buttermilk. Light bread was white bread. I understand both are not good for us nowadays. They sure were life-giving back when.]

Christmas Memories

Part I

It wasn’t that I went without candy for the rest of the year, but Christmas always seemed to be the time to have hard rock candy at our house. My father would buy the mixed selection which is still sold in stores today. I would always try to claim my favorite one from the mix before anyone else grabbed any of them. It was a little square piece that was rounded off at the edges. It had red and green stripes–some varying in width and some wavy. It had a slight taste of clove. Once those were gone, I wasn’t as picky as to what I ate next. Some of the fruit-flavored ones had soft centers. Those were fun to let dissolve in my mouth and then chew the goo in the center.

I know people who are a generation younger than I am might not understand that having hard candy, nuts, and fruit at Christmas time was special. We hardly ever had apples or oranges during the year, but my Daddy had them around for Christmas. We had pecan trees that were growing in our yard, but they had not gotten large enough to produce a crop before I left home. But, at Christmas time, my father would put out a bowl of mixed nuts, and we would crack them with a hammer or our hands. At that time in my youth, I could place two pecans in my hand and exert enough pressure to crack them. I had to use the hammer for the English walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, and filberts. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I found out the little, hard, round nuts were filberts or hazelnuts. I always left them for the end with the almonds. When I reached my middle school years, I had a dog named Maverick. He was a little hound that looked a lot like a dachshund mix, built close to the floor. When no one was looking, he would put his front paws on the coffee table and help himself to an English walnut, cracking it with his teeth and eating the nutmeat.

I always enjoyed going to the Christmas Eve service at First Baptist. At the end of the service, all of the kids would be given a brown bag with an apple, an orange, hard candies, and nuts. Sometimes we would also get chocolate drops in the mix. It was an added bonus gift for our Christmas, and we appreciated it as though it was a toy. I guess my memories of candy and nuts for Christmas makes me appreciate this little saying that Dandy Don Meredith used when he was in the broadcast booth after his NFL playing days were over ~ “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.”

Part II

So many of my memories of Christmas revolve around food, fun, and family. Earlier, I wrote about the hard candy, fruit, and nuts that made Christmas special. I just can’t get to other memories that I want to share without writing about my father’s sweet potato pies.

I don’t know when my father learned to cook. He was forced to “drop out” of school after the third grade to stay home to help take care of his younger siblings. He was in a family with 12 older half-siblings, and then he was in what I call the “second litter” of five. Many of his older half-siblings had already left home as they were in their 20s when he was born. He was the oldest of the second litter. Maybe his mother taught him to cook while he was helping her with the younger children.

When my father joined the Navy during WWII, he spent many hours doing KP or mess duty aboard the ships that took him on cruises of the South Pacific. KP was generally assigned for some infraction of rules. My father was a great infractor. When he was discharged from the Navy in 1945 after the war was over, he brought home some souvenirs. He had not captured any samurai swords or any Japanese flags. Instead, he brought home heavy china platters, bowls, and some almost unbendable spoons. They were neatly engraved with “Property of the USN” on the back. Maybe the Navy taught him to cook.

Then, maybe my father became the family cook and baker due to my mother having crippling rheumatoid arthritis. But, whatever the reason, my father could cook, and it made Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter good-eating occasions around our house. My father used to bake sweet potato pies for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can still envision him standing at the kitchen table mashing the boiled sweet potatoes in a huge bowl. Then, the spices would go in, and the eggs, and whatever other magical ingredients that he added. He never used a recipe. I know that he put clove into the mix, because I loved the pies due to that taste. He would make the pie crusts, too. Then, he would bake pie after pie after pie. The scent would fill the house as they were baking and cooling.

On Christmas Day, Daddy would bake a ham, cutting a criss-cross design in the outside layer of the ham and placing whole cloves at each intersection, and then putting a row of pineapple slices down the middle. He also mixed brown sugar and mustard together and basted the ham with it. I loved his ham. He had many more fixings to go with the meal. The more family that was coming to join us, the more he would cook. He fixed a whole baked hen with sage stuffing inside the hen and surrounding it in the pan as it baked.

I don’t remember that he ever asked me to help, but I certainly watched. If I had a job, it was generally to peel the potatoes so that he could boil them to make mashed potatoes. They were always called “Irish” potatoes at our house, but when he said it, it sounded like ARSH potatoes. I don’t remember the year, but it was before I left for college in 1965. We had a sad Christmas dinner. Daddy, the infractor, had had too many Falstaffs. One was actually too many for him, but he would never recognize nor admit that. He had been drinking right before he started the sweet potato pies. He had the potatoes and all the other ingredients in the mixing bowl. As he bent over to stir the mixture, he threw up in it. Yes, it was a very sad Christmas without his sweet potato pies. It was revolting, but it has become legend around our house.

Part III

One of my fondest memories of childhood is going with Pop Barnes and his grandchildren Donnie and Barbara to get a live Christmas tree. Donnie called Barbara “Sissy,” and that is what I called her when we were in elementary school. They were my first playmates when we moved to Bridgeport in 1950. We lived on Chisolm Avenue, and they lived one street closer to downtown on Busby Avenue at the corner of Busby and Seventh Street.

Pop Barnes was a gift in himself. He was the closest I ever came to having a grandfather since I never knew my own. He would take me with Donnie and Sissy to Lake Winnepesaukah in the summertime and to the fair in Chattanooga in the fall. Once he let us go on a free thrill ride. He drove downtown Chattanooga and let us out at the Sears building. We ran into the store, rode the escalator up, rode the escalator down, and then jumped back into the car on the other side of the building after he had driven around the block to wait for us. Riding the escalator was a novelty back then.

When it neared Christmas each year, Sissy would call me and ask if I wanted to go get a tree with them. The answer was always “yes” because that saved Daddy from buying one. Pop Barnes would drive us out on the road to Rocky Springs and go past the Allison chicken hatchery. After we rounded two curves, he would park the car on the side of the road, and we would climb over a fence onto land where lots of cedar trees were growing naturally. I don’t know if this was part of the Allison property or not. I don’t know if Pop Barnes had permission to be there or not. All I knew was the excitement of choosing a tree, helping drag it to the car, and then Pop Barnes would drive me home with my tree before going around the corner with Donnie and Sissy to take their tree home.

We really had no spectacular decorations to put on the tree at our house. There was usually a star for the top. We had red and silver garland that looked like it was made from heavy-duty aluminum wrap. We had silver icicles. We had a small collection of glass ornaments. And, we had a string of Christmas lights. They were not the tiny twinkling ones of today. They were about as big as a man’s thumb, and their glow was dull. But, I would turn the lights off in the cold living room that we usually shut off for the winter to conserve our heat, and I would sit and stare at the pretty lights–blue, red, green, and yellow.

One year Max and I decided we would string popcorn to go on the tree. As I recall, it was a tougher job than we anticipated, and our string didn’t stretch too far before we gave up. I would never choose a cedar tree for a Christmas tree nowadays. But, in my youth, even with our small amount of decorations, those cedar trees meant Christmas to me . . . Christmas with toys awaiting under the cedar that supplied its own special scent to add to my memories of Christmases past.

Part IV

Just like I didn’t go without candy during the year, I didn’t go without toys during the year either. But, Christmas always brought hopes of new, big toys—something more substantial and special than the small toys that Max and I would buy at the Dime Store each week with our allowance.

I always looked forward to the gifts that my older brother Al and his wife Lona would mail to us from Oklahoma. When my sisters Ruth and Dean left home, I was the one who would go to the post office to get our mail. So, Lona would take special care in how she packaged the presents in case I tried to open the packages and sneak a peek before I took the mail home to Moma.

One year the package was so heavy that I just couldn’t wait until Christmas to see what was inside. I tore one corner of the outer wrapping enough to see a shoebox. I went no further in my exploration. Shoes for Christmas just didn’t thrill me. When Christmas Day came, and Max and I opened our gifts, those shoeboxes contained roller skates—the outdoor, metal variety complete with that key to tighten the clamps that helped hold the skates on our shoes. The back part of the skate had a leather strap to buckle around our ankles to help hold the skates on our shoes.

Thankfully, Bridgeport had some sidewalks. The one that I walked on each day to downtown actually started at the corner of Chisolm Avenue, the street we lived on, and Seventh Street. So, on Christmas Day, I walked up to Seventh Street and put my skates on ready to tackle the sidewalk system in Bridgeport. Mind you, not every street had sidewalks. And, some had sidewalks that were cracked or buckled.

I basically knew how to roller-skate because we had a skating rink in Bridgeport. I had always rented skates there. I never learned how to brake with the toe stop. Inside the rink, if I needed to brake, I just aimed toward a side rail and ran into it after I maneuvered to slow down.

The sidewalk from Chisolm Avenue downhill to Busby Avenue was rather smooth at that time, but it did have the expansion cracks in it to contend with. As I built up speed that Christmas morning going downhill, I remembered that at the end of the sidewalk before crossing Busby, I would have about a six-to-eight-inch drop. There was no curb there, but there was that drop to the asphalt pavement. My metal roller skates had no rubber stop at the toe. Only my shoes were there to help stop me, and I had already ruined one pair applying the brakes in Max’s wagon one summer.

I don’t know if I prayed or not, but I was able to make the drop-off to the asphalt without any injury. I crossed the bumpy asphalt and continued on my way. I am sure it was nippy that day, but it didn’t bother me. I had wheels and a key!

I can remember other presents over the years that Al and Lona sent, but they were mainly Max’s presents. One year, they sent him a BB gun. I really wanted that BB gun. Another year, they sent him a real bow with arrows. It wasn’t fancy like the ones today, but it was several steps above the bow with those arrows that had suction cups on the end of them. Max didn’t have too much luck with the suction cup ones. Once as our neighbor Mrs. Durham was visiting, Max accidentally shot her with one of the suction cup arrows. If I remember correctly, he hit her square in the middle of the forehead. So, I really thought I should take possession of that bow and arrow to protect the neighborhood. Thankfully, Max would let me play with his toys.

I don’t remember many other toys that I received for Christmas. I do remember being so sick on one Christmas Eve that Moma had to call a doctor to make a house call, and he did come. I don’t remember which one, but it had to have been Dr. Taylor, Dr. Havron, or Dr. Headrick. That was the selection at our hospital. After the doctor gave me a shot and wrote a prescription, Moma felt so sorry for me that she let me open a present. I went for the biggest one, of course, and it was a doll. I was a tomboy and did not want a doll until Chatty Cathy came along. This was not a Chatty Cathy doll. I remember after I had played with it for a few weeks, I gave it a haircut. Then, I poked its eyes out with scissors. Lord, forgive me.

The Christmas gift that I remember most is the Christmas gift that I did NOT receive when I was in the third grade in 1956. I was a tomboy, as I stated before. I wore jeans and shirts to school in the winter, and my mother indulged me and bought cowboy boots for me to wear in the winter. I loved Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. I slept under a Gene Autry brown chenille bedspread with Gene astride his horse Champion.

The Sears or the Spiegel catalog had a Roy Rogers outfit that included a holster and gun set, a leather vest with fringe, and a cowboy hat in their Christmas catalog that year. I begged my mother to order it for me for weeks before Christmas. For some reason that Christmas, I spent Christmas Day with my oldest sister Frances, her husband Bill, and their daughter Coleen in Tiftonia, TN. They lived in a trailer at that time, and I thought that was neat. Moma sent my Christmas presents along with me to open at their home. When Christmas Day came, I eagerly opened my present from Moma and Daddy to discover an Annie Oakley outfit with a fringed skirt, a fake leather vest, a girly cowgirl hat, and disappointment of all disappointments—a holster that held a very cheap looking plastic pistol. I was heartbroken. I have never really gotten over that Annie Oakley outfit. No self-respecting tomboy would be caught dead in such an outfit.

I did open other presents that day, but I don’t even remember what Lona and Al sent since I was in such shock. I do, however, remember another present that I received all those Christmas years ago. It was a towel with my name on it. My sister Frances gave Max and me each a towel with our name on it. I have kept it all these years. I don’t know if I showed any appreciation back then, but it was special to me even if it didn’t have an E on the end of my name.

Fear Not

2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

I was born in a four-room shack in Russellville, AL, on Rural Route 5. My parents were so poor, that we lived with my Uncle Cas who was a younger brother of my daddy. They had a little farm with pigs and chickens, and they raised a garden and cotton. Uncle Cas and my daddy also worked at a local rock quarry. Eight of us lived in that little four-room shack. My older brother and sisters were so much older than I that when they went to school, it was just my mother and me alone at home together.

My mother was crippled with arthritis and couldn’t always keep up with an adventurous toddler such as I. She used heavy metal braces and crutches to get around. I didn’t understand the reason in my youth, but I feel that my mother must have tried to scare me to keep me alive. Uncle Cas’s property was located on a very busy highway. Across the highway from the house was a very thick wooded area. To keep me from wandering onto the highway or crossing it into the wooded area, my mother told me that Bloody Bones and Bull Moose lived in the woods and that they would get me.

When I was almost four years old, we moved to the first and only house my parents ever owned in Bridgeport, AL. It was built in the 1880’s, but it had electricity and running water–something the farm didn’t have in Russellville. In the town of Bridgeport, there were seven houses designed and built by the same man, and we were in one of them. It had four rooms downstairs, a room upstairs, and an unfinished attic.

Wouldn’t you know it? When we moved, Bloody Bones and Bull Moose moved with us. By this time, my baby brother Max had made an appearance. To keep us from going upstairs and into the attic and possibly falling through the rafters and ceiling to one of the first floor rooms, Moma told us that Bloody Bones and Bull Moose would get us if we went upstairs.

God does not give us the spirit of fear. Someone may try to put fear into us for a good reason as my mother did or for a bad reason as others do to try to control us. God does not give us the spirit of fear. Now that I am an adult, I can see the necessity of my mother instilling a certain fear in me, but it really messed with my childhood.

God does not give us the spirit of fear. Even when the Bible says to fear God, to me it means to stand in awe of Him, to reverence Him. Any fear that I have as an adult is a natural fear that is there for preservation such as fear when confronting a rattlesnake on a trail or a fear that the devil has tried to plant in my spirit. It is always good to know the difference.

Within the last week, two friends have asked me to pray for them because they were afraid. They felt their lives were hanging in the balance. I keep going back to the verse in 2 Timothy 1:7. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear. Instead, He gave us other tools to use to confront our fears. He gave us the spirit of power. We have the power to cast out demons and to raise up the dead. We have the power to rebuke the devil and any fear that he would place in our minds. God gave us the spirit of love. John wrote that there is no fear in love.

1 John 4:18 (NKJV)

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

God also gave us the spirit of a sound mind. It is up to us to keep our minds free of fear. God doesn’t give that spirit to us. It is from the devil.

RECOGNIZE WHERE YOUR FEAR COMES FROM

Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV)

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

FOLLOW THE ADVICE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

Colossians 3:2 (NKJV)

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Philippians 4:8 (NKJV)

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

I have often read that there are 365 “fear nots” in the Bible. When I searched the term in Strong’s Concordance, the number is even higher. We need to keep our eyes on God and not upon the circumstances around us.

A Tree Not for Me

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” (Greek Proverb)

I think this is true of women, too. There is an oak tree that has sprung up in my Sweet William flowerbed. I have let it grow for two years intending to dig it up and transplant it to a better site. If I leave it where it is, sooner or later — mostly later — it will be too close to my neighbor’s fence.

In the early 90s, a colleague (lifelong adult friend) and I went to a staff development conference in Dallas. We were both supervisors of English teachers in the Chapter 1 program in Milwaukee Public Schools. Aside from attending some very interesting seminars, we had the opportunity to go to the Texas Book Depository and view the museum about JFK’s assassination. It was one of the most touching museums that I had ever visited. At one point, I had to sit down on a bench to rein in my emotions. Other museums had been history, even ancient history, to me. This one was part of my history.

At one point, a tour guide took us outside to the grassy knoll area and pointed up to the area where Oswald had taken the fatal shots. There was an oak tree under the window. He told us that the tree was there when JFK was shot, and he asked us if anyone knew why we could still see the window without the tree hindering our view 30 years later. No one answered, so I volunteered that the tree was an oak and that oaks only grow one to two feet each year. I didn’t get a prize for the correct answer, but it pleased me that I could identify the tree.

I have loved trees since I was a kid. I know that planting an oak will be for future generations. Maybe there will be an owner in this house years from now who will appreciate the shade that it supplies for the back deck.

Eulogy for Al J. Horton

[The words in standard text are the words that I spoke at Al’s funeral service.  The words in brackets [ ] were added for this blog.]

Eulogy for Al J. Horton

August 11, 2020

Red Oak Cemetery, Bache, OK

My earliest memory of Al wasn’t truly a memory with Al in it.  There was a rattlesnake in a gallon jar on the front porch of the four-room shack that we lived in.  I may have been three or maybe almost four years old at the time.  I was three-and-a-half years old when Al graduated from high school in 1949.  Moma told me to go get a diaper to cover the jar so that she wouldn’t have to see the rattlesnake.  I hope that Al wasn’t practicing catch and release.

My next memory of Al was when I was almost five years old in 1951.  He was no longer Al; he was Al and Lona.

The Al that we all know was bigger that life, but let me tell you about Alfred Jackson Horton.  That was Al’s birth name.  Daddy got mad that a Republican relative named a son after Herbert Hoover who was elected president in 1928.  Hoover’s Democratic opponent was Alfred E. Smith.  To get even, Daddy named him Alfred and added the Jackson for Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general.

Alfred was born in a shack and grew up in a series of shacks.  Our parents sometimes lived with relatives and sometimes just moved into empty shacks until the owners kicked them out.  Al told me that one shack had holes where windows belonged but no glass in the openings.

1944

Besides being a snake handler without any religious experience, Alfred once picked up a dynamite cap which exploded taking part of his thumb and parts of several fingers with it on his left hand.  Alfred and a friend applied a tourniquet to his arm and walked miles into Russellville to the doctor.  When Moma and Daddy got there, his only concerns were whether or not he would lose his hand and if he had on clean underwear.

RHS Class of 1949

Alfred’s senior yearbook indicates that he was on an academic study track and was the lead in the senior play.  Alfred told the story of putting a snake in a teacher’s desk drawer, and when she opened the drawer, she yelled, “Alfred Horton, come and get this snake and take it outside.”  Alfred said that many were surprised that he graduated.

In 1950, Alfred and a friend hitchhiked to California, and Alfred came back through Oklahoma to visit our Uncle Henry in Sulphur.  Somehow, he found Lona Lorece Smith and must have done more than visiting.  He always joked that he thought he was marrying Lona’s sister Geneva but that he had injured his eyes and his father-in-law Abe pulled a switch on him.

The next time I saw Al, he was no longer Alfred.  Now, he was Al and Lona.  Evidently, when he joined the Marines, they demanded a birth certificate with something more on it than “Male Child Horton.”  Lona rode the bus from Oklahoma to Alabama, and our neighbors drove her to the courthouse in Jackson County to get a birth certificate with Al Jacques Horton on it.  I don’t know when our family became French.

Al and Lona, 1951

I will always believe that Alfred shortened his name to Al to keep some people from calling him Al-FORD and others from calling him Al-FERD.  Al brought the matter home to Max and me that there were to be no Christmas presents if we didn’t call him Al.  And, oh, the Christmas presents!  For Max, I remember a BB gun, a real bow with arrows, a Bowie knife, and a pogo stick.  For me, I remember rollers skates and a key!  I remember Max’s gifts better because I was a tomboy and wanted them.  We were also not supposed to call Lona “Loney Baloney,” either.  Max and I were very perceptive and knew she was the shopper in the family.

[Al served in the Marines from March 13, 1952, until March 10, 1954, and fought in Korea.  He was trained as a field radio operator, and one of my favorite pictures of him shows him in the back of a Jeep with his radio while in Korea.  After Al enlisted, he took a two-year college test to be able to enter the Officers Candidate School.  He passed the test, but someone along the chain of command questioned whether he was physically able to be an officer since he was missing parts of his left thumb and some fingers.  This didn’t sit well with our daddy.  Daddy was in the habit of writing to Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, so he fired a letter off to Senator Hill to question why his son could fight for his country but couldn’t serve as an officer.  The next thing Al knew, he was called into his commanding officer’s office in Korea and grilled about why he was trying to get out of the Marines.  Al knew nothing about the letter that Daddy had written on notebook paper using a pencil until the commanding officer handed it to him to read. 

When Al left the commanding officer’s office, he was informed that his bags were packed for him and that he would be flying to Japan.  That was the last Al saw of Korea.  In the meantime, the Marines had changed the qualifications for entering OCS to passing a test which was the equivalent of four years of college.  Al passed that test and once told me that the Marines told him that he had an IQ of 140.  Once he passed the test, they told him the OCS was currently full. 

A year or so ago, Al asked me if I could get his military records for him.  He wanted to see if there was a copy of the handwritten letter from our dad in the file.  The original letter wasn’t in the file, but a transcribed, typed copy of it was.  None of the family who has read it thinks that the language used in it was what our father would have written.  It was too sophisticated for someone with a third grade education.  Maybe our father had help composing it, but we doubt it.   However, Daddy’s letter sparked letters from Senator Hill and also from Rear Admiral H. Lamont Pugh, surgeon general of the U. S. Navy who was investigating to see if Al was fit for service!  The Marines had neglected to inform Al that if his missing digits kept him from OCS that he could also be eligible for a medical discharge.  By the time his ship made it to California, he was lovesick for Lona and decided to seek a discharge to be with her rather than to attend OCS.  When Al received a stack of papers that was almost two inches thick from the National Archives, he found out that he had qualified to be promoted to sergeant on August 24, 1954—months after he was discharged but still while he was serving in the Reserves.  The Marines had never informed him.]

From youth, Al loved boxing and even boxed himself.  That is how I ended up with a baby brother named Max for the great Max Baer.  As a youth, when we visited Oklahoma, I remember getting to know Al and Lona’s friends, Dick and Loreeta Potts and their kids Linda Lou and Rick.  Al and Dick watched the Friday Night Fights together on TV.  They had a standing bet.  Dick took the boxer in the black shorts, and Al took the boxer in the white shorts.  I think Al often came out ahead on the bets because the boxer in the white shorts was usually a black boxer.  Al had a big collection of Ring magazines.  Dick drove a Pepsi truck; Al drove a beer truck.  My addiction to Coca Cola suffered greatly during those visits.

In 1962, Al and Lona’s lives were changed forever when Stacey Kay came into their lives.  They brought her to Alabama to show her off to the relatives.  Four months later, Connie Kilgore became the youngest Horton granddaughter and her mother Dean benefitted greatly by receiving Stacey’s hand-me-downs.

In the fall of 1964, Al, Lona, and Stacey came back to Alabama for a visit.  It was my senior year in high school.  During the visit, Al told me that if I would come to live with them in Tulsa, he would loan me money for my college tuition and books and that living with them would save me on room and board.  This changed the whole course of my life, but the deal had one catch—I had to graduate in three years so that Max could follow behind me.

I lived with Al, Lona, and Stacey from the day after I graduated from high school until early in 1966 when they came down to McAlester to purchase the old Hale Hassell building to use as a warehouse.  While I lived with them in Tulsa, Al was a salesman for National Distilleries.  I became his personal secretary as he wrote his weekly reports in his beautiful, even, printing style, and I typed them for him.  I learned new words even though I couldn’t pronounce them–Pouilly-Fuissé and Liebfraumilch.  Lona also taught me some new words!

Al told me that since he talked me into coming to Tulsa, he would loan me the tuition and pay my room and board if I wanted to return to Alabama to attend Auburn.  By that time, I already had a D on my transcript that wouldn’t transfer.  I remained at TU.

While living in Tulsa, I met Lona’s Uncle Paul and Aunt Ruth Baldridge.  They had a standing Rook game each Friday night.  Al and Paul were partners.  I think Lona and Ruth benefitted greatly when Uncle Paul would hold his hand half way across the table so that he could see his cards.  One night Ken kept me out after midnight, the usual time that the card game would break up.  He didn’t bring me home until 3:00 AM.  At 7:00 AM the next morning, Lona had me up washing windows, and Al had me pulling what he called “crap” grass.

It is impossible to innumerate the years since 1966 when Al opened Dixie Liquor Company and became one of the largest liquor wholesalers in the state.  Al and Lona became Al and Lona and JR and Marie [Ricks], and they raised Tommy Dale and Stacey during their long hours in the business.  It was a family business, and Al and Lona counted their friendship with JR and Marie as one of their biggest blessings in life.

Al held certain standards in life.  He thought all of his nephews who were sent to him for inspiration and correction needed a haircut.  He gave Stacey dating advice while she was young and well into adulthood:  1) Don’t bring any hairy-legged boys home to me.  2) Quit marrying the hired help.

Al taught his younger brother Max to eat with a fork instead of a spoon by hitting him on top of the head with his own fork and then continuing to eat with the same fork.

While owning Dixie Liquor, Al bought a farm and began breeding and racing thoroughbreds.  He had a great horse named Zonic at stud.  Greater still was Silver Goblin out of Silver Ghost and Molly O’Horton.  Molly was named for our Uncle Cas Horton who was the closest thing to a real dad that Al ever had.  Cas’s nickname was Molly.  Silver Goblin’s trainer was Lona’s nephew Kenny Smith.  Al often named horses after his relatives:  Bruvver Max for our baby brother, First Baptist was probably for our mother, and he finally named one for me—Sister Lulu—and then sold it at auction.  [Tharptown Phoebe was definitely for our mother.]

Silver Goblin had career earnings of $1,083,895.  He was named the Oklahoma Horse of the Century.  He lived out his days in the pasture at Al’s farm where people would pull over on the highway to take his picture.  As with Al, Silver’s hair turned almost snow white before he finished his days of leisurely grazing and eating the apples that Al would bring.

Al Horton was bigger than life.  He was a character and also a man of high character.  He not only changed the course of life for Max and me, he recently told me how concerned he was for our sister Dean.  He told me that I had to know that she was the closest to him and he felt like he raised her.  Al was the patriarch of our Horton family from an early age.  He was our father, brother, and friend.

Lona told us the story of how Al and she struggled when they were first married.  She said she was waiting for him to come home with some grocery money one day.  She said he had six to eight dollars, and she just wanted to buy some hamburger meat.  When Al got home, he told her about picking up an old hitchhiker who was headed to Illinois to visit his son or daughter.  He couldn’t read and had already ended up in Wichita three times.  The old man had holes in the soles of his shoes.  Al went into a gas station and got a map.  He marked the route for the man to take to get to Illinois and told him to show it to anyone who picked him up.  Al put cardboard in the man’s shoes, and then he gave him the grocery money that Lona was waiting for.  After Lona gave Al several pieces of her mind, she asked Al why he didn’t just give him his shoes.  Al replied, “I tried, but they wouldn’t fit.”  They ate at Lona’s parents’ house that night.

Al has told the story of hitchhiking through McAlester once, and it was getting near dusk.  No one would stop to pick him up, so he crawled into a culvert and slept there for the night.  The next morning when he crawled out, he saw a big sign on the highway warning motorists not to pick up any hitchhikers because they could be escaped prisoners from the state prison in McAlester.  Al moved on down the road.

[Al picked up many hitchhikers for decades.  After he stopped picking them up, whenever he would see an older man hitchhiking, he would always remark, “Another retired whiskey salesman.”]

Such was Al Horton.  He helped family, he helped friends, and he helped strangers.  He helped the Boys and Girls Club of McAlester by fundraising and offering to match funds to build the new facility.  He didn’t want his name on the building, but the event center was named for him.

[Politicians often courted Al for donations to their campaign.  Most wanted him to give them money under the table so that there would be no records of the donations.  Al refused.  He loved to talk politics with my husband Ken, but it took Ken a few years to catch on that Al was going to play the devil’s advocate and take whatever side Ken was against.  Ken finally wised up during the 1972 presidential election when Al said he was voting for George Wallace for president and Shirley Chisholm for vice president!]

[Al was also a gambler.  He bet on horses—his own and the horses of others.  He played blackjack and was featured on the cover of a magazine in Las Vegas when he won a tournament there.  He was also kicked out of a casino or two because they accused him of counting cards.  That should let you know that the odds are always with the house.  I think he made the surest bet of his lifetime in 1983 after Stacey graduated from Southeastern Oklahoma State with a 4.00 GPA in business administration.  He gave Stacey a Corvette for graduation.  When our son Zach, who was nine years old at the time, saw the Corvette, he asked his Uncle Al if he would give him one if he made a 4.00 GPA in college.  Al told him he would.  I immediately told Al that he would be in no danger of having to pay up.]  

We will miss Al and the pride that he took in his garden where he raised tomatoes and peppers.  A friend told me yesterday that he didn’t think Al ever cared about the having the glory; however, he always enjoyed the story.

Al was not a religious man, but he and I have discussed God over the years.  He would always tell me that he and God had an understanding and that they were good with each other.  Our mother would not approve of closing this service without Scripture.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

1To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,
And a time to die;

A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
³ A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
⁴ A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
⁵ A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
⁷ A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
⁸ A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

I would also like to share this poem written by Robert Louis Stevenson:

“Requiem”

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

I would add for Al—

Home is the gardener,

Home from the garden.

I cannot close without mentioning that during my mother’s last ten years or so, Al and Lona took her into their home and gave her what was probably the ten nicest years of her life.  She was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and had been in a wheelchair since 1950.  I don’t know why, but Al always called her by her first name, Phoebe.

When Al would call me, he would always identify himself by saying, “Lulu, this is Phoebe’s eldest boy.”  I will miss hearing that greeting.

]Al was buried in a new pair of overalls which his sister Willodene had given him a few years ago.  Although he cleaned up nicely for formal occasions, Al preferred to go to work in overalls, and he preferred to wear shorts at home with no shirt–much like a boxer.  When Al was asked to take a formal portrait to hang at the McAlester Boys and Girls Club where he had served on the board and had also been the president of the board, Al chose to have his portrait made in his overalls.]

[Al once told me of going into a jewelry store to buy Lona a gift.  He was fond of giving her diamonds.  He said he walked in wearing his overalls and all the employees seemed to huddle in a corner.  Al said he was sure they were drawing straws to see who would serve him.  Finally, a young woman came over and asked him if she could be of assistance.  Al picked out an expensive gift and then pulled out his money clip from his overalls pocket.  As he peeled off the hundred dollar bills, he said he thought the young woman was going to faint.]

The portrait that hangs in the Boys and Girls Club