Sitting on the Front Porch

Philip Gulley’s, Front Porch Tales, is a delightful read and inspiration for many of the articles I write.  Gulley writes of family, faith, laughter, and love.  Paul Harvey, Jr. says, “The tales Philip Gulley unveils are tender and humorous . . . filled with sudden, unexpected, lump-in-the-throat poignancy.”  I envy Gulley’s talent.  Front porch tales, how wonderful is that.  It reminds me my home place and our front porch.

I visit dad and mom each time I go back to my home church.  A pink granite headstone marks their grave.  It is not hard to find.  It is the only pink headstone in the graveyard.  Momma got it when daddy died.  I stand there and whisper to them.  I usually smile remembering what momma said about her grave before she died. “I been so bad, the grass will probably not grow on my grave.”  She’s right, it doesn’t.  Her grave is where the rain runs down the hill and the centipede is patchy.  It has nothing to do with her being bad, just bad location.

I wish many times I could go back to those days on our front porch.  Around my high school graduation, we remodeled the front porch and daddy put momma oak swings on each end.  Springs from the hood of one of our old junk cars held one swing on the porch.  We would get momma in that swing and bounce her up and down.  There was a sensation springing up and down, swinging back and forth that no county fair ride could duplicate.  Momma would scream, holler, and we would bounce more.

From those swings, we would have talks.  I would sit in one swing and dad and mom would sit in the other. Back and forth, toward and away, and sometimes just sitting still we discussed important things of life.  We talked of getting married, leaving home, dying with cancer, having babies, whipping (disciplining for those who are politically correct) children, planting crops, attending funerals, heaven, hell, and the real issues of life.

Sitting on the swings, I can see momma smooching on daddy, my daughter Angel playing tic-tac-toe on the marks left from radiation treatments on daddy’s baldhead, and the look of horror of the unsuspecting visitor who sat in the “spring loaded swing”.  They thought it was falling only to realize the Hopper Law of Physics (reverse of Newton’s law of physics) was at work.  What goes down will go up.

Sitting on the swings, I learned how much daddy and momma loved God, loved family, and loved me.  Stories, laughter, tears, hope, and wisdom saturate the swings.  I stop there sometimes and draw from that magnificent saturation.  It is sweet and precious.  I wish everyone could have had a turn in the swings.  Life is short and good counsel is essential. 

Losing someone who counsels us leaves a great hollowness in our system of significance.  I am glad dad and mom chose to give me life.  Since Jesus gave me life, I am glad I have the Holy Spirit.  The Lord’s promise from Hebrews 13:5 reminds me, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Dr. Calvin Miller in his book, Loving God Up Close, writes:

This is the most remarkable thing about the counsel of the Holy Spirit: those who seem to abound with the most obvious joy, do not have less frequent troubles.  In fact, just the opposite seems true.  Those with the most joyous lives have often wept their way to the inner Counselor.  Laughter among people of real faith does not indicate that they are strangers to affliction. The truly joyous often have lived on the edge of an abyss where they have had to face the glare of despair and learn the laughter of God.

Ripe for Pickin'

One Christmas season I was traveling and played a couple of Christmas CD’s.  One was by Elvis and the other Burl Ives.  As I listened to Elvis, I reminisced about Christmas Past and my mind carried me to a place that I sometimes long to be.  I keep thinking that momma is going to wake me.  Is today real or am I having this long nightmare?  Am I dreaming of the future?  Sometimes I wish I were only dreaming.  Boy, do we live in a messed up world today or what?

I usually ride for miles without listening to the radio or CD’s.   I usually take that time to think about the past, the present, and the future.  It is my meditation time.

As Elvis sang of Silver Bells, Blue Christmases, and Red Decorations on Green Christmas trees, I thought how nice it would be to be home for Christmas.  Only problem is the home I long for only exists in my mind.  I am not speaking of a house, but a time long gone.

As I traveled, I thought how momma made dinner for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These were very special meals and family time.  She was a very good cook, except for fried hamburger, fried chicken, and fried fish.  Everything else was really very delicious.

Most of what she cooked, we harvested and gathered ourselves.  Mom was an impatient gardener.  I can see momma headed to the field with a fork and basket in hand going to dig “taters.”  We never had big potatoes.  Mom would dig them too early.  She loved new “taters” and gravy.

Daddy always made a bed for sweet potatoes.  He would plow them up and we would store them in a bed he made in the ground.  Momma would start baking them and making sweet potato pies before the sweet potatoes cured.  It was the same with green beans, sweet peas, okra, butter beans, corn, and peas.  She never let them mature, or as she would say, especially about sweet corn just off the blister, “Get too hard.”  Boy, those tender fixin’s were sure delicious.

Mom made a wonderful pecan pie.  In fact, we loved any thing that had pecans and loved the pecans raw.  One time I tried to eat a pecan that was not ripe.  It tasted bitter.  Don’t laugh.  I remember a Yankee that came south to show us dumb country rednecks how to run a cement plant and he had never eaten a raw pecan.

My friend Keilan brought a sack full to work.  All the men got two pockets full to eat during the day.  Pecan hulls were everywhere.  This know-it-all Yankee asked what everyone was cracking and eating.  Keilan gave him a handful, showed him how to crack them, and started to walk away.  He had never seen them in the hull and cracked by hand.  The word pecan means nut cracked by rock.  The Yankee cracked the pecans, removed the pecan haves, and started to chew.  Suddenly he spit the pecans out complaining they were bitter.  The dummy did not know to remove the pith lining between the halves.

One time momma made a hickory nut pie.  It was very good, but it was very hard because the nuts were hard to crack and the meat hard to retrieve.  Hickory nuts require a hammer. Needless to say, we did not want many of them.  Hickory nuts make great ammo for slingshots.

One time daddy wanted a persimmon pie.  Persimmons need to be ripe before enjoying.  Each morning I walk to work I pass a persimmon tree that is almost in front of the office.  I have watched with eager anticipation, as they are turning from green to orange, hoping to beat the possums to them.  I have been tempted on several occasions to pop one into my mouth.  Dad taught me a valuable lesson long ago when he had me taste one.  I remember my lips puckered for a long time.  Mature persimmons and persimmon pie are delicious.    

Picking time for the fruit of the land is crucial for consumption and enjoyment.  Growing, cultivating, and harvesting good fruit is a labor of love, yet a challenging task.  Growing up in peach country, I know the difference between a peach picked to eat and one picked for market.  Ain’t nothing sweeter than a fresh peach. 

Momma had a different view of new potatoes as opposed to peaches.  She wanted the peaches ripe.  I will miss her peach cobblers and fried pies again this year.  There is nothing compared to the home grown and home cooked fruit of the land.

Jesus used the analogy of fruit to teach about spiritual growth:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:1-5 KJV)

And, how about Jesus’ birth?  The world was ripe for the coming Messiah.

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son . . . (Galatians 4:4a KJV)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Christmas Cost God Everything

Christmas is a costly time.  It cost God everything.  When all the hoopla, all the sales, all the parties, and all the family are gone, Christmas becomes memory.  My memories about Christmas are different from most people.  The Hopper Christmas was not about presents, but about time together, momma’s cooking, daddy’s being Scrooge, and no school.

I do not remember my first Christmas.  I was twelve days old.  The first Christmas I remember was when I was four or five years old.  It was cold, snow flurries, and the wind was blowing as daddy took me to the Bijou, an old movie house.  Every time I watch It’s A Wonder Life, I have a flashback to the Bijou.  If you remember George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) running down the street in the snow yelling at the Bijou.  It was my first encounter with The Three Stooges, pizza, and salami.  It was in Beloit, Illinois/Wisconsin. 

Beloit was on the state line.  Dad worked in Wisconsin and we lived a few blocks away in Illinois.  No, I am not a Yankee, I was born in Clanton, Alabama, but we moved and daddy worked at the Beloit Iron Works.  My brother David is the Yankee and now you know why I saw snow.  I walked to school in the snow, had a snowsuit, had snow gloves, and snow boots.

After the Three Stooges movie, each boy and girl received a Christmas present.  I never had seen that many presents before.  It was the first time I remember seeing a Santa Claus and he was very intimidating for a shy, small Alabama boy.  Each boy and girl sat on Santa’s knee to get his or her presents.  My first encounter was quick.  I did not know what to make of a man in a red suit with  long white hair and a beard.

The fact was that each of the employees of Beloit Iron Works contributed money to the company which bought each boy and each girl presents.  I did not know any better.  I was unfamiliar with the whole Santa Claus thing.

When we moved back to the poverty of Alabama, Christmas was never the same.  In rural Chilton County, there was no Bijou, no pizza, and no salami.  It would be years before I saw the Three Stooges.  I would be out of high school before a Pasquales’ Pizza would open thirty miles from home and stores would sell salami.

Each Christmas dad would be on layoff, Christmas shutdown, or unemployed.  There would be no money for food, much less for presents.  We stopped going to visit cousins. They got lots of neat things that we were not allowed to touch.  Aunts and uncles instructed our cousins to hide their toys until the Hoppers left.

Mom and dad stayed on edge during Christmas.  Mom wanted to decorate the house and dad would get depressed and start acting worse than Scrooge.  Even though not a Christian, he would say that Christmas is about the birth of God’s son, not about all the hoopla that people make it to be.

Every year something always made Christmas hoopla diminish.  During the Christmas season, I have repaired a slipping transmission, replaced a blowout tire, replaced a broken fuel pump, and replaced deteriorated disc brake pads.  At other times, things would happen like the dryer element burning out, the pickup engine blowing up, and the well pump going bad.

There would be the unexpected hospital stay for cancer that would days later take mom’s life.  There would be Christmas Day emergency room visit for stitches to my son Aaron’s mouth where he tried to run through a barbed wire fence.  Trips to therapy for a bulging disc caused from the stress of layoff, mother dying with cancer, wife pregnant with no insurance, and college tuition for upcoming term due.

The first Christmas without dad was tough and the first one without mom was real tough.  The first Christmas with my oldest son Andy was exciting.  He was almost a year old and was happy playing in a box of Christmas paper.  The one with my daughter Angela was challenging.  She was three months old and had colic.  The one with Aaron was special.  He was seven months old and was fun to watch.

My first Christmas as a married man,  I bought dad a unique shotgun, a collector’s item the first year he owned it, mom an electric guitar, my sister a beauty salon style hairdryer that looked like a giant hornet nest, one brother a cassette player, and the other brother a starter guitar.

When I imagine Joseph and Mary’s first Christmas, today’s hoopla misses the point.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger (Luke 2:13-16 KJV)

Clumsy Soggy Bottoms

Experiencing a growth spurt in my early teens, I became a maladroit athlete.  Another word for maladroit is clumsy.  I learned how to stumble without serious injury by learning to hit and roll.  In fact, I made it an art, which was a great attribute to possess being a practice dummy for the senior high football team that kicked and knocked me around quite regularly.

Shouldering paper wood and walking in the woods through honeysuckle vines and saw briars was a great learning tool for the art of stumbling.  It is amazing how many of nature’s creeping plants can grab hold of a size 12 boots.  Stumbling with a large stick of paper wood, you learn quickly how to fall without serious injury.

My junior year, I remember one night I intercepted a pass and headed for a touchdown.  I had two blockers, who should have been blocking, along side of me as I headed for the end zone.  The only man to beat was the quarterback and we were behind him.  He chased, and at the last minute, drove to catch only the tip of my right cleat.  I stumbled, falling short of the end zone.  I went rolling head over heels like a ball.  We did not score and eventually lost 14-13.  I watched the play on film and the quarterback barely touched the tip of my toe.

Most people, who stumble, will jump up readily and look to see if someone is watching.  The other day I stumbled on one of the boards I use for a ramp into my shed.  It has flipped me on several occasions but I have always landed on my feet.  That was until the moment when my neighbor was watching.  The board tilted throwing me toward the shed.  Wanting to preserve my face, actually not wanted any more scars, I used the poise of a ballet dancer to turn while flying through the air, soutenu en tournant,  and toward a host of scar making items.  With the grace of a meteorite striking the earth and the sound of an elephant falling into a room full of brass cymbals, I miraculously landed sitting upright in the garage door.

Thinking of a moment that could have earned me a spot for the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos, except that no one was filming, I heard my neighbor holler, “Are you okay?”  I was until I realized what a sight he saw.  I assured him that it looked and sounded more melodramatic than it was.

One Memorial Day my good friend and minister of music, Bill Baker, took my son Aaron and me fishing on a slough converted into a lake on the Tombigbee west of Demopolis.  We bought some minnows, called “menners” in Chilton County, and headed to a great day of crappie fishing.

I got concerned about the size of the boat for the three of us.  Bill assured me that it was big enough as we bypassed a larger one.  Bill would be running the trolling motor so he wanted a boat he could navigate more easily.

We put the boat in the water and again I questioned the size of the boat to the size of us three.  Bill said, “Preacher you get in first, Aaron can sit in the middle and I will sit on the front.”

Slowly I maneuvered my way to the back, a floating boat is an accident waiting to happen, trying not to stumble and fall into a cold lake.  I had already experienced stumbling on a rebar on a bridge and falling backwards, while holding and bending to rebars, into a muddy creek where the high for the day was 14 degrees.  Did you know that cold water will take your breath?

I made it to the back of the dinghy, small boat, and as I sat on the bench, the water came within an inch of the rim of the top of the boat.  I told Bill I thought we needed the bigger boat.  He assured me that it would be okay and he told Aaron to get it.  Aaron, size 15 boot, tripped on the ice chest between the front and middle seats and fell into my lifted and out-stretched arms.  I broke his fall and kept him out of the lake, but the dinghy sank to the bottom of the lake with me holding my precious baby boy in my arms.  I had visions of the sinking of the Titanic.  For a moment I knew how the Egyptians must have felt when the Red Sea came crashing in on them.  I watched the water come over the boat like a miniature Niagara Falls wetting me to under my armpits.  I was glad we were near the bank or we would have perished. 

Bill, holding the rope to the boat and I think humming Taps, bent over with laughter, fell to the ground, and rolled on the bank laughing to the high heavens.  Aaron made excuses for stumbling and we became the other famous “Soggy Bottom Boys.”  We were not men of constant sorrows, but men who got the bigger boat and had a great day of fishing, teasing, and laughing, with soggy bottoms.

We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2a NIV).

Now to Him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory in great joy.   To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen, (Jude 24-25 ASV).

Stressed Spelled Backwards is Desserts

Why is it that Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday eating causes weight gain?  It is hard to understand how an ounce of cake turns into a pound of fat over night and that same pound of fat takes two weeks of hard work in the gym to remove.  Five Christmas parties equal ten New Year Resolutions that are broken by the time Valentine’s Day arrives.

Things like this make the holidays depressing.  I do not know about most people, but when I get depressed, I eat.  A super-sized order of Big Mac, fries, and diet Dr. Pepper help my depression.  If I cannot get the Big Mac, desserts will help drive depression away.  You do know that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

Preaching is a stressful job.  Just think of all the eating invitations that preachers receive.  I know I do not look like it, but I am a picky eater.  I always try to please cooks and people who prepare meals for me.  One can never afford to make the cook angry.  I get stressed thinking about what might be in my Big Mac if the cook is angry.  I have heard horror stories about foreign object allowances in our food during processing.  It is depressing and Big Mac time.

I have had a few occasions where I have worried.  One time Mama Green invited our family over for Sunday dinner.  Before being a pastor I was supply preaching at Mama Green’s church.  Mama Green was a short, bent, lady.  She had a contagious laugh and infectious love for the Lord.  As she readied the table, my family, along with another couple from the church, looked at all of Mama Green’s earthly goods.  She had some neat stuff in a slightly unkempt house. 

She filled her table with large bowls of good old country cooking.  It was a table right out of Miss Manners or Dear Heloise.  Gathered around the table, Mama Green asked the husband of the other couple to say grace.  We started the feast.  Did you know that kids could embarrass you?  My daughter Angela tried that day.  She spotted a large roach crawling among the food bowls.  She said, “Daddy, there is a big roach on my plate.”  Boy, I’m glad Mama Green was hard of hearing.  When Mama Green asked what the dear little girl wanted, I think I patched it by saying that she wanted some pig roast or a big piece of roast.  I motioned and whispered to Angela that it was okay.  It made the meal a little more difficult to eat.

That’s almost as bad as the time we were eating green beans and my baby son Aaron found a worm.  I told him that the worm was full of green beans and the worm added a little more meat flavor.  Angela removed it from his plate and Aaron does not eat green beans.

One Sunday afternoon we were frying some French fries.  We kept smelling this foul order and could not find the source.  That was until we dumped the fries along with a French fried green lizard.  Aaron responded, “I wondered where my little lizard was hiding.”

I have always had the fear of being on a mission trip to a foreign country and having an exotic meal.  I have heard of missionaries who have been served camel eyeballs, goose intestines, and fish heads.  I'd rather have roaches and worms.

Stuff like that reminds me of a cousin returning home from a hard day’s work, entered his kitchen, and found this delicious aroma.  He removed a lid from a boiling pot and discovered the contents and source of the aroma was a beautiful pink meat.  He used a fork to get some of the tender meat.  It was delicious.  As his wife entered the kitchen, he quizzed her about the meat.  As my cousin chewed a large mouthful, his wife said, “Hog lights (lungs).”  My cousin spit them out, but his wife loved them.

On another invite to a home after church, we gathered around a beautiful arrayed table.  It had all the amenities of fine dining.  The silverware, utensil, and napkins were an etiquette masterpiece for American dining.  I worried how to act, but my worries quickly subsided.  There on the placemat was cat hair.  While we were at church, Old Tom decided he would take a nap on the elegant place mats and napkins.  I am glad I did not get a hairball.

 As you can tell, these things have only slowed me, not stopped me from eating.  If you are depressed from reading this, go get a Big Mac or some desserts.  Remember when invited to a home for dinner; do as Paul told the Corinthians about meat offered to idols.  Do not ask, just eat it.

But fortunately God doesn’t grade us on our diet.  We’re neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it.  But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a Christian still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track (I Corinthians 8:8-9 The Message).

But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak (I Corinthians 8:8-9 NIV).

Scrooge, Lay-off, and Christmas

It is hard to remember every Christmas season I experienced, but a few stand out in my mind.  I remember Christmas 1957.  Santa brought me an airplane.  It was silver and black and had a friction mechanism that the more you pushed it before you let it go the faster it went.  It also had red lights that blinked as it rolled along the floor.  Unfortunately, it would not fly.  I know because I threw it from the deck of the second floor in the apartment that we stayed.

I remember Christmas 1958.  My sister and I got Zorro suits.  Mom took pictures of us in them.  We looked like matadors ready to fight the bull.  I am pretty sure the pictures were of us, but I could be mistaken because we had on masks like those that the real Zorro wore in the Disney movies.  No one knew who he was, so I'm not sure that is us in the picture.

Christmas 1959 was the last one we spent in the snow in Illinois.  I remember that the tree had lots of presents beneath it.  Mom took a picture of that one too.  One of the presents under the tree is Huckleberry Hound.  Huckleberry Hound was actually a target that had a gun with suction tip bullets. 

I remember that we got lots of guns, toy and real, for Christmas.  That was before the naysayers said that guns caused too much violence.  I guess the naysayers did not have my daddy as their dad.  Dad never allowed us to point our guns, toy or real, at people and pretend to kill them.  If we did, we felt daddy’s wrath.

When we moved back to Alabama, Christmas was not the same as up north.  Alabama, Chilton County especially, did not have the same economical advantages of Illinois.  That is why were moved north in the beginning.  Back in Alabama, dad did not work during the Christmas holidays. 

I remember him coming home with this grim look.  He would tell momma that he was on layoff for the holidays.  He was the junior man on the totem pole where he worked and because business was slow, companies, I called them Scrooges, laid off workers until after the holidays.

I do remember one special Christmas.  We wanted bicycles.  My sister, brothers, and I had suspicions that Santa might not be the real deal.  On this particular Christmas, we were going to stay up and watch to see if Santa actually would come. 

We did not have a fireplace, but we did have a small pot-bellied stove in the southeast end of the house.  We wanted to see if Santa could come down the stovepipe.  It was real small, and crooked, and from all the pictures that we saw, Santa was real big.  We wondered how Santa could keep his suit so clean climbing down chimneys without getting soot on them.

Back then, there were no presents under the tree until Christmas morning.  We went to bed pretending to be asleep, but Mr. Sandman filled our eyes with sleep.  We woke the next morning to see that somehow, some way, that Santa had left us new bicycles.  They were Huffy bicycles.  Mine was red and white twenty-six inches tall.  I rode that bike everywhere I went for years.  Of course, I made several modifications to that bike.  I removed the front fender.  I bent it in a wreck.  I took off the chain guard.  It got bent in a wreck.  I took off the reflectors which got mangled in a wreck.  I also bent the front forks.  That bike was one of the greatest Christmas gifts I ever received. 

As years passed and layoffs came every Christmas, the magic of Christmas vanished.  Magic is that way.  Magicians can make things disappear.  The Hopper family learned what the Magi, not magicians, did.  They were astronomists that studied the heavens and realized that God, a King of the Jews to them, was coming to earth.  They said that they had seen His star in the East and were following it.  They said where is He that born the Kings of the Jews for we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.

We learned that Christmas is about the greatest gift that one can receive.  It is the gift of Jesus.  That is what Christmas is.  It is Christ’s Mass or worship of Christ.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that God sending Jesus to earth was the mystery of the Old Testament revealed in Jesus.  Santa, like Disney, may have a magical kingdom that will one day disappear.  Jesus’ coming ushered an eternal kingdom that is marvelous and will never disappear.

Sometimes I, and perhaps you also, make a wreck of God’s gift as I did with my bike.  My bike was a wonderful gift, but I abused it.  God gives us the gift of Salvation and we experience life’s wrecks.  I thank God for helping through my wrecks.  How about you?

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him (Matthew 2:1-2 KJV).

Hope as the Year Ends

As the football season draws to a close and the football bowl season starts, we know that it is the holiday season.  It is a time of giving thanks, celebrating Christ, ending another year, and making new resolutions.

Family gatherings, festive merriment, and financial exertions will deplete our good nature, drain our energy, and depress our banking accounts.  Each of us will enter the New Year tired.

Take a moment to reflect on the game of football.  It has been said that at a college stadium, there are twenty-two players in need of rest and ninety thousand spectators in need of exercise and that is at the game not counting the hundreds of thousands that are watching on television.

The truth is that the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is everything but a time of Holy day reflection.  Most everyone will start the New Year tired and exhausted.  As my daddy would say about vacations, “Son, I got to go back to work to rest.”

If you are like me, there are times when I have been tired and in need of rest when the unexpected happens.  Suddenly, totally exhausted we must find energy to continue.

While attending the University of Montevallo, I found myself in that situation on several occasions.  One of those times, I was working full time at the cement plant, taking a full course (12 hours) at the University, and pastoring the Brierfield Baptist Church.  I worked rotation shifts at the plant and had to swap my day shifts and evenings for evenings and midnights.  Truman, the co-worker that I swapped, loved the conditions.  I needed to do what I thought would help me live my call in the ministry.

After working a Saturday midnight, I went home, took a nap, got up, showered went to church, preached, ate dinner, took a nap, went to church, went home, and went to work Sunday midnight.  Monday morning I showered at the plant, and went to classes at the University.  My last class was physical education, a course in tennis.  I played tennis with an eighteen-year-old girl who beat me every class.  I was thirty-five and running on caffeine having not slept much since starting midnights.

I got home needing to get some rest before working Monday midnight.  Getting ready to sleep I got a call from the cement plant to report to work.  The evening shift man did not report to work and there was an emergency.  I tried my best to convince them that I had no sleep and could not work.  I was an oiler on the cement kilns.

Have you ever noticed how plant safety or any other employee rules go out the window in times of emergency?  The evening supervisor told me that if I needed to sleep, I could sleep in the control room.  Sleeping on the job meant termination on normal days.

I went to work and pulled a double, working the evening shift and the midnight shift.  I was tired on Tuesday morning.  I took a good hot shower at the plant and went to two classes at the University.  When I got home Tuesday afternoon, I died for a few hours.  By the way, I did not sleep on that double shift.  I worked for those sixteen hours.

Life is full of times when trouble comes when needing rest.  We have all been there.

After a very exhausting day of ministry and work, Jesus instructed the disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee.  While in route to the other side, a violent storm arose.  The area in which the disciples were caught in the storm was not an area where storms usually occurred.  It was dark and the boat tossed back and forth causing the disciples to panic.  It is bad when veteran fisherman panic.  Jesus was asleep in the bottom of the boat, but He got up to serve.

There is a lesson for us.  The disciples forgot that hope, Jesus, was in the boat.  They wanted to rest but they had to serve, wanted to rest but had to work, wanted to rest but had to pray, wanted to rest but had to continue, and wanted to rest but had to glorify God.

And the same day, when the even was come, He saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.  And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship. And there were also with Him other little ships.  And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.  And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?  And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And He said unto them, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?  And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, what manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:35-41 KJV)

Life is Precious and Brief

I love visiting the Brierfield Café.  Located in Brierfield, just southwest of Montevallo, the Brierfield Café has the finest pork barbeque and the best, fried, green tomatoes in Alabama.  The café is the dream-come-true work of a former church member and friend, JoAnn.  The finest barbeque, the best fried green tomatoes, and a hug from JoAnn is hard to turn down, especially when she says, “You will always be my pastor.”

Each time I dine there, JoAnn always asks, “Who died?”  It seems that most of the time when I patronized her establishment, I am back home to attend or conduct a funeral.  This particular time, I was there to spend a Friday night and Saturday working on my farm, Sugar Ridge.  As I entered the café, Mary, another old friend, hollered to us.  Mary is the president of a bank in Montevallo and wife of a famous Birmingham radio Deejay.

Mary said she needed me to do her a favor.  “Would you go visit Truman?”  Truman, her ex-husband was dying with cancer.  Mary said that he did not have long to live. 

I worked with Truman for eighteen years.  He was a short, thin man with a beard and mustache.  I will never forget the first time I met him.  He asked me if I had my union jacket.  It was my first day at the cement plant.  I was under a ninety-day probation period and not a member of the Union.  I gave him a puzzled look and he said, “You need to ask the plant manager to give you a union jacket.”

Having worked on union jobs before, I replied, “I may look like a dumb country boy, but I did not fall off a turnip green truck yesterday.” Truman laughed.  That same day while shoveling cement from top a roof, Truman told me to ask the plant manager if he could get us one of those big roof fans to blow the cement dust away from us when we dumped it off the roof.  I have never figured out why little men think big men are stupid.

Truman was a Viet Nam vet.  I would tell him from time to time that I appreciated his service to our country.  Viet Nam Vets were not honored, as were Vets of other wars before or after Viet Nam.  Like most Vets, he did not talk much about the war.  I would tease him, along with several other Viet Nam Vets that one of the reasons we did not win in Nam was because they were all little men like the Viet Cong.  He would remind me that I was too big a target.

I visited Truman the next morning as I promised Mary that I would.  As I entered the room where he lay, he smiled.  I forced a smile seeing a small skeleton with skin stretched over it laying in a fetal position.  I reminisced of all the pranks and fun we had together.  One of the things coworkers and I would do is when Truman started his aggravation, and he was worst than a gnat on a hot sweaty afternoon, was to grab him up and clean the floor with his bottom side.  He would always jump to his feet and yell, “My pants are on fire!”  By the way, the tile floor looked good afterwards.

After becoming a pastor, I convinced Truman to attend church with me at Brierfield Baptist.  It tickled Mary that Truman was in church.  Truman had an addictive personality.  He was addicted to smoking, drinking, pornography, and gambling.  These, especially gambling, led to the divorce of Mary and Truman.  I felt that if Truman accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, he would be a dynamic believer.

With these memories racing through my mind, Truman and I shared what would be our last moments together.  He tried so hard to talk, but the drugs and pain mumbled his speech.  I had to know if he was ready to meet God.  I leaned close to his mouth trying to hear what he had to say.  I thought he was trying to tell me he wanted me to do his funeral.  His wife said that Truman had accepted the Lord a few months earlier.

On the night before another visit to see Truman, I bumped into another former coworker.  I told him that I was going to visit Truman.  He said, “They buried Truman last Wednesday.”

Don’t live carelessly, unthinking.  Make sure you understand what the Master wants.  Don’t drink too much wine.  That cheapens your life.  Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.  Sing hymns instead of drinking songs!  Sing songs from the heart to Christ.  Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:17-19 The Message)

Thankful Hearts

The Hoppers were never big on holidays because we used them as days to catch up with work around the house.  At other times, we would be cutting, splitting, loading, and unloading firewood.  Daddy always reminded my brother and me that cutting firewood warmed you twice.  When we asked how, daddy would say it warmed you when we cut it and it will warm us when you burn it.  Looking back, I have fond memories of spending a cold day in the woods working with daddy and my brothers.  I really miss it!

I usually grill out steaks for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I remind folks I can get turkey and ham when I visit relatives.  There are not many leftovers when we grill.

When I was growing up we did not cook out, but we did slaughter hogs and roasted some tenderloin on the fire before the pig had time to get cold.  There is nothing any better than homemade sausage and momma’s biscuits.  Part of the fun of slaughtering hogs was grinding the sausage and having momma tweak the seasoning of the sausage trying to get it just right.  We were her guinea pigs having to sample each batch until she got it just right.  If you have never eaten a sausage biscuit outside in the cold with your hands smelling like pigs, your nose running, and your tongue burning from steaming coffee, you ain’t ever lived.

The Hoppers loved eating during the holidays.  Thanksgiving and Christmas were the two holidays that momma cooked special: fried pies, homemade cookies, and cakes.  Every day, when we could afford it, momma cooked a seven-course meal for supper.  Two things always on the table were green purple hull peas and fried Irish potatoes.  I once told momma that if I ever got grown I would never eat peas and taters again.  I hate I told her that and I sure do miss momma’s peas and taters.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas momma “showed out.”  There was something for the most finicky eater.  Momma could fix the best dressing.  Every year she would almost ruin it by cooking it.  We liked it raw and loose.  Sometimes I would sneak some out of the pan and eat it before momma browned it.  I always accused her of burning it.

Momma always insisted that she had to cook it.  Everything she put in it was already cooked.  The broth, the cornbread, the crackers, the bread, and the eggs were cooked so it was not raw, and we did not like it like a cake, but momma had to put it into the oven to brown it.  If mamma was happy, then everybody was happy.

Everyone ate at the table or tables.  It was family time.  Daddy always, even the years as a lost man, called on someone to say grace.  Every time we put our feet under the table, we gave thanks to God for providing us with something to eat regardless, how far down on the hog we got or how bare the cupboard was.  I remember the days when there was no hog, no milk, nothing but bare shelves, so we were thankful when daddy and momma were able to provide a bountiful meal.

Thanksgiving is truly a time for being thankful, yet we live in a very unthankful world.  We live in a time of entitlement.  God blessed and we worked hard to have plenty.  God has blessed us much as a nation, but many do not realize this.  Thankful hearts recognize the blessings of God at all times.  Momma and daddy taught us to be thankful in times of want and in times of plenty.

As believers, we have an obligation to teach unthankful people a lesson.  The Apostle Paul writing to Timothy gives thanks even though the apostle’s future was bleak.  Paul faced death by execution. “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;  Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.”

Here are some things which he gave thanks.  Paul was thankful to be a believer with a Christian family to have true joy, true devotion, and true prayer.  He was thankful for friends bonded by tears, by happiness, and by yearning.  He was thankful for a faith that came from teaching the Scriptures.  He had a faith that came by being one believer witnessing to many unbelievers.  Paul had a faith rooted in the promise from those of Timothy’s family that would be from generation to generation.

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given
Jesus Christ, His Son.

Time With Daddy

I loved spending time with my daddy.  His life experiences were something that I wanted to know and to share.  He grew up during the Great Depression without a dad.  Granddad Hopper committed suicide when daddy was eleven years old in 1935.  Granddad Hopper, gored by a steer and suffering a stroke, was plagued with depression and paralysis. By his early forties, he shot himself in the head with a shotgun. He believed he had no reason to live.

Granny Hopper, dad’s mother, was a sharecropper, widow woman, and a mother of eight during the Great Depression and daddy would tell how the family struggled to survive.  I remember one of the houses that Granny Hopper lived in for many years.  It was high off the ground, had wide crakes in the floor, and had no inside plumbing.  In fact, the kitchen was a separate building adjacent to the house.

I thought it amazing that dad lived there most of his life.  I was glad that it was not the house where granddad killed himself.  I think that is why we lived in our house for many years without many modern amenities that other folks had, such as hot water and a bathroom. Dad was not accustomed to them.

Dad served in the Army during the second Great World War.  He had been to Texas, California, North Africa, and Italy.  He had been wounded by an exploding grenade and ripped open by a machine gun blast.  He was left for dead and had been captured.  He was in the hospital when General Patton became infamous for slapping a soldier.

I thought daddy was intriguing.  He had been to so many exotic and interesting places.  He knew so many different people from all walks of life.  He would tell us some of the most interesting stories.

I loved to lay out in the yard with daddy in the evenings.  He would come home from a hard day of logging.  I have a vivid memory of him coming home all sweaty and dirty from working in the woods.  After supper, daddy loved momma’s cooking, we would get an old blanket and lay in the yard and watch the sunset. 

The hill where we lived provided the most gorgeous sunsets.  In the twilight, we would listen as the crickets and frogs serenaded us.  We would watch the bats dive for bugs as the stars began illuminating the heavens.  Daddy would talk of how the Old Master created all the heavens.

On our backs and looking in to heaven, we watched falling stars, planes traveling to and fro, orbiting satellites, which he called Sputniks, and sometimes far off lightning.  He would thump a cigarette into the grass and tell us that the crickets were having a weenie roast as the smoke swirled upward.

When daddy started to work evening shift (three to eleven p.m.), our times outside in the yard were fewer, but we spent time out there when we could.  I could not wait for daddy to get home when he worked evenings.  I was happy to see that he came home.  I worried that something might happen to him because he worked with heavy equipment at the rock plant in Calera.

Daddy would always have something left over in his lunch bucket.  It was usually a Colonial honey bun which he picked up on the way to work and did not have time to eat it or may he left it to see the scuffle between my brothers, sister, and I to be the first to open it.  It was fun to share the honey bun, but it felt wonderful that daddy was home.  Oh, the joy of seeing daddy come home.  I knew daddy had to leave home to earn a living for the family and I knew he would come back.  It reminds me of Jesus’ promise.

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also (John 14:2-3 KJV).

The Process

“The higher you go the broader your horizon” come to me one day standing atop a limestone silo at the cement plant.  I had heard a missionary speak those words and they resonated with me.  God gave those words to me in a moment of “egoitis” atop that silo.  Egoitis is my word when you think more on yourself than you should.

I had finished college, pastored my first church, and returned to the cement plant after a five-year layoff.  I was discouraged having resigned that first church.  Called, ordained, graduated, and resigned, I was alone on the silo covered with a massive spill of crushed limestone.  At the moment, it seemed that my supervisors were having fun placing me on the silo with hard labor as their intent and humiliation as their goal.

Semi-depressed, I stood there breathing the sulfur exhaust from the limekilns, dressed in steel-toed boots, hardhat, safety glasses, goggles, leather gloves, and a number two flat shovel.  I peered through the steam from the lime hydrator observing the massive quarry walls.  I wanted to be a pastor of a church.  What was I doing here?  Why could I not get a church?  Why were four years of pastoral preparation through university training regressing to pre-college employment at the plant?

As I studied the quarry, I remembered what I learned in history, geology, and science classes about the limestone. The quarry walls were the result of innumerable tiny sea shells silted and forged together by pressure after the deluge of Noah.  The layers of limestone were slanted rather than being vertical or horizontal towering about 200-300 feet from the quarry floor to the surface.

I questioned God and He reminded me of my calling using the limestone.  For thousands of years the limestone was the resting place of dead sea creatures in tiny shells.  One day someone drilled into those solidified shells and filled the holes with explosives.  After the blast, limestone of all sizes flew separated from the bedrock.

Giant machines recovered the limestone of various sizes and hauled them to a primary crusher.  The primary crusher hammered large limestone into smaller pieces.  Some pieces went through the crusher untouched.  Most all of the limestone went to a secondary crusher by conveyor belt where the stone was hammered smaller. 

Some stone fell by the wayside and some stone was untouched as it continued to climb to a third crusher, which hammered the stone again.  Some stone continued, some fell by the wayside, and some was untouched as it continued up to the silos of the cement and lime kilns.  Limestone headed for the cement kilns would be mixed with iron ore, aluminum, and other materials then pulverized. 

The pulverized material would be cooked in the cement kiln at @2200 degrees forming balls of various sizes which went to another crusher which sized them to travel to another crusher which pulverized the balls and Gipson to make cement.

Limestone that went to the limekilns went to another crusher which sized the stone into small stone called rice, #2 rock, and #3 rock.  These three sizes were cooked converting them into lime.  Lime goes through a small crusher and then to a hydrator, placing the water back into to make hydrated lime.  Hydrated lime is used in thousands of products.  Water purification relies heavily on hydrated lime.  Cement mixed with lime makes mortar mix.

As I studied this process from the quarry to bridges, houses, dams, and everything lime that utilizes cement, crushed rock, and lime I realized God was showing me that each of us is transformed differently.  One day God took my spiritually dead life and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Dunamis the Greek word for power and is the root word of dynamite.  I was one of those stones that had to be crushed to be useful for the Kingdom.  My egoistis had me looking at other preachers who seemingly were unscathed, who had churches, and who were prospering.  I immediately thought of pouring concrete in a bridge.  There cement, which had pulverized limestone mixed with limestone of various sizes that could have come directly from the quarry, untouched except by the initial explosion, mixed together and solidified make a bridge for travelers to pass.  That was a marvelous revelation.  It is a possess to get where God wants you.

I turned to that massive spill, the neglect and irresponsibility of some cement employee, and started the possess of returning limestone into the silo.  It was not long before other laborers appeared and started their turn in humility.  When they complained, I reminded them that someone had to cleanup the mess of someone’s neglect.  That’s what God did at Calvary.

Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6 KJV).

Some Things We Never Forget

Our eyes are recording devices capturing images and storing them for retrieval when remembering or taking time for refection.  The birth of that first child, their first bike ride, first prom, graduation, and wedding are pictures that stay with us.  These “memo graphic” snapshots and “memo recordings” bring smiles or laughs.

Then, there are those pictures recorded in our minds we wish we had never seen.  These images wake us in the night, preoccupy our thoughts in the day, and scare us in the twilight.

Some images trigger forgotten or suppressed images.  Such is the case of Martin.  I met him when I trained as a die setter for Keystone Metal Moulding Corporation.  He was my lead man and die setting mentor.

Martin was frail and pale from a gunshot wound, a 22-caliber bullet pressed against his spine.  He claimed that he tried to commit suicide.  Most of the scuttlebutt around the plant was that Martin’s wife shot him.  As a nineteen-year-old kid, I knew that one does not commit suicide by shooting oneself in the stomach.

Martin’s wife was beautiful, but very unfaithful.  I had never been around very many adulterous people out in the sticks of my youth.  My familiarity with running around was wind sprints at football and chasing pigs.  I did discover that there were some very promiscuous people in my family and other family who “lived across the tracks.”

Keystone Metal Moulding Corporation was a very promiscuous plant.  It was so bad that I would not tell people I worked there.  It was an eye opener for this naïve kid.  The things said and the things I witnessed at the plant would make Corinthian sailors blush.  With this licentious environment, Martin’s exposure to mockery and tease were common as the daily news that another jealous husband was interrogating every male’s exit from the plant.  I could not believe how Martin laughed and cut up when the unfaithfulness of his wife was the topic for the day.

To appease his wife, Martin bought her a new house trailer and a new 1973 Ford Gran Torino.  The Gran Torino was the hit as a muscle car and it was good looking, red with a black vinyl top and mag wheels.  I wondered how these things could corral an unfaithful wife, but I was unfamiliar with hedonist world of infidelity.  I knew good-looking hot rods attracted girls, so why not a wandering wife?

Martin hitchhiked to work and I would carry him home after work.  We worked the evening shift.  One cold winter night it was sleeting.  I have this “memo recording” of my old Plymouth’s wipers pushing the sleet on the windshield.  Vacuum wipers have an unrhymed movement and the sleet rolled against the window.

Martin lived less than two miles from the plant.  As we passed the Friendship Baptist Church parking lot, a church I would pastor years later, I noticed a Red Gran Torino under the security light.  I said, “That’s looks just like your wife’s Torino.”  He joked that she must be running around on him again and said, “That’s not her car.”  I used to pride myself on identifying cars and I knew that it was his wife’s car.

Remember its cold, sleeting, and after midnight when I take Martin home.  I pulled into Blacksnake Trailer Park to Martin’s trailer and there is no Torino there.  I wait for Martin to enter the trailer door and then he motions me to come.  The sight I saw is one of those things you never forget.  There on a doormat on a cold trailer floor were three little girls curled together just like small puppies.  One was wearing a diaper and the other two were wearing panties.  They wore no tops just a diaper and panties.  The oldest was three or four years old and said, “Momma’s out with a man.” 

My heart broke.  The sad thing was that none of the three was Martin’s daughters and all three had different daddies.  I stood there in amazement and disbelief.  Martin was angry, but always defended his wife’s infidelity.  Martin eventually lost all he owned and lived with his in-laws.  The bullet against the spine and his wife’s unfaithfulness eroded his health.  One night I received a phone call saying that Martin placed a 410 shotgun to his heart and committed suicide.  I had never witnessed a man who loved such an unfaithful wife that he could not live without her.  The memory of three little girls curled on a rug is an image I shall never forget and puts a face on Gomer in The Book of Hosea.

The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord (Hosea 1:2 KJV).

A Country Bumpkin

Brenda was dissatisfied with her church and longed to return to her Baptist roots.  She wanted her young daughter to have the same Biblical foundation of faith that her mother had provided for her.  There was something missing at her current church that the rural provided.

Brenda and her husband were faithful church members, were active in church work, and were practicing pharmacists.  He was persuing a law degree and she was persuing her heart.  They discussed her desire and he encouraged her to find a Baptist church that would help her in her journey.

He did have a criterion for her in choosing a church.  First, the church of her choice needed to be one in town and not out in the country.  Second, wanted her to choose a church were the pastor had an education, preferable college and better if was seminary and not one with a backwoods Baptist preacher.  He had the same concern for their daughter, as did she.

Third, he requested that she visit the church where the local physician, a family friend, attended.  Another friend, a local insurance agent, her baby sitter, and several other friends attended the same church.

Brenda decided to visit the church were their friends attended.  When she arrived, she giggled as the preacher greeted her at the entrance.  She giggled because the church that her husband wanted her to attend had a country preacher.  Shocked by the greeting, Brenda hesitated a moment.  When she saw friends, she darted toward them.  Her thoughts swirled in her head as she thought what kind of mess I have gotten into this morning.  She could not wait to see her husband that afternoon when he returned home from work.

Brenda enjoyed the music during the worship.  She was taken as the preacher took time with the children during what was called pastors’ pals.  The country twang of the preacher had grasped her attention.  Over and over, she thought of her husband’s admonition, “Don’t attend a church that has a backwoods preacher.”  It was his suggestion to attend this church.

Brenda felt a little more at ease with the old familiar Baptist faith hymns, the warm welcome of strangers, and affirmation of friends.  When the preacher announced his text, Brenda thought, “This sure will be interesting.”  The preacher’s text was Revelation 6:5-6, “The Black Horse.”

Brenda had been a student of the Book of Revelation and understood how symbolic and controversial the Book of Revelation is.  The country-bumpkin’ preacher had her attention.  He spoke of demographics, famine, and poverty.  He quoted Dr. Billy Graham’s book, Storm Warning.  He spoke of twenty-six million people are at risk to famine in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Malawi, Angola, and Mozambique.  He told how civil war rages and conspires with drought to create famine. He spoke of false religion and apostasy of the white horse, and war of the red horse leading to famine and pestilence. He told how the human sufferings of the black horse are ahead if we fail to keep the commandments of God. He preached of the starving in Africa and Asia contrast the $15 billion dollars spent on diet formulas and $22 billion spent on cosmetics in North America and Europe.  He spoke of the problem is not all shortage, but distribution.  He spoke of the poetry and literary content of Revelation and that resonated with Brenda.

Brenda could not wait to see her husband.  She said, “You are not going to believe what I heard today.  You know the warning you had about the country-bumpkin preacher . . .” 

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine (Revelation 6:5-6 KJV).

I see Brenda and Mark from time to time.  They remain faithful servants at the church where they heard the country-bumpkin preacher.  Brenda still giggles when she sees me.

Remembering 911

It is hard to believe that it has been seventeen years since the events of 911.  That day changed America.  I watched a special on television the other night about Flight 93.  The program had the actual recordings of the flight moments prior to our heroes taking back the airplane.  It was sobering as program ended with the pictures of the heroes and their names scrolling in alphabetic order.

Every time I see the planes hitting the Twin Towers I remember where I was and what I was doing.  I remember the following Sunday and how Gallion Baptist Church was packed.  I felt a loss for words. I trusted that the Holy Spirit took what words I said and used them to touch hearts.

From time to time when I think of 911 I think of Joe.  I do not know how to spell Joe’s last name.  I think it was Giano.  We talked only once.  It was September 1994 on the picket line at the entrance to Blue Circle Cement in Calera, Alabama.

Norred Security, under contract with Blue Circle Cement Incorporation, had painted a line across the driveway entrance to plant and placed guards along the line to prevent the employees of Local Union 50537 United Paperworkers’ International Union from entering the plant.  Hourly employees voted to strike on August 4, 1994.

Joe was one of the guards.  He, along with all the other guards, was very intimidating in both looks and actions.  The guards knew everything about every employee.  We knew nothing about them other than their boss who introduced himself to the union president and me.  I was a member of the negotiating team and spokesman for all the union responses.  I dialoged with the boss on several occasions.

After the fourth week, Joe walked to the “line drawn in the proverbial sand” and said, “Bobby, come over here.”

I responded by saying, “I ain’t got time to waste on you.”

It was the first time I had a conversation with him.  He was sincere and continued to ask me to come over to the line.  On several occasions I, along with other picketers, would walk up to the line to see the security guards reactions.  We had several confrontations with them away from the picket line.  Our confrontations were usually verbal.  Sometimes we joked with one another.  We were smart enough not to do anything stupid or threatening.  I would always tell the men not to tell me anything.  I wanted to be honest and not lie when asked about something that happened on or away from the picket line.

I walked up to the line and Joe extended his hand across the line.  I stood there and pondered what he was doing.

Joe said, “My name is Joe Giano.  I am a New York City cop.  I want to shake your hand.  The Union president and you have been gentlemen during this strike.  Norred Security has tried everything to intimidate you and you have been perfect gentlemen.  My grandfather brought the union to New York City from our homeland in Sicily.  I want to wish you guys good luck.  I’m going back to New York.”

I asked him what he was doing in Alabama.  He told me that he took four weeks vacation every year to work strikes.  He said he belonged to the police union in New York City.  He said Norred Security paid big money to help bust unions and stop strikes.

Joe said it was a pleasure to get to know me.  Boy did he know me.  A company friend told me later that they knew everything about my life.  They knew my finances, my debts, my friends, my family, my enemies, everything.  It was daunting knowing a company had that kind of information on you.

On the morning of 911 I wonder where Joe was and what he was doing.  I would like to think that he was one of the heroes that day.  I pray that my witness was such that it gave him a new perspective about God, about his family, and his calling in life and helped him on that tragic day.  I would like to see Joe again, this time under better circumstances.

Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.  In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you (Titus 2:6-8 KJV).