Say, Uncle

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 near my home.  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.”

Well, those were reassuring words when there ain’t no haints around, but the goose bumps popping out on my arms, the rising hair on my neck, and the knocking of my knees were not too optimistic about my daddy’s words.

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.  I was more optimistic about Granny Hopper’s words than dad’s words.  So, 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.  Praying for the Lord to help is comforting.

Growing up in rural Chilton County I heard plenty of stories about strange things that happen in the night.  One strange thing is lights that appear and move through the sky.  Where I grew up there were such occurrences until people earned enough money and went modern with security lights. 

My Grandpaw Chapman saw these mysterious lights in the western horizon of his farm.  After several events he finally decided to investigate, which was a feat in itself seeing as Grandpaw was a tad skittish. He followed the light down into the words to the north of his property where the light descended down a tree and into the ground.  The next morning he returned to the tree and dug up some metal, which he thought to be copper.  The light never returned.

My cousin Floyd had one of these lights wake him.  He said he thought it was someone with a flashlight.  He said it hovered over him for a while.  Floyd had goose bumps, rising hair and knocking knees.  He went from sleeping to running. 

I never saw these lights, 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.  That night the light jumped into the road and headed toward us.  Kansas folks said the light would react with 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.  Not being quite right must be a Hopper trait.  No one has ever been able to explain what was wrong with him other than his mind never developed mentally.  He was a giant, a six feet, four inches, two hundred fifty pounds of kid.  He loved to play his Roy Rogers guitar and he loved my mom and me.  I was a baby. 

Momma had to get Ellis off dad one time when Uncle Ellis thought dad was hurting mom.  Mom and dad would be very physical during playful spats.  Dad said Uncle Ellis had unbelievable strength.  Uncle Ellis died young, before my first birthday.

Once Ellis was told to stay in a truck why highway patrol officers questioned my Uncle James and my daddy.  Uncle James, who worked at a service station, sold the headlights of the truck to a man that had blown both of his.  As Uncle James and dad explained why they were driving at dusk without lights, another officer went to the passenger side of the truck and told Uncle Ellis to get out.  This officer was a rookie in training.

Having satisfied the senior officer’s interrogation, the senior asked the location of his partner.  Uncle Ellis was still sitting in the truck as told.  Dad asked, “Ellis where is the highway patrolman?”

Uncle Ellis replied, “He’s there in tha detch.”

Down in the ditch was the officer out cold.  When they asked Ellis what happened, he said the officer stuck a pistol in his face and shined a flashlight in his face while telling him to get out of the pickup.  I can see Barney Fife telling a professional wrestler to get out.  Ellis said he did not say anything to the patrol officer and the officer told him to get out again.  After a third time, the officer threatened Ellis.  When threatened, Ellis responded the only way he knew.  He told Uncle James, dad, and the senior officer that he took the flashlight from the officer, knocked officer in the head, and threw him in the ditch. 

Ellis did exactly as told by his older brothers.  He stayed in the pickup.  They all laughed and the senior officer reprimanded the rookie.  Uncle James, Uncle Ellis, and dad finally made it home before it was too dark.

Some time before the flashlight incident it seems that Uncle Ellis and Uncle Clifton, who was younger, were walking home from school after the bus dropped them off on a dirt road.  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, the time we call the twilight zone.  It was ideal for haints.  To make the ghost 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.  Uncle Ellis was in his own little world.

  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 er rok 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 just like the rookie patrol officer found out Uncle Ellis was not scared of flashlights and pistols.

“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)

"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?