Unemployment

 When I was a kid, I went with my daddy to Calera, Alabama to the unemployment agency to “draw his pennies.”  I had a hard time imagining why pennies.  Why not nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, or dollars?  The first time I went with him I had images of him bringing out large sacks of pennies.  He said that when you are unemployed you got to draw pennies, which was money you paid to the state that you could get when you were on layoff.  Of course, I asked him why he did not pay the state dollars where he could draw dollars when out of work.

Daddy drew his pennies a whole lot when we moved back to Alabama from Illinois.  Having moved back to the South, unemployment was something that we grew accustomed to experiencing.  Dad was often the low man on the totem pole where he was employed.  With many younger men in the employment pole, daddy had difficulty finding a job.  When he did, at the first economic downturn, daddy got to draw his pennies.  When Christmas season approached, we knew that daddy would be on layoff.  When the weather was inclement, daddy would be sent home.  When the mill quit taking logs, daddy got to stay at home.  When the lime stockpile was overstocked, the plant sent daddy home for a few weeks.  Layoff became a way of life.

I would watch daddy during these layoffs.  He would get depressed.  He did not suffer depression, which I am thankful.  If he had, he would have been suicidal.  When times were hard, he would talk of it since his dad had committed suicide due to a crippling injury.  Daddy did have many days that he would mope around and have feeling of hopelessness.

In order to draw his pennies, he had to be actively seeking employment.  I have watched him on many occasions return home discouraged.  Place after place would turn him down because of his age, repeated unemployment, and dozens of other reasons.  During these times, we never received food stamps or government assistance.  Daddy did not want the government to control him by funding him.  When we farmed, he would not take government assistance saying he wanted to plant what he wanted and not controlled by Uncle Sam.

I was in the sixth grade before daddy had a job where he did not have to worry with a layoff.  He worked at this plant for more sixteen years as a heavy equipment mechanic.  Diagnosed with cancer in 1982, he had to take disability.

I experienced my first layoff while working with Hiwassee Land Company.  We were ahead of schedule one summer and the supervisor gave us a few “Moon Days” off.  It was when Neil Armstrong and crew landed on the moon.

My second layoff came in 1973 from Keystone Metal Moulding when there was the “Oil Crisis.”  I had survived several layoffs by Keystone, which made chrome moulding for automobiles, but new car sells were down and unemployment was up.  I was a die-setter. 

My third time off came in 1976 from Linefast Corporation working as a machinist.  I was beginning to think that I was following in my daddy’s steps.  Times were harder.

The real hard layoff was 1982 from Martin Marietta Cement.  I was an oiler with a new house, a new truck, and two babies, Andy and Angel, it was very hard.  This was the first layoff in the history of the plant.  It was a corporate takeover of Martin Marietta by the Bendx Corporation.

This had nothing to do with an economic turndown, my job performance, or my work record, but I, as did everyone on layoff, took it personal.  I remember as dozens of us went to the unemployment agency.  We felt abandoned, dirty, guilty, and ashamed.  We told it horrible to draw our pennies and then told to apply for food stamps.

With that in mind, my thoughts and prayers go out to all the men and women who are suffering layoff in our area.  Join with me as I pray for them.  I have been there and had it not been for the help of the Lord I would not have made it.  My family and I struggled during that five-year layoff.

 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.

 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.

 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.

 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.

 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever (Psalm 73:21-26 KJV).

Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes (Haggai 1:6 KJV).

PS Aaron came at the end of that five-year layoff. 

My Last Supper With Dad

The other day I was sharing with some folks about the intimacy of sharing a meal together.  There is a sacred bond when sharing a meal.  Growing up as we gathered around the breakfast, dinner, and supper table, we shared and learned about life.  Time there was one of mostly laughter and fun. 

Sometimes anger would penetrate our sacred table and the devil would enjoy our confrontations.  The most ungodly were ones when mom and dad would be at odds.  These sad and intense moments rose their satanic goading and the terrible and frightening displays of animosity would side down the walls and splatter the dining room curtains with food that God had given us, momma had prepared, and that we not longer had an appetite.

Thank the Good Lord that these devilish moments were few and far between and our table was one of reconciliation and love.  Times around the table together grew scarce as we all got older.  Dad would work evenings, mom worked days, and my sister, brothers, and I would be involved in extracurricular activities.  For a short time, mom and dad both worked evenings but momma would leave us a great supper on the table.  That is back when you did not have to worry about food spoiling on the table.

When we did gather around the table, there was love.  We all had our places.  Dad sat at the head.  I sat at the other end.  My two brothers sat at daddy’s left and my sister and mom sat to his right, momma being next to him.  Today when I sit at a rectangular table, I always set on the opposite end from the head seat.

Daddy, even though for many years did not know the Lord, requested that someone say grace.  Granny Hopper taught her family to say grace.  As a widow trying to raise nine children, Granny Hopper knew the importance of thanking God for His blessings.  How that Granny cooked in dishpans on a wood-burning stove with no running water amazes me.

One of the special moments of the supper table was dad saying grace for the first time.  We all teared up as He thanked God for the food and our family.  There were some shenanigans at the supper table, some even during grace.  One was my sister would pinch me under the table and stupid me would hit her.  Momma hit me.  Finally, my Uncle Clifton told mama was happening.  Momma hit my sister.

There have been times when pieces of chicken, especially the pulley bone, would mystery be missing off the serving plate and amazedly appearing on our sister’s plate.  After prayer, someone’s lips would be burning only to have his lips burn more.  Cayenne pepper will do that when rubbed on the rim of your drinking glass.

Dad asked momma to turn thanks.  She was standing beside me putting another dish on the table.  Momma seemed to have a difficult time praying.  I think it was because I rubbed her stomach as she prayed.

I remember the last time I sat at the supper table with dad.  It was a Monday night in April.  Dad was dying from a brain tumor.  He could not longer walk or talk.  Mom and I put him in his wheelchair.  I had arranged for her to take the night off.  Caretakers unselfishly sacrifice to care of loved ones.  Mom and my sister were wonderful to care for dad in his illness.  My brothers and I cannot thank them enough for their sacrifice.

I fed dad his last meal.  It was the most moving moment at the supper table.  I sat at dad’s right side.  Mom had prepared a good southern meal of purple hull peas, oiled potatoes, okra, corn, and cornbread.  I fixed dad’s plate and fed him.  I used a fork to feed him and our only mode of communication was the nod of his head.  I was used to that because dad nodded his head when he could talk.  One time I put the fork to his mouth and he nodded no.  I put the fork to every bowl to which he nodded no.  Dummy me. I forgot to give him some sweet tea to drink.  I pointed the fork at the tea and he nodded yes.

Dad was a big eater, never eating between meals.  He did not like diary products, especially butter, and rarely ate sweets of drink soft drinks.  His last meal was a big one.  We were doing fine until daddy choked on cornbread.  I thought he was going to die on me.  Later that night dad would have a seizure and rushed to the hospital.

From early Tuesday morning until Friday morning, around four in the morning, dad had only fluids for substance.  Momma always mourned that dad starved to death.  The nurses bragged on momma saying that dad was the healthiest cancer patient that had.  Dad lost very little weight during his illness.

Last meals are important and those precious moments bring with it a tear of sadness and a smile of joy.  Not long ago I share my last breakfast with Nanny, my sister-in-laws mother.  She sat to my right.  I passed the breakfast dishes to her, helped her jelly a biscuit, and poured her some coffee that Saturday morning at my brother’s home.  It was their Saturday ritual to have breakfast with his in-laws.  Nanny always picked at me.  She loved it, as did I.  The morning of her funeral, I sure missed her.

We all share moments not certain if they are last moment together.  I do not remember the last meal I had with momma before cancer overtook her.

 

I wonder how the Disciples of Jesus felt after their last supper together.  As our Savior girded himself and washed their feet, did they often think of that moment when the God of the universe bathed their nasty feet?  Did they think of the moments they were all concerned with their position in the Kingdom that Jesus’ position would be hanging on a cruel cross in a few hours?  Did the wine they shared remind them of the blood that flowed from Jesus?  Did the ripping and tearing of the bread weigh heavy on their hearts as the body of Christ shredded as the whip thirty-nine times crossed the back?

The moment they were together was a celebration of the watershed belief of Old Testament, the Passover.  It was the last meal that the Hebrews had before leaving Egypt.

 

As they were eating, Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples . . .

Matthew 26:26a

 

 

 

 

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.

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)

A Picture of Hell and the Hope of the Resurrection

You can tell when spring is near when you hear birds chirping, smell the aroma of trees and vines budding, see the countless colored daffodils, and taste food from the grill.  Spring is my favorite time of the year.  Everything is coming to life.  It makes Easter special.  It reminds us that the dead of winter and its long dark hours are gone.

I am one of the few that enjoys winter.  When serving the Bethel Baptist Associational Disaster Relief Chain Saw team, I enjoyed snow in Missouri after an ice storm.  Well, I enjoyed the cold and the snow.  It reminded me of living in Illinois as a kid.  No, I am not a Yankee.  As the group ALABAMA sings, “My home is Alabama, Southern Born, and Southern Bred.”  Daddy worked up north for three years.  We moved back home to Alabama in the spring of 1960 because Mamma did not like the Yankees, the cold, and the snow.

Spring reminds me of going home, the eternal one.  It is the promise of eternal life found in the resurrection of Jesus.  Daddy died on Friday after Easter April 29, 1984.  I remember the morning I left the hospital.  The birds were singing, the morning sun glistened, and you could smell the aroma of spring.  I thought about what a beautiful day for daddy to go home with Jesus.

Doctors diagnosed momma with stage four-melanoma cancer in the fall of 1986 and she died in the winter in January.  Her last days were difficult.  The demon cancer consumed her beautiful body.  The funeral director said her body was as a piece of wood that looked solid until you picked it up, and then realized that, it was rotten and it crumbled in your hands.

It snowed days before her death.  With her arm eaten into from cancer, she watched me build a snowman from her hospital window.  I knocked on her window and made a face.  Hours later, the Clanton Hospital transferred her to the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital.  I rode with her in the emergency vehicle.  I remember it snowing as we unloaded in downtown Birmingham.

They placed her in the terminal ward.  If there was a picture of hell it was the night I spent with her.  Seven people, including a young boy, young mother, and elderly man died that night.  Patients throughout the whole ward cried out in agony and pain. 

I had never been around such torment before.  I heard the cries of a young boy as he cried for his mother to hold him and stop the pain.  The lady in the room with momma would speak in a little girl's voice.  She said, “Daddy, please hold me.”  She repeated it over and over.  Momma would say, “Oh God, help me.”  She repeated this over and over.  I lay there with a feeling of hopelessness.  My pain seemed insignificant compared to those who died that night. 

I have thought about that night many times.  I went home, my back in severe pain from the stress, and stared at the ceiling.  I could not sleep, eat, work, study, read, etc.  I was useless and wanting to die.  This is how I pictured hell.  I was glad that this was the only torment that momma would endure.  When she died, my sister, my brothers, and I thanked God that she entered heaven where the flowers bloom forever and she would receive a new beautiful body.

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand (John 10:27-28)

Resurrection morning Jesus solidified His promise, I am the resurrection, and the life.