I have been working on a post, but just didn’t have time to finish it. As I’m coming up this week on the 7th anniversary of Trisket’s death, I decided to pulled this post from an older blog and reposted it.
Trisket lying on the kitchen floor on the night before his death, November 2017.
Over the past year, I often watched you sleep. At times, your legs twitched. I imagined you dreaming of when you were younger and ran with grace. In your sleep, were you still circling the house at full speed, stopping only to chase squirrels back up into the trees?
Over the past year, on our walks, I took the lead while you moped behind. As I slowed down to your speed, I wondered if you recalled dragging me as we headed into Hastings or up the canyon by Cedar Creek.
Over the past few months, I watched in sadness as you bumped into walls and furniture. Your cataract eyes glassed over, and I wondered if you remembered the hours we played in the kitchen. Your sharp eyes followed my hand as I tossed popcorn. You’d snap each kernel out of the air, seldom missing. And how, I could never make banana pudding without you being under my feet. While you never turned down a strip of steak, you loved banana pudding. I even tested you once, putting a dab of banana pudding on one plate and a strip of steak on another. When I let you go, you headed straight for the pudding, then the steak. Always go for dessert, first, you taught. And let’s not forget how much you loved pineapple!
When we moved to Skidaway, near Savannah, you struggled in the humidity and heat. I wondered if you recalled snow. Could you remember running through it as you scooped it up with your snout and tossed it in the air, snapping at the falling flakes as if it was popcorn.
I am thankful that to the end, when you stood beside me, pressing your neck on my lower thigh. You were atthe right height for my fingers to bury themselves in your beautiful mane. And I always loved how you stood in the wind. The tufts at the end of your ears flew back, as you sniffed and enjoyed the breeze. Sadly, I miss our long walks around town, our hikes in the wood, and how you sat like General Washington in the middle of the canoe as we floated down river.
You were so gentle with that little girl, the one who picked you out of the litter and named you for a cracker. You always looked out for her and for that reason alone, I am eternally grateful. The two of you grew up together, but you grew old much too fast. Seventeen years is a long time for a dog, they say, but not nearly long enough. The house is way too big, lonely, and sad tonight. I keep listening for the sounds of your clanking tags and the tap of your toenails on the hardwood, but only hear the cold rain splattering on the deck out back. We’re all going to miss you, Trisket. You were such a good boy, a pretty boy, a big furry fluffball!
My favorite photo of Trisket and me. On the Thornapple River in Michigan in 2007. He would have been around 7 years old at this time.
When I was in Wilmington two weeks ago, I spent a lot of time with my sister going through my parents photos and came up with these photos of my soap box derby cars. This is the story of building and racing these cars.
I sat in my car on the starting platform. The platform had been installed at the top of what might be the tallest hill in New Hanover County. They had closed a section of 16th Street for the Saturday running of the 1971 Soap Box Derby. Gripping the wheel and leaning back as far as possible to cut the drag, I glanced over at my opponent. His car was sleek, constructed of fiberglass, but with lots of metal inside. I knew it would be fast, but I had registered good time during the practice trials and had easily won my first race.
The starter, holding high the flag, let it fall. The gates dropped and the cars eased down the plywood ramp and onto the pavement. I concentrated on staying low and keeping my car straight in its lane. The cars began picked up speed. I saw the other car pull slightly ahead as we shot toward the finish line. The checker flag fell. He won and my days of racing had come to an end. Later that morning, the car which beat mine became the overall winner. He got to go to Akron, Ohio, for the nationals.
I’m sitting on the “hood” of the my second car with my younger brother sitting inside the car with a friend of his on the back. My other brother stands behind the car.
This was my second year of building a soap box derby. Both years I lost in the second round of a single elimination tournament.
The Wilmington Jaycees held the event. They provided participants with a basic kit which included wheels and axles, a steering wheel, wire, and brake assembly. The sponsors of our event cover the cost and provided a small amount of funds (I think it was $35, which wouldn’t today purchase the plywood) for everything else. I used two sheets. I cut the floorboard and the bulkheads out of ¾ inch plywood. The body I fashioned out of ¼ inch plywood. The metal axles went inside a 1-inch board. Cutting a channel half way through the boards, I chiseled out a channel for the axle. Then I planed down the front side to make the axle cover streamlined.
Those of us who were drivers were to build our own cars with only adult supervision. The first year, I built my car under the carport at our house with David Hunter. David’s father had recently died, so my father served as both of our supervisors. We were to build our cars ourselves, which my father ensured except for the rough cutting of the ¾ inch plywood, which required a circular saw. My father insisted we were too young but allowed us to use jig saws to cut out the bulkheads. Each of these he had us file down to make smooth. I remember lots of stokes using a half-moon file.
The floorboard also had a wooden cutout for a brake. The pedal was made of plywood left over from the center of the bulkheads. A wire ran from pedal to the break in the back, where a wooden 2×4 with a piece of tire on the bottom served as the brake.. When pressed, the brake descended to the road and slowed the car.
Then I attached the bulkheads with angle braces. This was in the day before power drivers, so we drilled pilot holes and used screwdrivers to fix the screws and bolts.
The rear axle and cover were attached with bolts to the back of the floorboard. The front axle was attached with a single bolt, allowing it to move two inches. This was for safety since we were running a straight course. If we could have steered any more, there would probably be cars running into each. This was just enough movement to allow us to make minor adjustments to our path. I then installed the steering wheel between the first two bulkheads in the front. A wire wound around the steering wheel shaft, threaded through pulleys, ran out to each side of the front axle. This allowed us, when racing, to turn the axle slightly to adjust for bumps in the pavement.
At this point, we attached ¼ inch plywood over the bulkheads. The sides were rather simple, but the top required us to use a circular saw with the blade set about 1/8 of an inch to cut strips underneath the plywood, allowing it to bend. With barely any blade showing, my father decided to let us use the saw ourselves.
Once all the plywood was attached, we installed a seat, covered screw holes with putty, and painted the car. My first year, I chose orange with a blue racing strip. For my second year, I used purple with a white stripe. Since we could have a professional do the sponsors lettering on the car, my father volunteered to do it.
My first car. I’m sitting inside, flanked by my two brothers and sister. Behind is my father, my grandparents on my father’s side and my grandmother on my mother’s side.
When the car was done, we hauled them on a flatbed trailer the day before the race to a warehouse which had been reserved on 13th Street. There, they checked our cars to make sure they weren’t too heavy, and everything was safe and to regulation. My car the first year was about 30 pounds lighter than it had to be. When they checked us in, they kept our cars impounded until race day.
That evening, after the race, the Jaycees threw a banquet for us. We were presented with medals and endured motivation speeches by a couple of the Jaycees.
In building my second car, I mostly worked by myself since David didn’t sign up to build another car. Moving my radio out to the carport, I remember repeatedly hearing that summer Three Dog Night sing “Joy to the World” as I worked.
I had learned a few things from my first car. I wanted the car to be more streamlined and heavier. Trying to figure out how to add weight, my father suggested that instead of buying lightweight angle braces, we use ¼” steel angle iron. Someone he knew cut them into 2-inch-long angles. At the front and back, I used six-inch-long angle iron. This was overkill, but it added weight. Drilling through the iron was difficult, but it was worth it for the weight. I also added more ¾ plywood in the bracing and using solid pieces at the front and back. By the time I completed the car, it was only about 2 pounds under the maximum. The added weight and the sleeker design created a faster car than my first traditional design. In the end, it didn’t matter. The fastest car knocked me out in the second heat.
These two books provide examples of women making a difference in a changing world. If interested in such books, check out a recent post in which I reviewed Beth Moore’s memoir, All My Knotted Up Life.
Stephanie Stuckey, Unstuck: Rebirth of an American Icon
(Dallas, TX: Matt Holt Books, 2024), 220 pages, some photos.
Stuckey’s used to dot the highways of America, especially in the Southeast. As a kid, I remember passing them as we drove to Baltimore for my father’s company annual summer picnic. And then there were the long road trips we took to St. Louis and to Atlanta, passing Stuckey’s at many of the interstate exits. Of course, we seldom stopped. Instead, we ate peanut butter or bologna sandwiches made from the cooler in the trailer my father pulled. But Stuckey’s, like Howard Johnson’s, was an icon of the road trip.
I picked up this book after following Stephanie Stuckey on Twitter, a connection I made through a pecan farmerfrom Georgia. Her post focused on her road trips as she strove to rebuilt Stuckey’s, her family business. I have to admit a bit of envy as she able to spend a lot of time traveling and, like me, enjoys the backroads.
After years of working as an attorney and a Democratic State Legislator in Georgia, Stephanie Stuckey decides to save her family’s business. Her grandfather had started Stuckey’s in the 1930s, with a $50 loan from his mother. The nation was in a depression, but “Big Daddy” went to work buying pecans from local farmers and selling them along with candies his wife made from the nut. He set up shop along the highways which ran to Florida. World War II could have been a disaster with the decline in travel and rationing of gas and sugar, but he continued. He served truckers and soldiers. When the war was over and America returned to the roads, his business grew. Toward the end of his life, he sold the company for a fortune.
Stuckey’s father, having learned from working at Stuckey’s, made his own mark on the travel scene. He started a company that established Dairy Queens along the interstates of America. He also spent a decade in congress, and Stuckey grew up in Washington, DC, traveling in the family’s station wagon back and forth to Georgia. Now in her 50s, having served as an attorney and running nonprofits, Stephanie Stuckey brought back the company which bears her family’s name.
This book is more than just the story of Stuckey attempting to resurrect her family’s business. She provides a history of the company and her family’s involvement within the business. As a Southerner, she also deals with the issues of race, acknowledging the help her grandfather received from African Americans. While Stuckey’s was a southern business, it was never segregated. Stuckey’s even appeared in the “Green Books,” which told Black travelers safe places to eat and buy gas as they traveled across the Jim Crow South.
This is a delightful read of a brave woman setting her own path in the world.
Clare Frank, Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire
(Audible 2024) 11 hours and 43 minutes, narrated by the author.
I always shop the 2-for-1 sales on Audible. Generally, there is at least one book I’ve been wanting to read, and I will have to shop around for the second (free) book. That’s how I came across this book by Clare Frank. She’s the first (and so far, only) woman to serve as Chief of Cal Fire, the largest firefighting organization in the nation. Cal Fire handles large wildfires as well as providing fire protection in more urban parts of the state.
Frank followed her brother into the fire service. She was only 17! Emancipated from her parents, she left her birthday blank on her application since the minimum age was 18. After doing well in her training, they offered her a seasonal position. From there, she rose up the ranks. Starting in 1982, just as women were beginning to become firefighters, she retired without ever having served under another woman.
Her track is a little unusual. While working as a firefighter, she pieces together course work to obtain an associate degree. It takes her a longtime to finish her bachelor’s degree because of being deployed around the state. But she does. She also obtains a law degree, which becomes easier as she has infection in her feet after a fire along the Mexican border. She had to take a five-year break from firefighting because she couldn’t wear boots. When her feet recover, she resumes her career. With a law degree, she rises even higher in the ranks, leading the fight to recoup cost from utilities and others who have caused fires.
The fire along the Mexican border is interesting. It’s the first time that the fire map only half covers the fire, as it was burning on both sides of the border. The fire also requires cooperation with the border patrol. Sadly, there were deaths within the fire of those trying to illegally enter the United States.
I appreciated how Frank broke up her story. She jumps back and forth, from her last 22 months as chief of Fire Cal to her beginnings. This kept the book from being just a linear line of stories and built anticipation as she advanced through the ranks. Along the way, we learn about the tradition and the requirements of fire service. She tells of a few harrowing experiences, such a large multi-vehicle accident which killed several people and left one woman blind. This is one of the scenes she speaks of being engraved in her memory and she wonders about it being the last thing the woman saw before her world became blind.
The stress which came from the horror sometimes experienced by first responders takes a toll on the relationships among firefighters. Many of the firefighters have gone through multiple divorces. The departments are not above scandal. She recalls wearing her dress uniform too many times at funerals for fellow firefighters. The last being a pilot of an air tanker which crashed around Yosemite a few months before she retired. Running such a large organization, she acknowledges that she had never met the pilot. Others she didn’t know also bothered her, such as the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots killed on a fire in Arizona. This was a bit personal for me as one of those firefighters was a member of my church’s youth group when I was in Utah.
While Frank mostly focuses on her work in firefighting, she also provides background to her personal life, from growing up, to her husband and dogs. This helped humanize her for in much of the book she came across as a “bad ass” who got things done. But there are things left out such as how she became interested in writing, which she speaks of perusing in retirement. Her talent with words comes through in this book.
Her story within the book ends with her and her husband retiring to Genoa, Nevada, where they experience the other side of the fire as they had to evacuate their new home. Thankfully, they didn’t lose their home, but the experience gives her the opportunity to close with a warning about how fire, as a part of nature, will continue to be a challenge.
I will first share a story from the spring of my junior year of high school, followed by a review of a new religious biography of Richard Nixon.This is my last planned post till October 6. I am on vacation and will be away some from the computer. From the looks of the weather, I picked a heck of a time to take a week off!,
John T. Hoggard High School, Spring 1974
It all came to a head in Coach Fisher’s economics class. I took my seat in the class and when he saw me, he fumed.
“You are not allowed in my class,” he yelled, staring at me.
“I’m not leaving,” I said.
“Yes, you are,” he said, pushing desks with students sitting in them out of the way to get to me.
Scared, I stayed in my seat, thinking that if he physically harmed me, which he could easily do, I’d have a class of witnesses for an ensuing lawsuit.
Standing over my desk, he ordered me out into the hallway. I had spent the past two weeks sitting in the hallway, working chess puzzles in a magazine. This started when I challenged one of his diatribes about Richard Nixon. Nixon was in the news a lot in the spring of 1974.
The day before, at the end of the class, Coach Fisher told me I would fail his class because I had missed so much of it. I told him that I better not, because he was the reason I was missing his class. The class really had nothing to do with economics. Most of the 50 minutes was spent discussing basketball and other sports. What little had to do with economics was more about consumer spending than the relationship between price and demand or an understanding of macroeconomics. Fisher was a coach, who had been given a teaching position.
I decided it was time to end my exclusion from class, so the next morning, I returned.
After a few moments of a standoff, I told Coach Fisher that if he wanted me out of the class, we could go together to Mr. Saus’ (the principal) office. His anger grew and he started to drag my chair outside.
“Fine,” I said. “I will go to the principal’s office,” I said, getting up. He ordered me to sit in the chair outside his door, but I walked down the hall and turned toward the office. I expected him to follow, but he didn’t. Mr. Saus wasn’t available, but I was sent into Mr. McLaurin’s office. He was an assistant principal. I told him my story. He listened and had me remain in his office while he disappeared for a few minutes. When he came back in, he told me to go back to class, that Mr. Fisher would let me back in.
Fisher didn’t fail me for that six-week period. I passed the class with a decent grade without having to do anything because Fisher essentially ignored me for the rest of the semester. I just sat there. I would have to wait till college to grasp economics.
Richard Nixon was president during the formative years of my life. I was in the sixth grade when he was elected president in 1968. At the time, Nixon, to me, seemed to be the best choice.
I would continue to support Nixon throughout my junior high and early high school years. Why, I’m not sure. Why did I believed him when he said he didn’t do anything wrong? This belief was strong enough to encourage me to speak up for Nixon in Coach Fisher’s class, which led to our encounter. Later, after he resigned from the Presidency the summer after the above incident, I felt embarrassed. Some of that shame remains. How could I have been so naïve?
There were two events that happened in high school which my mom always blamed on me losing all respect for authority. And they happened about the same time. The first was a wreck. A young woman (she was 21) turned in front of me from the left-hand lane on Shipyard Boulevard. I hit her in the front quarter panel and both cars were totaled. Thankfully, my mom was seated right next to me and saw it all. I was knocked out and sent in an ambulance to the hospital. The young city police officer, whom my mother witnessed flirting with the other driver after the accident, charged me with following to close. From the damage to her car, that was an impossibility. Thankfully, a neighbor who was a state highway patrolman, came to our aid and helped prove my innocence. Click here for a sermon where I share more about the wreck.
I don’t think my mother even knew about the incident in Coach Fisher’s class.
The accident in which I was wrongfully charged occurred within a year of Nixon’s resignation. Mom was right. Both probably contributed to my cynicism when dealing with authority figures. And Coach Fisher became the icing on that cake.
Daniel Silliman, One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2024), 317 pages including an index, bibliography and notes on sources.
One Lost Soul is a religious biography of our 37th President. Silliman begins with a brief overview of Nixon’s early life, after which he jumps from one critical injunction to another to show the role religion played in Nixon’s political career. These include Nixon’s anti-communism work as a young congressman, the run with Eisenhower as Vice President and his “Checkers Prayer,” the role of religion in the 1960 election, his holding “church” in the White House, the Vietnam War, his outreach to China, the Watergate Coverup, his resignation as President, and a bit about Nixon’s life after his presidency.
Silliman’s theme is that Nixon spent his life, from childhood, with a desire to find acceptance and love. Such desire began in his father’s grocery story but continued throughout his life. His obsession led him to work hard. He believed in the “great man” theory of history and wanted to be such a man, as seen in his reaching out to China. He had a hard time accepting God’s love or the love others. On the night before his resignation, Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State visited with him. On Nixon’s suggestion, the two men got on their knees and prayed. Nixon cried as he asked, “What have I done?”
Kissinger shared this moment with his staff members before Nixon called him to ask that he not tell anyone that he had cried. Kissinger later asked, “Can you imagine what this man would have been had somebody loved him?”
I had always wondered about Nixon’s background as a Quaker. I still remember a Mad Magazine from the time with a cartoon-like article about religion. When they got to the section on Quakers, one panel said something like, “There are 100,000 Quakers in the United States. The next panel said that Quakers don’t believe in war. The third panel featured Nixon saying that he was a Quaker. The final panel read, “That makes 99,999.
Silliman points out that California Quakerism differed from the East Coast variety in several manners. In some ways, it was more like a Methodist tradition, with focus on working out one salvation. Nixon saw military activity as a way toward peace, so instead of seeking a consciousness objector status during World War 2, he joined the navy. Even during Vietnam, Nixon maintained hope the bombings would bring the North to the negotiation table. While this upset many Quakers, the decentralized structure of the denomination meant that any church disciplinary actions would have to be taken by his home church in California. While Nixon continued to claim to be a Quaker, he had not been active in the church since a child.
As President, Nixon created White House worship services. For these, he would import ministers to preach. Interestingly, Nixon maintain total control of the service down to the hymns. The services served a political purpose as Nixon often invited those to attend as favors. These services were Protestant, but on one occasion was led by a Jewish rabbi.
Nixon could also be impulsive. In the middle of the night during the anti-war protests, he takes his valet (and some secret service agents) to the Lincoln Memorial. There, he talks to anti-war protestors who are camping out on the steps. He asks questions of them. When they depart, he expresses his hope their opposition to the war won’t turn into hate for the country.
Silliman points out many good things Nixon did. Certainly, his work with China stands at the top. But he also refused to play the religious card against John Kennedy in the 1960 election. While it would have probably worked at the time, he didn’t feel it appropriate. He was also deeply concerned with Civil Rights, even though for political reasons, he refused to make a public statement on Martin Luther King’s arrest during the 1960 election. In 1968, he tried to play it both ways, reaching out to Strong Thurmond and other who supported segregation. This was the beginning of the Republican “southern strategy.”
While this is a sad and tragic story, I can’t help but to have hope that at least Nixon had a conscious that bothered him. I didn’t come away from this book thinking he was a psychopath. There were times he had empathy for others and instead of thinking too highly of himself, he doubted his own self-worth. In a way, it was his lack of self-worth that made him so desperate to win and to prove himself.
This is a good book not just for understanding Nixon, but also understanding the difficult many people have in accepting grace.
This biography is a part of the “Library of Religious Biography” series. I have read several others in the series including Aimee Semple McPerson: Everybody’s Sister, Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America, and Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life.
I’m reviewing three books. One a faith memoir, another a humorous travelogue, and one a classic work that has probably influenced our society more than we can image while also being a work few can claim to have read. There’s something here for everyone
Beth Moore, All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir
(Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2023), 295 pages plus 8 pages of color prints.
Beth Moore has been on my radar for at least twenty years. Women groups at churches I’ve served have used her Bible Study materials. Over the past eight years, I have witnessed from afar her challenges within the Southern Baptist and evangelical community as she boldly spoke out against Donald Trump after his remarks about grabbing women in private places were made public in 2016. And later, I watched from a distance as she both challenged the Southern Baptist for covering up sexual abuse of leaders within the denomination. Yet, while I have read some of her articles, I had not read any of her books until I picked up this memoir. I recommend it.
This is an honest and can imagine how painful the book was to write. In a way, it’s more of an autobiography than a memoir. She tells stories from her childhood and admits how the family tried to hold on to respectability while harboring dark secrets. The darkest was her father’s unwanted touching. She also writes about how she was drawn into church and even the pastor who affirmed her going into ministry as a teenager. Starting out leading women’s ministry classes and acrobatics, she grew a business into a major organization. Coming from a Southern Baptist background, she always stayed with women’s ministry and avoided any leadership position which would undermine pastors (whom she assumed should be male).
Moore: politics and leaving the Southern Baptist Church
Moore also avoided politics until Bill Clinton had his White House affair. This caused her to leave the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. In this manner, she followed the crowd as evangelical leaders across the county openly condemn Clinton. She expected the same response after the release of Trump’s Access Hollywood tapes. It shocked her that instead, many evangelical leaders circled the wagons around Trump.
This memoir tells the story of her coming of age, her marriage, her relationship to her parents, the building of a ministry, and how she came to the decision to leave her the Southern Baptist Church. It was a hard break as she loved the denomination who had nurtured her. The book ends with her and her husband finding a new home within an Anglican Church. While there have been many knotted-up challenges in her life, through it all she always found solace and strength in her Savior, Jesus Christ.
While there are troubling events described in this memoir, Moore’s writing is a pleasure to read. And amongst the pain, there is also laughter. The reader will meet a woman of faith and conviction.
Tony Horwitz, One for the Road: An Outback Adventure
(1987, audible 2020).
I picked up this book from an Audible Sale. Having read and enjoyed three of Horwitz’s books, I thought it would be something nice to listen and laugh while driving. Years ago, I had read Bill Bryson’s, From a Sunburnt County, and was thinking this book might further expand my knowledge of Australia, while providing humorist distractions. It didn’t take long for me to realize the book I was listening to was written long before Bryson’s.
Horwitz was a funny writer. The first book of his I read was Confederates in the Attic. I read most of that book on a cross-country flight. I kept trying, but without much success, to muffle my laughter. Everyone seated around me wanted to know what book I was reading! While this book provides many funny moments (along with a few crude jokes told my travel companions while he’s on the road), it’s not nearly as funny as his later works. As I said, I thought this book was a newer book. After listening just a bit, I found myself googling Horwitz and discovered the book was his first, published in the late 1980s. His writing became tighter over time! Sadly, I also learned that Horwitz had a massive heart attack and died in 2019. He was only 60 years old, just a little younger than me.
First journey into the Outback
In this book, Horwitz has moved to Australia, his wife’s home. It’s in the mid-1980s and they both take positions with a newspaper in Sydney. But Horwitz’s wanderlust doesn’t fade and after a year, he obtains permission from his editor to head out into the bush to see Australia. It’s 1986, and Haley’s Comet is big in the news. Obviously, the comet wasn’t any brighter in Australia than it was here in the states. But the place to see the comet was supposed to be Alice Springs, in the center of the continent. Horwitz sets off by hitch hiking (in the summer, no less). He’s later assigned an article on the conflict between natives and tourists at Ayer’s Rock (now known as Uluru). Renting a car, he drives over to the site and on this way back rolls the car. Luckily, he is bruised, but okay. He flies home, but a little later works out a deal for a month traveling and sets off again.
A month in the Outback
Hitchhiking in Australia is a bit different. Instead of using one’s thumb, the hitch hiker sticks out a finger. But it’s the same in that one must be careful. While he’s traveling there are reports of people killed by hitchhikers, which makes his attempt to get a ride even more difficult. He travels across the country to Perth and then heads along the coast to Darwin. While he has been warned to avoid the Blacks (abiogenies), he finds them hospitable. In one case, they trust him enough to hand him the keys to their junker car along with a handful of bills and have him drive into town to buy beer! In places it was against the law to sell bear to abiogenies, and at other establishments, proprietors refuse to sell to them.
It seems Horwitz’s travels focuses on drinking. In remote areas, people measure distance not by miles or kilometers, but the number of beers consumed. The amount of alcohol consumed while driving is frightening. And people also drink at home and in pubs. Darwin, at the time, had the highest beer consumption in the world, 58 gallons per person! In another town, the authorities tried to reduce drinking on Sundays by passing a law that a pub could only be open for five hours. So, the pubs came together and staggered their hours so that the day was covered. This created a weekly “pub crawl,” as folks went from one to another, every five hours.
While traveling, Horwitz encounters those who work with livestock, in mining and oil exploration, fishermen (and he even spends a day fishing for crayfish) and pearl divers. In places he finds lots of prejudice against natives and immigrants, but in other places find people working together and getting along with one another.
Passover in the Outback
One of the more interesting stories occurred in Broome, a town along the northwest coast. Horwitz, who describes himself as a secular Jew, realized Passover was coming up. Wanting to share the feast with other Jews, he asks around. No one knows of any Jews, but someone suggests he speak with the local Catholic priest. The priest points him to a Jewish government physician. Horwitz meets the physician, who invites him to his home for Passover. Later, when there is a day of remembering those who had died in wars, Horwitz attends. The priest gives the keynote speech and mentions his encounter with a wandering American Jew, which brought a smile to Horwitz. This story, told near the end of the book, allows Horwitz to reflect on his cultural background and his desire to wander.
Recommendations
I don’t think this book is up to the standard of Horwitz’s other books. In addition to Confederates in the Attic, I have also read A Long and Dangerous Journey and Spying on the South). However, I still enjoyed it and recommended it. It’s a great first book and in it one sees Horwitz’s potential to become a laugh-out-loud travel writer. The narrator for the Audible edition is one of Horwitz’s sons.
St. Augustine, City of God
(427, Penguin Books, 2003 edition), 1097 pages, Audible translation narrated by David McCallion, 46 hours and 32 minutes, 2018.
There is one reason why I am behind on my readings for 2024. I had set a goal of 48 books and am currently six books behind thanks to slogging through this classic. I’ve listened to it all and went back and reread interesting parts. Maybe I could count this as 22 books (as Augustine did) and then I’d have already exceeded my goal! I had an old copy of this book from seminary, but it was abbreviated, with just the best parts, so I had to purchase a new copy.
City of God is a classic. In it, we see Augustine’s keen knowledge of the world. He knows the myths and legends of the pagan gods, the history of the world up to his time, and is well versed in philosophy and science. He understands astronomy including how eclipses occur. While he discounts numerology as a tool for understanding scripture, he is knowledgeable on mathematics. He discusses botany and biology, including knowing of some animals who live super hot environments which he uses as support for his ideas on hell. And he has a great grasp of the history of the world and can parallel what occurred in the Bible to what was happening at the same time in Rome, Greece, or Persia.
First half of the work
The first half of this massive work defends Christianity from the charge that Rome’s fall was due to Christians abandoning the pagan gods. Augustine spends 12 books showing how the pagan gods failed to protect other cities such as Troy. Augustine shows a keen knowledge of the pagan world in his defense. In this section of the book, he also advises Christians on how to act during such a tragedy in which many had committed suicide seeing it as preferable to torture and/or rape. Augustine encouraged his readers to trust in God even in the face of torture and death.
Second half of the work
In the second half of the book, Augustine follows the development of the two cities. He links the earthly city to Cain, which is the city for reprobate. The early city is identified with Babylon and Rome. Working through the Scriptures, he makes a case for a parallel city planned by God for the faithful, the elect. In addition to showing the development of the two cities, he also parallels much of what happens in scripture to what was happening in the rest of the world during the same period.
In this half of the work, Augustine shows his keen insight into the scriptures. While he acknowledges there is no mention of Christ in Old Testament, he lays out how Hebrew Scriptures points to Christ. It is in this section he also ties Hebrew history to the history of the larger world. Augustine makes a strong case against those who think they can predict Christ’s return. His writing on this subject makes it clear that there were many who seemed to think they knew God’s mind with their elaborate schemes plotting out the end of time. Not much has changed, has it?
Conclusion of the work
The last chapters focus on the end of history. Augustine makes a case for hell but suggests life in hell would be preferable to total annihilation. He discusses the final judgment. He also writes about the heavenly City of God coming in fulness but is reluctant to make to suggestions of what it might be like beyond what’s found in Scripture.
Augustine seems to value the body and our experiences in this world. I was surprised when he addressed praying for our enemies. While he endorses such prayers, he suggests we should not pray for those spirits (demons) who have no bodies! Augustine obviously writes from a patriarchy society, I didn’t find his writing to be anti-female, as I sometimes see him interpreted.
Conclusion
While at times this book seems to slog along, there is much to discover in it. I found myself realizing how my limited knowledge of Roman culture and history made it more difficult to fully appreciate Augustine’s insights. I don’t think the 21st Century can nurture another Augustine. Could you image today someone what could discuss history, theology, religion, along with advance astronomy, physics, biology with the brightest in these fields? This work has greatly influenced Western Culture, from politics to theology. It inspired Martin Luther and John Calvin, two of the leading thinkers of the Protestant Reformation. It should be studied.
In 1899, the C & O railroad began building a line running north alongside the Greenbrier River to tap into the rich timberlands of West Virginia. The next year, the railroad reached Cass, 80 miles north of the mainline which cut through White Sulfur Springs and Lewisburg. A few years later, the line continued north until it connected to the Western Maryland. The Greenbrier division consisted of a little over 100 miles, most of which was along the river. Of course, the success in cutting the timber led to the demise of the railroad.
By 1920, most of the virgin timber in the lower section had been cut and the line began to financially struggle. But it kept going, providing an outlet to the larger world for communities in Greenbrier and Pocahontas County such as Anthony, Spring Creek, Beard, Hillsboro, Seebert, Marlinton, Clover Lick, and Cass. Except for Marlinton, which is the seat of government for Pocahontas County, most of these communities today are a shell of their former selves.
Green Banks Observatory (one of several large antennas)
One of the more interesting pieces of freight for the railroad were sections of a large antenna for the Green Bank Observatory. This observatory has several radio telescopes, including the largest radio telescope which can track a point in space. Because of the sensitive antennas, the area is in a radio restrictive zone. This limits the height of antennas and the power of transmitters. If you visit Green Bank Observatory, you had to turn your cell phones off! Much of the area along the rail trail has no cell phone service and there is limited radio stations cover the area. The designer of the antenna had a mockup built to ensure it could be transported to near Green Bank, as it had to pass through two tunnels.
Passenger service along this branch of the C&O ended in 1958. In the late 1970s, freight traffic, which had dwindled to a weekly run, ended and the tracks removed. As the logging company which owned Cass Railroad had done when it closed in 1960, the C&O turned 80 miles of the right of way over to the state. The Cass Railroad is operated as a tourist train state park
A Cass “Shay” locomotive
Today, the old railroad bed is a trail is a linear park enjoyed by hikers, bicycles, and horses. Adjacent to the trail are several other state parks: Cass Scenic Railroad, Watoga, Droop Mountain Battlefield, and Beartown. Additional land is held by both state forest and the Monongahela National Forest. These parks and forest provide ample opportunity for camping or staying in cabins, many of which were built by the Civilian Conversation Corps during the Depression.
Monday mornings were quiet in Cass
This past Sunday, my brother and I headed up to a cabin in Watoga State Park. We spent Monday and Tuesday riding 60 miles of the Greenbrier River Trail, from Cass to Spring Creek. We had two idea days to ride. Both mornings, we left the cabin with temperatures in the 30s, but my mid-day we were in t-shirts.
Trestle at Sharp Tunnel
We started at Cass, at the northern end of the trail and road south. Highlights included the town of Clover Lick, which has one of the few remaining stations (others are in Cass and Marlinton. 14 miles south of Cass, we passed through the Sharp Tunnel, which exits on a trestle, taking us to the east side of the river. Below the trestle were ropes hanging from a river birch. I could imagine on warmer days, children swinging out into the river. Nearby were some camps with fire rings that may have seen a few hobos in earlier days.
With my brother at Sharp Tunnel
My brother in Marlinton
Just before you get into Marlinton, there was an old water tower, the only one which remains on the river trail. In Marlinton, there is a bike repair stand, which allowed me to put my bike up and adjust the gear changing lever. While I had enough tools with me, the stand also had such tools attached to a cable (so they’d remain for other bikers in need of a repair). We ate our picnic lunch at a table along the trail in Marlinton.
After Marlinton, we had about 12 more miles to ride before we arrived at Seebert. I had left my vehicle there, so we loaded up our bikes and drove back to Cass to pick up my brother’s vehicle. Afterwards, on the way back to Watoga, we stopped again in Marlinton for dinner at the Greenbrier Grille and Lodge. If I had known they had rooms, I might have stayed here. Then we could brag about staying at the Greenbrier (there is another 5-star Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, a place visited by 28 Presidents).
West Virginia Original
We ate outside on the porch overlooking the Greenbrier and a hoard of ducks waiting to be fed scraps. They had a meal titled “The West Virginia Original” and is probably not on the menu at the other “Greenbrier.” But as we were there, we had to try it. There were lots of fried potatoes, along with kielbasa sausage, sautéed onions and mushrooms. It was served in a cast iron frying pan and included sides (I got pinto beans and cole slaw), and a slice of cornbread. I downed it with a local IPA.
me at Droop Mountain Tunnel
We decided not to try to ride the rest of the trail on Tuesday. We both had places to be on Wednesday. After shuttling cars, we rode our bikes to Spring Creek. This section passed a state prison, the Droop Mountain tunnel along with idyllic scenery of hayfields being cut and baled. The Droop Mountain tunnel runs under the site of a Civlil War battle up on the mountain . We finished up and had the cars shuttled by mid-afternoon, said our goodbyes and headed toward our respective homes. It had been a good trip and was nice to catch up with my brother in person for the first time since our father’s death.
I planned to stop at the Pearl Buck’s birthplace at Hillsboro on my way home. Buck was a missionary to China and a wonderful author. Her book on China (The Good Earth) won the Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote another good book on Korea titled The Living Reed. Sadly, the place was closed. This is the third time I have tried to stop there, and it seems to always be closed. So I drove on home.
Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Friday, September 6, 2024
Jeff Garrison Mayberry Presbyterian Church Anniversary Service Acts 21:1-17 September 8, 2024
At the beginning of worship:
100 years is a long time. It was the roaring twenties. I’m sure it didn’t feel that way here along the Blue Ridge. The boom the area felt with the building of the dams along the Dan River and the Blue Ridge Parkway were still a decade away. The chestnut trees were dying, a blight which wiped out roughly 20% of the trees of the forest. The loss of chestnuts was a disaster. The nuts fed hogs and were collected as a cash crop so those living in New York City could enjoy “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”
The Rev. Robert (Bob) Childress as a seminary student. From “A Man Who Moved a Mountain”
100 years ago, it might not have been the best time to start a church in Mayberry. But there were those with a vision. The brush arbor, which I spoke of in my sermon last week,[1] had been used for revivals in this area since the Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the 19th Century. The Reverend Roy Smith held such services and brought along a promising ministerial student named Bob Childress. They organized a Sunday School. Then they organized a church. And twice a month, as a seminary student, Bob drove his Model T from Union Seminary in Richmond to Mayberry.[2] Just thinking about that journey makes my back ache.
But here we are today, celebrating, and giving thanks for those who came before us.
Before reading of scripture:
I’m not going to preach from Mark this week but will return to the gospel next week. Instead, let’s look at a passage from the Acts of the Apostles.
The second half of Acts is often overlooked. The lectionary skips almost all of it, but there are memorable stories in this section, as memorable as those about Bob Childress in The Man Who Moved a Mountain. The last third of Acts is about Paul and his journeys, including his last one to Rome.
Today, the text takes us on a long journey, from modern day Turkey to the Phoenicia shores. Luke, who in addition to writing the gospel, also wrote Acts, provides unique details. He even mentions unloading the cargo of the ship. When Paul last traveled to Jerusalem, his journey from Ephesus to Jerusalem took just two sentences.[3] Here, Luke slows down and provides detail. He shows Paul’s determination to go to Jerusalem despite the danger.
As Paul travels, he stays with believers along the way which provide us with an insight into first century hospitality and what it means to be on a Christian journey. Such hospitality was still around in 1924, when Bob Childress made that drive from Richmond and stayed with Abe Webb, who’d wait up for him and had heated bricks and irons to toss into his bed so he might warm up from the cold trip as he slept.[4]
Read Acts 21:1-17
It seems like a long time ago. It was before COVID. In 2018. I attended the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. Afterwards, I rented a car and drove to Iowa City, to attend a session on writing humor at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Coming back to St. Louis, to turn in the rental car and catch a flight home, I had an extra day. This allowed me the luxury of taking the backroads, catching up with a friend, and checking out sights.
trains move through Ft. Madison, Iowa
My plan was to cross over the Mississippi, from Iowa to Illinois, at Fort Madison. A major rail town, it’s where the old the Santa Fe line, from Chicago to Los Angeles, crosses the river. Knowing I would see plenty of trains along with barges on the Mississippi, I stopped at the old Santa Fe depot, which is now a local museum. There, I talked to an old railroad passing time watching trains. Before retirement, he worked for the Santa Fe and knew something about the railroad.
As I arrived, trains stopped. The bridge opened, so they had to wait. A large set of barges came out under the bridge. When the bridge closed, the trains began to move. But then they stopped again. And there was a large container train made its way through the other trains, just booking it. The retired railroad guy identified the fast train as a land-bridge express. This train hauls containers from Las Angeles to ports on the East Coast. There, the containers are reloaded onto ships for Europe. These containers don’t go through customs and are sealed for the entire journey. Who knew!
One of my metaphors for the Christian journey I have used before is of a train on a transcontinental journey. Every ten hours or so, the train stops, and one crew gets off while another takes over. Each crew has their own run and responsibility. The guy at the throttle, who waved to us before he crossed the Mississippi, never saw the train being formed by the Pacific nor watched its containers loaded onto a ship on the Atlantic. His job was to move the train safely from point A, probably somewhere in Iowa, to point B in Illinois or Indiana. The engineer trusts that other engineers will see the train to its destination.
When it comes to the church, our task is to faithfully move the church a little further down the line. The church, as well as us as individuals, are on a journey. We are thankful and indebted to those in the past who help bring the church up to the present. And we must trust God to supply others to lead the church after we’re gone and have been promoted to the church triumphant.
Journey has always been a popular theme within Christianity. From the early days, there were those who went on pilgrimages. These were journeys designed to draw people into a closer relationship with God. According to Dante, pilgrimages required “the challenge of distance and a sense of being a stranger in a strange land.”[5]
While pilgrimages fell out of favor with the early Protestant movement, the Puritan John Bunyan brought it back, at least metaphorically.
Bunyan describes our entire lives as a pilgrimage. Pilgrim’s Progress is his allegorical tale. His protagonist, Christian (what a convenient name), dreams of a journey from this world to the next. Christian lived in the City of Destruction, but his journey takes him to the Celestial City on Mount Zion. Bunyan reminds us that our ultimate citizenship isn’t to this world, but to God’s kingdom. Like Dante said, we’re strangers to this world. In this fashion, we’re all pilgrims.
Paul, in our passage this morning, has the same sort of feelings. He makes the journey because the Spirit compiles him, even though others warn him of danger. As he makes his way from Asia-minor to Jerusalem, Paul’s encounters echo many things Luke has already told us in his gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles.[6]
In Caesarea, Paul stays with Philip, the evangelist, and one of the seven original deacons called to the task early in the book of Acts. As a deacon, Philip assignment included the task of seeing that the needs of all the members of the Way, especially the vulnerable such as widows, are fed and cared for.[7]
Interestingly, one of the other original deacons was Stephen. It was at Stephen’s stoning that we first hear of Saul, later known to us as Paul.[8] He was on the other side at this point, ready to persecute those who followed Jesus. Paul, who watched with approval the killing of Philip’s co-worker, has now become friends with Philip. Following Jesus should do this, bring together those who were enemies.
Philip has four daughters, all prophets, which reminds us of Peter’s sermon on Pentecost when he quotes Joel about sons and daughters prophesying.[9] When Paul first set out for Damascus, his mission was to bind up the Christians in Syria and lead them back to Jerusalem for trial.[10] Now Agabus, another prophet, shows Paul how this will be reversed as Paul is bound and taken away.
Furthermore, the warnings Paul receives are akin to the warnings Jesus gives the disciples about going to Jerusalem.[11] For Paul, like Jesus, as we’ve been seen lately in my sermons on Mark, Jerusalem is a dangerous place.[12]
Despite the warnings, Paul feels complied by God’s Spirit to go to Jerusalem, just as Jesus felt complied to go there. It doesn’t seem as if Paul fully knows fully what’s ahead. He doesn’t die in Jerusalem, but he was prepared to die. However, Paul’s ministry takes a significant twist in Jerusalem, as he is taken from there, as a prisoner, to Rome.
I’ve heard it said that when Christians are willing to die for the gospel, the gospel can’t be stopped. Paul knows he’s involved with a movement larger than himself. Even Bob Childress, who faced down drunks with guns, experienced danger.[13] But Bob and Paul knew their first loyalty is to Jesus Christ and to go where Jesus wants them to go.
There are three highlights from this passage I’d like to offer. First, Paul enjoys the fellowship of believers wherever he goes. When Paul enters a town, the first thing he does is to seek out Christians and he delights in their company. And today, this congregation still enjoys being in fellowship with each other. (I should cut this sermon a bit so we can get to the waiting food).
Second, they pray together. When Paul departs Tyre, everyone got on their knees on the beach. In the sharing of hospitality and prayer, both parties are blessed through what they give and receive. The Christian life is of both giving and receiving, of blessings and being a blessing.
The Childress family had such a blessing from prayer one of the years when Bob was in seminary. They were out of funds. It was going to be a bleak Christmas, but a physician in Danville, who had heard Bob preach, felt compelled to send him $300, a lot of money in the mid-1920s. It turned out to be a good Christmas with presents and food.[14]
The third thing: Paul knows imprisonment and perhaps death lies ahead. But he does not fear it. Paul no longer sees himself as a free man. Paul accepts his role as a prisoner of God’s Spirit. He’s a slave to Christ. Even though there are storm clouds ahead, Paul continues because he knows he’s doing what God wills. In the same way, Bob Childress forged ahead at Mayberry because he knew he was doing God’s work.
You know, everyone has troubles. When we feel we are a part of God’s team, we can endure the pain because we know we are not alone. Our purpose is larger than ourselves. It’s no longer about Paul. It’s about what God will do.
These three highlights we can take from Paul’s journey: fellowship, prayer, and focusing on something larger than ourselves. There’s joy from fellowship with other believers. When we pray together, we connect with our Heavenly Father and one another. And finally, we realize our efforts are just a small part of what’s God’s Spirit is doing in the world. We must be faithful and trust God’s Spirit to take care of the rest.
Remember that train rushing from one coast to another. We have our own section of rail for which we’re responsible. As the old gospel song goes, “We must keep our hand upon the throttle and our eyes upon the rail.”[15] It’s not about us, it’s about God’s mission. Amen.
A few years ago, my father gave me a wooden box designed to hold important papers. Originally, it belonged to my father’s great-grandfather, Duncan James McKenzie. It was passed down to my great-grandfather Daniel Kenneth McKenzie, then to my grandmother, who gave it to my father. I have written about my great grandmother before: Aunt Callie’s Place and about her death when I was seven.
The box contained some old prayer books and hymnals that go back into the early 19th Century. Also in the box was my great-grandfather’s Book of Church Order from the 1940s. My grandmother stored in the box a number of photos (see above). She also added several things relating to me including a copy of my graduation from seminary, an article of mine published in the Presbyterian Survey, and a bulletin from a time I preached at Culdee Presbyterian Church in January 1994. This is the church where I was baptized on Easter Sunday 1957 and where she was a member for ninety years. My grandmother joined the church at the unusual age of eight, and once told me about her conviction to join and meeting with the ministers and elders.
I recently read through some of these prayer books as I looked for prayers to use for the 100th Anniversary Service at Mayberry Presbyterian Church. In Prayers Suitable for Children and Sunday Schools published in Philadelphia by the American Sunday School Union in 1831, I came across a “Sabbath-school Prayer on dismissing a Scholar for Ill-Conduct.”
While this prayer won’t make it into the service this week, I found myself wondering if Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) may have been the recipient of such a prayer. After all, Twain supposedly credited the Presbyterian Church for teaching him to “fear God and dread Sunday School.” And this prayer book was published just before Twain’s birth in 1835.
Here’s the prayer:
Great and holy God, who art angry with the wicked every day, we should feel sorrow for the scholar whose evil conduct has caused his being turned out of this school. Thou knowest that he has been warned and reproved; that he has been often forgiven, and kindly entreated to cease to do evil and learn to do well, but all in vain. Thou hast said to them who desire to walk in Thy ways, “come out from among the wicked, and be ye separate.” It is right then that we should be separated from this wicked boy: but, O Lord, who art acquainted with all our ways, suffer us not proudly to think that we are righteous and may despise him. May we remember that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” May we feel that we have no merits of our own to boast of, and must all suffer the everlasting punishment of the wicked, unless we are saved through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. O grant that we, and this disgraced boy, may repent of all our sins, and be forgiven. May his disgrace and punishment be the means of leading him, and us, to think with fear of the threatening in Thy word that “the wicked shall be turned into hell,” and all who forget God. This is a fearful sentence; but, O merciful Lord, there are gracious promises in Thy word, as well as awful threatenings. We read there, “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” O, by thy grace, merciful Father, soften the heart of this obstinate boy into repentance. O help him to forsake his evil ways and turn unto Thee, and to do Thou, according to Thy promises, abundantly pardon him, for the sake of Jesus Christ, and grant that he may soon, with a changed heart, return like a stray sheep to this fold again. May we all be warned by his punishment, and fear to follow his example. Let us not repay the kindness of our teachers with disobedience and ingratitude. O forbid that we should be so thankless to Thee and to them, for Sabbath-school instruction, but may we receive it gratefully and attentively, and learning more and more of Thy holy word, take it for a guide in all our conduct. We would again plead with Thee, merciful Father, for him, and grant that he may be “one sinner that repenteth.” Over whom angels in heaven rejoice. Hear our prayer, and grant it, merciful God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save penitent sinners. Amen.
Boy, that’s a long paragraph! Italics (which is loss in making this a quote) was used for the male pronoun, which I supposed could alert the prayer to change to a female pronoun if the offender was a girl. Of course, that probably seldom happened!
Thankfully, this disclaimer was attached to the prayer:
“The dismission of a scholar from a Sunday-school, as a matter of discipline, is to be applied only in an extreme case. The danger of driving an ill-disposed child from the influence of the school is great; perseverance in kind and affectionate treatment may reclaim him.”
Growing up, I remember the Sunday School Superintendent (does anyone use those titles today?) had a desk in the mechanical room of the church. Mr. Howard, a pharmacist in the church, was the superintendent. I was threatened to be sent to his office (like the principal’s office), but the only time I remember going there was to drop off the attendance roll and the class offerings. Maybe the threat was enough to keep me in line.
The box with some of its content. The open music book was a tutor for teaching music. The book on top without a title was the prayer book published in 1831. The red book beside it was published in 1907.
The summer had been incredible. And the last week of camp started off smoothly. My staff had all reported back on time and most of the troops had checked in by mid-afternoon on Sunday. A little after four, I headed over to the dining hall to check on dinner. At six, they’d be serving nearly 500 scouts, leaders and staff. Sunday night was always a good meal: baked chicken, whipped mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables, yeast rolls and cobbler for dessert. I could smell the food as I neared the dining hall. I cut around the back, to enter through the kitchen entrance. Passing the dumpsters, something bumped into my eye. Immediately I felt the sting. I slapped my forehead, killing a wasp.
They say bad things come in threes. I should have gone out right then and found a rock to hide under to wait out the Apocalypse.
Up until my encounter with a wasp, it had been a wonderful summer at Camp Bud Schiele. The camp, in only its second year of operation, looked like a country club. The rolling grassy hills surrounded a lake which offered swimming, canoeing and sailing, fishing and waterskiing. I had a terrific staff. The first seven weeks had gone off without a hitch.
After this week, we’d store away tents and gear. The week after that, I’d be in Damascus, Virginia, ready for a two-week hike along the Appalachian Trail.
The cooks assured me that dinner would be on time. I got a piece of ice to hold against the wasp sting and headed back to the camp office. By the time of our staff meeting that night, my right eye had swollen shut. There, before me, stood my staff. Every one of them sat with their right eye closed. I wish I felt it was out of sympathy, but I know mockery when I see it.
The Full Staff (minus cooks and CITs or counselors in training)
The Forger
After Sunday, things slipped back into a regular routine. By mid-week, the swelling had gone down and I’d forgotten about the wasp. The council camp had a tradition going back generations where the camp staff produced a pageant for campers and their families on Wednesday night. It was convenient to do this middle of the week; visiting parents always recharged the son’s wallets which helped our trading post make a good profit. The pageant itself was quite a feat, as the staff dressed up as Native Americans and told some legendary story about natives in Western North Carolina. No one seemed to bothered that the staff dressed like Plain’s Indians, right off a Hollywood movie set. As camp director, I’d spent the evening greeting parents and talking up the scouting program.
A few minutes before the final show of the summer began, my business manager ran up to me and said there was someone in the office who needed to see me. I walked over and met the man who ran a small country store and gas station a few miles away. He wasn’t too happy. He showed me a check written by one of my staff members. The check was written on a closed account.
Todd, the staff member, who had been in uniform, told the man the check belonged to his mother and she had given it to him, pre-signed, so he could get gas and some snacks. The store accepted it, after writing the guy’s name and driver’s license number on the check. As country stores often did, he counter signed the check over to the bread delivery man. The only problem was, the check didn’t belong to the guy’s mom, but to another woman, the sister of a friend. When the check was denied for payment, the bread company had charged the store an extra fine. The store owner had called the woman whose name was on the checks. He learned the checks had been stolen. There had been a number of checks written on this account, which had been closed, across a three-county area. She also informed him there were a half-dozen warrants out for the guy’s arrest.
Honorably discharged after four years serving in the Marine Corp that May, Todd came with good references. His age was another asset. There were many positions he could serve by being over 21. Todd became an assistant field sports director, running the rifle range. For a couple weeks, he also served as a provisional scoutmaster, working with those scouts who came to camp without a troop. I’d been pleased with his work.
Unlike a lot of my staff, Todd always had clean uniforms, which I later learned was because he’d brought four sets of them with a check “which his mother had given him so he could buy uniforms.” As it turned out, even his uniforms were stolen. He purchased them through forgery. Although I didn’t want a sheriff cruiser flying into camp with their lights flashing to arrest a staff member, I also felt I needed to get Todd out of camp. Although I didn’t think he’d do anything, I felt it was a liability to have a staff member working with kids with that many felonies on his head.
I asked the local sheriff if they could wait till ten o’clock. The camp ranger (who was deputized because of the amount of land he managed) and I would detain Todd in my office until then. By ten, all the parents would have left, and the scouts would be back in their campsites. Then, in private, we could hand Todd over to a local sheriff deputy. They would hold him until the sheriff of Catawba County picked him up.
I made arrangement for my program director to take over the staff meeting we always held on Wednesday night and asked him to keep the staff together until I came back to talk to them. With Tony, the camp ranger by my side, I asked Todd to come with me to my office.
It was a long walk through the night. Once inside the office, I told him what was up. Todd was a big guy, probably 6’3” with broad shoulders, about the size of Tony and I put together. Afraid of what he might do, he shocked both of us by sitting down in a chair and crying. Tony offered him a cigarette. I decided not to insist he not smoke in my office. He took one (I’d never seen him smoke) and with tears in his eyes asked what was going to happen to him. I told him didn’t know, but I knew there were several warrants out for his arrest and that forgery was serious business.
The deputy arrived right at ten and arrested Todd. I felt sorry for him, as he was handcuffed. I told him we’d pack up his stuff and keep it safe and then went over to the dining hall where the staff was sitting around waiting. They knew something was up and were visibly shaken, for Todd had been a likable guy. The next day, Tony and I went through Todd’s stuff, inventorying it all and boxing it up and storing it in his car. A few days later, his parents came down and picked up his car and drove it home.
Another staff photo
An indecent photograph
The Waterfront
I’d had enough excitement for one summer. But the week wasn’t over. On Friday, as I was trying to finish up paperwork in my office, the mother of a camper who’d been at the camp a few weeks earlier came by. Like the store owner, she too wasn’t happy. She dropped an X-rated photograph on my desk, one that had come from her son’s camera. I could have gone all summer without seeing that. Her son swore to her that he had no idea where the picture came from, but looking at it, I knew right away who to ask.
I called for the waterfront director. When he entered my office, I showed him the picture of someone’s privates, with a bathing suit pulled down. The director recognized the bathing suit and sent for two staff members. He had quickly figured out what had happened.
As the scouts checked into the waterfront, there was a place where they could ‘check” valuables, things which shouldn’t get wet, like wallets and cameras. The staff member in question had seen this camera and he, and another staff member, decided it would be funny to take a pornographic photo on some unsuspecting kids’ camera. The staff member responsible for checking in valuables had taken the photo and another waterfront staff, with the bright red striped bathing suit, served as the model.
Although I knew it was just a childish prank, the Scouts have strict rules on such behavior. I found myself having the privilege of firing two more staff members. Like Todd, both were well-liked and hard workers. The rest of the staff were angry at my decision, especially since it there was only one more day of camp left. They were particularly mad that I didn’t allow them to attend the closing banquet we held at the end of the next week, after closing down the camp for winter. At least the model in the photograph must not have been too mad with me, for the next year when he graduated from college, he called to ask me to be one of his references.
It had been such a nice summer. I enjoyed everything the camp had to offered: swimming, water skiing, sailing, canoeing, and fishing. But after that last week, I was never so glad to head off for a two-week hike in Southern Virginia.
The “Key Staff” Members. I’m on the right, with hair and no beard. From right to left. Me, the program director, the waterfront director, the field sports director, the business manager, the camp ranger (Tony), and the nature and scouting skills director.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted the first of memoir of one of my mentors. Click here for that post. Here is the second part.
Staff Retreats
Ron and Council President Rhone Sasser who was President of United Carolina Bank at this time. I no longer have the original photo, this was copied from an annual report.
Ron taught those of us on staff to make the best of any situation. We were a small staff; there were only five of us. Twice a year, Ron pulled us away for a three-day retreat. We spent the time planning and training. We worked hard. But Ron was never one to let hard work get in the way of a good time.
Many of these retreats were held in beach houses owned by a council board member. Several were on Wrightsville Beach, others on Brunswick County beaches. In addition to planning, training, and setting goals, we’d fish and take turns preparing fancy seafood dinners. If the water was warm, we’d swim. There was one fall retreat, after working all day and a big dinner, we played football in the surf as the sun set. It probably wasn’t the brightest thing as the sharks often move closer to shore to feed at dusk, but no one was harmed.
One fall morning we meet at a beach house on Wrightsville Beach. Ron unlocked the door. We began to barge in with boxes of food, a couple of cases of beer, bottles of booze, bags of chips, along with flip charts and calendars and other assorted accruements. We were all shocked as a barely dressed woman stepped out of the bathroom. She squealed and ducked back in. Then, in the commotion, a young man appeared from the bedroom as the coed returned from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. “Who are you?” She asked. Ron told her he arranged with so and so to use the house for a few days. This turned out to be the girl’s father.
Embarrassed and concerned her daddy might learn she’d taken a premature break from college in order to entertain her boyfriend, she asked for a few minutes to pack. Ron was polite and said we were all in need for some breakfast and that when we return, we’ll have forgotten what we’d seen. We left. An hour later we returned; the woman and her illicit boyfriend were gone. I’m sure when Ron dropped a thank you note to her Daddy, he omitted that it had been our pleasure to meet his daughter. Ron’s Organizational Skills
Ron had a temper and never liked it when things didn’t go the way he’d plan. In one staff meeting, where he learned several assignments had been dropped, Ron started cussing and fussing and marched us into his office.
Ron’s desk was always immaculate. He started lecturing on how to organize our mail so that everything got done. He had a three-bin file on the edge of his desk. His goal was to never handle a piece of paper more than twice, he said. When he opened his mail, if it could be handled immediately, he did so. If it was of top importance and wouldn’t take much time, it went into this top bin. Second bin was for things that weren’t critical, and the bottom one was for things he wanted to look at but was not so important that the world would end if he didn’t get around to it. In his rant, Ron picked up the stack of papers in his top bin.
On the bottom of this stack was a Hustler magazine. We all started to smirk. Ron’s face became redder and redder as we all broke out into laughter. Finally, before Ron blew a gasket, someone pointed to the magazine. Ron turned over the pile. Then he laughed. His lecture came to an end with some mumbling about priorities.
Ron and Marketing
Ron should have been on Madison Avenue. Not only was he a good salesman, but he was also a master marketer. Even when we were doing things like raising money to pay off debt, Ron could come up with positive campaign slogans and materials that turned what many would have considered drudgery into an opportunity to celebrate. I don’t remember all the names, but one desk, I still have a “Catch the Scouting Spirit” mug holding pencils. In a shelf at work, there’s a “Total Development Campaign” apothecary jar holding toothpicks.
Ron insisted that when an event was over, it didn’t matter how good it turned out. What mattered was how people thought it went. If it was the greatest event in the world and only those who were there knew about it, it was a flop. Then next time we’d have to work just as hard. However, even if the event was mediocre, but everyone thought it was great, then it was a success. The next time such an event would be even easier to promote. Ron encouraged us to learn the stories from scouts and leaders and to tell them in order to promote the program.
Knowing I was interested in photography, Ron encouraged me to shoot photos whenever possible. With the scouting program financing my film and developing chemicals, I photographed everything. As I was working in rural areas with smaller newspapers, I often had full page spreads of my photographs showing scouts in action. Photos ended up in the council annual report and on camp posters. I was shocked when visiting Ron years later, just before his death, to see the posters framed and hanging in his home. Although at the time my writing was limited to an occasional press release, I’m sure Ron’s insistence on telling stories influenced my writing more than I could have imagined.
Ron and Perception (another part of Marketing)
Perception was also important in how we did our jobs. Ron taught us that you always left your business card and even encouraged us to stop by places in which we knew someone wouldn’t be home or in the office. Leaving a business card was almost as good as making a face-to-face visit. It didn’t take as much time and it left the perception that we were hard at work (in truth, when you have hundreds of volunteers, such time saving techniques were necessary to help everyone feel connected and cared for. He told stories about dropping off his business cards in mailboxes in the middle of the night. I never did that, but I wouldn’t put it past Ron.
In addition to dropping off business cards, Ron was always writing notes to people—both to volunteers as well as his professional staff. Whenever we did something well, he’d write us a note and encourage us to do likewise. To this day, I always care a few note cards in my folder, a habit I learned from Ron.
Building Camp Bowers
One of Ron’s great achievements as the Scout Executive for the Cape Fear Council was creating Camp Bowers in Northwest Bladen County. The council had not had a camp since a few years after my scouting days when they had sold Camp Tom Upchurch. While they had property, nothing had been done toward building a camp. Ron set out to change this. He charged ahead.
I remember one of my first staff meetings where I learned the importance of fund raising, if we wanted to be paid. We all worked hard and soon were not only raising enough to meet the budget but also paid off the debt which had been accumulating on camp construction through the “Total Development Campaign.” While the camp wasn’t quite finished, we dedicated the camp in May 1981. Hank Aaron, who had recently retired from baseball (and an Eagle Scout) gave the keynote address. A month later, we began the first summer of camp.
The fire at Camp Bowers
A year later, we held another council camporee at the camp. Troops from all over Southeastern North Carolina gathered. We had around 1000 boys on the site. It was dry and windy spring day, and things were going well. Around lunch, people began to comment about the smoke in the air. It was checked out a learned that a few miles away, someone was burning a large brush pile from where there a track of land had been clearcut. Shortly after lunch, the winds picked up. We received word the controlled burn was no longer in control. A raging fire headed straight toward the camp.
The word went out to evacuate. Since the camp was a couple miles from a paved road, with only one way in or out, it was important to be on the safe side. After everyone had been safely evacuated, the staff all stayed behind.
Ron went into town to get more water hoses so we could have hoses available at all the buildings. He came back, not only with water hoses, but with a cooler of beer and snacks. That night, the humidity rose, the wind died, and the fire laid down, burning in a bay (swamp) at the edge of camp, not too far from the camp office. We were told to watch the fire and to let the forest service know if it started to come out of the swamp. Ron got the bright idea to haul lawn chairs and the cooler up to the roof of the camp office. We took turns napping and watching the fire, while enjoying cold beer and chips.
The next morning, the wind picked up and the humidity dropped. We worked liked crazy putting out spot fires and watering down buildings. The North Carolina forest service brought in the big guns. Several large helicopters were based on the lake, picking up water and dropping it a few hundred feet away. A waterbomber made a couple of passes, as bulldozers trenched around buildings. While the first didn’t destroy any buildings, the burned areas were on the camp boundaries were evident even as summer camp began that summer.
Ron’s Single Life
Pam is behind Ms. Lillian, the woman with the pink dress.
Toward the end of my time with the Cape Fear Council, Ron and his first wife divorced. We’d often hold staff meetings on Friday afternoons and those of us available would go out on the town during the evening. Often, I stayed with Ron overnight in the condo he rented on Wrightsville Beach. On one occasion, I had been down to the council office mid-week. Ron suggested we go out. We did and I spent the night with him. The next morning, I had a 7 AM breakfast meeting with the Chairman of the Board of United Carolina Bank (for whom Camp Bowers had been named). That morning, it was foggy. I wondered what’d I’d gotten myself into as I drove back just in time to make the meeting.
A few months after I left for the Piedmont Council, Ron became the Scout Executive in Orlando Florida. Not long after that, Ron returned to Wilmington to marry Pam, who had been his secratary. It was a delightful wedding and they remained together until Ron’s death in 2005.
Addendum 1 (added two days later):
Parker, a who was also a part of the staff at Cape Fear Council in the early 1980s and can barely be seen in the back of the photo, emailed me about this post. He told of another skill Ron taught. Always set up for a meeting enough tables and chairs for 90% of the expected guests. This way, if more came, it looked even more successful as you pulled out extra chairs. If there were those who couldn’t make it, you didn’t have a lot of empty chairs sitting around. Parker spoke about how he, in his career working for Chambers of Commerce, adhered to this practice.
For some reason, I didn’t associate this practice with Ron, but it was also another thing I learned from working with the scouts. Over the years I have fought the battle with administrators, sextons, and volunteers to set up less chairs than expected. It takes a while for them to see the reason, but eventually they do.
Addendum 2 (added two days later)
In my previous post, I told about being with Ron a few months before his death. At the time, Ron and Pam asked me if I was willing to officiate at this funeral. I was. Sadly, when Ron died, they wanted to do the funeral on a particular day in Wilmington, NC. I had already committed to officiate at a wedding the next day on the West Coast and needed to be there for the rehearsal. I wasn’t able to officiate at the funeral.
