Purple Hull Peas and Fried Taters

 

I recollect telling momma that if I ever got grown that I would never eat purple hull peas and fried taters again.  It seems that we ate them every night for supper.  At other times, all we had was googie gravy and biscuits.  For something extra momma would peel a mater (tomato) for the gravy.  Momma was a wonderful cook, but she had very little to make supper during my early teen years.

I remember when dad moved us to Illinois from Alabama.  My uncle Clifton convinced daddy to move there to get a job at Beloit Iron Works.  I commit to memory when we left.  Mom had a few suitcases on the back of an old truck that had the bed removed to haul paper/pulp wood.  She told me to watch the suitcases from the window of the cab of the truck.  I can still see one old brown suitcase in the stack bouncing as she let the truck roll down the dirt road hill to crank it.  The battery was dead.  She pushed the truck and as it started down the hill, she jumped into the cab, pushed the clutch, put the floor shift into gear, and popped the clutch.  We road to the bottom of the hill and she turned around and we began our journey leaving the “Heart of Dixie” to Illinois, the Land of Lincoln.

Daddy moved us into this old wharf rat infested apartment.  I was five years old but I remember how scared momma was.   Momma was twenty-six, my baby sister Diane was two, and we were a long way from the cotton fields of Chilton County Alabama lonely and full of anxiety.  When we arrived, we did not have much to eat so momma fixed some buttered toast and sprinkled it with sugar.  Diane and I did not know any better and thought it was delicious.  It remains one of my favorite things to prepare for a quick snack.  As Diane and I ate our sugar sprinkled buttered toast momma stood guard with a large butcher knife in case one those Yankee wharf rats wanted some of our sweet delights or two small Dixie kids.  I think of  momma imitating Jim Bowie and throwing the butcher knife at the Yankee rat that looked like an Alabama opossum.

We didn’t live in Illinois but about three years. Daddy made us a good living and food got better.  One of our homes had a cherry tree in the backyard.  Momma could fix the best homemade cherry pies.  I love cherries.  I ate my first pizza there.  I used to walk across the street and watch a man in a Chef Boyardee hat tossing pizza dough into the air.  I tasted salami there, drank drinks made from mixing water with fizzies tablets, and ate Wisconsin cheddar cheese.  We lived on the Illinois/Wisconsin line.  We lived in Illinois and daddy worked in Wisconsin.  All I had to do to cross the state line was walk across the creek, which I did almost every day.

Living in Yankee land there were no purple hull peas or fried taters.  Momma got homesick and daddy moved us from the bounty of the North to the poverty of the South.  Daddy had a difficult time finding work in Alabama.  Once again, food was scarce.  I remember my Grandpaw Chapman bringing us food on Saturday mornings until daddy could find work.  I can see him driving up in his old 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe with the passenger seat filled with sacks of groceries.  Daddy thought himself a failure and would not ask for help.  If he were alive today, he would be really ashamed at how people want handouts.  He worked hard to provide with very little yield but at least he worked.

Looking back I never thought of us as poor.  Everybody out where we lived was just as we were.  All of us were still feeling the results of a hundred years Reconstruction.  Momma was doing the best she could with what she had.  As daddy found work and life got better momma could fix the best Sunday dinners.  Her table looked as a buffet at Shoney’s.  Daddy said momma learned to cook while having grown up ‘fixin’ possum and coon.” 

It was humorous realizing that we were eating “high on the hawg” compared to momma.  Purple hull peas and fried taters, even though they got old every night, were better than possum and coon and we knew that Sunday dinner was coming.

I did get grown and went a long time without peas and taters, especially since momma and daddy have passed on into eternity.  We didn’t have the wonderful enmities that folks have today but we did have love.  It amazes me at the panic created by the 2020 COVID 19 virus and the run on toilet paper and groceries.  Heck, I was almost grown before we could afford toilet paper when we moved back to the Heart of Dixie, the land of cotton and outside toilets with Sears’s catalogs and corncobs.

The other day I reminisced and thought, “I wished I could have momma fix me some purple hull peas and fried taters.  Some googie gravy and biscuits wouldn’t be too bad either.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred – Proverbs 15:17 KJV

The More I Attend School, the Dumber I Become

I want to squash a vicious rumor that has slowly circulating around.  As with any rumor, it is hard to locate the source.  Rumors and gossip have a tendency to be bigger and better than reality.  Rumor has it that I am very intelligent or as some say, smart.  Well, It ain’t so.

Truth is you do not know what I do not know.  In the words of the great communicator and master of wit, Will Rogers, “It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.”

My late father-in-law once asked me why I was going to school, referring to seminary, for so long.  I responded by saying that when I was a young man I thought I was pretty smart.  That was until I started classes at the University of Montevallo.  Once I started into the wonderful world of academia, I realized I did not know anything.  I told paw-in-law that the more I went to school the dumber I got.  Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.”

I know that I cannot spell.  I rely heavily on the dictionary, the thesaurus, and the spell check.  That reminds me of my late friend Lamar from the University of Montevallo carpentry shop who talked real slow, but could spell anything.  He asked me how I spelled correctly.  I said, “I use the dictionary.”  With all of his Chilton County Alabama wit he asked, I might add very slowly, “How do you use a dictionary if you don’t know how to spell the word?”  I called Lamar a “Smart Aleck!”  What’s funny is I had to use Roget’s Thesaurus to look up “aleck” while writing this article because spell check could not understand what I was trying to say.

The thing is I appear to be more intelligent than I am.  I enjoy being with intellectual thinkers, theologians, and people of wisdom.  I listen more than I speak and act as if I know what they are discussing.  If I listen long enough, a familiar topic will pop up and I will chime into the conversation.  I remember one time in church they were talking about Communion.  I sat among these church folks and I was clueless.  I had visions of something from a hippie commune or something.  I kept my mouth shut long enough to realize they were talking about the Lord’s Supper.

I like what Christian motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says, It's not what you've got, it's what you use that makes a difference.  He also says, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”  Confucius says, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”

In Seminary, my friends would ask, “How in the world are you an English minor and cannot spell?”  I replied, “Very limited vocabulary.”  During lectures, I was continually asking my friends how to spell theological words and terms.  I remember the professor talking about “exegesis.”  I was clueless to what exegesis was and spelled it Xahjesus.  Hermeneutics was another one.  I spelled it hermahnudecks and was clueless to what it was.  Regardless of what Lamar says, I am glad I had a dictionary at home to look up these words.

I had a pastor friend call and ask me what I knew about “such and such ism” that was the new hot topic in scholarly thought.  Having no clue, I said, “I don’t know, what do you think?”  After a while, I figured out what he was referring and I told him my take on the subject.   Jewish scholar Mivchar Peninim says, “A wise man’s question is half the answer.”

It is always good to ask someone how to act and what to wear when attending special events.  Admitting that you do not know something is a very important step in the road to knowing something.  To know that you do not know is true knowledge.  Knowing when to say I don’t know is very librating.  I like Yogi Berra philosophy that says, “If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.”

It reminds me of a statement from a preacher friend’s sermon on Esther.  It is important knowing what you do not know.  Esther was not afraid to ask for help when meeting the king.

When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her (Esther 2:15 NIV).

 

Happy Birthday Andy

 You are Beautiful

For you are fearfully and Wonderfully made Psalm 139: 14

 

I remember when your momma told me that she was pregnant.  I was so excited that we were going to baby.  Technology to reveal whether a baby was a boy or girl had not been developed.  Your mom had a glow about her as you began to grow inside of her. 

 It was a long hot and dry summer in 1975.  We lived in a second-hand trailer that had been wrecked.  It was all that we could afford and did not have many of the amenities that are commonplace today.  I remember coming in from work at the machine shop in Montevallo to find you mom lying on the living room floor, big belly pointing to the ceiling, cooled by a fan.  I felt so sorry for her as she held you inside.

 Momma and daddy were excited to hear they were having a grandchild.  You would be first and would become the joy of life for them.  We could not wait your arrival.  God blessed us with the excitement of the first Hopper grandchild coming into our lives.  We knew that things would never be the same.  We prayed that you would be a perfect baby with all ten toes and fingers and all the other magnificent things that arrive with the first baby.

 I will never forget the night before you were born.  I was at a brotherhood supper at Union Springs Baptist Church.  I stayed after the meeting playing ping-pong with the Pike boys.     As I left the church, I noticed that the night sky was crystal clear and the moon was full.  I was amazed how beautiful the heavens were not realizing that God was about to hand your momma and me something more beautiful and majestic than that January heavenly view.

 The night air was cold and the old trailer was hard to heat.  Your mom and I went to bed and snuggled up for a good night rest not knowing that in a few moments you would begin your journey in life.

 About two-thirty in the morning your mom woke me telling me that her water had broke and that we were having a baby.  I asked, “Are you sure?”  She said, Yes, I’m sure.  We had some bags packed and ready to go.

 Helping down the old steps of the trailer, I loaded her into the green Cutlass and we started to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham. This was before Interstate 65 was complete and we had to travel US Highway 31.  I did not want to panic so I drove safely to St. Vincent’s.  I remember telling your mom is was cold and saw a bank sign that said it was 14 degrees.  The sky remained gorgeous and I now realized how special that was.  You came on a midnight clear on Sunday morning at 10:22.  News of your anticipated birth spread quickly at church

 As your arrival drew closer, I prayed with your momma and kissed her as they carried into delivery. Back then, they would not allow the fathers back with the mothers.  I waited with several other excited dads.  Finally, a nurse entered the waiting room and said, “Mr. Hopper.”  I stood and she said, “You have a baby boy.”  I was elated, but suddenly I realized the awesome responsibility I now faced.

 When one of the most special moments came, I saw you lying on your mother’s stomach.  She was so happy and you were so wonderfully made.  Happy 45^th Birthday my son.  I love you, dad.

Double or Nothing in a Technological World

 

I like gadgets.  I can spend hours in hardware stores, automotive shops, and electronic shops looking at all the neat things to have at your disposal.  I guess it is a guy thing, but having the right gadget or tool makes all the difference in the world for doing “honey do” projects.  Wow, have some of these electronic wonders changed the way we work and communicate.

Lately though, I have noticed that many electronic gadgets are beginning to be a nuisance.  I have been to several meetings where ultimately, someone’s cell phone will interrupt the meeting with some ridiculous ring tone.  What makes it ridiculous is that the host most often asks each attendee to turn off their phones or if they are expecting that, “all important call” to put their phone on vibrate.

At the last Southern Baptist Convention I attended, I saw the rudeness of many in attendance who were on their cell phones, blackberries, or laptop computers during times of preaching or business.  I am always amazed at how many people attend a conference and the first thing they do is open laptops, now even smaller “notebooks,” and read e-mails and other stuff during meetings.  It makes me want to buy one of those illegal gadgets that jams the frequencies of phones, blackberries, and laptops.

I remember a funeral I attended last year.  It was the mother of a former church member.  This former member is a respected medical doctor and a family friend.  My sister and I sat together, unbelievably, without daddy making us.  That was punishment for fighting when growing up.  I leaned over to her and said, “I bet you a supper that a cell phone rings during the funeral.”  She agreed with the deal.  Right on cue, someone’s cell phone started ringing to the tune of “Sanford and Son.”

I smiled at my sister and said, “Double or nothing I bet another rings.”  She agreed again.   Did I mention that my sister is gullible?  A few moments later, another phone rang.  It was in a lady’s purse and she fumbled for what seemed an eternity trying to turn it off.

Feeling kind-a bad about my sister owing me two suppers, I asked her to go double or nothing again.  I was thinking that by now everyone made sure his or her cell phones were off and sister could break even.  By the way, my sister is a very good cook.  Before the end of the funeral, another cell phone rang.  After the funeral, I told my sister all she had to do was fix one supper.

We have heard lately about the security breeches, the train wreaks, auto accidents, and other disturbing effects that cell phones and text messaging are causing.  I know I have preached at a couple of churches were the young people are text messaging during worship.  Now our young people can pass notes electronically.  It makes me want to text the sermon to them or have God text them, “LISTEN TO THE SERMON.”

I hope I do not sound like I am on a soapbox, but I think that we are losing our respect for one another.  The other day this dude was talking, I thought, to me.  I was having this conversation with him when I realized he was talking to his ear and I was talking to myself.  He wore another gadget makes people look like an alien from a “Sci Fi” movie.

In Wal Mart, two ladies were walking side by side pushing their buggies while talking on cell phones.  I saw four girls in a car on the Interstate all four talking on their cell phones.  Has it gotten that bad that we have to have cell phones to communicate with one another while with one another?

I know that during the holidays it was hard to carry on a conversation with family and friends because they were constantly talking or text messaging to someone.

As we all know too well, cell phones can be critical in keeping us safe and connected. Technology, its myriad of benefits, and all its gadgets are not the issue, people are.

“Some people have gotten so fed up with rude mobile phone users they have turned to illegal cell phone jammers. These devices knock cell phone users off their lines and prevent a reconnection with the cell tower until the user wanders out of range. The rate at which jammers are selling speaks to the lack of manners among yappers.”

Thinking of cell phone etiquette, we need to remember the words of the Apostle Paul.  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32 KJV).  The words of Jesus my express it better.  A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34 KJV).

The next time you are in worship or at a funeral, remember to turn off your cell phone.  It is not likely that God will be using Verizon, ATT, or Southern LINC to contact you and that cute ring tone might not be appropriate.