"Uncle"

Do you have a favorite uncle?  I know most families have that weird aunt or uncle that they avoid discussing.  For some reason or another, this aunt or uncle has alienated herself or himself from the family through an embarrassing moment or shameful event.  I bet right about now that person is on your mind.

Most everyone has a favorite aunt or uncle.  It is hard to choose a favorite because I have some good uncles.  My favorite was Uncle Clifton.  I think he was because he is the first one that I remember.  He lived with us when we lived in Illinois.  He was the reason that we moved there initially.

Uncle Clifton was my dad’s younger brother.  He ran away from home when he was sixteen because he had a heart condition and Granny Hopper would not let him participate in football and any other activity that would put a strain on his heart.  So, as the old timers would say, Uncle Clifton went missing for several years and went wild during that time.

Leaving the slow-paced South in the 1940’s, Uncle Clifton settled in the fast and wild area of Illinois ninety miles west of Chicago in the mid 1950’s.  We moved there in 1957 and daddy went to work with Uncle Clifton at Beloit Ironworks in Beloit.  Beloit, Alabama, on Highway 22 near Selma is named for the college located in Beloit, Wisconsin.  If you haven’t figured it out, Beloit was on the Illinois/Wisconsin state line.

For a five-year-old kid to have an uncle who raced cars on a dirt track, rode a Harley with saddlebags, had tattoos, rolled his cigarettes in his white t-shirt sleeves, and wore a black leather jacket with a Marlon Brando motorcycle hat, why would he not be his favorite uncle?

Uncle Cliff and I had a special relationship.  It was wonderful to watch Uncle Clifton race old # 7 at the Madison Raceway, it was fun riding on his Harley, asking about his tattoos, and just listening to him speak in that Yankee brogue.  Uncle Clifton loved and looked up to my daddy.  That made him special.

Uncle Clifton would tell me about the times that daddy would rescue him from barroom brawls.  The police would call daddy and tell him to come get Uncle Clifton.  Uncle Clifton said when daddy entered the barroom, that dad started cleaning house.  Uncle Clifton said that one time he was fighting this guy when a big hand grabbed his shoulder.  Uncle Clifton turned to knock the guy’s block off, but stopped short when he saw that it was dad.  Dad told Uncle Clifton to get in the car.

Years later, long after moving back to Alabama, and Uncle Clifton settled down and married Aunt Maxine, they would make yearly visits to Alabama.  We looked forward to them coming and telling of all the times we had together in Illinois.

By 1982, dad had a brain tumor and started wasting away.  Uncle Clifton could not afford to come to Alabama as he once did.  He had heard how bad dad was and a few weeks before daddy died, Uncle Clifton managed to see dad.

Momma said that when Uncle Clifton saw dad in the hospital bed there in the living room that Uncle Clifton said he had to step outside for a moment.  From the kitchen window, momma saw Uncle Clifton outside by dad’s tractor.  He was crying.  When he saw daddy wasting away, it was more than he could take.

Momma went out and consoled Uncle Clifton convincing him to go back in and see dad.  Uncle Clifton struggled as he watched his big brother and hero wasting away.  Trying not to break down in front of dad, Uncle Clifton spent a few precious moments sharing brotherly love bragging what a big man dad was to him and many others in Beloit.

The last time I saw Uncle Clifton, he had stopped by the Pastorium at Gallion as he made the rounds seeing the ones he loved.  As we sat on the front porch there in Gallion, he talked of dad and told me how much he loved him.  He told me how difficult it was watching dad, and later, momma, Uncle James, Aunt Bessie, and Aunt Gertrude wasting away from cancer and that he did not want to waste away with cancer.

He surprised me when he told me how much he admired me.  Then, he shocked me when he told me that at one time he felt the Lord was calling him to preach, but he ran.

Shortly after becoming Director of Missions, I received a call that Uncle Clifton died from a heart attack while making the loop to see his loved ones.  I knew that he was on his way to visit Linden, but instead I traveled to Beloit, walked down some old familiar roads, and smiled.  I, like uncle Clifton, cried as I looked down at the body of a once young and vigorous body now broken and ravaged by disease.

Uncle Clifton was not the first, nor I the last, to look upon a body wasting away by some demonic disease.  When I read how Job’s friends found him, I think of Uncle Clifton and him seeing daddy.

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.  And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.  So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great (Job 2:11-13 KJV).

I like how the Message translates the friends seeing Job: When they first caught sight of him, they couldn’t believe what they saw- they hardly recognized him!

Ain’t it amazing how the Bible speaks to us and makes life relevant?

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)