A Family Tradition

Family traditions are important reminders of who we are and where we have been in the journey we call life.  Thanksgiving and Christmas for the Hopper family while I was growing up were original.  My dad’s family did not have “get-togethers” and mom’s family did “get-together” but there was some inequity.  Some family members were not welcome.

Mama had four sisters and a brother, which with the exception of one sister, “married up.”  The Hoppers and the “I will not mention their name” were larger families and much lower on the totem pole.  We were lucky if we got Christmas presents so that meant none under the tree when others opened theirs.  Since we were not welcome, our cousins would not open their presents until we went home, we stayed home and started our own traditions.

I remember mamma standing in the kitchen cooking her world family chicken and dressing.  I see the steam rising from the pots of boiling chicken and broth, backbone and turnip greens, bacon and purple hull peas, potatoes, bacon and butter beans, creamed corn, and brown sugar and yams.  In the oven would be a pork roast donated from one of our hogs.  She did it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We did not need presents, but when momma would sacrifice and order us clothes from Spiegel catalog, we had a wonderful surprise on usually a frosty morning.

Momma would remind us how poor baby Jesus was and the joy that Joseph and Mary had when the Magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Daddy was not as optimistic as momma.  He was so bad we named him Scrooge.  He was really not a Scrooge, but he did not decorate the tree or do any of the other things associated with the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.  He was usually on layoff, which was a depressing time.  The thing that upset him the most was Christmas.  He would tell momma that Christmas was about the birth of Jesus and not Christmas presents.  The amazing thing about that was dad was not a Christian until my brothers, sister, and I were grownup with children of our own.  He had a fine Christian mother, Granny Hopper, which taught him Christian principles.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11 KJV).

Momma and daddy are with the Lord now, but the Hopper brothers and sisters do meet every year for Christmas.  Yes, the menu is pretty much the same.  I started my own Thanksgiving.  I miss momma’s world-famous chicken and dressing, but that Angus ribeye with grilled vegetables, baked potato, and my famous cherry pie ain’t bad.

I hope y’all have a great Thanksgiving and y’all have a great Christmas.

"Daddy's Hands"

One afternoon, thunderstorms surrounded Linden as I started a fire to do some grilling.  I love the sound of rolling thunder and the awesome beauty of lightning.  It is a pungent display of what I imagine as minute exhibition of God’s heavenly power.  I always imagine Moses on Mt Hebron when I see those vigorous clouds churning in the heavens above.  I also think of the Second Coming of our Lord.

As the lightning grew intense, I realized that just about the time that the fire was perfect for grilling,  I might become a lightning rod and I would be grilled.  A grill underneath big oak trees is not the ideal place to be when lightning is imminent.

The ground trembled as lighting created a brilliant streak just beyond Linden Baptist.  It was spectacular.  The next day, my neighbor said he saw the same flash of lightning.  He said the lightning hit with a burst of fire and smoke.

Suddenly, there was a loud clap of thunder and the rain started to fall.  I told my son Aaron to get a couple of umbrellas and to bring the meat.  I covered the bed of coals and the meat with a piece of tin as the rain intensified.  Lightning continued to dance around Linden.  I told Aaron that he might need to go inside and out of the lightning.  I told him it would be better if the newspaper read “MAN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING,” rather than “FATHER AND SON STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.”  He worried more about objects falling from the tree on the meat than lightning striking us.

As the lightning subsided, the rain got harder.  I told Aaron that it reminded me of the night my dad and I set a pole for an electrical service for a house I was about to build. 

To have an electrical power source for contractors, the power company required that I have an electrical box with a disconnect switch mounted on plywood on a pole.  My dad told me he would help me put it up when we got in from work.  We did not know when we started that there would be a thunderstorm while we were setting the pole.

We had just tamped the pole into place when the thunderstorm erupted.  Lightning was popping in the area and the rain started to fall.  People who are experts, you know how experts are; remind us if one can hear thunder, one can be hit by lightning.  Well, the thunder was pretty loud and close.  Just about the time daddy started screwing the electrical control box on the plywood, it started to rain harder.  I can still see daddy’s big hands holding the screwdriver and twisting the screws in the back of the box into the plywood.  As usual, I was holding something for daddy.  This usually meant that he would say, “Hold it still son.”  I had to hold it still regardless of how uncomfortable, awkward, cold, or hot the object or I were.  I miss those days with dad, but relive them with Aaron.  Now, Aaron holds for me although sometimes I hold for Aaron.  He is so much like dad, a man whom he has never met.

Bad weather terrified momma, but bad weather did not bother daddy.  Daddy taught us to respect the weather, but never to fear it.  Daddy loved to hear the thunder and see the lightning.  He reminded us that it was a sign of how powerful God is.  He would say when God got ready for you, it did not matter where you were or what you were doing, it was your time.  Momma agreed, but reminded him not to tempt the Lord and that God gave him enough sense to take cover when it stormed.  So, when it stormed, momma went to hide and daddy and the boys went outside to watch.

I think we were all anticipating the Lord wiping back the thunderstorms and opening a beautiful blue sky as He did when the disciples were in one of those violent thunderstorms on the Sea of Galilee.  There is also a calming effect when a child sees courage in his dad.  Dad did know when to make us go inside if he thought we might be injured.  I do not know if momma knew it or not, but dad would say that we were not to tempt the Lord and that the Lord gave us a head to think.

I thank God that He gave me a dad who acknowledged the awesome power of God in thunder and lightning.  Dad also acknowledged the greatest power is the power of salvation.  HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook (Psalm 77:18 KJV).

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be (Matthew 24:27 KJV)