Cherry Jubilee

I do not remember the first time I ate cherries, but I have always loved them. When we lived in Beloit, Illinois, we had a cherry tree in our back yard. I remember mama baking cherry pie for me every day. She worried that cherry pie was my stable meal after school each day. French fries on the side made it a complete meal.

I love cherries on top of whip cream on top of ice cream. I love cherries straight out of the bottle. I love dried cherries and fresh cherries. I love cherries baked in cookies and cherry jell inside tarts. Pear salad is not complete without cherries. Chocolate covered cherries make parties, get-to-gathers, and weddings divine.

I once received a box of Queen Ann chocolate covered cherries as a school Christmas gift. It was from a poor girl whose family could not afford the required gift. Momma wanted to know what I received. When I told her that I got a box of cherries, she was furious. I enjoyed them and to this very day when I see a box of Queen Anne cherries I think of that fourth grade Christmas party.

I love cherry Coke. Not that stuff with fake cherry favoring, but the ones from the soda fountain made with crushed cherries. It is the same for cherry shakes, malts, or floats. That long-stem cherry on top of a banana split is haven’s treat.

There are many kinds of cherries. There are Bing, Black, Maraschino, Montmorency, Morello, and Queen Anne. When we moved back to Alabama, we had a Black Cherry tree in the back yard. The cherries were tiny and bitter unlike those in Illinois. I learned to hate that tree because it was momma’s switch tree used to whip us.

My favorite cherry is not a fruit but a friend I met while pastor of the Gallion Baptist Church in Gallion, Alabama. He was the father of a church member. His name was Robert Milton Cherry. Everyone called him Milton. The son of a preacher, Milton was one of the Godliest men I have ever known. From 2000 to 2025, I considered him an older brother and spiritual mentor. My son Aaron called him Pawpaw. Milton’s grandson was Aaron’s good friend.

Milton was one of the charter members and deacon of the Fairhaven Baptist Church in Demopolis, Alabama. He was a retired maintenance man from the Rock Tenn Paper Mill in Demopolis, former mayor of Linden, Alabama, volunteer with Campers on Mission, and aera coordinator for Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief and the Bethel Baptist Association.

Milton and I spent many hours ministering together on disaster relief deployments. All deployments were what is termed “Ministry of Inconvenience.” Milton and I were deployed to Miller, Missouri February snowstorm disaster. GPS was new to us and found it vital when deployed to disasters. We were to stay at a Baptist Retreat.

 As were neared the facility, the GPS lady directed us from a major highway to a narrow land road between a pastor. Milton and I stared at one another. The narrow road got smaller and in the missile of nowhere the GPS lady said, “You have arrived at your destination.”

It was dark and snowing. On our left was a shed and one our right a pasture enclosed with barbed wire. We studied our dilemma and thought we must be staying with cows for the trip. I told Milton that I thought I saw a sign a few feet behind us. It was dark and the sign was worn but it was the Baptist Retreat sign.

Miraculously, Milton turned our disaster relief trailer around and we went up the pasture road to find a beautiful retreat center. Ms. GPS brought us back way. Situated on a snow-covered hill, we enjoyed our stay and our work in the fourteen-degree snow. We were not in Alabama anymore.

We were deployed again in December to another Missouri snowstorm with our destination unknown. We were to rendezvous with another Alabama disaster relief team from north Alabama. Our final destination was St. Joe, Missouri which had an abundance of snow.

This deployment a church hosted us. I had fun making Milton laugh by making snow angels. Milton and the crew make fun of me. As Chaplain for the team I ate cookies and sipped hot chocolate as the team worked in the snow. One lady gave me cookies, and I asked her to give them to the team. It did not help my cause.

One morning in the church life center Milton put his arm around me and told me how much he appreciated me. I thought it special. I noticed that I received many smiles that morning before breakfast one the men from north Alabama whispered to me, “Your friends have pulled a trick on you. You have a sign on your back that reads, ‘Will work for food.’” I could always count on Milton to make my day.

I retired and moved back to Jemison, Alabama. I missed Milton coming by the office. One day I went to Demopolis to spend some time with Milton. His health was quickly fading. We shared a few special moments.

At his funeral I shared with his pastor about the “Will work for food” sign. He shared it in Milton’s eulogy. It is good to share special moments with friends and smile when remembering.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity Proverbs 17:17 KJV

Thanks, Milton, for helping me in the hard moments of my being and loving my articles. This one is for you.

 

 

You Tricked Me

I cannot remember the first time someone pulled a trick on me.  I’m pretty sure it was my dad.  Tricks are part of the learning process of life.  I come from a family of tricksters.  My extended families: Hopper’s, Chapman’s, Crumpton’s, Dutton’s, Waldrop’s, Smith’s, Barnett’s, and Clark’s are well schooled in the art of trickery.

One memorable time was on a visit to my Dutton cousins.  They were poor as we were and found entertainment with simple things.  They told me that they wanted to show me something in the woods behind their house.  Following cousins Floyd, Wayne, Larry, and Danny in the woods was fun and exciting.  They were more like older brothers than cousins.

As we trekked up the trail, I paid more attention to my surroundings than I did where I was going.  Suddenly I stepped and I disappeared into a gigantic hole.  I found myself looking up at four laughing cousins peering down.  I felt like a trapped animal about to be speared to death.  They retried me from the hole and showed me how they built the trap.

The hole was formed by stump of a large tree that either had rotted or had been removed for the resin it possessed.  They had placed rotten pine sticks over the hole and then covered the sticks with pine straw.  They showed me how they stepped around the hole allowing me to step into hole. I couldn’t wait to get home and build one for some unsuspecting soul.

School was another place where tricks were fun.  My senior year there was a mump epidemic.  I had already had them.  One of my favorite teachers, Ms. Harvey, was an old maid that had never had the mumps.  I had her for advanced math.

The principal and biology teacher enlisted Tony, my friend and future brother-in-law, to pull a prank on Ms. Harvey.  They gave us some bubble gum, which was prohibited in class, and instructed us to hold the bubble gum in our jaws resembling the mumps.

We went to advanced math and did as directed.  I held my face on my desk and got my face hot and red as did Tony.  Ms. Harvey summoned Tony and me to her desk where she felt our faces to check for fever.  With classmates in cahoots with us, when Ms. Harvey asked if I was okay, classmates told Ms. Harvey that my brothers had the mumps.  They were really home with them!

Ms. Harvey ordered us out.  She was terrified she would catch the mumps.  A couple of our friends pretended they were sick, and she told them to go to the office.  Back then there was no school nurse.

When Tony and I arrived at the office and informed the principal and the biology teacher, they laughed and applauded our diabolical deed.  They told us to return to class and tell Ms. Harvey. 

Ms. Harvey did not appreciate out Academy Award acting debut and became livid.  We told about the scheme orchestrated by the principle and biology teacher.  She said they would never do such an evil thing and expelled us from class.

When we told the principle and biology teacher, they realized their blunder and accused us of taking the trick too far.  Tony and I got demerits.  The joke was on us as the principal and biology teacher put the blame on us.

The cement plant was a perfect place for tricks.  When I operated the cement kilns my oiler and I made a deal about losing weight.  We decided that the first one to lose twenty pounds would be treated to a steak supper and all the fixings by the loser.

I told him to bring a set of scales to the burner floor, and we would weigh and record our weight at the end of our work week and the first shift to the new week.  We worked seven midnight shifts from Wednesday through the following Tuesday and were off two days.  Then we worked seven evening shifts from Friday through the following Thursday and were off Friday.  Day shift started Saturday and went to Friday, and we were off to Wednesday midnight.

My oiler got the scales, and we stated our weight loss competition.  What he did not know was that the scales were used to weigh raw materials.  The scales design was conducive for me to put my little finger on a rod that connected the counterbalance weights and slide that determined our weight.  When we weighed before being off, I made him weigh less.  When we returned, I made him weigh more.  His weight was fluctuating twenty pounds, and it was driving him crazy.

He accused me of cheating that is why I had my hands were where he could see them.  He never realized that my little finger was on the rod that controlled the counterweights.  I carried on the deception for several months.  Our coworkers told me I should be ashamed.

Finally, I showed Allen, my oiler, how I controlled him.  He laughed after giving me a big cussing and threatened to kill me.  

Last year, thirty years later, I had the privilege to baptize him.  Thanks, Allen, for your friendship.

 

The Bible has plenty of tricksters. Here is one from the Book of Joshua 9:3-8 KJV

 

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai,

They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;

And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.

And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, We be come from a far country: now therefore make ye a league with us.

And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Peradventure ye dwell among us; and how shall we make a league with you?

And they said unto Joshua, We are thy servants. And Joshua said unto them, Who are ye? and from whence come ye? 

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)

Ain't No Haint Gonna Run Me Home

I love dark nights when you can see billions of stars.  Things look different at night.  Ordinary objects take life and your imagination begins to run while.  I remember jogging one night on an old dirt road.  It was beautiful until I felt the presence of something behind me.  All of a sudden, I began to imagine this hideous green demon with one red eye breathing down my neck.  Thinking about him floating behind me, I picked up my pace a step or two and thought about what my daddy told me one time about darkness in a graveyard.  He said, “Don’t be afraid of the dark.  Ain’t nuthin’gonna hurt you.  People there are dead.”

Granny Hopper said the best thing to do when haints, goblins, and the devils imps are around is shew them away in the name of Jesus.  That is what I did.  I said, “In the name of Jesus I command you to leave demon.”  I must say jogging does get your heart rate up, especially if you jog with a haint.

I have heard of strange things that happen in the night.  One thing is lights that appear and move through the sky.  Where I grew up there were such occurrences until people had security lights.  I never saw these lights up home, but I did see some in Oklahoma.

The Chilton Baptist Builders were working in Baxter Springs, Kansas.  Some of the folks wanted to know if we wanted to see the lights that were just over the state line and since the T.V. program That’s Incredible had been there a few weeks prior to our coming.  It is one of those unexplainable phenomenons with lights bouncing in the sky.

I must say the light reacted much like the ones I heard about in Alabama.  My cousin Floyd said a light came in the house one night while he was asleep.  Grandpaw Chapman followed one down in the woods.

That night the light jumped into the road and headed toward us.  Kansas folks said the light would do all sorts of oddities.  Some there said the light got into their car.  Others said it would come toward them disappear and reappear.  I guess the light was scared of Alabama folks because it never got real close but I did see it and kept some newspaper articles about it as souvenirs from the trip.

I have never seen any unexplainable spooks at night other than those lights, but my Uncle Ellis did.  One afternoon while returning home from school, he saw a haint.  Uncle Ellis was not quite right.  No one has ever been able to explain what was wrong with him other than his mind never developed.  He was a giant six feet, four inch, two hundred fifty pound kid.  He loved to play his Roy Rogers guitar and he loved my mom.  Momma had to get Ellis off dad one time when Uncle Ellis thought dad was hurting mom.  Dad said Uncle Ellis had unbelievable strength.  Uncle Ellis died young. He died before my first birthday.

It seems that Uncle Ellis and Uncle Clifton, who was younger, were walking home from school after the bus dropped them off.  My great-uncle Kelly decided to scare his two nephews.  His scheme was to hide in the ditch and scare them as the autumn sun was setting and shadows were growing long.  It was ideal for haints.  To make it more realistic Uncle Kelly had a sheet over him.

As my two uncles walked by him, great-uncle Kelly jumped from the ditch and yelled Booooo!  Uncle Clifton lit out like a “scalded dawg.”  Daddy said they measured Uncle Clifton’s footprints and they were unbelievably far apart.  All out of breath, Uncle Clifton told the family that a haint had Ellis.  Everyone snickered knowing that it was Kelly in a sheet.  Uncle Clifton was terrified as any little boy would be.  Several family members sitting on the front porch consented to see if the haint got Ellis.

As they got about half way there, they spotted Ellis.  He was walking at a normal pace enjoying the fall colors and the growing darkness as trees blocked the setting sun.  They asked Ellis about the haint.  Ellis said the haint was in the ditch.  They asked what happened.  Ellis said, “Hummm, I pick’d up a rock and hit tha haint in tha head.”

“Where’s the haint,” they asked. 

Ellis said, “Up thar en tha detch.” When the family arrived to the haunted ditch, they found Kelly, the Out Cold Ghost.  Great-uncle Kelly learned that Uncle Ellis wasn’t afraid of haints.

And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.  But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid (Matthew 14:26-27 KJV).

Awe School Daze

It is funny how things trigger your memory.  I got my yearbook and I saw a picture of one of our deceased teachers, Miriam Harvey.  Miss Harvey was a math teacher at Jemison High School.  She was an old maid.  Her eyes were a little weird and her grey hair had a blue tint to it.  She was small and frail looking.  I had her for seventh grade study hall, tenth grade algebra II, eleventh grade geometry, and twelfth grade advanced math.  I knew her before I had her as a teacher.  My aunt, a beautician, was the one that gave her that blue tint.

Miss Harvey called me her best student ever.  She made math so simple with her teaching methods.  First, she asked if there were any problems we could not work.  Second, those students that could not work a problem would go to one chalk board to show what he/she knew.  Third, another student who worked the problem, and for an extra “A”, would go to another chalk board and work it.  Finally, the student that worked the problem would explain to the one who could not how to work the problem. 

Miss Harvey constantly challenged me to go to college.  One particular time she asked if I knew a certain student.  I did.  She reminded me that he was at Auburn University and was the top calculus student there.  She said that I was smarter than he.  I figured (remember I love math) she was just trying to get me to go to college.  We frustrated one another over the college thing. 

Finally, one day I asked her why people went to college anyway.  My parents were very anti-educational. Their perception of college educated people was not very high.  They thought of them as being better than them and as smart-alecky.

Miss Harvey said that people go to college to get an education, to get a good job, and make more money.  I responded that some go to be a smart-aleck.  That did not resonate very well with Miss Harvey.  She said I called her a smart-aleck and I got on her bad side.

One day she caught me as I started home.  I never carried books home, having finished my homework at school.  (I took books home to study for tests sometimes.)  She marched me back to my locker to get books to take home.

Another time, the biology teacher and the principal got me and some other “A” students to play a prank on Miss Harvey.  There was a mumps epidemic in school and Miss Harvey had never had them.  They gave us bubble gum (a no-no in class) and had us pretend to have the mumps by placing gum in our cheeks.  When we all went back for the laugh the whole episode turned into a fiasco.  When we told her the biology teacher and the principal had us pull the prank she told us they would never do a cruel act such as that.  When we went to principal, he told us we went too far with it.

That prank got me kicked out of class and ten demerits.  Those demerits, along with some other demerits from a series of unfortunate events, got me kicked out of the beta club.  I had all “A’s” except for an “F” in conduct. 

Miss Harvey was sponsor of the beta club and I was president of the club my senior.  I felt her wrath.  She told me that no beta club member would have an “F”.  I maintained the required grades for membership, but she got her way.  I spent the remainder of the school year trying to be reinstated in the beta club.  The club overruled Miss Harvey and I got back in the club.

Miss Harvey retired at the end of the school year in 1971.  Her life was Jemison High School and her students.  When I returned to college in 1983, I went to the nursing home to see Miss Harvey.  She smiled when I told her that I was going to college.  She saw something in this “Knot head” I did not see.  When I read of Anna seeing Jesus I think of Miss Harvey.  She was a wonderful Christian teacher.

And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.  And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem (Luke 2:36-38 KJV).

Oh, by the way.  Miss Harvey had someone read the Bible and have devotion every morning in her home room class.