The Right to Vote

 It was a November evening in Alabama.  The Hopper family loaded into a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne and headed to Posey’s Crossroads.  It was Election Day.  Day had changed his election voting location from Randolph, Alabama to Posey’s Crossroads which was less than a half mile from our home.

Dad had moved us back from Beloit, Illinois in March 1960.  Dad had been registered in Randolph even while we lived in Illinois from1957 to 1960.  This had to be 1964 and one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Mom, my sister and two brothers sat in the Chevy as dad entered the polling building which was a car shed which exists until now.  Things in the ballot house started to deteriorate when they refused to allow daddy to vote.    He had returned back to the house to get the legal documents that verified that daddy had changed his voting place.  

Dad walked back into the car shed and produced his documents.  What they told dad was that his name was not in alphabetical order and was added to the back of their registration roaster.  The irony was that dad was registered and all the men running the voting were personal friends with dad.  They often played checkers across the road at our local store/filling station at Land Mart.

There was a big commotion building as faces turned red, shouting continued to get loud, and face to face confrontation grew intense.  Then it happened.  Escalating, dad began to roll up his long-sleeved shirt.  We all sat in the Chevy watching something like at the movie drive end.

Momma said, “Bobby, go get your daddy.  Tell him it is not worth it.”  What those so-called friends of daddy did not realize, they were about to feel the wrath of my dad.  It was a defining moment for the Hopper family.

Dad’s rolling of the sleeves was a signal that some serious “butt kicking” was about to explode.  Mom always bought regular shirts for her Hopper man and his three sons.  They never fit because we were not regular.  We were taller and bigger.  I have pictures of us growing up.  Regardless of the sleeve, short or long were worn one to two rolls on them.  When dad got serious, working or kicking butt, he rolled them higher above the bend of the elbow.

When we lived in Beloit, Illinois, daddy worked at Beloit Ironworks in Beloit Wisconsin.  We lived one block from the state line.  One morning after a midnight shift, a raucous began across the street at a tavern named The Brown Derby.  Police were trying to arrest a drunk.  He had escaped and wound up in our back yard.  He had wrapped his arms around on a utility pole.  There the police had handcuffed him there.

Daddy woke from all the commotion and went out to investigate.  He asked the officers what was happening.  They said they could not put the man in the patrol car.  The drunk did something that most Yankees do not take offence but to Good Old Southern men and boys it is the unpardonable sin.  The drunk what’s it to you SOB as he spat in daddy’s face.

Dad slowly removed his wristwatch and his beloved ruby ring and handed them to one of the bystanders as he rolled up his sleeves.  With one bow to the jaw of the drunk, he slid down the pole, the officers thanked dad, undone the handcuffs, and laid the unconscious twice smashed intoxicated man in the patrol car.

The person that took dad’s ring and watch gave them to mom as the neighbors gave dad an ovation.

I went into the voting shed and took daddy by the hand as he rolled his sleeves.  I was almost twelve years old.  Looking at dad with eyes of pity and respect I said, "Momma said to come on that they are not worth it,” She knew dad would do serious damage and be in serious trouble.

The real damage was that we spent the rest of the evening traveling to the county courthouse trying to help daddy vote he never did.

That is one of few times I witnessed my daddy being hurt.  We heard him telling the poll men that he fought and was wounded in WWII, that he paid his pole tax (abolished in 1966), and that he was registered.  None of the men at the polls had ever served in the military.  From that day on, dad never respected or had any relationship with those men.

Not long ago someone posted an Easter picture (below) of my sister, brothers, and me.  People wanted to know, “What’s up with these Hopper boys and rolled up sleeves.”   As Hank Williams Jr., another Alabama boy would say, “It a family tradition.”  We all still do it even though our lovely wives buy us shirts that fit.  It’s a habit and reminder of the right to vote.

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

II Timothy 1:7 KJV 

It is joy to the just to do judgement: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. 

Proverbs 21:15 KJV

Notice the sleeves on the Hopper boys

MIRROR, MIRROR

 

            One of my earliest memories is getting a haircut. I remember sitting on a board on the arm rails of one of Mr. Bratton’s barber chairs. As I looked in the mirror, I could see the barber cutting my blond locks from my small head. I have a very large knot on the back of my head, and, for years, the barber would gap my hair and cut my head. During that first cut the barber pulled my hair, and I have hated a haircut since that time.

            I never understood why Daddy made my brothers and me get a haircut every two weeks. We were very poor, and the $1.50 charge was more than the hourly minimum wage. I think that the other boys being long-haired hippy freaks might have played a major role, but most of the haircuts came before that era.

            The trip to the barbershop was not all bad. While Daddy supposedly ran chores, I would read comic books. There were Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and the Incredible Hulk.

            The most fascinating thing was the barbershop mirrors. Behind and in front of each barber chair were large mirrors. Looking up from deep in the bat cave while reading Batman, I could see the mirrors reflecting one another. It was endless. One reflected the other until it got so tiny you could barely see the reflection, but it kept on going. That was long before the Energizer bunny!

            I do not like mirrors, because they reveal too much. The better the mirror the more flaws one can see. Take the poor stepmother in Snow White. The poor woman was the fairest in the land until the day Snow White became a young woman. I studied Bettelheim's interpretation of fairy tales in college. He said that in fairy tales the wicked stepmother is really the mother who loses the husband’s affection to the budding young daughter. In other words, Snow White became a daddy’s girl. The poor mirror just reflected what stood before it. Father time caught up with the mom.

            My brother-in-law had a revealing experience once in a steakhouse. He was at the potato bar. As he loaded his baked potato, he noticed a man on the opposite side of the bar. The man had a huge potato, covered with cheese, bacon bits, butter, and sour cream. My brother-in-law was amazed at how much the man put on the potato. The potato had so much in it that it spilled over onto the man’s plate.

            My brother-in-law thought to himself, “What a pig!” My brother-in-law noticed that the man stopped when he stopped and started when he started. He thought the man was watching him. He noticed the man’s arm and realized that the man was wearing a red and black flannel shirt, just as he was wearing. The man continued to mimic my brother-in-law’s movements.

            Curiosity killed the cat, so my brother-in-law lowered his head to see who was on the other side—only to see his own reflection in the mirror. The thoughts my brother-in-law had had about the man were really his own condemnation. It always looks worse when we watch someone else doing what we do.

            A colleague of mine said his dad ran an auto repair shop. When he visited there, his dad asked some advice to help him organize the collection of repair manuals he had in his office. My colleague suggested that his dad could put more shelves behind his desk if he would remove a large mirror. His dad told him the mirror had to stay. He said that when customers became angry during a repair, he would invite them into the office for coffee and discuss the problem. He said he never had a customer get irate or even very angry. They would not—because they could see their reflection in the mirror.

            While attending university, I worked in the carpenter’s shop. On one occasion, we placed mirrors in an exercise room for the athletic department. Every piece of exercise equipment in the room had a full-length mirror where a person could see his or her progress. People did not know that it was an experiment.

            Each participant followed the same routine. The first mirror distorted the person’s reflection to make him appear heavier than he actually was. Each mirror targeted a specific part of the body, and the exercise equipment in front of it worked that area. When he completed the workout, he looked in the last mirror, which made him look thinner than he was. The mirrors encouraged people to exercise.

            Mirrors help dentists, mechanics, electricians, welders, and truck drivers see places they normally cannot see. If you drive, you know the importance of a rearview mirror. “Objects are closer than they appear.”

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22–25, NIV)

 

How will the reading of God’s Word aloud help reveal more of God? 

Do you think about being made in God’s image when you see your reflection in the mirror? 

How is the Bible relevant in your life today? 

 

Prayer: Father, thank You for your eternal word that helps us see what we cannot see. Your Word reveals You and helps us see ourselves as You see us. It does not gloss over sin or sinners and does not compromise. Your Word is perfect, and blessings flow when we live it. Help us to be reflections of your marvelous grace and infinite mercy. Thank You for creating us in Your image.

page 26, I Will Speak Using Stories: Thirty-one Day Devotional