M E M O R I E S MUSES

Utopian Democracy

2012-01-14T21:13:00.002-06:00

When the citizenry of the British Colonies of North America summarily declared their independence from the bonds of the British Empire on July 4, 1776, it began a progression toward a form of government heretofore rarely seen in modern history. The adoption of the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1789, was the culmination of the gestation period for the birth of true democracy, a peculiar entity described eighty-three years later by President Abraham Lincoln as a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The concept of the governed having a voice in their own government was inconceivable to the leaders of the day with the general consensus existing that the masses were too ignorant to govern themselves and those who were fortunate enough to be in charge had been placed there due to God’s will, royal lineage, or greater firepower. “Free” elections were restricted to choosing local mayors, not decision makers who determined destinies of countries.

There is a certain idyllic charm when describing a democracy. The founding fathers pronounced that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The founding fathers envisioned a country where every child would be born healthy, strong, independent, and with a sparkle in his/her eye. Given unlimited freedom to learn, explore, and create, the new citizen would revel in his/her liberty and reach the zenith of personal success, whatever that concept may be. The new citizen’s government, sensitive to the people, would democratically govern, guide, and protect its citizenry via equal application of all laws and requirements. In doing so, the new citizen would not only pursue, but indeed capture true happiness and eventually leave this earth content in the knowledge that full personal potential had been realized. Describing true democracy is akin to describing another impossible dream…utopia.

However, having said that, the next seventy years or so of United States history after 1889 were probably the heyday years for pure democracy. The ever-expanding frontier, the image of the strong, hardy frontiersman, and the exciting growth of an infant nation all gave the impression of unlimited horizons and reachable goals. But the Civil War suddenly made the discussion concerning “all men are created equal” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” a life or death struggle, and the settling of that question cost more American lives than all the wars combined that the U.S. has fought since that tragic struggle. The war was a coming of age of the United States…the realization that all men may be created equal, but they are not all created good; that all may have a right to liberty, but to some liberty is but a tool, and, though there may be an innate right to the pursuit of happiness, to some, that pursuit means the infringement upon the happiness of another.

The Death Knell for utopian democracy probably began with the explosion and expansion of the Industrial Revolution. Pulled from primarily agrarian societies, workers were drawn into industries requiring massive amounts of unskilled manpower, and managers and owners of these new industries reaped incredible profits to the point that by the turn of the 20th century, powerful families had created dynasties controlling complete industries. Their power and influence allowed them to reach into government, and the government, once “of the people, by the people, and for the people” became somewhat more focused in its attention, ignoring the needs of the general populace. In the early 1920s President Calvin Coolidge stated that “the business of America…is business,” and the Roaring Twenties seemed to bear witness to the unlimited optimism of American society. But the house of cards was about to fall. The Achilles heel of democracy, human greed, was about to be revealed.

The Crash of 1929 revealed the feet of clay of American business. Impossible dreams which were bought and sold in the form of stock portfolios proved to be worthless, and millions who had been unable to imagine failure found that there was no safety net for them because none had been provided, either by themselves or by the government. As a result, the greatest philosophically political adjustment ever to occur in the United States began with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This president, unlike those before, felt it was the responsibility of the government to provide for the personal safety and well being of the people. Governmental expenditures soared as the president created agency after agency in an effort to put people back to work. The fact that the money was not in the government bank account was not a factor as the president disregarded federal deficits and chose to consider the spending “investments in the people.” It is interesting to note that as late as 1941 when the U.S. entered World War II, the country was still struggling with a sluggish economy, so we will never know if the Roosevelt strategy would have worked. Although the economy had strengthened from the time of the ’29 crash, it took a war to put the U.S. worker back to work. The year 2008 saw a repeat of the pandemonium of 1929…and for the same reasons. Different money, different investors, different companies, but the same greed and the same results. However, this time, with the lessons learned from the Rooseveltian years, government quickly stepped in and began throwing money at the problem. The only problem was, the recipients of the money were the ones who had caused the problem in the first place. With little regulation, little results were realized. And with little results, the philosophical debates began concerning the role of government.

If you ask any politician in the country about democracy, the instant response is “Democracy is the greatest form of government on the face of the planet.” However, if you ask what the definition of democracy is, the response will be divided into two camps. These two camps represent two versions of the same utopian delusion.

The believers of the first version of utopian democracy can quote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution from memory. They are for a government which is mostly kept at a distance, allowing the individual to soar like eagles to unlimited success with the least amount of restriction. Everyone in this democracy contributes a fair share to the government for basic services such as national defense, but a person’s well being is a personal responsibility. In this utopia, every person is born healthy and disease free with a marketable talent which allows for the achievement of success. Working hard and not abusing the rights of others, these believers live fruitful lives, leaving legacies of great influence. The difficulty with this form of democracy is that it does not know how to handle those individuals who do not fit into the mold. Forgive me for mentioning the Bible, but even Jesus said, “The poor you have with you always.” In this form of utopia, if one is “poor” it must be because he/she has not exerted the effort to reach the inborn potential which is in every person. To offer alms to the poor is to deter their work initiative. These are the believers who scream that a flat income tax is the fairest. In a utopian world it may be the fairest, but in real life it will never work because there will always be the poor, and even England did away with paupers’ prisons a hundred years ago. What is fairest? Tax based on ability to pay, not percentage OF pay.

Along with the poor are the physically challenged be it through injury, birth, or disease. I was told a few days ago that to cut our health costs in this nation, committees should determine how expensive extending the life of a disabled person would be, and, if the cost is prohibitive, health care should be withheld. I guess it would be the natural thing to do. After all, in nature, there are many examples of infant creatures that are abandoned to die by their mothers…for the good of the healthy ones. So a person’s health would be a personal responsibility and dependent upon the person’s ability to pay for services. What I find fascinating about this group is that most are aggressively pro-life when it comes to the abortion issue, arguing about the sanctity of the unborn child, etc. However, if that child is born with a defect, well, we hope mom has good insurance.

Lastly, those in this form of utopian democracy have not learned the lessons of human greed. One never has enough money, power, or prestige, and without restrictions or governmental regulations big businesses will stretch ethical boundaries far beyond the breaking point. Competition, which is a concept hallowed in the annals of capitalism and business, is not restricted to obtaining the largest share of the market but also eliminating as many coworkers or company competitors as possible on the way to the top. Therefore the “pursuit of happiness” mentioned in the declaration may in fact require the deterrence of happiness in someone else. But, hey, that’s competition.

At the other end of the spectrum (other side of the aisle, as it were) is the second group of utopian democratic proponents. Interestingly enough, they, too, are familiar with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but at that point the similarities end. Because the citizenry is united under the government’s guidance, a new child is in effect a ward of the state. Every citizen has the right to the pursuit of happiness, but if another citizen cannot…or chooses not…to make that pursuit, it is the responsibility of all to “carry those who cannot walk.” An incredible fact of this group, however, is that the government’s concern for you only begins at birth. Should a child be undesired prior to birth, an abortion is acceptable with no consequence, but once born, the child is offered cradle to grave security.

This group has a great distain for the natural competitiveness of man. It understands the innate greed of the corporate world, and therefore attempts to control business activities and restrict success, or at least allow it to be spread around to more recipients. The result is excessive restrictions causing hesitancy among businesses to invest and take risks. Additionally, because some citizens have exceeded the normal levels of success, they should be taxed more heavily because they have more to spend.

It is in the area of “liberty” where the two groups most contrast. This second group interprets liberty to mean unbridled freedom. When the constitution mentions freedom of speech, it means you can say anything you wish, no matter how offensive and no matter the consequences. There is no decorum or standard of behavior because there is total freedom. Freedom to choose is interpreted to mean the rights of one may infringe upon the rights of others. Although a majority of the group may have an opinion in a particular matter, one objection can stop the discussion. Polls concerning prayer in schools have always shown a tremendous majority in favor, but due to the efforts of a scattered few, there now is no prayer. It is with the efforts of this group that we can now enjoy pornography in our homes and obnoxious behavior in our stores and schools. It is through the efforts of this group that we are now enjoying the greatest federal deficits in the history of our nation with scant positive results. There is another word for unbridled, unlimited freedom…anarchy.

As we enter the election process of 2012, we have seen the polarization of the two major parties into the two camps described above. Most of the candidates offered to the electorate subscribe to one or the other of the two positions, and that’s the tragedy of this election because both of the positions are disastrous for our country. Forgive me for being biblical again, but many times in the scriptures, the word “moderation” pops up when discussing actions or behaviors. It is not just a biblical philosophy but one that has been expounded by many, and it is a philosophy which works in government and politics, also. A word which has become anathema to many in the political spectrum these days but yet is a vital component of a successful government is ”compromise.” The government must be friendly to business to encourage business while at the same time monitoring operations. A businessman will borrow money to expand his business, knowing that he will be able to repay the loan with increased sales and profits. A government may also borrow money to invest, but it should only be done when there is a good chance of a return on the investment and a repayment of the loan. It must offer help and assistance to those less fortunate while making it clear that effort must be made to stand on one’s own feet. It must value life from conception to burial. It must make it clear there are standards of speech and behavior which respect the privacy of others. The interesting note here is that these positions are reflected by a majority of the citizens of the United States. It seems to be those in power or those who are aspiring to power who embrace the two extreme positions. We in the middle need to vote.

Return to Paradise

2011-12-24T13:43:00.008-06:00

Shirley and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in August of this year in a relatively traditional way. We escaped to a seaside resort to reflect on how we ever managed to survive together for so long and at the same time count all the blessings that we have enjoyed during that tenure. Needless to say, we have been very fortunate from every angle. We are thankful for our health, the success of our children, and our retirement from the daily grind of work. We are a far cry from financial wealth, but we are surviving and learning to live within a fixed retirement budget. Our greatest recent shock (pleasant, though) was when our beloved children presented us with their anniversary gift to us…a trip to Hawaii. We expected some sort of celebratory gift, of course, but nothing on the order of such a wonderful experience. We have been to Hawaii four times, and interestingly enough, our kids gave us our first trip Christmas, 1997. We made that trip in the summer of 1998, and it must have appealed to us, because we went back in 1999, 2000, and 2002. We have visited five islands, been a condo owner, experienced Hawaiian “aloha,” and would probably be living in the islands except for some minor details like proximity to jobs, family, church, friends, and (in our case) access to top level medical care. Those details are powerful influences, however, so by 2011, Hawaii had become a pleasant and everlasting memory and a return thereto a bit of an unreachable objective. As we had approached retirement, ideas of financial stability began to dance through our heads, especially after experiencing medical challenges in 2008-2009. It’s amazing how chemotherapy can change your priorities. So anyway, with a new trip to paradise scheduled for December, 2011, our excitement began to rise as the time approached.

Sunday, December 11. Our day began at 6:15 a.m. with a sounding alarm, and in a few minutes we were on the road to Houston Intercontinental with our daughter playing the part of chauffeur. A quick goodbye at the departure station, a check in of luggage ($50.00), and a pleasant trip through security (!), and we were ready to board our aircraft. Of course, having arrived early, we had nearly an hour to kill, so we had a bagel and coffee, and fiddled with our phones. 8:15 takeoff via U.S. Airways to Phoenix, Arizona. It is a testament to the dedication and commitment of travelers that we allow ourselves to be crammed like sardines into aluminum cylinders just so we can get somewhere quickly. Every element of civility and comfort in travel is removed on an aircraft for the sake of sheer numbers of victims…and we, the victims, never think twice about signing up for another bout with torture the next time we decide to travel. Can you tell I do not like to fly? Compacted and crumpled, we arrived in Phoenix to a layover of a couple of hours before our long jaunt to the islands. At least we were able to stretch our legs for a few minutes. The call came quickly enough, but not before we were warned that “unfortunately” the aircraft only had meals for twenty five people on board, and, as a result and since it was nearly seven hours to Hawaii, it might be wise for us to get something to eat before we entered the aircraft. Incredible. So we boarded with a sack containing two cold sandwiches ($24.00 in the terminal) for our trek to our destination. It was the first flight I’ve ever taken where all the stewards (no stewardesses) were gray haired old dudes. They looked like retired pilots.

Sardines in a can have an advantage over airline passengers…sardines have no feelings. Believe me, in seven hours, anything that can ache on your body will ache, and squirming will only take care of a small portion of the discomfort. With seats that in any other venue would be classified as children’s seating, and with neighbors uncomfortably within their zone of ease, the unfortunate passengers have nowhere to go. Attempts to sleep through the ordeal are for the most part fruitless. I really think that if I had a chance to rewrite the scriptures, I would make it permissible to drink something really, um…strong while traveling on an aircraft just so the weary pilgrim could make it to the prescribed destination in a reasonably sane condition. Either that, or save up and go first class and hobnob with the social elite. However, first class or baggage, it makes no difference as far as the smoothness of the flight is concerned, and this was not a smooth flight. Patches of heavy, high clouds made for lots of wind currents which made for a lot of bumps in the road. As we neared Honolulu, it became worse, and as we made our landing approach a lady near us began to loudly vomit. She gagged until we were on the ground and made our captain’s “Welcome to Hawaii!” a little difficult.

3:30 Hawaii time (7:30 Houston) we walked into the terminal, and instantly our spirits began to lift. There’s an excitement in the air of Hawaii not present anywhere else, not to mention the aroma of plumeria. The airport, though busy, is a much more manageable size than the mega-ports on the mainland, so we were able to track down our baggage and head for the exits without too much anxiety or walking. Fortunately, not too long after we went outside, a Hilton shuttle van came by and we boarded to head to our hotel du jour, the Hilton Waikiki Beach. We found out quickly that the traffic in Honolulu hasn’t changed much…it’s still as bad as Houston. The H1 Interstate (it’s called an interstate even though there are no other states to go to) was bumper to bumper and, once we ducked off the H1 and entered the Waikiki district, the roads quickly narrowed and slowed even more. But it was all good…after all…we WERE in Hawaii and getting closer to our destination by the minute. The Hilton Waikiki Beach, formerly the Hilton Prince Kuhio, is a very nice hotel about two blocks off the famous Waikiki Beach, and to a certain degree reflects what you would expect in a Hilton hotel. Since everything had been prepaid by our darling offspring, check in was quick and painless and we were whisked up to our room on the 29th floor. Our room was a “mountain view” room, an up grade from a “city view” room but not quite an “ocean view” room. Which was just as well…an ocean view room meant having a window to look through a crack between two other hotels between the Hilton and the beach. We had a “lanai,” an outside deck which gave us a panoramic view of the city, the Ali Wai Canal and the mountains to the north. It was a beautiful view. The furnishings were very contemporary with a big LCD TV and a very stylish bath area. Quite nice. By the time all this went down, it was nearing 6:00 p.m. Of course, in our bodies, it was 10:00 p.m. Houston time, and we were tired, but not too tired to go out and look over the downtown Waikiki area.

The Waikiki district of Honolulu is a very compact, densely populated area. Fully 75 percent of the people you see on the streets this week will not be in Honolulu next week…a whole new crew of vacationers will have arrived. It is a forest of tall hotels, some on lots as narrow as 50 feet wide and yet 30-40 stories tall. The streets are narrow, too, and traffic is heavy. Having never been to New York City, the only comparison I can draw is based on what I have heard, but like New York, Honolulu (at least the Waikiki district) never sleeps. We walked down Kuhio Avenue and Kalakaua Boulevard and everywhere it was a beehive of activity. Street minstrels with accordions, drums, violas(!), violins, guitars, singers with varying degrees of singing skill, magicians, bird lovers with parrots and parakeets, Hawaiian (presumably) natives weaving, carving, and painting….and all of them wanting you to part with some of your money. We walked through the Waikiki Town Center, a mishmash of hawkers pushing cheap tee shirts and gold colored trinkets, and through the International Marketplace, which is like the Waikiki Town Center, but with more class. With this being our fifth trip to the islands, we have survived the souvenir collection era, and so we were probably a big disappointment to the hawkers as we walked and resisted their pitches.

There were two glaring differences in our forays through the Waikiki district compared to our earlier trips which probably reflect our national economy. On our earlier trips there were hawkers selling quality gold and silver items at really good prices, and a walker could not traverse a single city block without being offered a free dinner or prize if one agreed to listen to a sales pitch on a timeshare condo. We’ve been down that road, too…having purchased a condo on our first trip to the islands. I have in the past purchased gold items in the Waikiki district that I was able to subsequently sell at a profit back home, but this time, I saw not a single piece of real gold or silver in the marketplaces…nothing but cheap gold plated trinkets. We went to the area where many of the time share businesses were ten years ago, and the place was deserted with the exception of various food carts and tee shirt displays. I think times may be tough in the timeshare business. By this time, we really were dragging, but we were also hungry, so we went to the Hilton restaurant where we were reminded of the price of food in Hawaii. Two sandwiches and drinks cost $38.00, but we were too hungry to complain (much.) By 10:00 Hawaii time (2:00 a.m. Houston time) we were lights out. Our first night in Paradise.

Monday, December 12 Looking out over our lanai to the mountains of the north the next morning, we could see the heavy rain clouds which practically every day hang low to bring moisture to the highlands until mid morning when the trade winds move them away. By 9:30 the sun had brightened the day and to the west a beautiful rainbow swept over the city. We had breakfast in the hotel dining room while we waited to meet the first Pentecostals we have ever met in the islands. Before we had left home, our good friend and church brother, Trini Hernandez, mentioned to us he knew the pastor of the church in Waikiki, and he asked if I would hand carry a note to him and his wife. I agreed, of course, and upon arrival last night, Pastor Jonathan Sanders called me and set up a meeting time of 10:00 a.m. Monday. We sat in the hotel lobby, and, sure enough, about the appointed time, in walked Pastor Sanders and his wife. I had never seen them before, but I knew who they were when they walked in the door. There’s something about Pentecostal ministers (and wives) that makes them stand out in the crowd…and I mean that in a complimentary way.

In the true spirit of Hawaii, they presented us with leis of aromatic flowers, and greeted us as brothers and sisters of like faith. The Sanderses are probably in their late thirties, and have been in the islands twelve years, which amazed me because we had never heard of them and as far as we knew there was no church in Honolulu. We have been by the church on Maui but have never attended, primarily because it has never had a mid-week service, and we are usually arriving or leaving on Sundays. We visited with Pastor and Sister Sanders for an hour or so, dutifully delivering the envelope. We appreciated their sincerity and dedication…they have two churches, one in Waikiki and one on the east side of the island in the Kaeneoe area, so they stay busy. Not to mention that they have children in school, also. We took a photo of them to prove to Brother Trini when we get back that we actually visited with the Sanderses and didn’t blow the money I suspect was in the envelope on wild partying. As we were parting, Shirley had trouble moving because her back has been bothering her, so Brother Sanders suggested we pray. Right there in the hotel lobby amidst scurrying travelers, four Pentecostals prayed for healing for Shirley, and, you know what?…for the rest of the day we walked, shopped, toured, climbed bus stairs, and walked some more…and Shirley felt no discomfort or pain. I choose to think that God will take care of our little problems as well as the big ones.

Well, anyway, since we had no car, we were trying to figure out some way to see as much as we could the easiest way possible. About that time I heard the ding of a Hilo Hattie trolley car, and it suddenly flashed in my mind that the trolleys were free for Hilo Hattie customers, and they went everywhere in the Waikiki and Ala Moana districts. So we hopped on a open air trolley car and headed to Hilo Hattie’s, the shopping destination for tourists insisting on paying the highest possible prices for authentic Hawaiian products. En route, we drove by our former homes in the Waikiki area, the Kuhio Banyan Vacation Resort and the hotels Sheraton Princess Kai’ulani, Malia Sky Court, and Hawaiian Monarch. Each brought back memories of pleasant days gone by. We exited the Waikiki district via the Nimitz highway and passed the large Ala Moana shopping center to the right and the yacht basin to the left. We saw several of the cruise boats we had taken dinner cruises on during past trips to the islands…the sleek Navitek, a 70 foot catamaran and the clunky Ali Kai. All in all, what we saw of Honolulu had not changed very much…which is good.

Especially Hilo Hattie’s. As we entered the store the “world largest Hawaiian shirt” greeted us just as before, along with the free samples of various Hawaiian juices…always cold and fresh. Hilo Hattie’s is the Walmart of Hawaiian goodies…except it charges Macy prices. The first Hawaiian shirt I looked at was priced at $88.00. I know, I know…I’m still living in the 1970’s, but it seemed a trifle high priced. I will admit that all the products there were Hawaiian created and very high quality, however. And, contrary to the Waikiki district, they were selling gold and silver jewelry, but had we bought any, we would have had to check out of our hotel and go home. We could not have afforded to stay any longer. As I wandered around the area, an announcement was made that hula dancers would be performing in the middle of the store, so I made my way (for strictly education reasons) to that area. The first dancer performed a hula to The Little Drummer Boy, and, though it sounds a little strange, it was beautiful. The dancer was very business-like, however, and performed without a smile and somewhat mechanically. The second dancer, a young, dark-haired beauty, danced for me, however. Okay, I’m probably imagining a lot into this, but as she began to dance, she looked squarely at me and smiled broadly. Looking back, she probably thought, “I’m going to give this old guy something to remember!” Well, she did. Standing six feet away from me, she began to dance (for me), so I whipped out my camera, put it on video, and began to record. I don’t even know the song she danced to, I was so mesmerized. For two minutes, I forgot where I was. At the song’s conclusion, she smiled, bowed toward me, and vanished around the corner.

The next dancer came forward to perform, but the spell had been broken, so I wandered away, happy that the magic moment had been saved on my camera to relive some other day. Shirley and I wandered around the store for a while longer and then reboarded the trolley for the ride back toward Waikiki. We decided to stop at the Ala Moana shopping center to wander around there a bit. As we rode toward our next stop, I reviewed the video of my hula dancer, and edited some of the other photos I had taken in the last 24 hours. The Ala Moana shopping center is Hawaii’s largest center and has, beyond stores, one of the most international food courts I have ever seen. Any food from any country is available, and the choices are mind boggling. Being wild, innovative, culinary experimenters, we had Mexican food. As we sat, munching on Hawaiian-made cheese tostados and refritos, I clicked on my camera to, well, you know, watch my hula dancer. I clicked to the video file…no file. I frantically panned through my photos…no video. I then realized to my horror that in editing my photos while on the trolley, I had inadvertently deleted the hula video! It was at that very moment that I learned something else about God…He has a really strange sense of humor. For a second or two I was mortified, but then I came to the conclusion that it was probably just as well that the video was gone. Old guys should not be watching hula videos and letting minds run wild. So I told myself it was a great memory, and let my hula girl go. Aloha!

We exited Ala Moana Mall and crossed the street to Ala Moana Park, a center of town oasis of rest which has a beach and some really huge banyan trees. The largest banyan tree in the world is on Maui in Lahaina, and that one single tree occupies a city block. Banyan trees have a peculiar growth pattern in that their limbs will grow downward into the ground and resurface somewhere else. You see a forest of seemingly many trees, but it’s actually one single tree gone wild. Other banyan trees look like mighty oak trees, but their trunks are abnormally large, with circumferences exceeding 50 feet. So we waited amidst the banyan trees and sleeping Hawaiians (siesta time, apparently) for the Hilo Hattie trolley to come by. We clanged out of Ala Moana on the trolley and reentered Waikiki, rumbling past the Royal Hawaiian Hotel (The Pink Palace) and the ritzy part of Kalakaua Avenue to Waikiki Beach, where we exited. We had already decided we did not have time to take a dip in the ocean at Waikiki, but a pilgrimage to the beach is required when one visits Hawaii. There are larger, sandier, warmer, fancier beaches in the world, but there is only one world famous Waikiki Beach where millionaires and homeless hang out side by side. It is trendy, hip, and gaudy…and totally cool. No doubt someone there saw us and was thinking, “Who are the two old fully clothed people there on the beach?” No matter. We didn’t stay long.

Leaving the beach scene, we walked to the Outrigger Hotel wherein exists one of the favorite places for Shirley and me…Chuck’s Steak House. Overlooking Waikiki Beach while dining on prime rib is a culinary experience everyone should enjoy. It’s just the food, the scenery, the beach, and the total ambience of the situation that seems magical. As much as we wanted to enter and dine, we just were not very hungry, what with our Hawaiian Mexican food still talking to us. We did not want to spend a princely sum on two really fine steaks but be too stuffed to enjoy them, so sadly we took a rain check. I took a photo of the menu, however, to remind us in days to come what we missed. We made a quick trip back through the International Marketplace to make a couple of purchases, then started walking in a somewhat aimless direction toward the Hilton. We walked by the Sheraton Princess Kai’ulani, one of our former hangouts, which reminded us that somewhere nearby was a KFC and a Denny’s. Sure enough, the KFC was still there, so we had some southern fried (Hawaiian) chicken. A bucket of chicken to feed four was $46.00. (We didn’t get that.) When we were here before, there was also a wonderful outdoor breakfast establishment a couple of blocks away from the Sheraton we had enjoyed on several occasions. After walking for a few blocks we found it…except now it was an outdoor upscale steakhouse. We inquired about breakfast, but, alas, the all-you-can-eat breakfast for $5.95 is no more. Hardly a shock, I guess. After walking for another hour or so, visiting old haunts and refreshing our memories, it was time to seriously head for the Hilton. We had walked ourselves to exhaustion but enjoyed every minute of it. As luck would have it, we stumbled by Denny’s, and by that time I was ready for a cup of coffee, so in we went. I expected higher prices and wasn’t disappointed. The breakfast you pay $5.99 for in Houston costs $8.49 in Honolulu. But what shocked me was the restaurant had the very same additional $2, $4, $6, $8 dollar menu that we have in Houston. So I had a cup of coffee and the same $2.00 banana pancakes that I usually have at home. What a deal! Only then did we finally make the trek back to the hotel, totally worn out, but happy for the wonderful day. If only I had not deleted my video!

Tuesday, December 13. After a quick breakfast in the hotel, we quickly checked out and went downstairs to the lobby to await our shuttle to the airport. About 10:00 a.m. we said goodbye to the Hilton Waikiki Beach and traveled through Waikiki en route to our next flight and adventure. We were flying Hawaiian Airlines to Maui, so check in was pretty easy except for the now-customary luggage charge. At least it was $18.00 per checked piece instead of $25.00. About 11:45 we broke the bonds of Earth and headed to the Garden Isle. Basically the plane takes off, they retract the wheels, fly for 15 minutes, and then start the approach to Kahalui Airport. Thirty-five minutes from takeoff to landing. The aircraft was sparking clean and smelled like a new car, and the stewardesses looked like Hawaiian stewardesses should look. I took some photos along the way. In fact, I have been taking photos like mad. Photography has come a long way since our trip here in 2002. Back then it was 35 mm film and now it’s 10.0+ megapixel digital. My photos from those days appear to be poor quality compared to today’s standards, so I’m trying to update my photo inventory with more a contemporary quality product.

Didn’t take long to collect our baggage; Kahului is a far cry from Bush International. We had a Advantage Car Rental reserved, so we caught a shuttle to their offices just off the airport property. Within a short while, we were heading through the town of Kahului looking for highway 380 to take us to the western coast of Maui and our new home. We saw familiar sights along the way: the Maui Tropical Plantation, where we once saw a dainty Hawaiian lady rip open a cocoanut with her bare hands, and Ma’alaea Harbor, jumping off place for most of the whale watching boats and snorkeling excursions. It’s also home to Buzz’s Wharf Restaurant, one of our favorite places to visit for wonderful seafood. It’s a fact that most fish that are prepared in the restaurants of Hawaii were alive 24 hours before the time of serving.. The restaurants buy their seafood daily from their suppliers, and the freshness is palpable. Close to Ma’alaea highway 380 runs into highway 30, which takes us around the western coast to our destination. The western coast of Maui outside of Ma’alaea is barren…raw volcanic rock and very little vegetation….at least until one comes to the old whaling town of Lahaina, and there the sea breezes create more moisture and for the next 30 miles or so, there is lush grass and vegetation on the order of a rain forest. Hawaiian topography and flora and fauna offer rapid contrasts as one travels around the island. Barren rocky moonscapes can be within 15 miles of rain forests, and sandy beaches are a mere ten miles as the crow flies from the chilly 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala Crater.

We drove through Lahaina, an 18th century whaling village which has become an eclectic blend of kama’ainas, Hawaiians, hippies, yippies, and yuppies tolerating foreigners, mainlanders, boomers and late bloomers. It’s claim to fame these days is Front Street, an old west styled narrow street with natives selling authentic Hawaiiana, hawkers selling imitation anything, and trendy, expensive shops with enough gold to attract The Donald.. There’s still some history around from the missionary days, but the natural beauty of the area and the surrounding luxury hotels have attracted the well-heeled traveler. The harbor is full of high dollar yachts from around the world, and the nearby private airport sports many private international aircraft. As we eased through the village, we spotted the Pentecostal church where we may be this coming Sunday morning. Driving further north along the Honoapi’ilani Highway (30) we came to our exit, turning downhill to the Lower Honoapi’ilani Road and eventually to our destination, the Kuleana Condominiums.

Our unit was a privately owned unit in the complex which our beloved children had reserved for us for the week. The complex is a consortium of probably 90 units, and I got the drift that most are timeshare units, because there are salespeople on duty with hungry looks in their eyes. Apparently the owner of our unit is the only full time year round owner, and he owns two units. I would suspect they give him and his wife a reasonably good income, since they have apparently owned the properties since the late eighties. Regardless, this unit proves the old real estate adage that the three most valuable elements of any real estate are location, location, and location. It is an extremely nice unit, beautifully furnished, well maintained, contemporary and comfortable…but the location! Fifteen feet from the beach with an unobstructed view of the islands of Lanai and Molokai, by nightfall we had seen large turtles swimming about and whales breaching (jumping up out of the water, you know) in the channel off the beach. The whale came straight out of the water and fell over in a fountain of spray just like you see on National Geographic Presents. This is not my favorite descriptive word to use…but it was awesome. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the water wasn’t cold; I was afraid that the December temperatures may affect the snorkeling somewhat, but I think it will be okay. By the time we got settled in, the sun was beginning to set, so no swimming today. Our first sunset on the veranda (excuse me, lanai) was spectacular as the sun drifted down behind the island of Lanai. To sleep with the sound of surf crashing in the distance.

Wednesday, December 14 Awoke to an incredible morning. The surf had quieted a bit, and the only clouds in the western sky seaward were hovering over the summits of both Lanai and Molokai. The channel between the islands was a deep navy blue with smatterings of whitecaps. Occasionally there would be a visible wisp of what appeared to be smoke on the sea surface, but it would only be a whale exhaling a truckload of compressed air. Once, a giant black and white torpedo came shooting out of the sea surface and crashed downward, sending skyward a massive fountain of water. Scientists still do not understand why whales enjoy making such scenes, but they surmise that, since the whales are in Hawaii to interact and mate, it must have something to do with the courting procedure. And we do know how boys like to show off. Anyway, we had a leisurely breakfast…basic cereal, etc. We had stopped by the grocery store yesterday to pick up a few things for snacking, etc. One of the first things I noticed as we entered the local store was a 16 ounce package of pepper cheese like I like….priced at $13.88. I decided this would be a good week for a long fast. We bought basic, I mean really basic stuff, enough to fill one bag, and it came to $78.00 Oh, well. A certain singer sang, “You only live twice, or so it seems; once for yourself, and once for your dreams!” Maybe we’re just dreaming.

After breakfast and a quick observation of beach conditions, we decided to take a drive up to Kapalua and look over our old stomping grounds around our former condo. The Gardens at West Maui is still there, but the place seemed deserted. Maybe everyone was somewhere else…it was clean, maintained, and all that, but there just weren’t any cars around. I noticed “Consolidated Resorts, Inc.” wasn’t on the sign anymore, so there may have been an ownership change. Regardless, we had some good times there. The Kapalua area is a high-fallutin’ part of West Maui, and it is still a beehive of activity. The first PGA tournament of each new year is played at the Kapalua Plantation course every January. We drove by Kapalua Beach, one of the premier snorkeling areas on Maui and past Honolua Bay, another premier snorkeling spot that is much more remote. No sand, just rocks and coral and lots of fish. In times past, the road basically ended a couple miles past Honolua Bay. There was a trail, but it was really not conducive to driving, especially in a rental car. I kept driving, looking for the end, but it never came, and the road seemed pretty good…narrow, but good.

Because the northern crown of Maui has never had much in the way of roads, tourists in this area are somewhat scarce. It is one of the last bastions of the native Hawaiian, and it is here that modern conveniences are still just now making inroads. This northern part of Maui is like the northern part of O’ahu…spectacular cliffs, mountainous waves, remote beaches…the natives call it “the country.” I saw handwritten on two signs along the road…”Keep the country…country.” But it is a lost cause. On our last visit to O’ahu nine years ago, we drove the road leading around to the western side of the island, which at that time was pure Hawaiian…no clubs, no resorts, no nothing. I noticed this time, the whole western side of O’ahu is one massive resort after another. No wonder the Hawaiian feels threatened. Continuing on our drive we reached Nakalele Point, the northernmost point on Maui. Here the waves crash into cliffs several hundred feet high, and it reminded me of another sign I saw…”Never turn you back on the ocean…it will slap you!” It was also at this point that the road took a dramatic turn for the worse. Now we were down to one lane, and we were driving the edge of the cliffs…sheer up on the right and sheer down on the left. Every hundred yards or so was a slight widening of the road to allow for autos to pass. As luck would have it, we met someone, and I pulled to the right as far as I could (Shirley rolled her window down and could touch the rocks) and I rolled my window down and folded my outside rear view mirror back. It didn’t seem like there was six feet between my car and the dropoff on the other side, but the other driver crept forward. I guided him to where he cleared my car by about two inches, and his tire tracks were on the very edge when he passed by. I was glad we were going in a clockwise direction around the island because it meant we would always have the cliff side of the road!

The road became one adventure after another as we dodged fallen rock, drove through minor mud slides, and marveled at the jungle of vegetation that seemed undisturbed since time began, all the while keeping a wary eye on the dropoff on the other side of the road.. No Hilton hotels out here. We occasionally traversed a narrow one lane bridge, and always kept our eye out for the next pulloff so we could plan for the next auto encounter…but we saw few cars. We were in the REAL Hawaii, and I loved it. Eventually we reached the ancient village of Kahakuloa. 100% Hawaiian, I had read since arriving in the islands that the village was fiercely native and the locals didn’t take kindly to mainlanders invading their space. The one lane road crept by a small wood frame church and around a couple of simple homes, and suddenly there in the road was a big Hawaiian wearing a sarong, waving his hands and yelling. For an instant I was defensive, but then I saw he was smiling. He approached the car with bags of fruit, “Aloha! Howzabout some fresh pineapple!” he greeted. Well, just to be safe, I wasn’t going to say no, so we bought a bag. He asked us where we were from, and we said Houston, Texas. Then he said, “How about that T.J. Yates! Pretty good for a rookie!” Apparently the Texans have fans even in deepest, darkest Hawaii. He welcomed us to Hawaii and invited us back anytime, and we were off down the road. I wish I had gotten his photo.

By this time we had crested the northern circle of Maui and were progressing southeast toward Kahului. Once we passed the village of Waihe’e the road began to improve, and eventually we were actually back on a real two lane road. Seeing Kahului in the distance, we knew we had survived the journey and were approaching civilization again…too bad. Eventually we intersected highway 30, the road to Lahaina, where we would eventually complete the circle around the northern half of Maui. As we approached Ma’alaea Harbor, we remembered our friend, Buzz’s Wharf Restaurant, and realized we hadn’t eaten in several hours. Time for a food refuel. As we pulled into Ma’alaea Harbor, I wondered out loud to Shirley if our old snorkeling boat, the Mahana Nai’a was still there. In 1999 and 2000 we had taken snorkeling trip aboard her to Molokini Island and Turtle Bay. Passing the docks, the catamaran was not visible, so we drove over to Buzz’s. Right next to the restaurant was a big ship, drydocked, with workers crawling over it, welders cutting holes, painters painting…and on the side of the boat were the words “Mahana Nai’a.” It looked a little worse for wear, but it was obviously getting a refurbishing, so it was good that the old gal was going to live another day. Entering Buzz’s, it was déjà vu.. Not much had changed, except the prices on the menu. I had a mahi mahi sandwich, and it was delicious.

Back through Lahaina to the Ka’anapali area to Snorkel Bob’s, an institution in the islands. Renting anything nautical, Snorkel Bob’s also preaches conservation and encourages protecting the environment. I needed to see if he had optically corrected snorkeling goggles to rent, and sure enough, not only did they have them, but the sales person carefully fitted my prescription and gave me a vision test to make sure all was satisfactory. I was ready to hit the water! Finally, after a full day we arrived back at our condo, completing a long circular journey. Here in the lower latitudes sunset occurs quickly and by 5:30 darkness had settled it. We entered the condo just in time to see the sun hide itself in the west, and we were ready to hide ourselves also. We were tired. We caught up with our communications, saved all our photos taken during the day, and had our nightly cup of coffee. Lights out.

Thursday, December 15 Another quiet condo breakfast, sitting out on the lanai watching…well...everything: the waves rolling in, the clouds drifting over distant Lanai and Molokai, the palm trees swaying in the morning breeze, etc. I could get used to this. I wanted to get a closer look at Kapalua Bay to see if it had changed very much, so to it we drove. It is next to the Napali Kai Beach Resort but is open to the public. Hawaii does not have open beach laws like in Texas, so the resorts can restrict access. Fortunately there are many great open beaches available. In previous visits we spent several afternoons at Kapalua Beach because it was just a short walk from the Gardens at West Maui, our former condo home. Walking down to the beach, I immediately noticed the luxury homes now standing a hundred yards or so uphill from the beach. They are across the Lower Honoapi’ilani Road from the beach, so they don’t really affect the ambience of the area, but they’re there nonetheless. Civilization encroachment to a natural setting. Anyway, the beach looked inviting, and it boasts great snorkeling, so we will probably be returning soon. Returning home, I was anxious to try out my new optical goggles, so I got ready to hit the water. Entering at the beach by our condo, I discovered that it’s a bit of a challenge to stay organized while being constantly pounded by foamy waves. Our condo’s beach is not protected (not in a cove or behind reefs), so the waves do rumble in. I managed to get underway however and again began to enjoy the serenity of snorkeling. I was hoping to see a couple of the turtles we have seen splashing around from our lanai, but none were in my area. Visibility was not great because of the pounding waves, so other than a few tropic fish of varying colors, I didn’t see much. Around the rocks to the left of our condo was a ladder leading directly from the water’s edge up over the rocks to the sidewalk. I decided to exit from the water there and found it much easier than fighting the surf waves on the sandy beach. Rather than repeat the above story two more times, let me say that the rest of the day was spent relaxing, eating, snorkeling, napping, reading, and writing. Other than the morning jaunt to Kapalua, we did not leave the condo. I know it probably sounds boring, but how can one be bored in paradise?

Friday, December 16 Two days of having breakfast cereal is enough, so this morning we drove to the Aloha Mixed Plate Special Restaurant (doesn’t sound classy) and sat in an outside veranda overlooking the Lahaina Harbor. Eggs, home style potatoes, Portuguese sausage, toast, and coffee is a good way to start a day…mixed with the slightly salty sea breezes, bright sun, and Hawaiian music. I guess I should have ordered eggs and Spam (it was on the menu), what with Spam being the popular meat (?) it is in the islands. Hawaiians eat more Spam per capita than any other state in the United States, and it is traced back to World War II and military K-rations. Spam was introduced to the islands and became wildly popular. Maybe they were tired of fish, I don’t know. When we shopped in the grocery store earlier, there were more than a half dozen varieties of Spam…Spam with cheese, with black peppers, spicy, mild, even with Tabasco. And there was lots of it available. Anyway, we had a good breakfast. We decided to drive around exploring a bit, so, in preparation for our whale watching boat trip this afternoon, we located the Pacific Whale Foundation on Front Street, then located the UPC church. We had seen the church building from the highway, but weren’t sure how to get to it, so we prowled around until we found the right street and drove into the parking lot. The pastor here, Thomas Bailey, is a nephew of the Bowdens, our good friends from Bethel Tabernacle. The Bowdens had told us of him before we left, so we agreed to look him and his wife up. A simple sign standing near the highway announces “United Pentecostal Church,” and that’s it. No schedule of services or pastor’s name. We will call them tomorrow to find out the church schedule for the weekend. I took a couple of photos to show the Bowdens, and we moved on. Back to the condo for a brief respite.

About 12:45 we left to head back to the Pacific Whale Foundation. Couldn’t find a free parking space anywhere, but found a city lot near the place we were to check in. Six hours cost $16.00. Oh, well, stick it to the tourists. We got our tickets and walked the couple of blocks to Slip Number One, walking past the world’s largest banyan tree. It was eighteen feet tall when it was planted in 1878, and now it covers a complete city block. A most unusual tree. About 1:45 we boarded the Island Princess, the PWF’s whale watching boat, and after a brief introduction, headed out to sea. We have taken PWF cruises before, and they are fun and educational. Every PWF person on a PWF cruise is a marine biologist or conservationist, and is extremely knowledgeable and helpful. With conservation in mind, the boat ran on used cooking oil which is collected from the restaurants around the islands. Very green. We had not gone offshore more than a half mile when we ran upon a school (pod?) of spinner dolphin. Cute little critters, they are smaller than our gulf dolphins, but when they come out of the water they do a complete pirouette in the air…sometime two or three complete spins. Hence the moniker, spinner dolphins. After a few minutes of oohs and aahs, we set off for much bigger game. Didn’t take long, either, for us to spot splashes and big flippers in front of us. Apparently we were supposed to stay 100 yards away from whales, but the whales didn’t know that, and for the next hour or so, we had several head toward us. We had three official “breachings” when the whale roars completely out of the water and makes a tremendous splash. There is no warning when this happens, so I do not have it on video, but it is awesome to see. However, the whales also seemed to enjoy lollygagging around the surface of the water, laying on one side and flapping their large flippers against the water, and slapping their tails. According the our guides, it’s all part of the…um, dating process for male whales. The guides told us that Hawaii has approximately 10,000 whales visit each winter, all traveling thousands of miles to get to these relatively warm, safe waters to both breed and give birth. Interestingly, they have incentive to leave in the spring…there is no food for whales in Hawaiian waters, so they don’t eat the entire time they are there. They come for one purpose, and when it’s done, they leave. Beyond the excitement of the whale watching, the cruise was incredibly beautiful. The waters around Maui are relatively protected and clean, a deep dark blue and transparent down to a depth of several feet. Dolphins and critters can be seen far below the surface, and anywhere you look, it invites you to jump in with snorkeling gear and look around. Things seemed to quieten after a couple of hours, so we headed back to the barn, and disembarked the vessel (naval lingo.) As I mentioned earlier, darkness comes early in this part of the world, and we arrived at our home about dusk. The trade winds from the northwest had risen dramatically, and the surf was really crashing just below our condo, and there was a slight chill in the air. We decided to stay in and not go out for supper, so in honor of our location and since we had bought some at the store…we had Spam sandwiches for supper. Spicy Spam with cheese…cuisine extraordinaire.

Saturday, December 17 This morning the temperature was a shade cooler and the winds were really kicking up the surf. After breakfast (cereal, again) I walked down to the snorkeling ladder and the water was a churning, sandy soup. I decided that snorkeling at least in this spot was out of the question for a while. We sat around on the lanai, drinking coffee, surfing (the internet), and planning our strategy for the rest of the day. I wanted to drive up to Kapalua Bay to check out the snorkeling there. I was hoping the conditions would be better because the bay is protected by a barrier reef that should stop the offshore waves from pounding the beach. So shortly after lunch (sandwiches) we loaded up and drove to Kapalua. The day was beautiful, bright, and sunny, but the winds were still persisting. However, the cove was much better that Kuleana, so I donned my Snorkel Bob gear and dove it. Unusually hefty waves were still pushing the water to the shoreline, making it a chore to paddle out to the deeper areas where the fish and coral was, but it was oh, so beautiful. The coral fish were on display and the coral itself looked healthy and beautiful. I had an underwater camera (a low dollar cheapie 35mm), so I tried to take a few photos. My underwater shots in the past have never been very good, probably because I don’t have a good camera, but even with a low quality photo, the memories are still there. So we’ll see how the photos turn out. I paddled, photoed, and grew wearier by the minute, to the point that in 45 minutes my strength was about gone, and I felt I was being pulled out to sea by the undercurrent. I headed to shore and stumbled up the sand to where Shirley sat reading (water too cold!) and collapsed on a beach towel. I rested until I could get my breath again and decided that I had worked enough for today. Tomorrow maybe the winds will die down.

We drove back to the condo, cleaned up a bit and started mulling supper. Lots of options around, but we decided to go back to the Sea House Restaurant, just across from our old Gardens at West Maui condo, where we have enjoyed a few very nice dinners in the past. We arrived about 5:30, and the host asked if we had been there before. I told him it had been nine years since we visited, and this time we were there because it was our 50th wedding anniversary. He said he would get us the best seat in the house, and he did…out on the outside deck at the very point overlooking the beach with a clear view of the setting sun. I took a couple of sunset shots to remember the moment. The crash of the waves, the sound of the Brothers Cazimero (Hawaiian musical giants) singing Hawaiian Christmas songs, the sea breezes, the lit torches, the incredibly fresh fish and fixin’s, the darkening sky and awakening stars….(sigh) it was a nice evening. After we finished our main courses and were just enjoying the ambience, the waitress brought us a complimentary dessert of cake with “Happy Anniversary” emblazoned on it. A very nice gesture, I thought. As we were leaving, suddenly a light sprinkling of rain commenced, chilling us as we made our way to the car. But no matter, we enjoyed the evening. At the condo, I sat out on the lanai listening to the still-crashing surf and thought of the Brothers Cazimero song “The Sounds of the Sea Surround Me.” The Brothers Cazimero have been singing in Hawaii for 20 years and have become ambassadors of Hawaiian culture, but they have never been successful in the mainland United States. The reasons, of course, are their songs are too beautifully melodious, their singing is much too harmonious, and their lyrics are much too melancholy to ever appeal to a mainland market that puts high value on gimmickry and visual pyrotechnics. The U.S. consumer prefers sizzle; the Brothers Cazimero provide steak. But I digress.

Sunday, December 18 Up this morning to prepare for church. We had called Brother Bailey yesterday, and we learned he would be preaching in the Kahului church this morning and not in Lahaina. The Bowdens had mentioned to us that the Baileys had two churches, one on each side of the island, and with the Lahaina church being close to us, we had decided to visit there. However, this being the Sunday before Christmas, their schedule called for one big service this morning and a Christmas program and dinner this evening, both in Kahului because it was a bigger facility. So we drove the 30 miles to Kahului. It was a beautiful Sunday morning as we drove along the West Maui coast. For the first time since we’ve been on the island, we could see the summit of Haleakala Crater, usually encased in heavy cloud cover. I had considered driving to the top of the 10,000 foot peak, but I had decided there was no good reason to go if you couldn’t see anything once you got there. Along the coastline, though, the wind had continued its blustery ways from yesterday, and there were whitecaps on the whitecaps on the high seas, and the surf was crashing onto the beaches. This, however, is ideal conditions for the hottest new sport in the islands…stand up surfing. It goes like this: instead of lying prone on a surfboard and hand paddling out to the breakers, the with-it surfer nowadays carries a long paddle and stands up while paddling seaward. Upon catching a wave, apparently one hangs on to the paddle for dear life while streaking for the shore. Truth be told, the professional surfers probably smirk at this lazy man’s way of reaching the breakers, but for the week end surfer, it’s probably less physically straining. I’ll never know.

The church in Kahului is in a school cafeteria, Likilai Elementary, home to 1,085 students, 85 percent of them Hawaiian. There was a big sign close to the entrance that said “Welcome Back, Likilai Surfers!” which told me that elementary sports activities may be different here than in Houston. The cafeteria, like the school, is not air conditioned so all the windows were open as we arrived, and it was clear we were getting close to a Pentecostal church when we got out of our car. Lots of praying and music. We walked into a beehive of people greeting one another, pockets of praying, and music a-sounding. Hawaiians are by nature a jovial people, quick to smile, and quicker to hug. I was hugged and kissed by more women today that I have been in my entire life, I think. Before you get aghast, it was always a quick peck on the cheek or neck in conjunction with a quick hug. I mean everybody hugs everybody. I thought it was very innocent and charming. The men had their style of greeting too; instead of a direct handshake, it was more of a hand to hand gentle slap, coupled with a loud greeting (Hey, Brudder!), big smile, and a bear hug…I mean, like the guy you’re hugging was your brother you had not seen in ten years. Needless to say, all this hugging, slapping, greeting, and pecking took a little time, and about 10:15 (service was to start at 10:00) Brother Bailey slipped by and said, “Our services run on Hawaiian time…we’ll be starting shortly.”

The music was furnished by a drum, keyboard, and a bass, and the instrumentalists were quite skilled. The singers were harmonious, and the whole order of presentation was on the same style and order of our Bethel Tabernacle singers back home. However, on a couple of the songs the rhythms had a definite island influence to them, which were upbeat and enjoyable. The sound system was very contemporary…Brother Bailey is apparently electronically pretty astute; he preaches from an iPad using a very good quality wireless throat microphone. The people responded to the music in a wonderful way with lots of praise and prayer. It was obvious they were using the music to communicate with their Creator. Having said all that, I will show my advanced, closed-minded ways again and say that the style didn’t really appeal to me…but I say that about most church music I hear of late. It is a spiritual defect of mine about which I am praying for healing. But I am ready to defend the proposition in a court of law that there is deep spiritual power in the old songs while there is simply shallow emotion in most contemporary music, and the difference is starkly apparent. (I just slapped my hand…I was starting to digress again. Now back to the events.) After 40 minutes or so, Brother Bailey began to preach, and his sermon was powerful and very high quality. The Baileys have been in the islands since 1997, and have carved out two churches which are solid and growing. We who have grown up in the Bible Belt do not understand areas where Christianity is in the minority and where God-led people have to begin their preaching with the most basic of sermons to introduce salvation to an unaware populace. The Hawaiians are steeped in their own religion and traditions, and I saw more than one tattoo (a major part of island culture) on several worshippers, both male and female. But these island people with their open hearts and kind spirits, having been brought to a new knowledge of the truth of salvation, respond to the worship of God and the preaching of His Word in a way that may put some of us old “professionals” to shame.

After the sermon, Brother Bailey invited all to come to the front and pray, and en masse all moved forward. Those who were new to the experience quickly had prayer supporters around them, and the praying and worshipping went on for nearly 45 minutes. I must confess, I prayed a little, but I spent most of my time watching, perhaps admiring, how these people prayed for one another and seemed to have a genuine appreciation and love one for another. We were able to visit with the Baileys for a short while, but he had a church full of people to relate to, and I noticed that he made a point to chat briefly with every person in the room…and I would estimate the attendance at around 125-150. He did not ignore us…he was just taking care of his sheep, and I have a deep respect for that kind of calling.

Around 12:30 we drove away from the school…er, church and decided to try to find a nice, generic (i.e. not expensive) restaurant for lunch. We drove up and down several main roads and never saw a restaurant. Lots of MacDonald’s and other fast food outlets, but no free standing decent restaurants. There were several big shopping centers which probably had restaurants, but I did not want to get embedded in a mall. Finally, we drove the 21 miles back to Lahaina, and found the Five Palms, a nice seaside restaurant for lunch. Sitting in an open air area overlooking the surf on a beautiful sunny day is a nice way to enjoy lunch even if one does sort of pay for the view. It was nearly 3:00 by the time we got back to the condo. The weather was actually a little cool, and the surf was still pounding, so I cancelled snorkeling until tomorrow. We rested for a couple of hours, checking emails, Facebook, news, etc. I may have (cough) dozed off for a minute or two. But I was up at 5:45 in time to photo the beautiful sunset over the island of Lanai. Maika’i loa! Spent the evening with a little writing and just sitting in the darkness of the lanai listening to the surf. Restful, actually. There was still a slight nip in the air, and an occasional mist of rain would breeze through the area to the point that I was forced to put a beach towel over my legs to deter the chill. But no matter, it was lovely.

Monday, December 19 We decided this morning to have breakfast at the Sands of Kahana Resort, primarily because there was a sign out front advertising “Breakfast $5.99.” A breakfast for that price is as rare as a hen’s tooth in Lahaina, so we wanted to check it out. We have eaten at the Sands in times past because Consolidated Resorts, the consortium which owned our condo at the Gardens of West Maui also owned the Sands of Kahana. As a result, we, as members of the Consolidated “family,” could get a little discount, on their goods and services. Consolidated Resorts has long since gone bankrupt, so I don’t know who owns what now. Regardless, we sat down awaiting our bargain breakfast, and sure enough, the fine print said “between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. only” We sat down at 10:00 a.m…we haven’t gotten up before 8:00 a.m. since we landed on the islands. Well, anyway, we had breakfast, but suffice it to say the price wasn’t $5.99. I mean, the coffee cost $3.00 per cup. At least the breakfast was good, and we left, full but wiser, knowing in the future to always read the fine print.

What with our time on the island getting a little short, we decided to drive back to Lahaina and wander Front Street. Shirley had been wanting to do a little shopping, so we stumbled upon a free parking space (another rare item) and hit the street. When you walk Front Street, you don’t feel like you’re being hustled quite as much as when you wander down Kalakaua Avenue or the Waikiki Town Center in Honolulu. Mauians are much more laid back and friendly. They’ll take your money, but they try to make you happy to give it to them. We went into a lot of sidewalk stores and never saw a junky one…even the ones selling Japanese coffee cups and Vietnamese tee shirts (“designed in Hawaii”) were clean and the sales help was courteous. I resisted the impulses but did buy one Hawaiian shirt (made in Hawaii), since the two I have left from our previous trips are now approaching 10 years old. Still good, though. I mean, that’s young…I have a pair of Florsheim dress shoes I bought in 1982 that still look nice. After wandering for an hour and a half and eating $10.00 worth of ice cream (3 scoops), we finally slipped back to our little home for a couple hours of down time.

I haven’t been able to snorkel as much as I would have like on this trip due to the rough waters and breezy weather, but today was a little warmer even if the winds had not died down very much. Snorkeling at our condo was out of the question, however, because the rough surf was still churning up the sand and making water visibility zero. So we packed up and headed to Kapalua Bay, the primo snorkeling spot in these parts. By now, Shirley and I are pretty familiar with Kapalua Beach; we have spent many hours there during four of our Hawaiian trips. It is a friendly place for the novice or advanced swimmer…relatively gentle beaches, normally quiet breakers, and easy access snorkeling. Today was not an award winning day, however; the wind was still briskly blowing with a slight chill, and the waves, though not crashing in, would push you off your feet if caught unawares. Shirley, though she had prepared to swim, felt the chill and promptly sat down on a beach chair, put on her jacket, covered herself with two beach towels, open a book and said, “You go swim, and I’ll stay here and read.” I said, “But, Honey, you said you…,” and the look she gave me made chills run up and down my spine, and for a moment I felt great fear. Okay, I’m starting to exaggerate a little bit, but her swimming day was over.

Actually the chill was much less when you were in the water. The water temperature was 79 degrees and quite comfortable. The air temperature, however, was also 79 degrees, and when the wind hit you it was a little chilling. The hardest part was just getting in and getting the snorkeling hardware on. Every time you tried to put on a flipper a wave would knock you off balance. I probably looked like a drunk guy trying to snorkel as I stumbled around getting fins, goggles, and breathing tube arranged. Finally I pushed off and headed to deeper waters and to instant serenity. The clarity was not the normal Hawaii perfect, but it was still pretty nice. The coral waving in the currents, the fish resplendent in every color of the rainbow, and the tiny spiny little shell dudes clinging to the faces of every rock made for moments to remember. Due to the winds and strong currents, I spent only an hour or so in the water before I was pretty tired out, but it was a most enjoyable time. I felt a little twinge of regret as we drove away from Kapalua Beach, not knowing when or if we would ever be returning.

Well, Shirley had not gotten her shopping done, so after showering the sand out of my hair and tidying up a bit, we headed back to Hilo Hattie’s Lahaina store. Every man will testify that time stands still when waiting for a wife to shop, but I have also learned it is fruitless to rush the process. Patience begats peace…so I waited. She wandered every aisle three times but eventually said she was ready to go, so with a flash of cash, we left the building. It was time for our last traditional stop in Lahaina, MacGillicuddy’s Grill. I know it’s a chain restaurant, but we have eaten there several times, even with our daughter, Kimberly when she came to Maui, so we wanted to make a stop there. Besides, they have good hamburgers. Which is what I should have ordered. I ordered a ribeye steak instead, and it would not have made the cut in Texas. Not bad enough to send back, but just not a good one. As they say in the restaurant trade, though, the “ambience” was good, and it made for a pleasant evening. To the condo about 7:30. The next dreaded task…packing. This unfortunate activity began an hour or so later with some rudimentary packing into the suitcases. You know, extra clothes, papers, souvenirs, odds and ends that you know you will not be needing in the next 48 hours while in transit. All in all, Shirley and I travel fairly lightly, although she carries twice as much stuff as I do. We don’t hold a candle, however, to my beloved daughter-in-law, who for her family of four for a week at DisneyWorld (where they are now) used one single suitcase. With the price of checked baggage getting more prohibitive, perhaps we may ask her to give us some pointers. We will have spent $150.00 on checked baggage, and that’s just for two people. Not to mention little irritating expenses like $6.95 to use the WiFi at the airport terminals. Also, not to mention about $40.00 in tips we’ve paid drivers, porters, and whoever to load and unload those things. I hope I don’t sound too skinflinty because the enjoyment of this trip has made these little bumps in the road exceeding minor in concern. At 10:00 p.m., we were probably 75% packed. We had to vacate the premises Tuesday morning at 11:00, so we were ahead of schedule and were glad we wouldn't have to rush the next morning. We planned to have a leisurely breakfast before we said our final goodbye. For the last time (sniff) we sat on the lanai listening to the surf (still) crashing in, feeling the light mist of rain spray us, and shivering from the chilly breeze. Actually, we went inside in just a very few minutes.

Tuesday, December 20 At 10:45 a.m. we said our sayonaras and drove away from Kuleana Resort. As befitting the event, it was drizzling rain, and it continued as we traveled south and east through Lahaina, Ma’alaea Harbor, and toward Kahului. We decided to stop at the Maui Tropical Plantation, an outdoor museum of native Hawaiian flora and fauna. We had visited nine years ago, so it was another homecoming. Shirley has an affinity for flowers, especially hibiscuses, and Hawaii has some of the most beautiful…even blue ones. We did not take the garden tour this time, so we didn’t get to see the lady crack open the cocoanut with her bare hands, as I had mentioned earlier. Leaving the plantation, we continued to Kahului, stopping at various spots of national interest (Walmart and Kmart). Shirley was trying to find some yarn for one of her knitting projects. Weird thing about Walmart…there were no plastic bags at the checkouts. We saw some folks with cloth bags like some of the grocery stores encourage using, and some just carried their items out in their baskets. The clerk was so busy and somewhat businesslike that I didn’t take time to ask her if that was store policy or they had just run out of bags.

Driving east from Kahului, we passed the hippie town of Pa’ia, known for its laid back youth culture. The word is out, though, and it’s becoming Lahaina east, with trendy shops and artists infiltrating the main street. It hasn’t affected the main sport of the town, though, which is wind surfing. The trade winds are persistent year round on the beaches around Pa’ia, most notably Ho’okipa Park, creating tremendous waves and attracting wind surfers from around the world. It is incredible to watch them as they catch a wave and become 10 to 15 feet airborne at amazingly fast speeds. One needs to be a powerful swimmer just to handle the powerful, pounding surf, much less handle a sail on a surfboard at the same time. Very graceful in action, though. Back to town to stop at one of my favorite places…good old Denny’s. Breakfast was pricier than in Houston, but compared to Lahaina, it was a bargain. We sat for awhile, sort of catching our breaths, and finally headed to Advantage Car Rentals, where we dropped off our Subaru Impreza and caught a shuttle to the airport. The Subaru was not a particularly impressive car. As we waited at Gate One for our 11:30 flight to Phoenix, it was 8:30 and there was not a single soul at Gate 1 or 2. U. S. Airways had two flights out that night, both to Phoenix. The first flight left an hour and a half before ours, and the flight attendant said there would be 45 people on board. We asked if we could leave on that flight…yes, we can, she said…for $100.00. If I had known we could take an earlier flight out of Phoenix to Houston, I would have taken it, but she couldn’t guarantee that, so I decided we may as well wait in Kahului as Phoenix. It’s a lot quieter in the Kahului terminal.

Around 11:00 p.m. Hawaii time we finally boarded our plane, and there were maybe 45 passengers on board. That always makes me happy because I figure with the less weight, we’ll get off the ground easier. And we did; with a roar and a strong push we left paradise about 11:30, heading east into the darkness. The lights went dim, and everyone made an attempt to get as comfortable as possible for the five and a half hour flight to Phoenix. Thank goodness for iPods, MP3s, and good earphones. I had downloaded a couple of magazines on my Kindle Fire and read for a while, but eventually the weariness of the day set in and I plugged into music and fitfully slept most of the way. We uneventfully arrived in Phoenix, and actually got there 30 minutes early thanks to a strong tailwind according to the pilot. What that meant for us was simply a longer wait for our flight to Houston. So we dawdled in the airport for nearly three hours. Our flight to Houston was another experience in sardine living, but at least it was uneventful. About 2:30 Houston time we walked out of the terminal to meet Janie, who graciously drove us to our comfy home. Shortly after 3:00 p.m. our Hawaii adventure came to an end. We were exhausted from having been up and awake for nearly 27 hours, but the enjoyment of the last ten days made it a pleasant weariness. We will ever be grateful to our wonderful family for making this trip possible for us. Shirley and I are the most blessed people on earth.

Is Healing Overrated??

2011-11-05T20:42:00.007-05:00

By the time the year 2003 rolled around, I had been bothered by severe back pain for a long time. It had reached the point that my normal activities, even as a relatively non-active teacher, were being affected. I decided after much delay to make a visit to my friendly doctor, who, as is the tradition nowadays, referred me to a specialist. Upon examination and observance, x-rays and scans, the doctor determined that I had some collapsed cartilage between a couple of my lower vertebras in my back which resulted in pinched nerves, causing the sharp pains up and down my left leg. I had been told this several years before by other doctors, but this time I was ready to have something done about it, and I allowed myself to be referred to a surgeon who accepted my case and scheduled surgery to correct the problem. I was to see him on a Tuesday for final examination and to confirm the surgery time. I was not looking forward to back surgery; I have too many friends who have experienced back surgery with unsatisfactory results.

Coincidentally, at my home church at that time, Harvest Temple in Baytown, Texas, on the Sunday before my scheduled Tuesday appointment, we had a visiting minister who was, I would classify him now, a “faith” or “healing” minister. Strangely enough, at this point in time I can’t even remember his name. I do remember, however, that when he (as Pentecostals occasionally do) spoke in tongues, it almost sounded as if he was speaking in Latin. I have some limited interest in languages, and there is a certain rhythm or reoccurring sounds in just about every language. Anyway, on this particular Sunday night, the minister preached a very powerful message about the healing power of the name of Jesus. At the end of his sermon, he invited anyone who needed a healing touch from God to come to the front to be anointed with oil and receive a prayer of faith. Since upcoming surgery gives one a sense of urgency and since the sermon had caused me to look for divine help, I stepped out and walked to the front of the church. I closed my eyes and began to pray with my hands raised while at the same time I heard the minister walking amongst those standing with me, quietly praying in his Latinesque speech. Eventually his voice became stronger as he approached me and I felt his fingers touch my forehead as he anointed me with oil and continued to pray. At that moment I felt an immediate sensation, a warmth that coursed through my body, and somehow instinctively I knew something had happened. However, I prayed for a few more minutes uneventfully, the prayer service came to a close, and the service was over.

It was not until the next day as I was doing my daily activities as a teacher that it suddenly dawned on me that my back was not hurting, and I realized neither had it hurt me the night before. I began to think for about the Sunday night service, trying to reconstruct what I had felt. I had no pain the rest of the day, and when I walked into the surgeon’s office on Tuesday, I still had not felt pain. Since it was my first time to see the surgeon face to face, naturally I had a load of informational papers to complete. One questionnaire concerning my health asked, “Where are you hurting NOW?” I answered that I was not hurting anywhere. Eventually I was called by the nurse and went in to see the doctor. The doctor greeted me and began to describe the surgery planned as he was slowly scanning my personal data and questionnaires. He came to the “pain” question… “Mr. Downing, you answered here on the questionnaire that you are feeling no pain. Is that correct?” he asked. I answered that it was true. He responded with a sort of funny, but direct question. He asked, “If you’re not hurting, how am I supposed to improve on that?” I explained to him what had happened the past Sunday night, and he was very professional and accepting. He made the suggestion that since everything was ready for the surgery, we should just put everything on hold. I would go about my business, and when and if my pain reoccurred, I could give him a call and the surgery would be scheduled. That seemed a reasonable thing to do and I agreed. I have never been back to see him. The back pain has never returned, and I believe I was healed by the touch of God.

Fast forward to March of 2008, at which time I underwent heart surgery requiring five bypasses to be completed. Four days after the surgery, the hospital staff was still trying to figure out my pain medication, and I was still hurting. A nurse walked into my room and hooked me up to a different container of medication and left the room. She came back into my room a short time later and gasped when she saw the bottle empty....the medication was supposed to last for two or three days. About that time I began to shake as if I had chills, but I wasn’t cold…I just could not stop trembling, and the shaking became progressively and rapidly worse. I tried to force myself to be still, but I was rattling the whole bed, and I could see the nurses and physician’s assistant huddling just outside my door. Finally we were told that they would observe me closely and hopefully the shaking would wear off soon. They left the room and I was getting more and more uncomfortable as my newly repaired heart began to pound. In the depth of the shaking, I heard my wife tell my daughter, “Let’s pray,” and with one on each side of my bed, they began to pray for God to touch me in my hour of need. I am not exaggerating when I say that within thirty seconds, I exhaled a breath and completely stopped shaking. I lay quietly, and in a few minutes drifted into a peaceful sleep.

I Peter 2:24 “Who in his own self (Jesus) bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
James 5:16 “Pray for one another that ye may be healed”

I tell you these two examples of healing in my life to assure you that I believe in healing. I believe that God can, with his simple touch, correct ailments, both physical and mental, which appear beyond repair. There are countless examples of the power of God’s healing. I have seen faithful members of the church healed and yet at the same time witnessed healing for people who barely knew who God was. The mystery of healing is not whether it exists, but rather why does God appear to apply the healing touch selectively.

In Matthew 5:45, Jesus tells the disciples that the Father “sends rain on the just and the unjust.” The scripture is generally interpreted to mean that the common problems of life will affect the devout as well as the errant person. Being faithful to God does not mean that the saint will never experience trial, tragedy, sickness, and pain. It also means we will not be healed every time we ask for it. I have heard more than one minister preach that if one is living right and has faith, and a prayer for healing is offered, healing will result. I find no scripture for that position. The church my wife and I attend now, Bethel Tabernacle, is a powerful, faith-believing church that believes in healing. Many souls who have come to its altars with personal, physical, family, financial, and mental needs have seen their problems removed, and have testified about the power of healing. But there are many who have lived faithfully, prayed earnestly, and believed intensely and yet still have not received their healing. Why is that?

I believe the answer lies in what the scriptures tell us about God’s will in our lives. First, the scriptures tell us that God has a plan for each of us, and, just as our wonderful pastor mentioned in a sermon recently, His will is not that we be healthy, rich, or famous, but rather it is His will that we all be saved from the judgment to come. Everything that occurs in the life of a believer is designed to point him/her in the right direction toward God. I was happy and thankful in 2003 when God touched my back and took away the pain, but in 2008 He did not heal me from the heart problems I had or keep me from going through the chemotherapy for the cancer that immediately followed. I had many people praying for me, for which I was eternally thankful, but healing did not come. Had I not pleased Him to the point that He refused to heal me? I don’t think so. But I can tell you this, I am a better Christian now than I was before my heart/cancer episodes. I am far more conscious of my mortality, and I attempt to be more sensitive to the spirit of God in my life. What did my medical problems do for me? They pushed me in the direction He wanted me to go…namely toward Him.

Over the years, I have listened as many missionaries to foreign countries described the incredible demonstrations of God’s power though healings in their country of assignment and wondered why we did not see such amazing displays very often in the United States. Is it because we in this land of opportunity and wealth have become more callous, less faithful, or more unbelieving? The short answer to that question is no. We have in our church ranks many giants of faith who serve as the foundation of the church as we know it today. I think the answer lies again in an analysis of the scriptures. In looking at the acts of healing done by Jesus Christ and the apostles, a majority…not all, but a majority…of the acts of healing recorded in the scriptures were done to demonstrate the power of God. Think of the story of Peter and John in the third chapter of Acts. The crippled man asked for nothing but alms and expressed no spiritual commitment, but he was healed, and the act caused an excitement to spread through the city. Many of the recipients simply expressed a desire to be healed and it was done. The acts of healing were done to bring attention to the works of Jesus or the apostles. They were designed to spread the news of the creation and establishment of His church.

The great demonstrations of His handiwork are being seen in other lands today because the church is still being established in those new areas. We in the United States, with the spiritual maturity and progress we should have, are able to appreciate healing events and may even pray for healings in our own lives, but the fact is, we should not need to be healed to maintain our faith. We should be so established in our dedication to Him that, whether He heals us or not, we are going to be faithful. We no longer need great demonstrations of God’s power to keep us faithful to Him. We accept His power unquestioningly. There is nothing wrong in praying for healing. As our children come to us with pleas, requests, and outright begging, we respond with yes to those things we think will benefit the child and no to those things which we know will be detrimental. So it is with our Heavenly Father…we may pray for healing, a better job, or a better relationship, but God sees the end of the road and knows the direction which is best for us. But we as parents sometimes allow our children to "learn the hard way." Our children cry, plea, and beg until we finally give in to a request, and all the while we know as parents it is not a good decision and the child will suffer because of it. But we allow the child to proceed…and then fail…knowing that from the failure will come a valuable lesson for the child to remember. I wonder if God may sometimes answer our insistent and persistent prayers, all the while knowing that the results will be a disappointment and a hard lesson we must learn.

I do not know why God chooses to heal one person and not another. But this I do know; He has our interests at heart and our futures in mind when he allows difficult events to occur in our lives. It is not for us to question His will, but be sensitive to it. Job, the great man of patience of the Old Testament, said it best, “Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.”

Charles Darwin Bicentennial, 1809-2009

2011-08-20T10:19:00.008-05:00

I was listening to a minister preach a few months ago, and in the process of his sermon he happened to drift onto the subject of evolution. It hadn’t been the topic of his sermon, but in passing he made a couple of remarks concerning evolution that left me in a state of amazement. “The theory of evolution was a creation of the devil through the minds of godless men, and no true Christian would believe in such heresy,” he said, and then he continued, “When I was a kid a frog was a frog, and today a frog is still a frog. I’m going to teach a couple of lessons soon that will prove that evolution is false.”

Before I get too deep into this subject, let me state that I am not an expert on the subject of evolution. Just as I have already mentioned in the introduction to my blog, what I offer in my discourses are simply my observations and opinions based on my experiences. If I am wrong in your eyes you are welcome to offer evidence to show my error, and, if your evidence is conclusive, I will alter my perspective. But until then I will write what I think is accurate.

Shortly after I heard the minister slam evolution, I was privileged to attend a convention of science teachers. The convention offered the usual list of speakers offering their insights into the many strategies for teaching science to school children, but one speaker’s subject caught my attention immediately. “Teaching Evolution---Tips of the Trade” said the headline, and although it was far above my grade level as far as target audience was concerned, it was a “must visit” class for me. The speaker was a science professor from the University of Houston where by coincidence the convention was being held. He opened the session with a simple question, “Who of you feel that evolution is a theory, and who of you think evolution is a fact?” The results were pretty interesting; the room of approximately 30 listeners was just about evenly divided, and this was a group of people who all had a certain amount of science knowledge. He also made a statement which I found very interesting, “There are those who feel that religion and evolution science are incompatible, but I am a Christian, and I have found nothing in my study of evolution that contradicts the existence of a God. I believe in the existence of God.” I had to wonder how that statement went down with his professorial collegues.

Just a brief, layman’s definition of evolution should be introduced here. Evolution is the term we give to the process by which organisms (living things), in their struggle for survival, react over time to changes in their environments. It does not refer to a single generation of organisms, but changes and adaptations which occur through the processes of both natural and man-made interferences over many years, perhaps thousands or millions. In nature, changing conditions of life and environment create adaptations in organisms which give them a better chance of preservation. Consider the Islands of Hawaii…the birds and plants which were introduced to the islands only three hundred years ago by the Europeans have adapted both in color and size to their more temperate and colorful environment. Many Hawaiian birds and plants of today only vaguely resemble their ancestors of three centuries before. Many of the early organisms introduced to Hawaii suffered in the early years due to weakness in camouflage and adaptability, but those organisms which did survive begat stronger offspring more suitable to the new environment. Charles Darwin called this phenomenon the law of natural selection…the term we more readily recognize is “survival of the fittest.”

I went to the Museum of Natural History in Houston about a year ago to hear a lecture from famed anthropologist Donald Johanson. Johanson has been a superstar in the anthropological circles for over 35 years. In 1975 he discovered the remains of the first humanoid to allegedly walk erect on two legs. The three million year old fossilized bones, affectionately called “Lucy” by the educated gentry were on display at the museum. It was the first time they had ever been out of Ethiopia, and they were guarded more tightly than the incredible jewelry exhibit that the museum proudly displays. As I walked around the display, which was sort of a glass casket, the bones appeared to be that of a child no more than four feet tall. The skeleton was missing some bones, but there was enough for the curators to claim “a complete skeleton.” There was an artist’s rendition of what someone imagined “Lucy” may have looked like when she was alive. Later, at the lecture, Johanson made the statement that what has solidified conclusively the argument about the facts of evolution has been the discovery and development of DNA sampling. DNA sampling is so incontrovertible that it is now being used routinely in crime solving and court trials, and with DNA sampling anthropologists can readily trace the linage of various species backwards in history over a million years. However, interestingly enough, I was able to ask him a question that drew a small admission from him. I reviewed with him the fact that “Lucy’s” bones were now actually fossilized stone, and as stone could not have a DNA presence. He replied that the way they date fossils is by determining the age of the materials found around the specimen, and not the fossil itself. Score one for the doubters. Johanson is one of those I call “pure” evolutionists. “There’s no God, never was one, and never will be. There is a scientific answer for every question. “

We see examples of man-induced evolution practically everywhere. The next time you’re in your favorite grocery store, go to the produce department and pick up just about any piece of fruit or vegetable you prefer. That big fat juicy strawberry the size of a tennis ball was not created by nature alone, and that ripe, lovely half-pound tomato is a creation of man’s ingenuity, also. Most major seed companies use the process of artificial selection to insure that the seeds that are in the seed packet you buy are reasonably guaranteed to be healthy and productive. They do this by growing acres of “parent” plants. These plants are observed as they grow, and, although, they may be all planted in the same soil and receive the same dosages of water and minerals, some of them will be healthier and stronger that others. It is from the healthy plants that the seeds are taken to go into your seed packet, and the smaller, weaker plants are destroyed. Thus with each new generation of seed, the plant becomes even stronger and more productive. It is Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” with man himself being the judge of which plants survive to reproduce.

I read of another example of natural selection, or “survival of the fittest” just a few months ago in a magazine concerning pest control. The story did not look at the events in the context of evolution, but it reinforced the adaptability of organisms to their environment. In the Midwest a few years ago there was an invasion of insects in a farming area which was intense enough that it was threatening the crops of the farmers. Normal insecticides seemed to be ineffective, and finally a new powerful chemical was created to use against the invaders. Sure enough, 95% of the insects were killed and the crops were saved. The farmers were happy, needless to say, and order was restored to the farming community.

Until three years later. As if on schedule, the insects returned, but this time the farmers did not worry because they had their proven weapon against their enemies. The powerful chemical was sprayed again, but to the farmers’ horror, the deterrent had no effect on the insects. Some of the insects were captured and analyzed, and the pesticide experts came to the shocking conclusion that these new insects were offspring of the 5% of insects which had survived the chemical three years earlier. Those earlier insects, with some sort of stronger resistance to the chemical, had passed this resistance on to their offspring, and now the whole population of insects was immune to the insecticide. Through a man-cause selection, the insects had evolved into a species better able to resist a destructive force.

I could give many more examples of natural and man-induced natural selection in nature which has caused adaptive changes in organisms, but the examples given are adequate, and that is really not the point of this discussion anyway. The question that arises is how does someone who accepts the above examples reconcile them to what we know in the Bible. If we are in fact Bible-believing Christians seeking communion with an omnipresent God, what do we do when science can prove without a doubt that the earth is over four billions years old? It is not enough to yell, “That’s heresy!”

Here’s what I feel. My take on how old the earth is and how scientific evidence relates to the Bible goes along with my feelings and opinions about what’s going to happen when the earth comes to its end. Learned theologians have argued for centuries about what’s going to happen “when time shall be no more,” and the rock bottom fact is no one really knows for sure. Even as I write this, our church is having a series of Bible studies with a very, very dear loved one of mine who is explaining to our congregation the mysteries of Revelations in the Bible. We’re learning about the Tribulation, Daniel’s 70 Weeks, the Millenium, the Rapture, and all sorts of interesting stuff. But even as I read along in the scriptures as they are being discussed, I ask myself, “How did we arrive at that conclusion by reading this scripture?” I think the clues given in the Bible concerning the endtime are purposely vague, just as the clues concerning the beginning of our earth are vague. We are not meant to worry about the future and we are not meant to be concerned about the past. Our relationship with God is based on the communion we have with Him today.

There is, however, another possibility which I believe has been overlooked and yet is compelling in its simplicity. If we Christians believe the Bible literally that the earth is only 6,000 years old, but science tells us that the earth is over 4 billion years old, and if we really believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, why could He not have created the earth as if it were four billion years old. If He can create an earth, He could create an earth with a history just as easily. In doing so, the geologist could announce discovery of a rock that is a billion years old, an anthropologist could announce the discovery of a three million year old humanoid, and the Christian could say the earth is six thousand years old and they would all be correct. Think about this scenario: assume for a moment that the Bible is correct and God created Adam and Eve. The moment they were created, how old were they? Imagine a scientist at that instant jumping out of the bushes and examining this new creation called man. What conclusion would the scientist have arrived at concerning Adam’s age? If Adam and Eve were created as adults, the scientist would have speculated “about 25 years,” where in fact these new creations were only minutes old. Could God have done the same thing with the Earth and universe?

In closing, I would like to quote from Charles Darwin’s amazing book, The Origin of Species. Published in 1854, the book presented in incredible detail the argument for evolution. To some Christian ministers, it is the devil’s bible; to evolutionists it is the definition of life itself. But many ministers and evolutionists have not bothered to read the entire content of the book. To an open minded reader it is a beautifully written, incredibly detailed document, and it acknowledges the existence of God. In Darwin's own words:

“Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind, it accords (agrees) better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator. It is interesting to contemplate a tangled creek bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing in the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, are Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance, which is almost implied by Reproduction; Variability from the direct and indirect action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse; A Ratio of Life so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, involving Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one, and that, while this planet has gone cycling according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

Chernobyl, Wormwood, and Prophecy

2011-08-09T15:39:00.006-05:00

Within Christianity, and especially amongst Pentecostals, there has always been an intense interest in any present or future event which could be identified as a marker or clue that we are approaching the climax of the human age as we know it. Naturally the primary source for prophetic utterances for the church community is the Bible. Within the Bible are several Old Testament books which deal heavily in prophecy, much of it geared toward Israel and its centuries-old struggle for survival. Many of these prophecies we have lived to see fulfilled even in this modern age. What piques the interest of many church goers these days are prophecies concerning what we euphemistically call “the end of the world,” although it is far from that. Most of the clues concerning this time frame are found in the last book of the Bible, Revelation.

Interestingly, when we think of Revelation, we think its primary purpose is to reveal the events of the end time, but John the Revelator, the author of the book, entitled his tome “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” in the first verse, indicating that the experiences he would described, although they would offer a chronology of events leading toward the end, were designed primarily to reveal to the world the true power and majesty of Jesus Christ. Replete with imageries, metaphors, analogies, similes, visions, and colorful descriptions of cataclysmic events, the book of Revelation has been a source of intense discussion, controversy, and argument for centuries. Nowhere else in the Scriptures has interpretation of verses been so varied, and conclusions so jumbled as has been in the hosts of analyses of Revelation.

I must confess to you…usually when the subject turns to prophecy and future events, I tend to get a little bored. It’s not that I have no concern, it’s just that I have found that people who are really into the study of prophecy tend to be like Republicans and Democrats, conservative and liberals, or Keynesian and Smith economists. They are dead set in their opinions, and to them, every scripture of prophecy is crystal clear in its meaning and there is neither negotiation nor compromise. My personal contention (and of course I won’t compromise, either) is that there is very little that is crystal clear in politics or economics…and especially prophecy. An additional reason I tend to breeze through prophecy is that I feel if a person maintains an active relationship with God, He has promised He will see us though every problem. So whatever may come in the future, He has already said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.”

My church, Bethel Tabernacle, recently enjoyed the ministry of Rev. Ervin Baxter, a renown student of prophecy. Rev. Baxter has delved into Revelation for the better part of forty years and has developed a tremendous following because of his astute analyses of the events of biblical prophecy. He is analytical, thorough, articulate, and makes his presentations in a manner that grabs your attention and yet drives home the primary point that our first priority as living souls is to insure that we have a relationship with God. Not just a knowledge or awareness, but a true personal communion with the Almighty.

His subject for the morning service was “The Seven Trumpets” as described in Revelations 8-11. Another confession on my part: I had not read too much about the seven trumpets, so being a good servant I decided to do a little homework in preparation for the lesson. I was surprised when, after looking at several reference discussions of Revelation, the general consensus was the seven trumpets, each signifying a catastrophic event, were expected to occur sometime after the tribulation period, but no commentator was willing to hazard what each one meant. The plot thickened, so I decided this service with Brother Baxter might be interesting, after all.

Rev. Baxter has visited our church before, so his was a somewhat familiar face as he approached the pulpit. Especially since I subscribe to his weekly on line newsletter where he gives analyses of current news which are a lot more astute that some I hear on CNN and FOX. Quickly getting into the subject at hand, the Seven Trumpets, he began to offer evidence that perhaps the seven trumpets as described in Revelations would not occur in rapid succession at the endtime, but perhaps had already begun, starting with the first trumpet prophesying the events of the First World War, and the second trumpet describing the Second World War. I thought these were pretty novel ideals, but he was able to offer some backup evidence, such as the second trumpet describing a conflict where one-third of the ships were sunk. Coincidentally, in WWII, out of over 100,000 ships from all the nations involved in the conflict, almost exactly one-third were sunk in combat. Interesting, I thought. But it was the third trumpet which caught my attention in earnest.

Revelation 8: 10…”And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from Heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers and upon the fountain of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters because they were made bitter.” Brother Baxter then made the statement, “In the Russian language ‘chernobyl’ means ‘wormwood.’” This scripture, he said, was describing the nuclear disaster which occurred in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986. At that time the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russia) was the dominant power and our Cold War enemy and was the controlling force in the area which is now independent Ukraine.

On that day in 1986, a titanic explosion ripped through the Number Four reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, blowing a 100 ton roof completely off and sending radioactive debris over a mile into the air and instantly contaminating everything within a thirty mile radius, including the city of Chernobyl. The Soviet Union, with its security paranoia, did not announce the disaster to the world until the contamination began to drift over Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the Chernobyl area, but death and sickness from radiation prevailed. The Soviets dubbed the area the “Zone of Alienation,” sealing the area off from anyone except those who were required to attempt the cleanup, thus sealing their own fates to radiation sickness.

On my Blackberry cell phone, which isn’t the very latest technology (but it ain’t bad), I have a language application which can translate several different languages to any of several other languages. Since I have an interest and some past experience in the Russian language, I quickly began to try to verify that “chernobyl” did in fact mean “wormwood.” No luck. I tried English-Russian, Russian-English, English-Ukranian, etc. with no success. I also have an application on my Blackberry that has 26 versions of the Bible convertible into 25 different languages, including three Russian-produced versions of the Bible. I went to the Russian versions and found that полынь, or “polin” with an accent on the last syllable was the word for “wormwood.” Brother Baxter continued with his viewpoints on the other trumpets, but to be honest, I was researching everywhere I could find on my phone trying to find a chernobyl-wormwood connection.

That afternoon I spent time on my computer trying to find the connection, and I was successful. “Chernobyl” is the Russian word for artemesia vulgaris, which refers to a plant which grows to a height of 3-4 feet in the area of Chernobyl. In English the plant is known as mugwort or “common wormwood.” Prior to 1986 both Russian and Ukranian dictionaries included wormwood as a secondary definition for chernobyl, but since that year, coincidentally the year of the disaster, the secondary definition of wormwood for chernobyl has been expunged from Russian and Ukrainian dictionaries. Additionally, Revelation refers to a star falling from the sky. The Greek word for star also refers to “strewn over the sky” as in radiating. Could what John described as a star actually been a radiating explosion?

In 1992, a Russian research center, the Kurchatov Institute, issued a “manifest” (statement) describing the official version of events surrounding the explosion of 1986 and the subsequent relocation of citizens. In it the statement is made that “polin” is a Russian word and means “chernobyl.” Since “polin” translates to “wormwood” in English, the connection can be loosely made that “chernobyl” means “wormwood.”

Connecting Chernobyl to wormwood is noteworthy, but something else I discovered is much more amazing. In 1986 after the explosion, the Soviets embarked on a massive cleanup operation of the Chernobyl area. The city of Chernobyl became a ghost town and thousands of inhabitants had to be relocated to safe areas. For years after the disaster the “Zone of Alienation” was restricted with no access allowed.

Due to the magnitude of the buildup and the knowledge that the process would take years, the Soviets gave the cleanup an all-encompassing name…Проект Полынь…Project Polin, or Project Wormwood. I find that fact to be astounding. The Soviets and their military in those days were our adversaries, and yet like all military machines, there were many remarkable similarities in operations. Even today, the U.S. military gives each of its activities a special name, such as “Operation Overlord” and “Operation Freedom.” However, during the years of the Cold War, if the operation was somewhat secretive and not to be publicized, the operative name was usually a dictionary word which was not used in normal conversation to avoid compromising the activity. “Wormwood” was not a commonly used word and sufficed to identify an operation which the Soviets did not wish to publicize.

We know that there have been Pentecostals in Russia since the early 20th century. With the Communist Party firmly in charge after the October Revolution of 1917, most Christians went underground, but managed to survive even during the Stalinist Purges. Somewhere in the heart of the Russian military or scientific command after the explosion at Chernobyl, there was a committee which made the decisions concerning the cleanup of Chernobyl. That committee made a decision to name their work “Project Wormwood.” Think about this…only one of the 21 apocalyptic events described in Revelation was given a proper noun as a name by John the Revelator, and it was an unusual, obscure name at that…Wormwood. What are the odds that the name associated with the single worst disaster ever created by man just coincidentally carries that same name as its dictionary definition and is the same name as mentioned in Revelation 8:11? Could there have been on that Soviet science committee in charge of cleaning up the disaster a “closet” Christian who understood Revelation and recognized the enormity of the Chernobyl disaster? Or was the committee an unknowing pawn in the progression of God’s will and were merely fulfilling the prophecy written two thousand years before?
This prophecy thing may be more interesting than I thought!

P.S. Fascinating facts about Chernobyl: Today, 25 years after the explosion, the area around Chernobyl has become the largest wildlife sanctuary in Europe. It is a flourishing and sometimes unearthly wilderness teeming with large animals and birds, many of them members of rare and endangered species. Many people, elderly and sick from radiation and homesickness, have moved back into their abandoned homes and are continuing to live. The forests, fields, water, people, and animals are all radioactive. Cesium-137 is packed in their muscles and strontium-90 is packed in their bones, and yet all are not just surviving, but are thriving. Tourists and scientists visit the area on a regular basis, securely covered in radiation-proof clothing and carrying radiation meters. Chernobyl has become a testament to Earth’s ability to withstand the most devastating calamity.

Men of a Certain Age

2011-08-04T21:27:00.005-05:00

For the last couple of years there has been a television program (recently cancelled due to low viewership) which at its inception appealed to me due to its title, “Men of a Certain Age.” It was hyped as a heartwarming account of a group of friends (men, of course) who, having reached that mid-life crisis stage of their lives, experienced all sorts of emotional conflicts which can make a middle aged person rethink priorities as they adjust from a fast-paced youth oriented lifestyle to a more…um…sedate, mature outlook on events. Being a “man of a certain age” myself I watched a couple of the early episodes looking for portrayals of familiar experiences where I could sigh, “Oh, yes, I felt that way when it happened to me, too,” but, alas, I had forgotten that this was television emanating from that “cesspool of iniquity, Hollywood” (to quote more than one preacher,) and the only events I saw made me feel like a voyeur peeking through a window. Heavy handed, crude, rude, vulgar, shallow, misrepresentative…all these descriptions would apply to most prime time sitcoms and dramas anyway, but especially to “Men of a Certain Age.” And now it’s been cancelled. Good riddance.

However, “Men of a Certain Age” did acknowledge one fact, and that is that people with their individual personalities, priorities, preferences, and peculiarities do in fact change, or evolve, as the years begin to pile up. Your top priority for today may not even be on the radar scope ten years from now, and concerns that did not exist when you were a youth become life and death struggles in latter years.

This evolution of thought and development accounts for why our taste in people also changes in time. I have heard it said more than once that a person who lives this life with five good friends is a blessed person indeed. Not just good acquaintances, but real friends. I heard a good definition of a friend a few years ago, and I think it still applies. To wit: “A friend is someone you can think out loud in front of without fear of condemnation.” So a friend is someone with whom you can be totally honest in your opinions and observations. It doesn’t mean your friend will always agree or approve, but he/she will stick with you regardless.

I have discovered as my time has continued on this earth an addendum to the five good friends rule, however. As one proceeds through life and hopefully has an inner circle of five good friends, the membership in that blessed group of five on whom you depend will change. Many times it is not due to a falling out or misunderstanding, but to the events of life itself.

In the early years after Shirley and I were married, I had several good friends in our church in Baytown, but two were especially close. David and Vernon were cousins of mine as well, and to top it off we all worked for my dad’s company, so we spent a lot of time together. In addition our church had a softball team which played other churches in the area. David, Vernon, and I were key members (modestly speaking) of the team…especially since I kept the balls, bats, bases, and other hardware for the games at my house. Shirley and I lived on Aron Street in Baytown, and next to us was a vacant lot. Many an evening went by with David, Vernon, and I practicing our pitching and catching in that vacant yard. Vernon was our first line pitcher, David the backup, and I was the team’s catcher. This was a fast pitch league (slow pitch, or as we called it, wimp ball hadn’t been invented yet,) and we spent hours working on curve balls, sinker balls, fast balls. Vernon was an outstanding pitcher with a four-pitch repertoire, where David knew only one pitch…as hard as he could throw it. Vernon was steady on the mound, but occasionally we would let David start a game. He would do fine until he got in trouble. When he started to sweat and his eyes got as big as saucers you knew no one was safe from his wild pitches. The first adjustment of my friends group occurred in 1967 when David was killed in an industrial accident at Rohm and Haas in Deer Park. He was all of 25 years old. It wasn’t too long after David’s death that Vernon began to show the first signs of muscular sclerosis, the disease which would eventually take his life several years later. Those early years were good years…we were strong, young, athletic, and we were constantly busy and constantly moving. I describe all this because after our last church service I listened as a couple of young men discussed their exercise routine at the YMCA and various sports, and I realized that none of it appealed to me at all. One might say I prefer a more benign form of health care. A couple of Saturdays ago the young men of the church assembled and played softball. I would have played, but it was too hot. Forty years ago I would have been in the middle of them.

Throughout the years I have been blessed with many different members of my group of five, and for fear of offending someone, I can’t mention everyone one whom I have considered a dear friend. I will, however, mention Buddy, George, and Juan. Buddy tried to kill us when he told me to drive through a creek that wasn’t deep (but it was), George almost killed my wife when he tried to back his motorhome off a cliff, and Juan laughed at me when I threw a flaming stove out of a tent while we were on a hunting trip and also when I shot a hole in our tent with my Remington ADL 7mm magnum rifle (it WAS funny!). But through it all, they were in my group of five. Georgie has passed on, I haven’t seen Juan in 30 years, and though Buddy and wife Jeannie are still beloved, they live 1.200 miles away.

The church Shirley and I have attended for a couple of years since our retirement, Bethel Tabernacle, is a wonderful church, and one of its greatest assets is its membership. The people are tremendously friendly and caring, and from the first day we walked into the building, we have felt at home. In this church, every age bracket is well represented from the exuberant youth to the steady seniors. Of course, by this time, it is the senior bracket into which Shirley and I fall. A few months ago after church one of the old…elder…more experienced men made the suggestion that some of us should meet at a restaurant somewhere for breakfast and fellowship. Sure enough, we did so, and it was the beginning of a grand tradition. We had such a great time that we now try to meet every Friday at the restaurant of our choice. We have been known to sit there for two hours solving all the problems of the world. Unfortunately, no one listens to us, but we have the answers anyway. These guys have become very important to me. Each one has been through the fire, experienced loss and tragedy, and survived to tell the tale. When we speak on a subject, we speak usually from experience, not just opinion. We are an eclectic blend of personalities, and I would be more specific about each one, but I know some of their wives will read this, and I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. They are a joy to be with…knowledgeable, experienced, funny, quick-witted, and yet with a deep spirituality and appreciation of the blessings of God. Being with them has been good for me.

I have been blessed with a wonderful family. My wife, children, grandchildren (I have a daughter-in-law, but I consider her another daughter), and even all my in-laws form a base of support that has kept me through the years. But I have been doubly blessed in that I have had friends throughout the years who have served as sports buddies, counseling buddies, comforting buddies, and spiritual buddies. They have defined the true meaning of “friend.”

The Big Picture

2011-07-16T11:54:00.004-05:00

I recently attended the funeral of a very dear friend, Chester (Chuck) Smith. He was the age and generation of my late father with whom he was a good friend, and in fact Chuck reminded me of my dad in many of his characteristics and features. Although he had experienced much in his tenure on Earth, when we celebrated his 90th birthday just a few weeks ago, he did not speak of his many accomplishments but dwelt rather on his love for his wife, family, and friends…and he had many friends. There was a simple elegance about Chuck that created an easy, relaxed atmosphere, and he treated everyone with the same high level of respect and friendship. His influence extended far beyond his immediate family, because anyone who came in contact with Chester E. Smith had met a man who was not easy to forget.

His funeral bore record of a legacy which will be extended far into the future, not just through his extended family, but also through the memories each of us will hold for as long as we exist on this planet. I have a confession to make to you…I have difficulty with funeral services which are fancifully tagged with the nomenclature “celebration of life.” A funeral is, after all, an acknowledgement that someone has died, and assuming that the deceased person led a reasonably moral life, that person’s passing should result in a period of extreme grief and sorrow on the part of close family and friends. How can one “celebrate” the loss of a dear loved one? Throughout the years I have experienced what each person must endure in the course of life, namely the loss of close friends and loved ones including my father and mother, and I can assure you that during the days of sorrow and final goodbyes, I did not feel much like celebrating anything...I felt only a heavy grief and a gaping void in my heart.

However, what I have just expressed is probably best described as the human reaction to personal loss, and, though we may walk around with a visible halo over our heads due to our extreme holiness, there exists within each of us that humanity that causes us to feel discomfort and unease when we are forced to endure an unpleasant experience. This contrasts sharply with the emotions we feel when we approach a personal loss from a spiritual perspective. The funeral of Chuck Smith was a case in point. Here was a man who had lived for ninety years, served his God and his church for seventy of those years, been faithful to his wife, friends, and country, raised children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who maintained the same high spiritual standards he had set, and left for all who remained a blueprint for a successful life. It’s no wonder, then, that his funeral was a litany of touching personal testimonies and music (Oh, the music!) which celebrated his love for his God. We who attended came not to grieve, but to give honor to a person who had touched our lives and made us better people. The ceremony reminded me of those things which are most important in life and caused me to review my priorities as I seek to leave my own footprint on the earth.

I experienced the same impressions just a few days ago. Coincidentally, another 90-year-old, Catherine Adams, mother of Mel Adams, one of my good friends at Bethel Tabernacle, was laid to rest following a very touching service at the United Pentecostal Church of Shepherd, Texas. I liked the church instantly when I saw the “United Pentecostal Church” sign out front and appreciated a church that was still proud to be called Pentecostal. As we drove up to the church and I saw the original sanctuary behind the beautiful newer facility, I realized I had been here before…51 years ago. George Creel and I had traveled with our pastor, Rev. C.T. Caruthers, from Peace Tabernacle in Baytown to attend a fellowship meeting here. The funeral service was remarkably similar to Chuck’s in tone. Here was another soldier of the cross who had been faithful for her entire life. One of the officiating ministers had been a student in her Sunday School class many years earlier, and he told of her faithfulness to church and family and her love for her students. Her faithfulness was indicated in the fact that she prayed for her husband for 34 years before he finally came to have his own experience with God. She never gave up hope.

Neither of these two great champions of the cross was mentioned by CNN, FOX, the Houston Chronicle, or any major periodical upon their passing, and yet they represent what is really important in life. Their lives were not always smooth sailing; illnesses, death, tragedy, and assorted difficulties followed each one, just as they follow any person who lives on the earth. However, what set these two people apart from the common strain of humanity is they did not let life’s setbacks take their eyes off the final prize. A bump in the road did not change the destination toward which they were traveling.

My beloved pastor, David Fauss, preached a great sermon a few services ago which sort of reaffirmed my impressions of these two funerals. His subject was “The Big Picture,” and in many different examples from the Bible, he encouraged us to not allow the problems of a particular day, or week, or month, or even year to cause us to lose sight of the “big picture.” That is, the primary goal in our lives should be to do everything possible to insure that we are found worthy to enter Heaven’s gates on that great day of judgment. So many bad decisions are made based on the spur of the moment and in flashes of emotion, and the results are destroyed marriages, relationships, and spirits. Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I have always thought it interesting that if we consider all the elements mentioned in these two verses, each has a somewhat sinister, or strange, or mystical connotation…except “life.” And yet life is what we desire most…to be able to live, love, and succeed. We enjoy a society relatively free from harm and danger and governmental threat. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is a constitutional mantra to most Americans. Life, however, has become the greatest threat to our personal salvation. Simply put, the daily tasks of living, working, and surviving are consuming a greater portion of our time than ever before. When we are not grinding out a living, we are demanding that we be entertained via sports, television, movies, video games, and every other imaginable activity that man can conjure up to expend time, and as a result, we have less opportunity for the relationships to family, friends, and our God which should be top priority. Most of these distractions would not be classified by anyone as “sinful,” but taken in heavy enough dosages, they can be hazardous to our personal and spiritual health. We are distracted from the big picture by the minutia of the moment.

Perhaps as one grows older, the level of personal tolerance for those things outside one’s comfort zone diminishes, also. I suspect it may be a characteristic of growing older that we oldsters judge everything by the way we did it (which was undoubtedly better) forty years ago. To a young person, change is an exciting new adventure; to a…um…more mature person, change can be threatening. Even personal relationships can vary almost as often as the tide, it would seem, but a valued relationship cannot be affected by the events of a moment, but rather must be viewed from the perspective of the “big picture.” This principle is also applicable to work, church, or our health. We may have days of great struggle involving any or all of these areas, but we must teach ourselves to base actions and reactions on the desired final goal. I have expressed great alarm and concerns regarding various outside influences which I felt were having a detrimental effect upon the United Pentecostal Church in general and my church in particular. Though my concerns are still very real, I pray I will be prone to greater tolerance of those things which I do not understand and accept the fact that it is possible for people to share a common goal and yet travel different avenues to reach that objective. Whatever occurs in this life, be it positive or negative, I cannot allow the event of the moment to deter me from my eventual goal.

America...and Pentecost...in Decline

2011-06-15T16:12:00.008-05:00

The United States of America became a fledgling nation via the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Its citizens, with this new beginning and new nation, desired most of all a constitutional freedom to worship their Creator in the manner they deemed proper without fear of governmental intervention, along with the freedom to govern themselves without intervention from any foreign power. This new nation, devoid of any prior heritage or tradition and created from an amalgamation of immigrants from every section of the globe, created a democratic institution unlike any other on Earth…fiercely independent, strategically located with a wealth of natural resources, and with a government which placed a value on every citizen.

Through divine intervention or unbridled imperialism, depending upon your point of view, the United States in less than 200 years became the most powerful nation on the planet, spreading its influence and power from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific Ocean and from the Rio Grande River to Canada and usurping the global influence of such stalwarts as Britain, Germany, and France, which had been adversaries in world affairs for centuries. At the end of World War II, America stood alone, militarily victorious around the world and the lone possessor of the atomic bomb.

History is replete with the stories of nations and the triumphant rise and fall of each. Americans, due perhaps to the streak of independence instilled in their psyches, have a tendency to feel that the United States is somehow insulated from this ebb and flow of nations, and due to our establishment in a “New World” complete with new ideas and no preconceived notions of classes of citizens nor limits to our measures of success, the United States will live forever. The last fifty years, however, have begun to reveal cracks in the foundation of the nation founded “under God,” and the expectation of success, bequeathed as a birthright to every American, is eroding at an alarming rate.

The Korean War of the early 1950s was a sobering wake-up call for a nation which only six years earlier had been unbeatable worldwide. Fighting the Chinese and North Koreans to a standstill along the 38th parallel of South Korea, the U.S. consoled itself that it was still undefeated. The Vietnam War of 1964-1974, however, was a disaster. Unaccustomed to a “limited” war and with political leaders convoluted about the objectives of the U.S. in Southeast Asia, the nation slipped ignominously out of Vietnam as the North Vietnamese army videoed the scenes of U.S. helicopters, packed with refugees, abandoning the country. 50,000 U.S. troops gave the ultimate sacrifice not in the defense of the United States but in the defense of a colossal political blunder on the part of the U.S. government. In addition, the conflict over the Vietnam War had created social trauma in the U.S. as well. Violent student protests and clumsy governmental responses tore at the fabric of American society. Soldiers in the war zone of SE Asia were exposed to exotic drugs which were brought back to the U.S. and spread to the general populace, and today the drug epidemic is destroying our society.

At the same time, a single book was changing the way parents related to their children. Dr. Benjamin Spock, a noted pediatrician, wrote “Baby and Child Care.” Spock broke with the strict tone and rigorous instruction of previous child care books and encouraged parents to give their children “freedom to grow” with limited parental correction. “Baby and Child Care” outsold every book in America with the exception of the Bible…and did so for ten years. Its influence on child care was incalculable, and we are living with the consequences today. Undisciplined children have become undisciplined parents, creating more undisciplined children. In the United States in 2010, forty percent of all children were born to unwed mothers, and in one ethnic group alone, the number is 75 percent. In addition, only twenty percent of all households in the United States consist of what used to be called the “nuclear” family…a married father and mother with their own children.

Coupled with the breakdown of society has been the breakdown of government. Democracy traditionally involves a group of legislators duly elected to formulate policy, understanding that with different ideas represented, every decision is a compromise with the objective being the best interests of the citizens. No more. In 2008, Barack Obama and the majority Democrats were elected due to the reaction of voters to the weak economy. Promising change, Obama spent the next fifteen months fighting for a new health care program for the U.S., even though eighty percent of all Americans had said they were happy with their medical care in poll after poll. With a continued weak economy in 2010, the voters rejected Democratic policies and gave the Republicans the majority in the House of Representatives and a much more powerful voice in the Senate. Results: The new Republicans have done nothing about the nagging unemployment and have set their sights on revising Medicare, even though eighty percent (there’s that number again) of all Americans are happy with their Medicare coverage. The United States government can no longer govern, and America as we remember it has disappeared. A recent poll indicated that for the first time in our history, parents are less optimistic about their children’s futures than they were their own.

Pentecost, or the Pentecostal movement, if you will, has a history paralleling that of the United States. In the mid to late 1800s, massive spiritual revivals swept America, and a great spiritual awakening jolted the traditional, mainstream churches. Within those organizations, individual leaders sought a closer communication with God and began to search the Scriptures to try to gain more knowledge of what God’s plan or objective may have been for the age. The result was that around the turn of the 20th century, the greatest revival of all began with the revelation of the individual’s potential for receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues as described in Act 2:38. A new spiritual experience with life-changing aftereffects, the Holy Ghost transformed men and women and drew believers from every church organization. Within ten years, the Holy Ghost phenomenon had swept the country, and those who had been recipients of this spiritual experience felt an overpowering urge to tell those who had not yet heard. These early Holy Ghost pioneers sacrificed everything to spread the news, depending upon their prayers and faith in God that He would supply their needs to survive. Living simply and modestly, they traveled the country, preaching the gospel and converting new believers. It was a time of powerful ministry and powerful music, with singers and composers creating timeless compositions describing spiritual experiences and God’s love for humanity. They came to be called Pentecostal, or Pentecostalists, because in biblical history the events surrounding Act 2:38 occurred during the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

In time, the Pentecostals, still within their own traditional organizations, began to feel resistance from nonbelieving ministers, and as a result, several Pentecostal groups began to splinter off the major denominations. These splinter groups, all of a common experience and mind, eventually united to form the United Pentecostal Church, which became the largest Pentecostal organization in the United States. By the time the UPC was created in 1946, the Pentecostal “experience” was well established. In the 1950s, Life Magazine, the most dominate news magazine of the era, produced a series of articles analyzing the Pentecostals and discussing the phenomenon of “glossolalia,” or “speaking in tongues.” Churches across the country had been established, usually identified with the sign “United Pentecostal Church.” Preachers and pastors preached a message which was common to all churches, and believers lived lives of moderation, adhering to basic standards of dress and behavior. In that age before the internet, the church was the center of activity for believers, providing social interaction as well as spiritual guidance. The twenty five year period after 1946 was the golden age for the United Pentecostal Church. It was a period of amazing growth, unity, and spiritual development. The believer carried the description “Pentecostal” with pride, because to be Pentecostal meant that a person subscribed to a standard of behavior, dress, and spiritual beliefs.

As the seventies faded into the eighties, however, outside events began to have a dramatic effect on the Pentecostal church. One of the most influential was the introduction of cable television to most markets. It may be difficult to get the connection from Pentecost to cable television, especially in the light that in the early days of Pentecost, television was reviled as the devil’s instrument. Of course, as we grew more sophisticated, the evils of television were minimized and TV ownership became universally accepted. The major facet of cable television which affected churches, though, was the creation of channels and networks devoted exclusively to “religious” programming. Whereas radio evangelists of yore were restricted primarily to local markets, a preacher or church on cable television could reach nationwide and draw a tremendous audience. The United Pentecostal Church still did not subscribe to broadcasting via television, although most of its preachers and pastors had already given up fighting the TV wave. What its leaders did do, however, was watch the television broadcasts and observe how services were conducted, the styles of music offered, and the message that was preached. Another thing which caught their attention was each of these TV evangelists or churches was independent…none of them claimed any allegiance to any religious organization, and in the era of self importance, that fact appealed to many Pentecostal ministers. The result was a resistance of sorts to the control exercised by the United Pentecostal Church over its churches, especially in the areas of pastoral replacements and church organization. Finally, the UPC created a new form of partnership, an “affiliation,” with many of its churches which meant that the local church accepted the beliefs of the UPC but did not have to be subservient to UPC headquarters. The end result was many churches dropped the nomenclature “United Pentecostal Church” from their signs, choosing to be Pentecostal when it was convenient and not to be if it was an embarrassment. “Embarrassment” because it was not uncommon for the TV preachers to take little gigs at the Pentecostals and their “weird worship” whenever possible. I remember one time watching a TV evangelist who is still on TV today proclaiming that he was proud that his wife cut her hair and wore makeup and earrings because he didn’t want her to look like one of those “far-out, ugly Pentecostals.” And the audience roared with laughter when he said it.

Pentecostals who should have known better watched these programs with envy, and decided to tailor their services and music to match these mega-churches in the hopes of drawing like numbers of visitors. Since most of the televisions church services were organized functions with choreographed performers, the same became true of many Pentecostal churches, and audience participation was practically eliminated, with the exception that audiences were expected to erupt into joyous spiritual celebration at the drop of a hat or the raising of an “applause” sign. But congregational singing and individual testimonies were discouraged, and prayer and worship were orchestrated down to the second. Church music became uber-contemporary, based on the latest top picks on the gospel hit parade or the latest choir arrangement from a well-known director. The traditional songs of the early to mid 20th century were dismissed as far too staid, rigid, and lacking in rhythm. Fortunately, up to this point, the message of Holy Ghost salvation was still being preached, but the concepts of condemnation and consequence were soft pedaled to avoid causing the listener to feel self-depreciated, and instead the positive aspects of Christian living were emphasized.

Fast forward to the current day. In the last three months, I have had two separate evangelists tell me without any prompting on my part that in many churches that they visit a person would not realize they were in a Pentecostal church unless someone told them. Ministers, in an attempt to reach an audience, avoid the term “Pentecost” like the plague. Churches are carefully named “The Solid Rock,” or “Helping Hands Outreach,” or “Oasis of Love,” or some other generic equivalent to avoid any indication of the message that is preached inside the four walls. If the biblical plan of salvation does happen to be preached, it’s done so surreptitiously, hopefully at a time when the listener excited enough to say, “Yes! I want to be baptized!” Services are choreographed and music is arranged to create an artificial excitement with the audiences being limited to controlled responses…preferably enthusiastic yelling. Every service becomes a emotional high, and, with very little spiritual foundation being built for the new convert, it’s no wonder that many enthusiastic converts, upon returning to the daily humdrum of life, feel their spiritual euphoria wane, and they never return to church.

A few days ago I was in a Pentecostal service which featured a well-known choir director from another state. She had been invited to offer advice to the local choir and assist in preparing some musical arrangements. A live-wire bundle of energy, she proceeded to tell the audience that, in so many words, Black gospel was where it’s at. She proudly announced she had taught the choir how to “dip,” that is, sort of lean down and then sway to the left or right in rhythm to the music (heavy drums, of course.) We were then instructed that we in the audience needed to learn how to “dip,” and then, looking over the crowd and seeing several African-American members, this Caucasian choir director stated, “I see several of my brothers and sisters out there and I KNOW you know how to dip!” I was floored. I also noticed there was not much reaction from her “brothers and sisters” at that time or when we started “dippin’ and swayin.’” The music (?) started and in a short time the choir was in orbit, although I noticed that the audience was exercising remarkable restraint, with the exception of the normal select group who would probably dance and yell at a funeral. I have a confession…for the first time in my entire life I was embarrassed to be in a Pentecostal service. I slipped out a side door and back to the empty fellowship hall and sat down. As I looked out the open windows to the broad field behind the church, I pondered if this is what Pentecost is coming to. The evening service was a repeat of the morning with the exception that we were instructed to “rock left” and “rock right” instead of dip. Thank you, but, no thanks.

With the exception of the Pentecostal message, Pentecost as we knew it has disappeared. I have heard of alleged Pentecostal churches which now teach that the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues is optional, or if the tongues speaking is expected, then just a couple of mumbles and that’s sufficient. These disturbing trends and allegations are connected to another bit of data I read recently. The average age of a United Pentecostal Church minister is now approaching 50 years of age and a decreasing number of young men and women are entering the ministry. The prediction was made that in twenty five years the UPC will be faced with the same dilemma that many mainstream churches have today: not enough ministers to fill the pulpits of their churches. Conclusion: The established fifty years old ministers of today will be out of the pulpit in another 25-30 years and the new breed of contemporary ministers with no connections to the early day traditions and heritage of Pentecost will be leading the congregations…and the last domino, that of the preaching the biblical plan of salvation, will fall, and the UPC will enter the mainstream of religion in America. By that time, it is highly likely that the organization will have a new name without the distasteful “Pentecostal” albatross.

I realize that I am presenting a very negative viewpoint to these affairs. At the same time, I am searching desperately for something to offer as a glimmer of hope for the future. Believe it or not, Vice President Joseph Biden made a statement recently that may be applicable concerning these issues. He was asked about his sometimes contentious dealings with Congress during his long career and how he managed to avoid letting every stressful issue become a personal vendetta. Biden stated that when dealing with a political adversary you had to make sure that you questioned the methods but not the motives of your opponent. Biden, who is fairly liberal, said while many of his struggles were with conservatives, he never questioned their loyalty to America, only the methods by which they strove to attain their goals. I am trying to apply that same philosophy to what I see happening in the church, and I am convinced that many of the actions which are done to which I vehemently object are done with the best interests of the church in mind. However, the motives may be honorable, but the results of the methods, I feel, are going to be catastrophic for the church to which I have given my life. Perhaps due to a change in attitude or spiritual awakening, there will be in the future a drifting back to a more balanced form of worship and praise. If, as we believe, the Lord is coming after His church in the near future, this will be a moot discussion anyway. But of this I am absolutely convinced…when I enter those Pearly Gates, I’m not going to be “dippin’” and “rockin.’”

A Day on the Farm

2011-06-06T19:00:00.010-05:00

The morning dawned warm and dry, and by 9:00 a.m. the temperature was already creeping into the upper eighties. Although it was only the first weekend of June, nature had already proclaimed to Texas that this was going to be a scorcher of a summer. During April and May, the Houston area had received a half inch of rain, only five percent of the normal rainfall for the area, and drought conditions were already becoming prevalent. A couple of weathermen had already only half jokingly stated that what we needed was a good old tropical depression to stir the weather up a little and bring rain. Usually, the news of a new tropical depression was enough to get South Texans to checking their hurricane survival gear, but in early June, it’s not even hurricane season yet…so we sat and baked in the sun.

This particular Saturday was a special day for a select group of members of Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church of Houston. The Senior Class of Bethel’s Sunday School (and I do mean “senior” i.e...members 55 years or age or older) had been invited to the farm of Max and Jeanette Haney (members of the select group themselves) for an afternoon of fun, fellowship, and, most importantly, eating. Bethel Tabernacle is blessed to have a very vibrant group of seniors. Shirley and I are newcomers to Bethel, having attended now for only a couple of years, but already we feel we have known these people for years, and they have become our dear friends. These are people who have been through the wars, facing health issues, tragedy, death, and every other facet that life can throw at a person, and they have emerged stronger and still possessing a positive outlook on life and its challenges. Their faith in their God is not based on the emotion of the moment or the tempo of a song, but runs deep, and their friendships to one another remain strong. Pardon me if I throw out a little prejudiced opinion here, but if there exists a group which is the cornerstone of the church, this one’s it.

Anyway, the Haneys had figuratively thrown open the door of their farm to our group, and the plan was for everyone to gather there around 2:00 p.m. Our hosts had graciously offered to prepare a late lunch for us, while various ladies would bring tasty desserts, and Shirley and I would bring the obligatory iced tea, water, and soft drinks. We had planned to use the church bus to carry any car-less people, but everyone seemed to prefer to drive their own wheels, so the bus was unnecessary. We did have three people who needed rides, so we decided Shirley would pick up the hitchhikers (we had no choice…one was my mother-in-law), and I would drive my car. I wanted to leave a little early anyway to try to get to the Haneys early enough to help them do whatever setting up they needed to do for about 32 hungry people.

Leaving my home about 11:30 with two ice chests full of various chilled liquids, I headed east on FM 1960, then north on Hwy 59 toward the outskirts of Cleveland, Texas. Being an old guy, excuse me…mature guy with visions of a lost youth, I had recently bought a ’97 (obviously NOT new) Ford Mustang GT convertible and was anxious to see how it did on the road. Unfortunately, it was too hot to put the top down, but at least the AC worked well since the temperature had now climbed to the mid 90s. I was happy with the old car but a little disappointed that the tires are not too well balanced above 120 mph. The Haney farm is a few miles southeast of Cleveland in an area that I remembered as a youth as Tarkington Prairie. Years ago, when I worked with my dad and his company, Downing Roofing Company, we did a lot of roofing in the Cleveland area, and as I drove through the old part of Cleveland, I recognized some of the older buildings as places where I had sweated many a drop of sweat. Motoring south on 321, then left on County Road 2274, followed by a brief stint of driving brought me to the Haney farm.

I had heard the Haneys lived on a farm and actually lived in their barn, so I was touched when these poor people offered to be hosts for our little group. When I was growing up, we had a barn, and I envisioned having lunch in a run-down batt and board barn with metal roof, hay loft, tractor parking area, cow stalls, granary for feed, and the general smell of, well, a farm. As I approached my destination, I began to realize that barns have apparently come a long way since my days of stacking hay bales in our barn back home. What I parked in front of was not a barn from the 1950s.

The Haneys have seventy acres of beautiful farmland, flatter than a billiard table. Facing the road is a wooden fence painted in a brilliant white. The “barn” qualifies as a barn, I guess because it looks like a barn and because you can drive a tractor through it due to the large power garage doors front and back, and there is a tool and storage area. Painted the traditional red with white trim, this “barn” features all the trappings of a beautiful home right down to the granite kitchen counter tops. It is a lovely residence. I decided it would probably not be necessary for us to take up a collection for the Haneys so they could make it till the next crop comes in. Their farm comes completely furnished with a great garden, a lake with dock and stocked with fish (too hot to fish, though), truck, tractor, genuine country farm animals like cows, horses and chickens, even a neighbor dog…and everything is beautifully detailed and neat.

I had arrived an hour and a half before the festivities were to begin, but the Haneys were way ahead of me. We would be dining in the open area of the barn, with the large doors fore and aft opened about halfway to allow for a breeze to waft through the area. Although the temperature for the day, we learned later, hit 100 degrees, it was not uncomfortable in the big barn with its tall ceiling. Tables, chairs, utensils, and ice had all been prepared, and about all that had to be done was prepare the main course…which was fried shrimp. The fact that we were having fried shrimp was enough to draw me to the gathering no matter what else took place. Brother Haney, of course, had his own way of frying the shrimp using a propane cooker, and I can tell you this, he cooked a lot of shrimp and what was left after everyone had finished you could have put in a half pint plastic bag. We were all stuffed…but happy.

Around 2:00 folks began gathering, and the lunch of fried shrimp, baked potatoes, and slaw went over like American flags at a Glenn Beck rally. To say we had desserts does not do that fact justice, neither does saying that we had cakes, pies, and assorted pastries. When it comes to cooking, and especially baking, no other group holds a candle to a bunch of Pentecostal women. One may say without fear of contradiction that we all dined sufficiently.

I had brought my fishing gear and looked wistfully at the lake behind the barn as I imagined several hungry catfish or bass awaiting my hook, but around the lake (or large pond) were no trees, and it was just too hot to go out and stand in the blazing sun. Maybe next time. There was a large bull out there that I could have probably sat in its shade to fish, but it probably would have moved, anyway.

By 3:30 or so, most of the food had been consumed, but the conversation was just getting started. I have mentioned before that Shirley and I are relative newcomers to this group, but it was evident that many of these people measured their friendships in decades, not just years. Rehashing events that occurred 50-60 years ago was common, and I could sense the easy, comfortable relationships that these people enjoyed. There was more than one rememberance of the days of youth, and I tried to imagine how each person may have looked when they were young, strong, and powerful. I began to realize that in many ways our minds do not age, only our bodies, and though we may change physically as the years go by, our relationships with our friends can remain constant. Long term, true, loyal friends keep us young.

When the women began breaking out the games, I knew we were in for a long evening, and sure enough, before long the dominoes and cards were a-flying, and deep, ulterior strategies were being concocted to insure victory in these mighty struggles. When I was a kid, the entire Downing family practically was a master of the domino game of “42,” but I have played only occasionally. I knew I was in over my head when I sat down with Jim and Pam Bailey and Alvie Bounds for a friendly game of “42,” and they started throwing out different strategies, plans, and options. Whenever I laid down a domino and saw Sister Alvie wince, I knew I had played the wrong one. But we had fun. Between gaming, snacking on leftover desserts, and chattering like a bunch of magpies, we managed to fritter the afternoon away until it was past time for us to be heading home. The party was to have ended at 5:00, but nearing six o’clock we were still breezing along. About that time, however, an unseen signal was sent out, and we began to clean and pack up our gear and prepare for departure.

Shortly, most of the refuse from our visit was stuffed in the trash bin, and the barn had been restored to its pre-invasion condition. Cars began to slip away through the gate, and before long Shirley and I gave our respects to Max and Jeanette Haney and aimed our cars toward home. This day had been a good day, thanks to the generosity of the Haneys and the lovely ladies who spent time baking the wonderful desserts. I’m glad I’m a part of the Seniors of Bethel Tabernacle, Houston, Texas.

Wistful Wyoming

2011-05-17T19:47:00.011-05:00

Although I am a native Texan with a certain amount of pride in my state, my family was privileged to live for seventeen years in Wyoming, and, although it has been twenty years since we were residents of the Cowboy State, a part of us remained there when we left. Even today we feel the occasional need to see an antelope in its natural habitat or simply be able to see twenty miles in all directions without even stepping on a footstool. The fact that we still have relatives living in our former homeland gives us further impetus to look for reasons to head northwest from Houston.

Thus it was that a few weeks ago Shirley, her two sisters, and my esteemed mother-in-law found a bargain in air travel and decided to go back home. As it worked out, my obligations with tutoring at my local school ended about the same time that their travel was scheduled, so I decided to tag along. I mean, there needs to be at least one level headed person in a traveling party, anyway. So we had a fivesome headed to Wyoming.

The trouble with flying cheap is you have to fly when it’s cheapest…which meant that we would be leaving at 6:00 a.m. on a recent Thursday morning from Hobby Airport in Houston, a mere forty miles or so of lovely Houston traffic from our home in NW Houston. Janie, Beth, (sisters-in-law) and Mother-in-law would have to get up even earlier because they lived 20-40 miles further away. The plan was they would come by our home in Janie’s van on the way to the airport. We needed to get to Hobby an hour before takeoff, plus we needed to find a place to park Janie’s van, so we figured we needed to get on site around 4:30, which meant leaving our home about 3:30, which meant that the in-laws would have to get up at some awful time. But, sure enough, they were at our place promptly at 3:30, and we all loaded up (I do mean loaded) and headed for our Wyoming adventure.

We made it to the parking garage with nary a hitch. I had gone on line and found the nearest airport parking, secured a reservation, printed our boarding passes, and even checked and paid for our extra baggage (Frontier Airlines…$20.00 per bag checked in), so we parked the van, caught the parking garage bus, zipped to the airport, checked in, and were sitting in the gate area almost an hour before we were to get on board. That’s the way I like it…I can’t wait till the last minute for anything. If I get anywhere right on time, I consider myself late.

I am not a good flyer…I don’t know why, I’m just not. As the plane lurched down the runway I did my usual Lord’s Prayer, repented of any sins I could think of, and closed my eyes. The takeoff was smooth, and in a few minutes we were settling down to two hours of boredom as we rocketed toward the Mile-High City. Fortunately, after the plane reached cruising level, I calmed down a little, too. Thankfully, I had my iTunes music collection on my BlackBerry, so I whipped out my earphones, selected “shuffle music” and settled back to try to catch a few winks as we sailed along. All in all, I honestly don’t remember too much about the flight, and I slept about as well as one can when you’re strapped into a space 20 inches wide without much reclining or foot room. With the time change to Rocky Mountain Daylight Savings Time, we landed in Denver about 7:30…still early.

When we left Houston, the temperature was above 80 degrees and muggy. The weather had been hot and dry for weeks and the area was in a severe drought condition. Only at the last minute did we throw coats into our suitcases “just in case.” When we landed in Denver it was 33 degrees and snowing. We walked out of the terminal toward our rental bus to take us to our rental agency, and the wet snow and cold breeze woke us out of whatever morning sleepiness we had been experiencing. We all grabbed our coats out of our bags. Naturally, since we were traveling on the cheap, we didn’t rent from Hertz or the other big boys, but rather from Advantage Rentals. Results: we had to wait a few minutes for the rental bus to amble by. Cold minutes.

The bus picked us up for the three mile ride to the rental agency, and we saw snow floating beautifully down, lots of snow ground cover, and the majestic snow-covered Rockies in the distance. Gorgeous. I had reserved a Kia Sedona van for us at Advantage (cheap, again) and upon checking in, the agent began trying to bump me up to a Chevrolet Surburban. Only $100 or so more, but the daily full coverage insurance was $48(!). For five days’ rental, I didn’t want to spend the extra amount, so I refused. So she adjusted it this way and that, and I still refused. Finally I said let’s go with the original deal. She said OK and prepared the papers. When she gave me the keys, they were to the Surburban. She said, “Well, we have an extra one, so you can take it at the Sedona price.” I was happy for the deal, but a little bugged about how much it would have cost me if I had caved in a her first suggestion.. Oh, well…the Lord protects the ignorant.

The drive from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming, was the same that it has been for 35 years…heavy traffic around Denver but slowly thinning as one heads north until you finally crest a hill and the “Welcome to Wyoming” sign greets you. Before you lays an expanse of land stretching majestically as far as the eye can see…mountains to the west and rolling plains to the north and east. Suddenly global overpopulation seems a distant threat, and a certain feeling of safety descends with the awareness that you have 360 degree vision.

Buddy and Jeannie (beloved in-laws) have moved to Cheyenne from Casper in response to his job promotion/transfer with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and are now residents in a brand new subdivision of what I would call duplex town homes. Each structure consists of two three level town homes…very contemporary and very nice. Any home where Jeannie lives will look like it was a former Home of the Month from Better Homes and Gardens magazine, and this one was no different…beautifully and tastefully decorated from roof to basement. I told her (only half in jest) that I was afraid to touch anything. I felt sorry for Buddy…I mean, a man’s got to be a flat out, lazy, dirty slob occasionally (it’s the way we are), and he has no real place to relax. Maybe he can claim a corner of the garage eventually.

Buddy and Jeannie have a beautiful family with four married offspring and a baby (!) boy at home. Of course, Noah, their “baby” is nineteen, 6 foot 5 inches or so and around 250 pounds, so “baby” is somewhat relative. Grandkids are starting to appear magically, and I enjoyed observing the easy, relaxed relationship that each of the family has for all the others. A close-knit family is a rare phenomenon in American society today, and such a relationship should be treasured and protected. I’ve said this before about the Creel family in general…I have been a part of this family for nearly 50 years, and seldom have I heard a disparaging word from one family member about another. It is the glue that holds this ever-growing family together. Of course, there was that one time when…well, never mind.

Shirley and I saw most of the Buddy Creel clan that Thursday evening when kids, spouses, and grandkids came from far and near to do what Creels do best…talk and eat. Jeannie and the ladies outdid themselves over the next three days in the kitchen. That statement probably horrifies any feminists who happen to read this, but I got the feeling upon observing our wives, daughters, et.al. brewing up those incredible feasts that they were not suffering very much. When it comes to kitchen creations, no one can touch the Creel women. However, all activities that first evening centered around the newest member of the Buddy and Jeannie family, namely Jack Cooper Bauers, three month old son of Mitch and Meghan. How a tiny, cute bundle of humanity can turn a bunch of women into a bunch of blithering mother hens is beyond me, but Jack was the master of his universe that night. Must be tough being the newest kid, though. For a year or two or three, you’re the darling of the runway, and then a new brother, sister, or cousin comes along, and suddenly you’re second fiddle. Oh, well, one of life’s early lessons we have to learn is how to cope.

Buddy and Jeannie have been blessed with sons-in-law who are sportsmen, and in my eyes, if you are a fisherman, that fact covers a lot of sins. The last time we visited Wyoming, son-in-law Justin (Michelle) took us fishing, and this time Mitch (Meghan) was the generous benefactor. On Saturday, Buddy, Noah, and I met Mitch at Glendo Reservoir, 100 miles north of Cheyenne to hunt for a few walleye. The drive on IH25 to Glendo is an exercise in either torture or grandeur, depending upon your appreciation of the scenery. A vast, open country with craggy mesas, rocky bluffs, roaming antelope, and about seventeen trees, it’s easy to imagine caravans of covered wagons, seas of thundering buffalo, and tribes of roaming Indians (excuse me, Native Americans.) If you haven’t visited Chugwater, Wyoming, you haven’t experienced true Americana. We arrived at Glendo just as Mitch was putting the boat in the water…and what a boat! It was a brand new Ranger sport fisherman, about 20 feet, with a monster 250 HP Mercury engine plus a 9.9 HP backup. (See photo) This thing was fancier than my car and cost about three times as much. It had a trolling motor with GPS! Once you got to your location to fish, you set your location with the GPS. Then the trolling motor with GPS would hold your location to within 10 feet of your selected spot. I am probably out of touch with modern fishing rigs, but I thought it was incredible. Equipped with two sonars, stereo (naturally), power everything else, this boat hit 59 MPH as we zipped across the lake, and that was not the maximum speed. Well, anyway, I was impressed

The fishing wasn’t too impressive, though. For Wyoming, it’s still early in the fishing season. The weather was cool and the wind still a little biting. The water was choppy and not conducive to good fishing, and as a result, I will (modestly) report that I was the only one who caught anything, and although what I caught classifies as a fish, but it wasn’t much. But I didn’t care. Being on a Wyoming lake on a clear, bright day with the snowy Laramie Range of mountains in the distance, seeing the craggy, rocky hills, and being miles from the nearest low-rider or hip-hopper…it’s pretty close to a visual representation of happiness. Needless to say, the guys I was with completed the perfect picture. Back home, it was an evening of visiting (food), games (food), comparing cell phones (food), and more food. My thanks to Mitch and Justin for making my BlackBerry work like it should.

Saturday we were scheduled to go visit Jim and Heather in Fort Collins. They are the professional students of the Creel clan, and, having recently graduated from CSU with masters, they are now moving to Ft. Worth, Texas, where Jim will pursue his doctorate and also teach. Heather has interviews scheduled for the coming weeks and will no doubt contribute more than her fair share to the family success. The going away celebration was to be at 2:00 p.m. at their home. During the morning, however, things became apparent that my mom-in-law was not acting quite normally. She was becoming easily confused and disoriented and couldn’t remember from one moment to the next what was going on. She seemed to be feeling all right, but her awareness of her surroundings wavered. In an hour or two, she seemed to snap out of it, but the closer we got to our time to leave for Fort Collins, her condition seemed to worsen. The family held a conference, and it was decided that Buddy and Janie would take Mom to an emergency clinic to be checked while the rest of us went to Fort Collins. Mom, of course, insisted it was the altitude or whatever that made her a little confused. So off we all went.

We arrived at Jim’s and Heather’s to a houseful of people and the smell of brisket and ribs on the smoker. We enjoyed a good visit, but most of us had one ear pricked toward our cell phones to catch any calls from Buddy or Janie. Jim, apparently, is becoming quite a cook, and this day was a good indication, as the ribs and brisket (and rice, beans, etc.) were all super tasty. We were able to meet Jim and Heather’s two children…I mean, dogs…Woody and Luke, two well behaved, beautiful golden retrievers. About 4:00 we received a call that Mom had been taken to the Emergency Room of the Cheyenne Medical Center for tests, so Beth, Shirley, and I headed back to Cheyenne. After arriving, we were told that Mom had apparently experienced a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which is “a brief episode of cerebral ischemia.” Translation: a small blood clot in the brain which can affect a person in various ways depending upon the location in the brain. The danger is it can sometime be a forerunner of more serious problems, hence the need for close observation and quick response when it occurs. By 6:00 p.m., Mom was released and seemed none the worse for wear. The plan is for her to see her home doctor after returning to Houston for further observation, with Cheyenne Medical Center sending her doctor all the results of her tests. Apparently and thankfully, her CT Scan, Xrays, EKG, and whatever else that was done were all negative for any lingering damage. For the rest of the time we were on our trip she showed no signs of any lingering effects. She was her usual old…I mean, sweet, normal self. By Saturday night, the kids (and Jack Cooper) had gone to their respective homes. It was just us old folks and poor Noah, who spanned the generation gap gracefully. Naturally, when Shirley, Janie, Beth, and Jeannie get together, the games come out, so we all played some kind of weird card game.

Sunday morning we went to Johnstown, Colorado, to Abundant Life Tabernacle, pastored by Rev. Deiter Skowron. His parents were there, also, and spoke with a heavy German accent. They were instantly likeable, and Pastor Skowron preached an excellent sermon. Their church is beautifully constructed, and a couple of members proudly stated it was built with their hands. Germans…you gotta love them. Afterward we drove to Loveland to meet with all the kids at P F Chang Restaurant. We had a good lunch (Jack Cooper was there), although P F Chang is not my favorite restaurant. The evening was spent with more games, eating, visiting, and eventually packing for the return home the next morning.

3:30 a.m. does come early. By 4:15 we had said our sad goodbyes and were on IH25 South headed to the Denver Airport. Stopping to fill up the Suburban ($95!!), we arrived at Advantage Rental about 6:00, and about 6:10 we were on their shuttle to the airport. It was a nice, quick check in. We didn’t even have to go inside the building…just get on the shuttle. Again, these things may be normal procedure now days…we don’t do much flying/renting/traveling anymore. We had time for coffee and a scone before our plane loaded. By 8:05 we were in the air, and about 11:20 we landed at Hobby after I said my Lord’s Prayer and went through my takeoff/landing ritual. By 12:15 we had picked up Janie’s van and drove to the Potatoe Patch on FM 1960 and were having some guy throw hot rolls at us while we had a good lunch. Janie dropped us off at our home about 1:30 and our enjoyable saga had come to an end. I had managed to survive a close trip with my wife, two sisters-in-law and my mother-in-law…and we’re still on speaking terms. In fact, I would do it again. I am a very blessed person.

The Shootdown of Flight 60528

2011-04-22T22:27:00.007-05:00

The United States emerged from World War II victorious and the most powerful nation on Earth with its enemies completely vanquished. With a world weary from years of war, American leaders at the time expected an extended period of peace and reconstruction based on cooperation with wartime allies. It soon became apparent, however, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, more commonly referred to as the Soviet Union, and more specifically, Russia, along with its newly expanded bloc of closely-controlled satellites were acting with increased hostility toward the nations of the West, particularly the United States.

Rather than a shooting war, this new conflict came to be know as the “Cold War,” played out in many theaters behind the scenes as a political chess match with the threat of nuclear holocaust constantly hovering above the participants. The United States initiated new actions to protect the security of the U.S., among them national-level intelligence activities. Most decision makers at the time remembered the trauma of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 which caused heavy loss of life, great damage to the U.S. Navy, and swept the U.S. into the Second World War. These officials were determined to prevent another Pearl Harbor.

At the same time, the primary object of concern for the U.S., namely the Soviet Union, was a “denied” country, that is to say, travel within its territories for foreigners (and even its own citizens) was severely restricted. Obtaining reliable information about the country or its military capabilities was extremely difficult, if not impossible, through conventional intelligence methods. In response to the need for more verifiable intelligence, defense policymakers established a national program of reconnaissance, carried out by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy. The U.S. Army also engaged in reconnaissance, but primarily for tactical objectives.

The existence of the intelligence program was kept classified for decades. When I arrived in West Berlin in 1965, the 6912th Security Squadron had been at the U.S. base at Tempelhof Airport for several years, but even the base commander had not known the true mission of the squadron for a long period after the group arrived on base. Although it became obvious that the Soviets suspected some aspects of the program, many key features remained secret from them. The fact that the U.S. was running a clandestine operation in Berlin, a city 100 miles inside the Iron Curtain and in the very middle of Soviet military activities, grated on the Soviets’ nerves, and as a result, they took every real and imagined opportunity to exert pressure, both political and military, upon the U.S. military presence in West Berlin.

The decision to keep the program secret had some unfortunate implications: it prevented public recognition for the veterans of the program as well as public honor for those who lost their lives while conducting various forms of intelligence gathering, such as aerial reconnaissance. During the Cold War Period of 1945-1977 more than 40 reconnaissance aircraft were shot down by the Soviet Union. The secrecy of the intelligence programs prevented recognition of the slain military personnel at the time of the incidents. Their loss was mourned by their fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but the fallen could not be accorded public honors. The end of the Cold War has allowed the United States to lift some of its security restrictions concerning these programs and allowed us to accord due recognition of the achievements and sacrifices of these silent warriors, and to tell their stories.

On 2 September, 1958, Soviet MiG 17 pilots shot down Flight 60528, a U.S. Air Force C-130 reconnaissance aircraft, over Soviet Armenia. Six crewmen were aboard along with eleven Security Service Russian language specialists. What exactly happened is unclear. The C-130 crew navigated by homing in on a beacon signal, and it was suspected that Soviet navigational beacons deliberately overpowered the beacon Flight 60528 was following and drew the aircraft into Russian territory. The aircraft was easily identifiable as U.S. Air Force and non-lethal. One Russian pilot identified the craft as “a four engine transport.” Four Soviet aircraft attacked the plane in groups of two. On the third approach the C-130 caught fire, the tail section blew off, and the plane plummeted to the earth. No parachutes or survivors were identified.

The photo of Flight 60528 aflame was taken through the gunsight camera of the attacking MiG-17.

Of all Cold War incidences involving the Soviets, the shootdown of Flight 60528 is the most controversial. Not willing to admit that Flight 60528 was on a spy mission, the U.S. Government did not confront the Soviets until 6 September, when the Soviets denied all knowledge of the incident. On 12 September, the Russians stated they had “found an aircraft,” and “assumed that six airmen had perished.” At the same time, the Soviets publicly denied downing the aircraft, claiming the aircraft inadvertently “fell to the earth.” On 24 September, the Soviets returned six sets of human remains but stated they had no knowledge of the other missing eleven airmen. Throughout the Cold War period, the Soviets denied responsibility for the shootdown, and the fate of the remaining crewmen remained unknown.

Finally in 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin began releasing “available” information about the shootdown. Among the information was a combat report, published 20 September, 1958, from the air control officer who commanded the MiG aircraft. He described in great detail and with a great deal of professional pride the second by second events which took place as the attackers surrounded and eventually destroyed Flight 60528. It is a fascinating document describing the cool professionalism of the dedicated fighter pilot while embellishing with the usual hyperbolic language of the standard communist terminology prevalent at the time.

When I arrived in Berlin, it had been seven years since the shootdown of Flight 60528, but it was still uppermost in the minds of those whose mission was the gathering of intelligence. The loss of the airmen had hit home to the 6912th because the airmen of Flight 60528 had been based in West Germany at another Security Service site with which the 6912th worked closely. By 1965, the Soviets were convinced the 6912th Security Squadron was up to no good in the city of West Berlin, and we were warned to be ever vigilant while carrying out our duties. Our whereabouts had to be known by our superiors at all times. If we missed a rendezvous point by more than one hour we were counted as deserters and had better be able to show proof of our actions when we reappeared. We were to never mention our attachment to the 6912thSS when off the base. We did not wear our uniforms off the base but wore civilian clothes, preferably with a Germanesque style. However we were required to carry our military identification papers. Theoretically, it was our ticket to freedom if picked up by political adversaries. Upon arrival at our base of operations, Russian language specialists like me went through a week of orientation to prepare us for the job ahead. One of the tasks I had to do was listen to the audio transcripts of the Soviet pilots as they stalked, attacked, and eventually shot down Flight 60528.

My first impression upon listening was the incredibly poor quality of the Russian transmissions, and I began to realize that I was about to embark on the most challenging mission of my life. Over the next two years, technology helped improve voice quality, but, even at best, listening, comprehending, translating, and deciphering communications required every ounce of concentration one could muster. As I listened to the calm, professional transmissions from the pilots, it seemed almost surreal that I was hearing the account of the deaths of seventeen airmen just like myself. The pilots coolly described the first two salvos of attacks, which resulted in hits on the plane, but it was not until the third pass that Flight 60528 burst into flames and the tail section fell off. The Soviet pilot then described how the plane rolled over upside down and began a plunge to the earth. After being satisfied that the aircraft was down, the four planes systematically returned to their home base and landed. There was no further comment about the downed aircraft.

During my time in Berlin, I listened to other accounts of downed aircraft. Berlin, being located 100 miles inside Communist East Germany, was accessible by three ten-mile-wide air corridors. These corridors had been established after World War II through agreement by the Four Powers, France, the United States, England, and the Soviet Union. As the political strain increased between the three western powers and the Soviets, the Soviets became increasingly belligerent, to the point that if an Allied aircraft strayed out of the ten mile corridor, it ran the risk of being shot down by Soviet aircraft. Over the period of the Cold War, several aircraft were lost for this reason, with the Soviets generally claiming an “aggressive” act by the Allies caused each conflict. Regardless, lives and planes were lost and sometimes unaccounted for.

Occasionally, the tables were turned. In 1966 a Soviet fighter aircraft crashed into a lake and sank in the British section of West Berlin. As it turned out, it was one of their latest generation aircraft, and the Soviets panicked, sending soldiers and tanks though gates of the Berlin wall and heading for the lake to reclaim their aircraft. They were stopped short of the lake by British and U.S. soldiers. They fretted, fussed, and fumed about not getting access to their aircraft, but eventually returned to their side of the wall. The U.S. and British promised full cooperation in the recovery of the pilot’s body and the aircraft. The pilot’s body was quickly returned, but the aircraft took nearly two months to be pulled piece by piece from the clear waters of the lake and returned to the Soviets. It took two months because U.S. frogmen and intelligence specialists photographed every piece of the Soviet aircraft before it was pulled out of the water. It was a treasure trove of current Soviet aircraft design.

Fast forwarding to the present, I recently discovered that the National Security Agency, the primary intelligence gathering arm of the federal government, had declassified all documents pertaining to the shootdown of Flight 60528 fifty years after the event took place. Unbelieving at first, I went to the NSA website, and, sure enough, all previously secret and top secret documents including U.S. and Russian versions of the shootdown, photos, and audio tapes were available for public consumption. I downloaded the Russian pilots’ audio and copied the transcripts (both in English and Russian.)

In the privacy of my den, I put on an old set of headsets, turned off all lights except my desk lamp, grabbed some writing paper and pencil, and listened and transcribed the conversations between four Soviet pilots that I had last listened to 46 years ago. For one hour and ten minutes, I was transported back to 1965 to the fifth floor of Head Building East, 6912th Security Squadron, Tempelhof Central Airport, West Berlin, Germany. I had to listen closely and repeat some conversations…my Russian is a little rusty, but it was an incredible feeling of déjà vu. The impact of listening to the event was still powerful, but at least now, the names of the airmen who perished have been made known and their contributions to our society have been recognized.
In September of 2011, many of those who served in West Berlin during those exciting years of the Cold War reunited in Berlin for what will probably be a last reunion. Time has done to us what the Soviets could not do. But even time cannot diminish the patriotic pride felt by those who were the Silent Warriors of the Cold War. We did our job.

Inevitably Dependent

2011-01-22T14:45:00.004-06:00

In Gail Sheehy’s classic textbook of human development, “Passages,” she discusses the various periods of life (“passages”) one experiences as life evolves from infancy to advanced maturity. Youth, with its excitement of exploration and discovery, inevitably leads to the highly productive middle years in which we exercise with maximum energy our greatest creativity. It is during these middle passages (there are various stages even within this middle period) that we create families, fortune, and fame, and the challenges of creating drives us and keeps us at a peak operating efficiency due primarily because we are young enough to be healthy and physically able to handle the tasks of 24-hour parenting, planning, and producing.

Coupled with this drive to create is a certain feeling of indestructibility. Although an incomprehension of our mortality is evident from the early days of youth, the compelling evidence which we observe on a regular basis…deaths and illnesses of friends and loved ones combined with life-changing accidents and events, has little impact on our personal conviction that “none of these things will ever happen to me,” or “this thing may happen to me, but it will be sometime far into the future.” This personal concept of indestructibility can sometimes work toward a positive outcome and is why younger generations are usually more willing risk takers. It is the reason they don’t hesitate to attempt to beat the odds in physical activities, business, or personal relations no matter how stacked against them the odds may be.

Inevitably…and in the passages of life the word “inevitably” is sprinkled throughout the entire life process, once we have survived our years of maximum production and activity, the period of deactivation begins. It is during this period that working overtime no longer has great appeal regardless of the extra pay, and, where an uneventful evening was once considered lost time, a quiet evening at home is now highly anticipated. The children have long since left the nest, and now there are grandchildren visiting. The grandchildren are loved dearly, and when they visit it is an exciting, joyous time, but once children and grandchildren have said goodbye and gone back to their home, we heave a big sigh of relief and collapse on the sofa.

The most anticipated event of this period of life passage, however, is probably retirement from full time work. Having worked fifty or more years on the average and hopefully been fortunate enough to have a retirement plan, the freedom from a full time work obligation creates endless opportunities for activities which have been put on the back burner for years due to work restraints. Travel, recreation, hobbies, and various other enjoyable activities are now within reach, and the anticipation of this “free time” is what motivates many experienced workers as they see their retirement day approaching.

One of the beauties of retirement is the clock ceases to be your master. No longer burdened with the time requirements of employment, use of the clock’s alarm pleasantly diminishes. Leisurely breakfasts can be enjoyed at will, and each day becomes a blank schedule which can be filled in at the whim of the retiree. Want to be busy? Fill in the schedule. Want to lay low? Keep it blank. It is a lifestyle almost incomprehensible to the middle passage person with a full schedule of parenting, working, and managing a home. Mention retirement to a middle passage person and that same glazed-eye look appears on his/her face as when we try to talk to children about finding jobs when they grow up.

At the same time, the challenge of parenting, working, and managing a home, though we wistfully look forward to the day when these obligations are passed, satisfies for the middle passage person a critical requirement…a fulfillment of dependency. The drive for success during the middle passages is fueled by the knowledge that others are dependent upon our productivity. Parents are driven to provide for their children. An employee’s production affects the success of his manager, and a manager affects the working environment of his/her employees. In short, we want someone to need us. We strive to be good parents, employees, or managers because we would like to think that someone needs us to do well.

Retirement, with all its free time, takes away this fulfillment. Since we are no longer productive members of the workforce, there are no employees anxiously awaiting our management decisions. There are no bosses anywhere impatiently waiting for us to show up so the big problem of the day can be solved Even at home, there are no lunches to prepare for workers or students. We can leave our schedules open for the day because no one needs us. That perception can extend to family. With children now grown and faced with fighting their own parenting wars with our grandchildren, we feel that, though we may be concerned observers, we are not required as our children carve out their own destinies.

The result of this perceived lack of need can be a nagging depression, especially if the perception of uselessness is within the home. Faced with a lack of obligations, retirees can easily retreat within themselves to the point that though a husband and wife have fought the parenting and working wars for years together, once the battles have been survived, each one enters a personal cocoon replete with his/her own personal activities, preferences, and interests. Seldom sharing moments of common interest, they intensify the isolation to the point that in time they become strangers sharing only a roof over their heads.

In most cases, of course, this perceived lack of need is just that…a perception. Husbands and wives still love, children and grandchildren still love, and friends are still friends. Psychologists however, will attest that many of our thoughts and actions are based on perceptions and not actual facts. With that in mind, retirees must initiate active attempts to deflect any signs of depression encountered upon retirement by any member of the household. During the middle passage years, there is a feeling of camaraderie while a couple works together to raise a family and provide for its general welfare, but upon entering the later passages when retirement has come and the children have gone, that feeling of working together for a common cause can vanish. The truth is, that feeling needs to morph into a realization that close personal support and companionship are needed more than ever. Their personal bonds of love and need, cultivated years before during courtship and enriched during a life of sharing, need to be strengthened, not weakened.

I penned the following poem the year I turned sixty years old. Although it was written pre-retirement, the gist of the message still applies today.

Nothing Rhymes with Sixty

Nothing rhymes with sixty as one turns the annual page.
Nothing rhymes with sixty. It’s an awkward, frustrating age!
Too young to be old; too old to be young,
Obsessed with the fear your song’s already been sung.

The memories of the past grow stronger, yet fade,
While the future once dreamed seems fainter in life’s shade.
Helpless and hapless, trapped in time’s ceaseless tide,
Then saved from the gloom by, “Hey Papaw! Come outside!”

The message becomes clear; it’s not the future or past
But the present is where our legacy is cast.
Children and grandchildren, the love of a wife,
The closeness of a family…therein lies life.

With His hand to guide us as we travel along
Everything rhymes with sixty…if you play the right song.

A Christmas Tradition

2010-12-28T14:40:00.004-06:00

There was a sense of excited expectancy in Bethel Tabernacle as the time approached 6:30. Choir members were nervously walking about in their robes visiting with friends or muttering their lines under their breaths. The video/soundtrack operator was praying out loud and with a certain degree of panic as he was having difficulty getting the video/soundtrack display to properly cooperate. Members and a good representation of visitors were entering the auditorium, looking for familiar pews or friends. Last minute lighting arrangements were checked and rechecked. Down to the last minute, everyone began to take their seats, children were shushed, lights were dimmed, and Pastor Fauss rose to greet the congregation. Bethel Tabernacle’s Christmas Cantata for 2010 was about to begin.

Christmas, 2010, is now in the record books, and we can begin to tune back down to a more mundane schedule as we reduce our intake of high calorie sweet goodies, begin to think about the upcoming back to work schedule, and the inevitable bills for all our Christmas purchases which will begin to roll in as we enter into January. Though replete with activities, expenses, and exhaustive endeavors, Christmas is still a favorite time of year when we have the opportunity to reconnect with relatives and friends, and, being so close to the end of the calendar year, we also have the occasion to review the year just past and reflect on our successes and challenges.

In the world of Christianity, of course, it is a special time of year, equaled only perhaps by the Easter season. Although historical evidence offers clues that Jesus Christ was probably not born in December or the winter season, it is still a time, however arbitrary, that we celebrate the coming of the Savior to Earth and all the ramifications that the event means to believing Christians throughout the ages.

With the importance of the Christmas season weighing heavily upon the organized churches, the need for some sort of special pageantry during this time of celebration becomes evident. For centuries, churches have celebrated the birth of the Christchild with music, singing, and worship. Many of the greatest classical compositions from the 17th and 18th century written by composers whose works have survived the test of time were created to celebrate the birth of Christ. These earliest compositions, written during a period when music was created primarily for the elite and privileged, tended to be very formal, very complicated, and very restrictive…in as far as the listener was expected to enjoy the music in a quiet, hushed matter. Completion of a musical presentation was met with polite applause, and discreet congratulations were offered to the composer who was usually in attendance.

This tradition of a musical cantata (a composition of vocal solos, choruses, and music to tell a story) to celebrate the Christmas season continues to the present day. The complexity of the presentation is generally in direct proportion to the size of the church doing the presenting, although the word “size” may refer to the quantitative number of church members or the qualitative number of skilled musicians and singers within a church body. What that means, translated into English, is that a church, though large in number, may not have the reservoir of musical talent required to present a cantata at the skill level that its member number may indicate. The opposite is true: a small church can offer a presentation far beyond its expected performance if it is blessed with a great talent pool.

The concept of the relatively formal Christmas cantata reigned supreme in the religious world far into the 20th century. With our Pentecostal backgrounds, Shirley and I have been involved in Christmas cantatas for nearly fifty years. The church we attended as youths, Peace Tabernacle in Baytown, Texas, was a relatively small church with an average attendance of around 140, but it was a church rich with musical talent. That talent was put to good use during the Christmas season, when we delved into the preparation of another cantata. There was always an almost imperceptible groan in the audience when it would be announced around the first of November of each year that “cantata practice” would begin. We realized we had a lot of work ahead of us, but somehow as the practices slipped by the music became more meaningful and enjoyable, and the night of our presentation was always one of spiritual uplifting and fulfillment. Led by a woman who was an accomplished pianist, organist, singer, and artist, our little choir was challenged to be the best we could be. Anniedeen Bateman, our leader, had perfect musical pitch and could hear our sour notes at fifty paces and made us sing it till we got it right. Anniedeen started the beloved tradition of “Anniedeen Beans,” which meant that every year after the very last practice before our big presentation, all the participants of the cantata went to Anniedeen’s home and enjoyed chili and beans with French bread. That was enough to make all the work worthwhile. Little did Shirley and I know that many years later she would become our step-mother and step-mother-in-law respectively, although looking back now, we both have sort of forgotten the “step” part.

The general format of the Christmas cantata, consisting of organ, piano, choir, soloists, director, and narrator continued until the late 1960s. Presentations continued to be offered within a context of quiet, reverential dignity. But as we moved into the 1970s there was a “restyling” of the traditional Christmas cantata. Before you jump to the conclusion that I’m about to yell, “It’s an abomination!” please be aware that is not the case: many changes which have occurred I welcome.

In the 1970s the traditional formality of the cantata began to fade. Narrators became more conversational in their deliveries; the music and solos became less operatic and more appealing to the average person. That’s not to say that the music was less difficult; it simply had a broader base of appeal. Along with the change in voices and narration came a dramatic change in music. The long held tradition of organ and piano (especially in the southern United States) gave way to other musical voices such as strings, brass, and percussion. The greatest invention to come down the pike for many smaller churches with limited musical resources was the soundtrack. Although the 8-track tape and reel-to-reel tape player had been around for some time, it was not until the cassette tape with its ease of operation came on the scene that soundtracks for practically everything were instantly available. For those musically uninitiated, a soundtrack offers background music for a singer or choir to follow. So a church which didn’t even have a pianist could suddenly put on a presentation with a full orchestra if desired. There was some resistance to such electronic gadgetry from those who felt like some of the spiritual spontaneity was lost by being “controlled” by a tape player. I think in some extreme situations, that was a good argument, but for a presentation like a cantata, the negative effect is minimal. I will be the first to admit, though, that, given an option, I will always prefer a live, human-created performance. In years past, I have seen Shirley agonize and practice on her piano for days learning a thick booklet of Christmas cantata music. There is a presence, an immediacy, evident in a live performance which does not come through a loudspeaker.

In the mid 70s we were attending a small church in Casper, Wyoming, where my father-in-law was pastor. By this time Anniedeen Bateman had become Anniedeen Creel and my mother-in-law. The first time we used a soundtrack I brought my stereo amplifier, cassette player, and speakers from home and we set everything up in the church. For the first time, we had electronic music for our cantata. We were on the cutting edge of technology. It did not become the modus operandi for our Christmas musicals, however, because we were blessed with some very accomplished musicians in our church, so the soundtrack became an option each year, sometimes used, sometimes not.

It was in the latter 1970s that The Greatest Christmas Cantata Of All Time was produced. Okay, that’s obviously an opinion on my part, but it’s the ONLY Christmas cantata Shirley and I listen to via cassette or CD each year, and I have listened to it three times this season. The cantata “Noel!” composed by Lanny Wolfe is a timeless classic combining traditional and contemporary compositions, powerful solos, a touch of dramatics, and thought-provoking narration. The harmony of the melodies is haunting in its beauty, and it is impossible to sit through a presentation of this musical and not feel a touch of the Christmas spirit. Perhaps I feel a sentimental attachment to this cantata because our church performed it two years in succession, and when I hear the music, I hear my loved ones and friends sing the parts they brought to life thirty years ago. Some of those singers have gone on to their rewards, but I still hear and see them when I listen to “Noel!” Our little group took a difficult cantata and did it well.

Over the years Christmas performances have become more complex. It is our human nature that causes us to want to continually go beyond past performances. In large churches today we have massive choirs, orchestras, intricate choreography, and even live animals. Perhaps it’s simply the American way: bigger is always better. Throughout the years I have sung bass, tenor, solos, duets, and trios. I have been King Herod, a wise man, a shepherd, and an inn keeper. I even directed a choir once in Oklahoma (they were REALLY desperate.) Every year I have dreaded the beginning of practice knowing that I would be sacrificing time and effort, and every year the choir members in general felt that it was “never going to come together.” But somehow, through perhaps God’s grace, it always does “come together” and we are able to celebrate Christmas. Such was the case this year. With a decidedly small group considering the size of our church, the choir practices leading up to the main event were a little ragged until the final practice night, and suddenly things just seemed to fall into place. The presentation, though a little contemporary for my tastes (so what’s new??) came across powerfully and the singers were beautifully harmonious. The Christmas cantata is not just about Christmas…it IS Christmas.

Old Time Religion, Revisited

2010-10-25T17:44:00.005-05:00

Anyone who has bothered to read any of my essays concerning contemporary Christian (using that term very loosely) music knows how I feel concerning that very sensitive subject. Not desiring to flog a dead horse nor rehash wild accusations, I wish to move on and rejoice when one of those increasingly rare moments occurs when singers, souls, spirits, minds, music, melodies, and songs happen to blend into a spiritual oneness which creates an atmosphere of simple yet elegant, spontaneous, joyous, heartfelt, sincere, and meaningful worship of our Creator.

In our church, we members address one another as “brother” or “sister,” so as I meander through this story, fellow members to whom I refer will be named as such. If this is strange, weird, offensive, or unusual to you, please forgive our trespasses and just count it as a charmingly antiquated method of communication. Be aware, however, that the custom is traceable back to the Bible and the days of the apostles and the belief that the church is the family of God on Earth.

Three months or so ago, Sister Audrey Thomas, a devout member of our church, approached Shirley and me about participating in a singing group which would be emphasizing the classic gospel songs of yore (You know, those songs that apparently no one under the age of forty knows.) Sister Audrey was getting a group together at the invitation of a fellow church in Edna, Texas, a small community about 100 miles southwest of Houston down US Highway 59. The folks from that area visited our church a few months ago and enjoyed such a good reception that the invitation to reciprocate was extended. The strange thing is, Shirley and I don’t remember their visit at all, and we’ll usually sing an old song at the drop of a hat, so we concluded that we must have been out of town when the blessed event took place.

Anyway, it was our time to be the singers, and Sister Audrey was on a mission. We began to meet on Wednesday evenings an hour before church time in the fellowship hall of our church and practice the songs that Shirley and I had been singing and playing musically for fifty plus years. Shirley was our pianist and I strummed my guitar, so, at least in the beginning, we furnished the music while the other volunteers learned the songs. They needed Shirley, because she is apparently the only pianist (other than my mother-in-law) in a twenty mile radius of the church who can play a gospel song out of a songbook. (Now, for those who didn’t know this, there was a time when people in church actually sang gospel songs out of real, honest-to-goodness song books, provided free by the church. You just picked them up, turned to the correct page, and sang right out loud. It was awesome!) However, since we come as a package, they had to put up with my guitar playing also.

When we first began practicing, it was in the dead of summer, and the fellowship hall was blazing hot when we practiced. Coupled with that was the fact that our volunteer singers were volunteering at a very slow pace. The first few sessions were a little discouraging, and I confided to Shirley that I wondered if this gig would ever get off the ground. We plowed through twenty or more songs during a practice, but with few voices and stifling heat, by the time we finished, we were almost too tired for church. But the songs were the old songs we had cut our teeth on as children, and I will debate with anyone that the simplest of these old songs has more depth, spirit, and meaning and any of these new “Christian” creations with their non-rhythmic, non-rhyming melodies with seventeen chord changes. Oops, there I go. Sorry. Anyway, even with the heat and limited numbers of singers, the old songs carried a message that inspired worship.

But we continued to practice, and things picked up when Brother Trini Hernandez began attending on a regular basis. Sister Audrey had anointed Brother Trini as the lead singer, and it was a good choice. Trini had managed his own band and played the local bars for over thirty years until God miraculously changed his life several years ago. A big, burly guy equipped with a quick smile and a ready laugh, his positive attitude is contagious and his testimony inspiring. He is one of those people whom you instantly like upon meeting. He has that instinctive ability to sing well and project a spirit of worship while doing so.

Sister Audrey, of course, was still the ringleader of this band of carolers, and when Brother Trini did not sing a song in the way she wanted, she was quick to make him stop and start over. More than once she asked us to stop the music and let Trini sing without music or other singers so she could make sure he sang it right. Trini would graciously smile…and sing the song to her approval. I suggested that when Trini made a mistake that we all stop, point at Trini, and yell, “That’s wrong!,” but Sister Audrey thought that was a little extreme. Anyway, we had a good laugh, and everyone kept a good spirit.

As we drew closer to our date with destiny, more people began to join our little ensemble, and by the time we left for Edna, we had a good sized group of singers, three guitars, a bass guitar, a saxophone, and a set of drums. When I first saw the drums a couple of practices before we left, my heart sank. I am convinced that the decline of Christian music began when a music director somewhere said, “Hey, man, let’s put some drums up there and see what happens!” I have since learned that drums can be very beneficial to certain church music if played with the idea of complementing the other instruments, but unfortunately the guy with the sticks usually tries to dominate the musical sound, and the effect is devastating to the spiritual impact of the music. Let me just say that when the time came for our presentation in Edna, our drummer (whose name I forget) was very complementary.

On a recent Saturday, our date with infamy finally came. We assembled at the church, loaded our gear into two large vans, and prepared to move out. We had to take all our instruments and sound gear with us because the meeting was to be at a civic center in Edna. Apparently the church would have a keyboard for Shirley, but the rest of the instrumentation was up to us. We had been unsure of the starting time and length of the service, but Sister Audrey told us the starting time would be at 6:00 p.m….and we were leaving at 2:00 p.m. for a two hour trip. I had understood that there would be several singing groups there, but it turned out that we were the main attraction. Fortunately, we had practiced at least 25 songs. As we were loading up, Sister Audrey put a chest of ice water in our van…and then told us we couldn’t drink any of it because “it was for emergencies.” Right after that, she told us that we could talk amongst ourselves only for the first thirty minutes of travel. After that we had to pray the rest of the way. Though anxious to be responsive to the spirit, we decided that if we prayed for the additional hour and a half it would take us to get to Edna, and then have two additional hours once we got there to pray, we would be so spiritual that we would not even need to have a singing service, and we could go back home. So that we would have some worship in our tanks to use during the service, we sort of coasted and meditated on the way to Edna. Besides, Brother Trini kept laughing.

Arriving in Edna, we drove to the address given us…and there was nothing there. It took us awhile, but we finally discovered that our address was “north” and not “south.” The civic center turned out to be very nice, spacious, and ideal for our use. Chairs had been set out, and there was a nice keyboard. Shirley prefers a piano, but this was a good quality keyboard, and, after finally getting all the slides and settings right, it sounded fine. There were approximately 100 people in attendance, along with the local pastor and his wife, Reverend and Sister Yancey, and the UPC District Presbyter, Brother Kite and his wife.

A touching thing occurred while we were in the process of warming up. Shirley was breaking in the keyboard, and I was limbering up my fingers on my guitar. Sister Yancey came up to me with tears in her eyes, and said when I played my guitar it sounded just like her late father when he played his guitar. She wanted to know if it was all right to take a video of me playing. Of course I said that would be fine. She then called her sister on her phone and told her to “watch this,” and then held the phone up to video my playing. Brother Yancey mentioned in his testimony later how his wife appreciated my guitar playing. Don’t get me wrong…I am not the greatest guitarist in these parts; I have a simple style of playing which produces a sort of steel guitar sound. Apparently her father was on the same skill level I am. I was glad I was able to bring back some memories for her.

At 6:00 the music started, and to make a long story short, we barely took a breath for nearly three and a half hours. We sang them all…

(1) He’s All I Need
(2) I Will Bless Thee, Oh Lord
(3) Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus
(4) Peace in the Midst of the Storm
(5) Jesus is the Sweetest Name I Know
(6) I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
(7) Let’s Talk about Jesus
(8) Come and Dine
(9) I Feel Like Travelling On
(10) We Have Come into This Place
(11) Heavenly Sunlight
(12) What A Day That Will Be
(13) Because He Lives

The above list is about half of the songs we sung and played. And let me tell you, the spirit and worship began with the first song and did not end until the last one. We sang and played for an hour and a half before we stopped for a moment. Presbyter Kite spoke for about fifteen minutes and preached liked they used to preach. Not once during the entire three and a half hours did we hear someone say, “Let’s give Him a handclap of praise!” Didn’t have to…the praise was coming anyway. I can remember that when we were growing up, it would have been considered out of order to give applause to anything or anyone. Spontaneous handclapping was common during worship, but "applause" was nonexistent. When we Pentecostals went to the Music Hall for a gospel concert, we did not applaud the singers, because it was considered secular. Shirley and I never heard applause in a church until we moved back from Wyoming in 1991. By that time some Pentecostals had been watching the mega-churches on television and apparently thought applauding everything that moved was cool, and our churches adopted the practice. Successful mega-churches which have only a message of self-empowerment have had a far greater influence on Pentecostal assemblies in the areas of music, management, and praise than we would ever care to admit. God help us if we adopt the message. Forgive me…I digressed again.

Into the second hour of the service, we began to have personal testimonies along with greetings from Pastor Yancey. There had been a couple of prayer requests, and finally a prayer line was formed, and everyone, including us musicians, went through the prayer line to receive healing or blessing. The singing continued, and the enthusiasm never seemed to wane. We musicians played until our fingers ached, but we enjoyed every minute. The simplicity of the worship, the enthusiasm of the singers and musicians, and the power of the spirit approached those days of the Rocky Mountain Camp Meeting of years past. I was amazed that when I took time to look at the crowd, everyone appeared to be singing (with no books)…because the songs were simple, powerful, and meaningful.

By near 9:30, the service had run its course, and after a final word from Brother Yancey, we were dismissed. Naturally, the time honored tradition of eating came next, and we were taken to another hall where yummy baked potatoes, salad, desserts, and refreshments were in abundance. We ate and talked far more than we should have, but the food was good and the fellowship better. I enjoyed chatting with Brother James Thomas. I did not realize he was a roofer. Since my dad was a roofing contractor in Baytown for 40 years, I grew up on roofs and still feel a certain kinship to roofers. Finally around 10:30 we reloaded the vans and headed home. As we were leaving, we asked Sister Audrey if we could have some of the water now that she had forbidden earlier. She laughed. With all the food and the two hour drive back home, as a safety precaution (!) we stopped at Buc-Ees on the way back to get some decent coffee to sustain us along the way. I noticed several people got other items to sustain them on the way home, even though we had just enjoyed a big meal. In the interest of decorum, I won’t say who got what, but nobody starved on the way home, that’s for sure. We rolled into the church parking lot about 12:30 a.m. We were tired, but we had enjoyed a great evening. Shirley and I felt closer to more good members of Bethel Tabernacle, and once more we were thankful to be a part of a great church family.

Back in the Saddle

2010-09-27T21:06:00.011-05:00

When we decided to purchase our current home in March of this year, there were several factors of the neighborhood which appealed to us besides the features of the home itself. We are less than 300 feet away from a pool, tennis courts, nature trails, and picnic area, and after extensive checking on my part, the neighborhood seemed to be relatively quiet. Oak Creek Village advertises itself as having the lowest crime statistics of any neighborhood along FM 1960, which may be a dubious claim, but sometimes you have to go with the information at hand, so here we are.

Another item which appealed to me particularly was the fact that directly behind our back fence is an elementary school. That may or may not seem advantageous, but to me, having a school behind us meant no noisy neighbors evenings, weekends, holidays, or summers, and though my wife accuses me of deafness on a regular basis, I have an acute sensitivity to rowdy neighbors. What you do in your own yard is your business, but be quiet about it. Secondly, being a retired teacher, I decided that here was a chance to perhaps do a little substitute teaching occasionally and in doing so collect a little more spending money to finance my lavish lifestyle of three meals a day and driving a 1993 Ford Ranger.

So in the spring of this year, I did some further checking on Pat Reynolds Elementary, my neighborhood school across the fence, and found out that it was a very successful school. Of course, nowadays in Texas “successful” means proficiency on the state mandated TAKS tests. Forget about active PTAs, PTOs, science/math/chess clubs, art and music programs, after school activities, or community contributions…the media, parents, Realtors, politicians, and home buyers all ask the same question…”How did the school do on TAKS?” I personally like the TAKS tests as a measure of progress, but the tests have been politicized and publicized to the point that their importance is grossly exaggerated and do not represent the success of a school. But that’s another story. The point is, Reynolds had a good track record on TAKS. My next step was to get my foot in the door and start the process of application to the Spring ISD. As it happened, Reynolds had a science and art open house in May, so I attended with the idea of looking over the school and getting a feel for the staff.

As I walked through the school that evening with the halls gaily decorated with science posters, project reports, and some really impressive artwork and abuzz with parents and children, it reminded me a lot of my old school, Williams Elementary in Pasadena. Both schools are old, established schools which had gone through a recent major facelift. Reynolds had the most recent modernization, apparently a year or so ago, and is in beautiful shape. I chatted with a few of the teachers, all who seemed energetic and appeared anxious to introduce me to their principal once they found out I was a retired teacher. Eventually I met Mrs. Carolyn Mays, a most gracious lady with a kind, dignified demeanor, who seemed most encouraging when I mentioned that I would like to visit with her about the possibility of substituting. With the school year ending, we agreed to meet in the summer and discuss our options for the fall. I went home that evening feeling very positive about my future relationship with Pat Reynolds Elementary. By the time Mrs. Mays and I met again in June, I had already sent my substitute teacher’s application to Spring ISD.

When we met again, Carolyn (I will respectfully use her first name) and I hit it off immediately. We have both been down the road a ways (although I am MUCH further down the road than she), and we found common ground concerning teaching philosophy and student concerns. With my experience in teaching science and math, it was agreed that I could make a contribution to the school’s success, and I made it clear I had no interest in substituting anywhere else but Reynolds. The next step was to get my application completed and be up and running by the time school started August 23.

Sure enough, I received my first substitute assignment in early August. One of the teachers in the fourth grade had given birth in June and would be out the first five weeks of school. I would be her long term sub for the duration. I excitedly looked forward to getting back in the (education) saddle. The week before school started, Reynolds had an open house to allow kids to meet their teachers, see their new rooms, and in general get back into the spirit of school. Kellie Rosebush, the young lady for whom I was substituting, was in the classroom and I was introduced as the person taking her place for the first five weeks.

Anytime a visitation like a school open house takes place, there’s a certain “sizing up” on the parts of parents, teachers, and students. I’m sure some of the students and parents wondered who the old guy in the room was, but as for me, I was pretty impressed with the kids and parents. At least, compared to my old school, these kids were relatively decently dressed and didn’t look like junior members of the Crips Gang. The parents were respectful and inquisitive, and, all in all, I felt really positive about how the classes would be once we got rolling.

The first glitch came the Sunday night before the Monday morning that school was to start. Carolyn called to tell me that my application background check still was not completed, and I would have to hold off coming in until all was approved. I haven’t gotten a traffic ticket since 1974, so I concluded that the Spring ISD Personnel Department apparently had waited until the very last minute to act and now couldn’t complete the job before H-hour. No use whining or crying however, so I waited….three days. It was the fourth day of school before I was able to walk into the classroom.

Teachers will tell you that the first few days of school are critical in establishing classroom rules and procedures. In those early days teachers establish ground rules and students learn what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. It is the worst possible time to have a substitute teacher. When I walked in, all the kids saw was the big “Substitute” sign stamped on my forehead (not literally), and to them it was a green light to see how far they could go and how far the boundary could be stretched. Children today do not instinctively show respect for authority or adults. They are trained by clueless parents, irresponsible television and video, and even other children that the way to get what you want is to take it by whatever means necessary. Of course, these characteristics are not universal among the youth, but, where I used to say that most of the problems of a classroom were caused by less than ten percent of the students, I think now that percentage is pushing 30-40%. It is a high enough percentage that, without restraint of some sort, pandemonium can reign in a classroom with very little provocation. A teacher will now spend 10-25% of the time NOT teaching, but regaining order, parenting, disciplining, or counseling. It is a tragic waste of time. The students come to school without being taught any social skills at all by their parents. Politicians are quick to nail teachers to the cross for poorly performing students, but poorly performing students learn to perform poorly at home before they ever walk into a school. There should be an accountability measure for parents as well.

The first few days in the classroom were, simply put, torture. If I could have somehow walked away without causing Carolyn grief, I would have done so. I lie awake at night trying to figure out a management plan that would bring order to the classroom. One policy at the fourth grade level was to take the class to the restroom as a group, waiting quietly (oh, right!) in the hall while three or four students went into the restrooms. It was like pushing on a balloon…you press in one spot and another area would swell out. The front of the line would begin to chatter and I would walk toward them and the back of the line would start up. Going to the back would fire up the front. We would stomp back to the classroom and I would preach fire and brimstone for 20 minutes. A few minutes of relative quiet would ensue, but the next time we went into the hall, the cycle began again. After three days, I said enough is enough. I told them we were not going to the restroom as a group anymore. If a student needed to go to the restroom, he/she raised a hand to let me know. If I was not in a teaching moment and we were doing independent practice, I allowed one at a time to go. It worked, and, correct or not, it was the first step in establishing order, and our hallway behavior to and from activities began to improve. And my blood pressure at the end of the day went down about 30 points.

Inside the classroom during those early days, structure was hard to maintain. Part of the problem was the seating arrangement…you know…buddies sitting next to buddies creating pockets of conversation. By the second week I had learned the students better and rearranged both classes, sitting the students in their most hated arrangement…alternating boy and girl, while spreading the talking problems around the room. It made a decided difference. Not perfect, mind you, but at this point I was grasping at straws. Within another week, I was more familiar with the students and rearranged again. There was another slight but perceptible improvement.

Changing the subject a bit, one of the features of Reynolds that struck me was the extensive playground. In Pasadena, the district is so gun-shy about playground accidents that most playground equipment has been taken out. Probably another reason for that fact is that in Pasadena there is no organized “recess” period. All physical activities are coordinated through the physical education departments. The district’s argument for this is that the state requires 135 minutes of organized, structured physical activity per week, and as such there is no time for “recess.” In Spring ISD, there are P.E. activities scheduled, but every elementary class has 25 minutes of recess daily. The recess is monitored by teachers, but it is not structured. The kids can run and play as they like within safety guidelines. As a result, Reynolds has a beautiful playground with more than two dozen swings, plus slides, monkey bars, climbing gear, and miscellaneous paraphernalia. I suspect the students get more physical activity during “recess” than they do during P.E. if sweaty faces are any indication.

I sat inside a science and math classroom for five weeks and never saw a text book. I am sure that Spring ISD has instructional plans for covering all the pertinent TEKS objectives, but I never saw them. Kellie Rosebush had very efficiently laid out my instructional plans for the entire five weeks, so, realistically speaking, I didn’t need to see anything else. Whatever the instructional plans, they must work, considering the success of Reynolds on last year’s tests. But with no textbooks, we went through tons of copy paper. I couldn’t help but think back to my Williams days when copy paper was treated like currency to be used sparingly.

I was flipping through Kellie’s emails one day (she graciously allowed me access to her emails so I could keep up with school and grade level news), and saw an email stating that there was an unused “smart board” in the school that anyone could have for his/her class if desired. I almost jumped and ran for it, until I realized I was going to be out of there in a few days. I received the first Promethean smart board at Williams about five years ago, and it changed the way I taught. It is the most efficient way possible to blend video, power point, pictures, graphs, and activities into a lesson…and save the whole package for the next time you need it. By now, there is probably a smart board in every classroom in Pasadena ISD which has always been a very technologically advanced district. Of course, that also explains why PISD has been running in the red with their budget.

Though Williams Elementary had a very high percentage of “free and reduced lunch” students, it is primarily a Hispanic school. At Reynolds, I met my first truly culturally diverse classes and came away with a simple observation: It is not the cultural background, but the developmental environment in which a child grows which many times determines the success of a child. I had three or four students whom I considered serious behavioral problems. Anger, rebellion, and disrespect were shown by them on a daily basis. The third week of my assignment, I received student profiles and made a point to read the background information for my problem children. After reading their profiles, I wanted to go hug each one and tell them everything was going to be OK. It is readily apparent that the traditional nuclear family of dad, mom, and children is nearly extinct, and the children of these contemporary dysfunctional arrangements suffer the consequences. I made a point to talk to each one…not about their profiles, but just to let them know I liked them and wanted them to do well. Believe it or not, one of those kids whom I had ground on so hard about behavior came up to me the day I left, hugged me, and said he was going to miss me. Man! Just when you’re ready to hate them, they do something like that and melt your heart!

The fourth grade team at Reynolds consists of five members: four “regular” (English) classes taught by Nicole Baldwin, Edwin Bigsby, Beth Chippendale, and Kellie Rosebush, and one bi-lingual class taught by Elma Ayala. They are a very experienced and professional team. Each was very helpful and supportive to me, and I appreciated their cooperation. When I left they presented me with a thank you card and a lovely token of their appreciation. I was very touched by their gesture of friendship and decided that when I become district superintendent of the Spring ISD, they will be given choice, high paying jobs. Alas, I fear that prospect is dim, however.

By the fourth week of my sentence…er, assignment, things started to level out a bit. I knew the students by name and began to get a feel for their personalities and learned to sometimes nip a problem in the bud before it began to blossom. Don’t get me wrong, it was not peaches and cream, but it was becoming manageable. The frustrating part was when things got a little rowdy, I could growl a little bit and they would settle down…for about five minutes. And then it would start all over again. I think administrators and to an extent even teachers do not realize that one of the greatest skills inborn into every child is the ability to figure out how to work, even beat, the system. To some children, you mention “silent lunch” and they clam up, but to others “silent lunch,” “wall time,” and “I’m gonna call your mama!” doesn’t constitute even the slightest threat. Therein lays the challenge: creating consequences which will get the attention of the intransigent student. I am not in favor of corporal punishment, but I am ready to defend the proposition that in many instances, teachers and administrators have few options in dealing with difficult students.

Carolyn Mays and the new Assistant Principal, Ms Grace Leal, along with the staff of Reynolds Elementary have every reason to be proud of their school. Taking a group of playful, carefree, resistant-to-learning, distracted students up to the next level of success is sort of like trying to herd a bevy of cats. But somehow, through it all, a group of dedicated, professional teachers and administrators manages to pull it off. And just when you're ready to sit back and congratulate yourself on a job well done, a new school year starts it all over again. Welcome to the education profession.

Verizon...Clueless

2010-09-10T22:11:00.007-05:00

Having been about seven months since I last visited the Toyota Center in downtown Houston, I reflected as I traveled to the venerable sports arena last evening on the heavy hitters who were speakers during the all day motivational seminar I enjoyed on my previous visit. With personalities such as General Colin Powell, Evangelist (excuse me)… Republican Sarah Palin, Ex-NY Mayor Rudi Giuliani. Ex-Razorback Coach Lou Holtz, and motivational icon Zig Zigler, the place on that particular day had been a magnet for all business mogul wannabes, albeit with a small section marked off for us souls who were far past our prime and simply attended because we wanted to hear some good stories.

This time the purpose was far different. My family was en route to the center to hear music, and since our beloved daughter-in-law was going to be on stage during one of the performances, we felt a paternal obligation to be there and yell, “That’s my daughter-in-law!” She was part of a group of singers (Bethel Praise Choir) from our church, Bethel Tabernacle, which had been selected to participate in the “How Sweet The Sound” musical celebration sponsored by Verizon Wireless. This musical celebration of gospel choirs is in its third year of sponsorship by the giant communications company, and the process begins when regional choirs submit videos of performances and are judged on presentation, skill, and musical abilities. Those eight groups who are fortunate to make it to the Toyota Center are the crème de la crème and the winner of the Toyota Center sing-off goes to Washington for the national finals in November of this year. Not to mention that there’s generous prizes involved: just making it to the Toyota Center puts $3,000 in the pockets of the choir, and the night’s winner can walk away with as much as $15,000 plus a free ride to Washington for the finals.

Up until this point, the choir contestants could pick their own songs, but for the Toyota Center concert, each choir was allegedly assigned a new song to practice, learn, and present. We have found out since that, while our group was assigned a song, other groups were allowed to sing songs of their own choosing. The reason for this inequity remains a matter of conjecture. The groups were divided into small choirs and large choirs, and, since our group is a fairly small ensemble, it was assigned to the small choir category. The song for them to learn was “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” which is, according to Wikipedia, a “Negro spiritual that originates from before the American Civil War…thus it is what scholars call a slave song, a label that describes their origins among the enslaved and contains coded messages of hope and resistance.”

I love these songs. When I taught United States History in school and our time line reached the pre-Civil War Era, I usually spent a day in class teaching my kids to sing a few of these old songs that projected such powerful messages of longing and hope. More than once, my students thought I was nuts when they saw tears in my eyes as they innocently sang of travails and struggles they knew nothing about.

The Sunday before the concert, the Praise Choir gave a dry run presentation to our church, and the effect was incredible. Without a sound of music, a cappella, our singers projected through beautiful harmony a powerful message of spiritual encouragement. The church responded in kind, and a wave of worship swept through the building. Our lead singer, Misty Hargrave, offered a perfect balance of power and spirit with minimum theatrics. Hopes were high as the big day of the concert approached.

Arriving at the Toyota Center parking garage and paying the modest(!) $20 parking fee, we walked the short distance to the center. The center, home to the Houston Rockets, seats around 14,000, I think, and is heavily used for every imaginable venue. As I walked toward the entrance I began to observe more about what “How Sweet The Sound” was all about. In the first place, the crowd was predominantly African-American, and once we were inside and I was able to pick up a copy of the program I realized who Verizon’s target market for this musical experience was. The celebrities, judges, masters of ceremonies, and a majority of choir participants were African-American.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, please understand that I feel when it comes to spiritual, powerful, moving presentations of gospel music, no one can touch the depth of soul and heart like the African-American singer. So my conclusions after observing our entrance into the Toyota Center was that we were going to hear some really outstanding choir music, and that it was going to be a very enjoyable night.

The dual Masters of Ceremonies were Donald Lawrence and Cece Winans, both heavy hitters in the African-American gospel music realm. I’m sure Donald Lawrence deserved the accolades he received, but, I’m sorry, someone needs to show him how to dress. I know this betrays my age, but in the sixties super skinny pant legs and narrow lapels on a suit were in…but not now. And glittery sneakers? Somehow the image was not memorable. Cece Winans, on the contrary, was dressed to the teeth. Slinky floor length gown, beautifully coiffured, she seemed to me to be sort of the Janet Jackson of the gospel set…lots of image and flash with a medium dash of skill. The prompt cards gave her a little trouble. Fortunately the idle chatter between the two hosts was minimal, and the choirs were the main attraction.

As luck would have it, the Bethel Praise Choir was the first group out of the chute. As the lights, dimmed everyone in our section, which constituted a considerable number of Bethel Tabernaclers, collectively held our breaths as Shelaine Fauss-Everhardt, choir leader, gave the first wave of her arms.

All I can tell you is the Bethel Praise Choir absolutely nailed it. Before they were halfway through, the crowd of ten thousand plus was on its feet, and, when Misty Hargrave really got into it, there was a wave of praise which swept the center. The judges were swaying along with our choir members, and when they finished with their last “Mary!” the crowd erupted. It was totally thrilling. The judges gushed praise to Shelaine and Misty with not a single word of suggestion or criticism. It was a proud moment for our choir and for our church.

There were three other contestants in the small choir category. “Heaven Bound,” a Seventh Day Adventist group, sang the way you would expect Adventists to sing…beautifully…but without an ounce of spirit or conviction. The “Bible Days City Voices” and the “Bethel Temple Pentecostal Church Mass Choir” (too long a name) were traditional all-African-American groups which sang as many such groups do…tremendous spirit and worship but only middling in skill. In every instance, the judges were complimentary, but offered some point of suggestion or criticism that they felt would improve the presentation. To make a long story short, once all groups had finished, we felt that our group had won, hands down, no contest.

In the large choir category, let me say simply that the Royalwood Sanctuary Choir from Pastor Macey’s United Pentecostal Church blew the doors off the other three contestants’ carriages. By the time they finished singing “God Blocked It!” half the audience was shouting, Sister Macey, their choir director was dancing around, and the judges were waving and bouncing also. It was an amazing demonstration of singing with spirit and a confirmation that the singers were singing the way they did because they knew, and had experienced, what they were singing about.

The time finally came for the awards to be presented, and Bethel Tabernacle held its collective breath for the second time. It was not surprising when Royalwood Sanctuary Choir won the large choir category and the ticket to Washington for the finals (not to mention $15,000.) By this time we had seen clips of last year’s performances at the finals, and I had decided it was highly unlikely that a small choir group would go to Washington since all the groups there seemed to have been of the large variety. But we were stunned…shocked…and dismayed when the small choir award went to the Adventist’s “Heaven Bound” group, the group with the funereal presentation, the group that one judge said he wished they had sung the song with more spirit and connected with the audience.

As we were leaving the Toyota Center, still in shock and mumbling to ourselves, we overheard two different people just in our area and not connected to our group say they "thought that other group…the Bethel group, was much better.” We let them know we agreed. Being somewhat analytical in nature, I tried to determine why the obvious verdict had not been reached and for what purpose would a decision contrary to the obvious be made, and I have come to one or two scenarios:

“How Sweet The Sound” is a marketing strategy by Verizon Wireless to reach a particular audience. The brochure, the presentation, the style of delivery all point to a market segment which Verizon feels is an untapped source of future income. It must have been particularly galling to the marketing director for Verizon who was introduced to the crowd to see Royalwood, which is not a group which represents the target market for Verizon, blow away the competition to the point of no contest. But once it became evident that Royalwood was the hands down winner, I can also see a decision being made by Mr. Verizon…or the judges (that’s the second scenario)…that they’re not going to allow TWO non-representative and non-targeted groups walk away with all the prize money. So the best small choir was slighted and the money went to probably the second best group, minimal spirituality notwithstanding.

However disappointed we were in the outcome, our pride in our little band of singers swelled to probably excessive levels. They represented our church with honor, and their singing brought a worshipful spirit into the Toyota Center that was unmatched. In the final analysis, powerful singing does not come from culture or latent talent, but rather it comes from a deep personal experience with our Creator. And to think, we get to hear the Bethel Praise Choir just about every service!

George Creel...Eight Years later

2010-08-24T16:40:00.009-05:00

George Dennis Creel passed from this life eight years ago at the far too young age of 61. He was one of my closest friends from the early days of my youth. My parents in 1950 became part of the church where George and his considerably sized family had attended since its founding in the early forties. I was seven years old when my family began attending church, and George quickly became a companion and a confidante. There were several young boys in the church at that time, but two, George and Ronny Guidroz, the pastor’s son, seemed to share the same interests and activities as I. We spent many Sunday afternoons at one of our parents’ homes between Sunday School in the morning and evangelistic service Sunday night.

The photo imbedded in this essay was taken in February, 1956, and shows five of my friends from Peace Tabernacle. They are (left to right) Jerry Kemplay, Jerry Smith, David Smith, George Creel, and Ronny Guidroz.

In 1959, Ronny’s father resigned from the church and the Guidroz family moved away. Ronny and I would be reunited a few years later as brothers in law, but for a while, George and I spent even more time together. As a teenager, I drove a 1954 Mercury which at the time was an average decent car. George was on a little tighter budget, but managed to buy a 1950 Ford in dire need of paint…but it was a convertible. George sanded and painted the car himself, cleaned up the convertible top, and afterward for most of the time we prowled Texas Avenue in Baytown, Texas, we rode in George’s Ford because, well, it was a convertible, and it looked pretty good and sounded good. George’s Ford didn’t sound as good as my Mercury (sound was VERY important back then) because he only had one glass packed muffler while I had dual exhausts with dual glass packs. I could turn onto North Main from Texas Avenue, and for about three blocks where the street was pretty narrow and the buildings close together, I could give my old Mercury a little gas, the glass packs would roar, and the display windows of the stores would vibrate. If you don’t understand the sanity of this…well, it’s a guy thing…a sort of human version of the Lion King roaring from the top of a mountain. But the fact was…given a choice of driving a car that sounded REALLY good or riding in a top-down convertible…we chose to ride in George’s car.

Just to show you how brave (lonely? chicken? nervous?) George and I were back in those days, one warm, summer night we were cruising Texas Avenue in George’s car with the top down, feeling sorry for ourselves because we didn’t have any girls with us. Just at that moment, we passed the Brunson movie theater which apparently had ended a show because everyone was leaving. I said to George, “Hey, George, pull up and let’s see if we can pick up a couple of girls!” So George pulled up to the curb in from of the theater and we looked expectantly at the crowd exiting the building. I saw a couple of girls who seemed to be single and I waved to them, and they smiled…and started walking toward our car! The closer they got, the higher our level of panic went. When they got within about ten feet…we took off. I just hope we didn’t destroy the girls’ self esteem for the rest of their lives and they are suffering to this day from feelings of rejection. It’s a wonder George and I ever got married, but fortunately as time went by our relationships with fair maidens improved. In 1961 Shirley and I married, and a little later George did the same. In 1963 I went into the Air Force, and Shirley and I traveled for the next four years. George went into the Navy, and we had difficulty maintaining contact for a few years. You have to remember, this was before email, Facebook, and cell phones. Long distance phone calls were expensive, and letter writing was the only practical means of contact. We would occasionally cross trails at a family reunion, and there we would try to catch up on family news.

Shirley and I moved to Casper, Wyoming, in 1974, and happily, in the early 80s I think, George, wife Dee, and children moved to Casper, also. It was a happy reunion and our families enjoyed many good times together thereafter. During this time our two families entered the Motorhome Era. Because Wyoming offers so many scenes of natural beauty, recreational vehicles are very popular, and Shirley and I had purchased a motorhome for family camping. George and family did the same. George’s motorhome was a Winnebago which had been converted to a Caterpillar diesel engine with an Allison transmission. His motorhome would fly down the road, but the only problem was, the transmission did not have a “Park” position. On most big trucks, apparently, the vehicle is secured with an emergency brake that locks the driveshaft someway to keep the vehicle from moving rather than using a “Park” on the transmission. George’s Winnebago had the emergency brake lock on the driveshaft…but it didn’t work too well. So George, when they stopped for the night, would put chocks behind the wheels to keep the motorhome from rolling. One night we were sitting at a scenic camp ground up in the Wyoming hills. I was parked across from George’s motorhome in the adjacent camping spot. George’s camping spot was on a slight incline, but behind his motorhome the land dropped off quickly into a deep ravine. George, however, had carefully put out his wheel chocks, so all seemed OK. As the evening wore on into darkness, his family, Shirley, and our kids began playing some sort of game in the motorhome. For some reason, I was in our motorhome…probably taking a nap.

Anyway, some time later, I heard some yelling and then a crash. I ran out of our motorhome and George’s Winnebago was down the incline several feel, but, fortunately, resting up against a tree. There was a single tree that had been between George’s motorhome and disaster, and thankfully, the Winnebago and rolled up against it with a thud and stopped. Shirley said that as soon as the motorhome began moving, George knew what had happened and nearly ran over everyone trying to get to the brake pedal. Other than a couple of mild heart attacks and minor damage to the motorhome bumper, everything was fine. We had several other camping trips with George’s family, and enjoyed every one, even though none of the others was as exciting as that trip.

In the early 80s the economy suffered in Wyoming, and George’s family moved to Dallas where there was work. Shirley and I visited George and Dee on several trips to Texas, making an overnight stop at their home on the way to Baytown. After we moved back to Baytown, we visited them in Dallas occasionally, but it was at the Creel reunions during the Christmas holidays where we were most able to catch up on family news. The last time we saw George, the disease which would take his life was already taking its toll, but he was being ably cared for by Dee, family, and friends. Their church family offered tremendous support, and at George’s passing the family was surrounded by caring friends. George’s passing was another lost link to the days of youth, but my memories of George as a youthful buddy, close friend and companion will live on.

Animal Farm

2010-07-10T14:41:00.008-05:00

By the spring of 1953, with the arrival of Dad and Mom’s third child and my second sister, Kathryn, the decision had been made to find a larger place for our growing family. The home on Hafer, though comfortable, was cramped, and Dad longed for some breathing room and a return to his farming roots. So they began looking at rural property outside of the city limits. To us city kids, driving through the countryside outside of Baytown seemed a whole new world, what with all the vacant land, barbed wire fencing, cows, horses, and space.

The first time we looked at 6134 Cedar Bayou-Crosby Road (sometime over the last fifty years the name has been changed to Crosby-Cedar Bayou Road), it was not a very impressive looking place. Situated on a dusty, shell road five miles north of Baytown, it was a model of Early Americana. I say this through the eyes of an adult, because it was, even in 1953, an old house…wood framed, wood shingle roof, three tiny bedrooms, and no bathroom…it had an outhouse. However, the present owner was in the process of adding two bedrooms and a bath to the house, so by the time we moved in the outhouse was gone. I remember being a little disappointed in that. Included on the six acres of property were a barn, chicken house, and a small garage or storage building. The barn was probably the best building on the place…a two story, sturdy, pole barn with loft and cattle feeding area, plus a granary (place where your stored your grain.) The chicken house was fully furnished for chickens…i.e., there were roosting areas, feeding and watering areas, and a fenced outside area for casual afternoon strolls. If you were a chicken, it was pretty nice. The storage building was basically a single garage, and eventually became the place where we stored our boat.

The yard area occupied about an acre of the property with the remaining five acres being pastureland. All of it was properly fenced in and ready for cows or roaming kids. I have said that the place was not impressive as viewed by an adult, but for us kids it was a grand new adventure. Miles of space to run and explore, a really cool barn, chicken house, tons of trees to climb…I mean, what more could a kid want? (Remember, this is pre-television and electronic stuff.) The only glitch that happened during the looking stage was on one of our early visits while the family was wandering around the house looking around. My little sister, Kathy, being a few steps in from of me suddenly stumbled to her knees. That was not uncommon, since she was only eighteen months old or so, but this time she let out a wail. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was and picked her up. When I picked her up, I noticed her right leg did not straighten out and, looking down, saw a roofing nail imbedded in her knee just under the kneecap. Without thinking, I grabbed the nail, which was driven into her knee completely up to the nail’s head, and gave it a pull, jerking it out. She REALLY let out a yell then, and I ran with her back to Mom and Dad and told them what happened. We hopped in the car, rushed to a doctor’s office, and she was given a tetanus shop and bandage. A few hours later, she was back to her normal self. After a couple more home visits, the farm deal was done. Dad and Mom paid $9,500 for the whole spread.

In the ensuing days, another tradition of years past occurred. As I said, the house was old and needed work, plus the new addition that the previous owner had begun was unfinished. The walls were sheetrocked but not textured or painted, and the exterior of the new area was not painted. The new area had roof decking but no roof. So on a couple of Saturdays before we officially moved in, Downings from far and wide came and in a matter of two or three workdays the wood shingle roof on the old area was removed, new decking was applied with a new shingle roof over the whole house, walls were knocked out inside the house resulting in three bedrooms and a much larger kitchen/living area, the bathroom was finished, and the outside of the house received new siding and paint. The women brought enough food to feed a small army. It was not a happy time for me because I was tortured. Well, at least I thought I was, since I was put to work pulling nails out of old lumber. There were so many cool things to get into, but I was anchored in front of a pile of old lumber and given a hammer. Looking back, that’s what I would have done to my ten year old son to keep him out of trouble while everyone tried to work, but I didn’t like it then. Anyway, in a couple of weeks the old house was transformed into a very presentable home, and it wasn’t long before we said goodbye to Hafer Street and moved into our new home. It was the Spring of 1953, and school was still in session, so for a couple of months, Mom drove me to my old school, Alamo Elementary, to avoid a mid-year school transfer.

Strangely enough, I have found no photos of this eventful period of my family’s life. The photo adjacent to this paragraph was taken in 1954, after the house had been refurbished, but before Dad built the double garage close to where the family’s 1952 Mercury is located in the photo. As far as I know, there are no photos of our old home in the original condition that Mom and Dad bought it. Probably just as well.

Once settled into our new home, we began the exploration. The barn became one of my favorite places. On the second floor Dad kept bales of hay…not the big round 500 pounders you see today, but the square traditional sized 50 pounders that were easy to stack. Dad would have them all stacked in a corner of the second level, but I discovered that I could take the stack down to a single level and then build a wall of hay along two sides. What I created was a hay “room,” which I could access by pulling out one bale of hay, crawling inside, and then replacing the bale of hay. My “room” had a small opening looking out over the pasture, and I would sometimes after school crawl into my private room, look out over the pasture, and daydream. For a while there, dad couldn’t figure out why his stack of hay seemed to be growing, because once I restacked it to make my room, the stack took up more space. When he discovered what I was doing, he didn’t seem to mind, but as we fed the cattle that Dad had begun to buy, my room would occasionally disappear. But with each new load of hay, I rebuilt my Secret Garden.

With the chicken house, visions of fresh eggs and fried chicken soon abounded, and before long we had a fully operational egg farm. In the beginning, it befell me that one of my duties was to gather the eggs. Mom would sell the eggs to people in our church, and it was not uncommon to gather 50 to 100 eggs in a day. Boy, I hated that job! The reason was we had some really grouchy hens and mean roosters. Going into the chicken house, I had to walk through the fenced-in outside yard, and those roosters considered me an intruder. They would come running toward me squawking, jumping, and flapping their wings as I beat it for the chicken house. Once inside, there were rows of nests for the old biddies to lay their eggs. They would be sitting on their nests, droopy-eyed and half asleep, and my job was to ease my hand underneath them and snatch the eggs without disturbing their beauty sleeps. Inevitably, about every second hen would be startled awake (cold hand?), let out a squawk, and give me a hard peck on my arm. I would come out of the chicken house fuming and ready to engage in chicken abuse. Even grouchier were the hens which were “setting.” They had eight to ten eggs underneath them that they sat on for however many weeks it was until they hatched. They did not want you even coming into the chicken house. They would growl and squawk the whole time I was gathering eggs from the other hens…but they wouldn’t leave their nests. Once they had their chicks, they were pretty friendly, maybe because they knew I also brought chicken feed to them. It was always fascinating to watch a mother hen and her chicks when they were outside the chicken house. The little chicks would be scurrying around in all directions, but if the mother hen sensed any kind of danger, like a hawk overhead, she would give a particular squawk, and the little chicks would come running to mama. She would stand up, spread her wings, and the little chicks would run under mother, Then mama would settle down, cover her brood with her wings, and not a chick would be visible.

There were also visions of fresh beef on the table, and Dad began buying a few calves. In those days you could buy a young calf for $5.00, so the goal was to raise those cows and occasionally get one butchered to stock our freezer. What with fresh eggs, chickens, beef, and Dad having a green thumb when it came to vegetable gardening, we were going to be eating well, to say the least. The only problem was my sisters. To me a cow was a cow, but to my sisters, each cow was a member of the family. Each one was properly named (”Sweetie Face”) and treated according to its personality. Cows had to be brushed occasionally and properly fed. Those cows soon learned who buttered their bread, and they would follow Judy and Kathy around like little puppies. They could lead their pets around by just walking in front of them, whereas what cows were assigned to me, I think they knew I was looking at them as future rib eye steaks. Consequently, they were never very cooperative with me, and I never was able to complete the “bonding.” The upshot of all this however was the first time Dad mentioned taking one of our cows to the packing plant, and when the girls realized what “packing plant” meant, there was a shocked moment and then howls of protest. (We’re NOT going to EAT Sweetie Face!!) Needless to say, the entire time we lived on the farm, we never butchered a cow.

Hogs were a different story. I guess because it’s hard to call a hog “cute” For a year or so, Dad decided to raise hogs and built a hog area out next to the chicken fence. He bought three or four grown hogs and fed them, and before long we had bunches of little piglets running around. Okay, a six week old piglet is cute, but it goes downhill pretty quickly after that. Hogs live like…well, hogs, and their hog pen soon turned into a muddy, stinky hole, a breeding ground for mosquitoes and foul odors. They’re good food disposals, however, and my job was to take food leftovers from our table plus whatever scraps of other stuff Mom had and feed it to the hogs. They could hear me coming and would begin banging on the wooden fence to be first in line for their gourmet dinner. I held my nose as I dumped the slop over into the trough. Gross. In time, their poor manners and foul smells made Dad and Mom decide to get out of the hog business. Dad had the adult hogs sent to the packing plant, but about a half dozen piglets, all about 20 pounds, he butchered himself. I remember the day that we had some of our favorite relatives, Leroy and Louella Wilson (Mom’s sister and brother-in-law) with their two daughters, Karen and Linda, over to visit. Dad had taken the little piglets and butchered them, but he had only skinned them and cut them in half, right down the back bone. They were then put on a spit and roasted over an open fire in our back yard. Mom and Aunt Louella whipped up all the fixin’s to go with roasted pork, and we all enjoyed a feast of roast pig. To this day I can remember my half of pork and eating till I nearly exploded. And there was nary a squeal of protest from my super sensitive sisters.

This doesn’t involve animals but it does involve food. Three or four years after we had become farmers, Dad decided we would become REAL farmers. He had already purchased a Farmal Cub tractor, but he decided that he wanted to grow corn. He bought a corn seed planter attachment for the tractor, and, choosing the south three acres of our land, proceeded to plow it up and prepare it for planting corn. With the planting attachment on the tractor and a load of corn seed, he headed down the prepared rows, and the planter worked amazingly well, digging a small trench in the furrows, dropping a couple of seed about every 12 inches, and neatly covering up the seeds in one fell swoop. It even added a shot of fertilizer as it dropped the seeds. We waited for nature to take its course. Three acres may not sound like much, but that’s over 200 feet wide and 600 feet long, and we discovered you can grow a LOT of corn on three acres. Once the corn reached maturity, however, I learned that farming was not for me. Naturally, all the corn produced has to be gathered, and we had to gather it by hand. Dad drove his pickup to the first rows, and he and I began yanking the ears off the stalks and throwing them into the bed of the truck. It was hot, sweaty, monotonous, torturous work. It was even worse than pulling nails on those work days. It took us all day to pick all the corn and we were worn out. But sure enough, that evening the Wilsons had come visiting again, and the women cooked dozens of ears of corn. We must have had other food, but all I remember is that Uncle Leroy, Dad, and I got into a corn eating contest, and we ate until we were nearly comatose. I don’t remember who won, but each of us ate over a dozen ears of corn. Best corn I ever ate in my life.

Getting back to the chickens, eventually Mom and Dad tired of hassling with the chickens and eggs. By the time this decision was made, we were down to 80-100 chickens. My parents decided (and since my sisters had not adopted the chickens) that we would butcher the chickens and pack them all in the freezer and eat well for the coming months. I was around 13 years old at the time, and my cousin, David Phillips from Dallas, was spending the summer with me. The job that fell to us was the worst job of them all…we were to kill the chickens by cutting off their heads with hatchets and then dip the carcasses in a washtub of steaming water. The steaming water loosened the feathers, after which we were to remove all the feathers and take the naked chickens to Mother and Dad who would do the cleaning and butchering.

So out by the chicken yard David and I built a fire upon which we placed a number 2 washtub with water. In time the water began to boil, and we were ready to begin our work. Each of us had a hatchet, and with a foot on the chicken’s heads, we aimed carefully, and with one fell swoop the heads came off. The birds would flap furiously for a few seconds, and then we would place the poor creature in the boiling water for about a minute. Taking the now-boiling chicken out of the water, we attempted to remove the feathers without burning our fingers. It was hot, tedious work, and we were miserable.

Until David accidentally dropped his chicken after cutting off its head. To our amazement, the chicken ran off and rushed wildly from here to there for about 30 seconds and a good 75 feet from the fire. Thus the expression was born…”Running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” We thought that was the coolest thing we had ever seen. Sure enough, David, with his evil mind, (I’m going to blame this on David since he’s not here to defend himself…I really can’t remember who thought of it) said, “I bet I can make my chicken run farther than yours!” The challenge had been made, so on the next two chickens, we said, “Ready, set, chop!” We cut our chicken’s heads off, turned them loose, and watched them run around like…well, you know. After that, we started keeping score, and until we were nearly finished, we had a ball. Work turned into fun! But then, just as we let a couple of birds make their runs, Mother came out the door just as my bird ran underneath our house! Mother was absolutely horrified at what we were doing, and when she saw the chicken run under the house, she insisted we go in after it. The trouble was, underneath our house was a dank, dark, scary place that we had heard abounded with spiders, scorpions, and snakes. We moaned, groaned, and whined, but to no avail. Under the house we crawled to reach our poor, lifeless chicken. After that, the air had sort of been let out of our balloon, and we completed the chicken de-feathering without any racing incidents.

Before you draw the conclusion that I am intrinsically cruel to animals, please remember that these stories took place in the context of the fifties. Now that I am older, more educated, and much (well, a little) wiser, I would never condone such activities today. Also, although it seems each time I mentioned work in this essay I was whining about the alleged torture, it was not as bad as I may have described. After all, to a young person, if it ain’t fun, it’s torture. The amazing fact is we youth were able to occupy ourselves without a single electronic device. We spent our time outside and did not faint in the heat. We ate real butter and fried chicken and didn’t gain a pound. And finally, speaking charitably, we were at least creative in our search for amusement. All I can tell you is that, looking back, I have priceless memories of my youth.

In Memory of Pastor V.A. Guidroz

2010-07-10T14:29:00.009-05:00

In 1938, my mother and dad, R.L. and Ethel Downing, were married and in 1939 moved to Baytown to seek work. For the next eleven years, my dad worked to establish his business, Downing Roofing Company, while Mother established a stable home life for her children. Mother attended a Baptist church, carrying me along, but Dad, as many men in that era, was too busy trying to make a living to be concerned with church. Dad had opened his home and company to his many relatives who migrated from Oklahoma. In the late forties the Downing family worked hard, lived hard, and played hard.

In about 1949, one of his brothers, O.E. Downing and his wife, Reba, suddenly changed their lifestyle after joining Peace Tabernacle, a Pentecostal church pastored by Reverend V.A. Guidroz. It must have been a dramatic change, because they began to pester Mom and Dad to attend church with them. For months, Mom and Dad refused, but sometime in 1950, my Uncle O.E. caught Mom and Dad in a weak moment and they agreed to visit Peace Tabernacle. To make a long story short, since this essay is not about my parents but about the Guidrozes, let me say that in a matter of weeks my mom and dad had been baptized in Jesus Name and received the Holy Ghost, and the homelife of the Downing family changed forever.

Please understand that as I offer my impressions of the Guidroz family in the following words, they are created at least in the beginning through the eyes of a young boy. When we began attending Peace Tabernacle, I was seven years old. The pastor’s son sat down next to me in one of our early services and said, “I’m Ronny, and I’m six!" To which I replied, “I’m Bobby, and I’m seven!" We young boys liked to establish the pecking order as soon as possible. Glory Guidroz was the teacher of the Primary Sunday School Class, and to this day I can remember getting my fifth star in a row on her attendance chart and she declaring, “Bobby is now a member of our class!" I had found a home.

Upon meeting Brother Guidroz, he seemed larger than life. He was a big man who was obviously in charge and did most of the talking. I was still a little unsure on the concept of “pastor." He was quick with a laugh, and seemed to enjoy talking to us kids. I thought it was so cool that he was missing a joint or two on one of his fingers. His influence on my mom and dad governed the way we lived, where we went, and what we wore, and Mom and Dad followed unquestioningly. Brother Guidroz loved to fish, but was a salt water fisherman, and my dad and mom did not eat anything that came out of the ocean. Dad and I fished rivers, lakes, and streams and had a bay-worthy boat, but it never tasted salt water. So I have no Guidroz fish stories.

In fact, one of the strange things I had to get accustomed to once I started visiting the Guidroz home was something called “gumbo.” The Downings were basically steak and potatoes, chicken and potatoes, ham and beans type of people, and when the first bowl of gumbo was placed in front of me, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. It looked like soup, but it wasn’t, and there were strange things floating around on the surface. I had been introduced to shrimp gumbo. It was like a whole new world had been opened up. To this day, my section of the Downing family loves gumbo.

Sister Guidroz, unlike her husband, was not larger than life, but rather seemed like a matronly grandmother (remember I was seven at the time, so anyone over 35 was antique.) Her place was the second pew on the left hand side (facing the pulpit) at the left end of the bench next to the wall. In those early years Ronny and I sat in front of her on the first pew. As soon as my family got to church, I would find Ronny, and we would play outside until church started. Running and jumping in the heat of a Texas summer until the very last second, we would slip into church, sit down in our places, and my shirt would be wringing wet with sweat. Sister Guidroz would lean forward, pat me on my soggy shirt and whisper, “Bobby, Bobby! What are we going to do with you!”

When my family started attending Peace tabernacle, the building which was Peace Tabernacle at 1102 North Main was pretty well complete. It was built in the standard format of construction of that era with a wood frame and outside asbestos siding. There were two story sections in front and in the rear that had been added to the single level auditorium area. A large attic fan pulled air through the open windows (no screens) in a usually unsuccessful attempt to cool the interior in the summers. We hot, sweaty sorts always tried to sit next to an open window to catch the air being pulled into the building by the fan. Didn't help much, but it was something. Speaking of the Downing family at that time, there was just Mom, Dad, my sister Judy, and I, and yet there seemed to be Guidrozes everywhere. Sons and daughters seemed to be in every classroom, and I quickly learned that a family is sometimes more than four people! Ronny's younger brother, Lowell, and older sister, Wanda, were about the only two I could relate to because the rest of the kids (in my seven year old mind) were old as the hills. Buddy, Ronny’s oldest brother, seemed a grown man to me, also. So Ronny and I created our own little world. Though he was a year my junior, he influenced my life more than he will know. But that’s another story.

In those early days, the Guidrozes lived on Lobit street, not too far from the church. One of the exciting things about going to the Guidrozes house with Ronny on a Sunday afternoon was I got to ride in their big Chrysler limousine. One daughter, Gracie, was wheelchair bound all her life, and the Guidrozes had this stretched Chrysler limousine with huge back doors and fold down middle seats. WhenGracie came to church, they would fold down the middle seats, and Gracie and her wheelchair would be lifted through the big doors into the middle of the car where she rode to church. The thing I remember about that Chrysler was the smell. It had power windows, but they were hydraulically powered, and once the windows were raised or lowered a few times there was the slight smell of hydraulic fluid…not offensive, just distinctive. Over those years, I think I remember that the Guidrozes had at least two of these Chryslers. When I was older and able to drive, I was privileged to be the driver. The second feature I remember was that the Chrysler had Fluid Drive, which meant that it was a manual transmission, but by doing it just right, you could shift gears without pushing in the clutch. Very hi-tech in those days. In time, the Guidrozes moved to a larger home on North Eighth, where Ronny and I spent many nights talking about all the things that concerns young boys. On August 17, 1961, I spent my last night with the Guidroz family and my best friend. Actually, by then he was only my best male friend, because the next night I got married.

Brother Guidroz was a legendary minister and teacher, and there are others who can probably more accurately tell of his accomplishments as a minister. To me, his most powerful skill was the ability to draw the lost soul to the altar at the end of his sermons. There was a time when I hated him for that skill. As I began to reach my early teens, I began to feel the drawing of the Spirit on my life. AlthoughI had heard his “altar calls” many times, suddenly they began to feel directed to me, and as I resisted, I began to dread the ends of services. I can remember sitting on the back bench counting down the verses of whatever invitational song was being sung trying to make it to the point where he invited everyone to the altar…so I could escape to the restroom and hide. I held out for a long time until one service while I was hanging tough, I saw my good friend Ronny walking toward me with tears in his eyes, and I knew what he was going to do…and at that point I even hated my best friend. Ronny told me I needed to go pray, and I started to resist, but instead I started walking toward the altar. I didn’t receive the Holy Ghost that night, but it was a start, and I remember it as if it happened yesterday. A few days later, Brother Guidroz baptized me, and eventually, on June 4, 1958, about 11:00 p.m., standing on a sawdust-covered floor at the Texas Youth Camp, I received my personal Pentecost.

In the ensuing years, Brother Guidroz’s influence on my life was second only to my parents. He preached a straight line, and my behavior and activities in school and at home were governed by the guidelines that my pastor preached to his church. Though he has been gone for many years, I see how events in the world have transpired, and I can’t help but think to myself occasionally, “Brother Guidroz was right.” In 1959, the responsibilities of Texas District Superintendent became too great for him to be able to pastor a church in the full-time manner he preferred, and, honoring the greater need of the district, he resigned the church which had never known another pastor but him. On that Sunday morning, as the clock approached twelve noon, he spoke of the need for us members to not dwell on the past but look to the future. Offering prayers and encouragement, he asked us to turn around and face the clock at the back of the church. As we watched the second hand and minute hand approach high noon, he said what had passed was history. We could remember the past, but we needed to look to the future and have faith that though we may not understand, God would work it all out. At straight up noon, the auditorium went silent. We heard a click of the door at the back of the rostrum. There were a few sobs. We eventually turned to face the pulpit…and it was empty.

Fifty years later, we are still honoring the pastorship of Brother V.A. Guidroz. Several Peace Tabernacle reunions have been held over the years, and we who lived those early days still feel a bond of common experience. We have enjoyed a special relationship because we enjoyed a special pastor.

The Catch

2010-06-30T16:02:00.007-05:00

This story is mostly true.....

A few days ago my family made our annual trek to Canyon Lake in the Hill Country of South Central Texas. It is a tradition began by my son and his wife and our grandchildren a few years ago when the allure of Schlitterbahn, a water park in New Braunfels, Texas, became too great. Once the joys of paying exorbitant prices to splash in water with thousands of other people under a blazing sun became apparent, it quickly became an annual affair. The fact that there were Canyon Lake, a scenic man-made water paradise nearby with boating, the Guadalupe River with tubing and rafting, and shopping with scads of antique, junk, and outlet stores around added to the charm of the area. Not to mention that nearby was one of the premier barbeque restaurants of Texas, so there was the opportunity to enjoy quisine magnifique, also. In time, they set aside a week of each year to bask in the local culture and in general have a good time relaxing.

Since our family, thankfully, gets along pretty well, we oldsters were invited to tag along, and for the last three to four years we have done just that, usually not staying the entire week, but getting in three or four days of fun and visitation. Son and family stay in a high-fallutin’ upscale time share condo while we poor senior citizens fend for ourselves, usually locating a nearby motel to be within driving distance of our kids. It’s a nice arrangement and very enjoyable. In the past, we’ve been able to hop into a single vehicle and head for our destination of the day, and we often share breakfasts, lunches, and dinners as the opportunity arises. The normal weekly schedule calls for a couple of days at Schlitterbahn, one day renting a boat on the lake, one day shopping, at least one evening at Salt Lick Barbeque, one day of wandering around the area, and a day or two of…well… nothing. Sometimes you need to rest up from having so much fun. This of course is the schedule for the week, but since Shirley and I don’t spend the full week there, we sort of jump in where ever the schedule is at during the week and tag along. In the vernacular of the contemporary, it’s a very bonding experience for the family…plus it’s just plain fun.

My only problem is the Schlitterbahn ordeal. It seems that the older I get I am becoming more…..well…anti-social. It’s not that I’m really anti-social; I just don’t care to be around hoards of people. And hoards of humanity are what you get at places like Schlitterbahn. To top it off, at Schlitterbahn, people are not really at their best, appearance-wise…and sometimes behavior-wise. I have gone there a few times with the family, and I used to be concerned about how I looked. It pains me to say this, but I’m getting a little older now (cough) and don’t really have a buffed physique like I would like to have when I stroll around in a swimsuit (with a teeshirt). But after visiting Schlitterbahn a few times, I can walk into the park with my head held high without any concern of some little kid telling his mama, “Hey, Ma! Look at the funny-looking man!” Believe me, it is a fact that no matter how bad you think you look, you will find at least ten people in the park who make you look like a health fitness freak…and they seemingly are proud of how they look!

So anyway, this essay is not intended to knock Schlitterbahn. I actually sort of enjoyed my visits there. It’s just that my interests tend to drift to the more quiet and restful…like fishing. I am not a lake fisherman, I prefer rivers and streams. More specifically, I prefer fishing in cold, fresh water rivers and streams for rainbow and brown trout. I have caught catfish, walleye, perch, panfish, drum, redfish, snapper, gar, even shark, you name it, and to me they’re all about as exciting as catching a log. I was able to do my share of trout fishing when we lived in Wyoming, but naturally here along the Gulf Coast of Texas, fresh water trout are a little scarce. Amazingly, here in the Houston area the officials are dumping trout in some of the local small lakes during the winter season when the water is cold enough and allowing fishermen to go after them for the two or three weeks that they are available. On the days of the trout planting, the lakes are lined shoulder to shoulder with wannabe fishermen. Snared lines and frayed tempers are the standard for the day. It ain’t really fishing. I have fished for speckled trout in Galveston Bay, and they’re a lot of fun to catch, but a fisherman needs a boat and a certain amount of mobility to track them down.

Up until now, the closest place I had found to Wyoming fishing was, believe it or not, Branson, Missouri. There, amongst the glitter of gaudy country shows, rests Table Rock Lake, a large man-made lake formed with the building of Table Rock Dam back in the fifties. Being a lake, it doesn’t really interest me, fishing-wise, but below Table Rock Dam, it’s another story. The water that flows from Table Rock Dam comes from the bottom of the lake, probably at a depth of 100-150 feet, and is very cold, in the mid fifty degree range…perfect for rainbow and brown trout. The water stays cold for 10-12 miles downstream before eventually warming up to a non-trout-habitable temperature. There is a trout hatchery at the base of the dam which keeps the river well stocked with trout. The “river” is actually called Lake Taneycomo for the twelve mile stretch below the dam, but it’s really just a nice sized river. Out of Lake Taneycomo I have caught some beautiful trout using the same fishing gear I used in Wyoming.

Which brings us back to Canyon Lake. Although we had visited Canyon Lake several times in the past, I did not discover until the last day of our visit last year that the situation with the Guadalupe River below the Canyon Lake Dam is quite similar to the Branson, Missouri scenario…big lake, big dam, cold water, and trout. When I discovered last year that the Guadalupe was stocked with trout on a somewhat regular basis, I determined that this year when we visited I would be loaded for bear…er, fish. I had walked down to the water outlet below the dam last year to inspect the river and found a beautiful, cold, clear river that beckoned promisingly to the aspiring fisherman. Surrounded by heavily wooded gentle hills, the picturesque scene beat anything I had observed at Schlitterbahn. So I set my plans afoot for this year. The day that the family set sail for Schlitterbahn, I waved goodby, wished them fun, and grabbed my fishing gear.

My fly fishing hardware consists of a Shakespeare Silent TruArt Automatic Reel Model FC1836. It is approximately fifty years old. My dad bought two reels for himself and me around 1960. I don’t know what happened to his, but mine has been used extensively, and, other than an occasional cleaning, it has never been serviced or broken. There’s not a piece of plastic on it anywhere…all metal and beautifully crafted. I have used several rods over the years and am now using an Eagle Claw IM7 GrangerFly X6 high module graphite 9’ 0” fly rod. It’s a little long, but I like the flexibility. I use a forward-weighted floating line with a six foot, eight pound test leader. Packing along my muddler minnows, wooly worms, wooly buggers (for the uninitiated, these are types of artificial flies), and even a couple of old Platte River Specials, I parked my car and walked down the 58 steps from the parking area to the water’s edge.

The sun was high in the sky and the heat of the day was already setting in (I didn’t say I was an EARLY MORNING fisherman.) There was a slight breeze rustling through the trees wherein the scissortails, swallows, and mockingbirds were making themselves known. The water was flowing from my right to left into a deep pool about 20 yards down river. The pool was bordered by shallows on the other side and to the left over which the water rippled and the rocks underneath glistened in the sunlight. Tying on a size 8 silver muddler minnow, I pulled out a few yards of line and began to work the fly around the edges of the pool. After each float of the fly I gently brought the line up and behind me for a couple of turns to dry the fly and then settle the fly back onto the water’s surface, hopefully imitating an insect resting on the water. I repeated this action several times, working up, down, and around the pool, but without much luck. I noticed about 100 yards downriver from me was another fly fisherman plying his trade. Since fishermen are notorious kibitzers and copycats, I watched him out of the corner of my eye to see if he had any secret tricks, but his luck was running the same as mine. I decided to change weapons. I tied on a size 8 gold wooly bugger and laid it out there for my unseen trophy to latch onto. For twenty minutes there was only the sound of the swishing line and the rippling water as I worked the line every way I could think of. A couple of times, as I laid the fly onto the water’s surface, I thought I glimpsed a flash of movement or an abnormal ripple on the nearby water, but there was no corresponding singing of the reel as the line played out. At this time I must confess another of my fishing weaknesses (besides no early mornings) that keeps me from being a great fisherman…I am not a patient fisherman. Let me catch a fish about every hour, and I’ll fish all day. Let me go two hours without a fish, and I’m ready to pack it in. By this time, I was getting close to my cut-off point. I decided to try a size 8 black with red tail wooly worm. Those little dudes are usually pretty successful, and I decided to give it this one last best shot before going home. Flipping the line into a figure eight pattern to avoid an overhanging branch, I laid the wooly worm at the upstream edge of the deep pool and let it meander into the depth.

I saw the upheaval of water just as my line straightened like an arrow. There was a glimpse of red and gold, and the taunt line began to slice through the water like a knife through butter. I fought to keep the loose line floating at my feet straight as I attempted at the same time to activate the auto return on my reel. Holding the line with my left hand, I strained to maintain a proper tension on the fragile connection between the fish and me. Too little and the trout would spit out the fly like a seed and too much tension could cause the line to snap. Unable to shake the object in his mouth by just violent swimming, the trout broke the surface and began to take wild jumps in the air, all the while shaking its head wildly. I saw then that I had snagged a huge rainbow trout. Probably 5 to 7 pounds, it flashed its array of colors every time it writhed from left to right in an effort to shake the hook. With its mouth opening and closing wildly, it would crash back into the water and race madly for another part of the pool, then shoot straight up vertically to try again to dislodge its captor. Incredibly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the downstream fly fisherman standing motionless as he observed my struggles. Suddenly the rainbow headed straight toward me, thus slackening the line. I worked feverishly to take in the line to maintain tension, and a second later worked just as feverishly to let out line as he made an abrupt U-turn and headed away from me.

But I began to feel a lessening of the violent resistance. The big trout was beginning to tire. Each pull and each jump was less intense than the previous. After another strong swim away from me and a last cutting of the line through the water, his resistance was minimal, and I was able to carefully and slowly ease him up near my feet. I reached down and gently slipped my fingers into his mouth and gill and lifted him up.

He was the most beautiful rainbow trout I had ever seen. Massive in size with the trademark rainbow colors down the side. He was called in these parts a “holdover”…one of the fingerlings planted in the river several years before which had survived countless fishing days and hungry predators. In the left side of his mouth I saw the remains of a small rusty hook, a souvenir of a past battle. Though tired from the struggle, he gasped for water, and strangely, he appeared to look at me. His eye seem to communicate a resignation that he had lost the conflict against a worthy adversary, and he was ready to meet his fate. There would be no more battles. As I held him in from of me, I saw him for what he was…a survivor in a world of endless struggle, who had given his all and was now resigned to his judgment.

Using a small pair of needle nose pliers, I gently remove my fly, and then reached to the other side of his mouth and removed the remains of the old hook. Holding my hand under his belly, I eased the big trout back into the water and gave him a few back and forth pushes to get water moving into his gills again. He moved slowly, tiredly, but then he deliberately moved away about six feet and circled around back toward me. For an instant he stopped, facing me, as if to say, “Thanks, Friend!” and then, with renewed strength, he turned quickly to the left and disappeared in a stream of bubbles.

I gathered up my gear and walked to my car. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fish again.

Family Reunions

2010-06-28T21:37:00.008-05:00

In the early part of the twentieth century the American family unit was far different from the cozy clan which represented the family in the latter part of the century. Being a primarily rural nation, Americans living on farms looked at children not as financial drains upon the family budget, but rather as additional sources of funding and labor. With this outlook, the family grew in number. My father, born of a farming family in Western Oklahoma, was one of fifteen children, and my mother was one of eight. Although primarily a “city” family, my mother’s family, like many other city-living families, embraced the concept of the child being a contributor to the family welfare. Although surrounded by loving parents and supportive brothers and sisters, a child understood that there were responsibilities to be shouldered and duties to be performed. Every member made a contribution to the overall success and harmony of the family. Perhaps this concept was in keeping with the American philosophy that hard work and initiative always resulted in rewards and benefits. However, it may have been just a matter of survival. The early twentieth century saw the Great Depression wreck havoc on the American economy and create an atmosphere of economic struggle that few people living today can understand. As a result, children were put to work at an early age, either in the home, in the fields, or in a form of employment. Children of the Great Depression Era never forgot the early lessons of childhood. Seeing their parents lose everything due to lost jobs, lost crops, and lost health, these Depression children tended to be very frugal most of their adult lives and carried a distrust of banks and investments, but they also understood the value of hard work. Many felt strong loyalties to their employers as persons who contributed to their financial successes and were loathe to changes jobs, preferring the perceived security of a longtime relationship.The main point of this discussion, however, is that families were BIG. Ten, twelve, fifteen children were not uncommon. Compare this fact to today’s family unit which averages somewhere between four and five and it becomes easy to understand how the social fabric of a nation can be affected by such a dramatic change in its structure. Consider also our future, into which we can project that for the majority of children being born in the coming years, there may not even BE a family unit as we understand it…i.e. married mother and father and siblings. As dramatic as the family changes of the past 75 years have been, the changes in the future may be just as startling.

This brings us to the discussion of one of the vanishing phenomenons of the large family era…the family reunion. By the very fact of many children existing in a family, it draws the conclusion that upon reaching adulthood, these children would scatter to the four winds in search of their fortunes in life. No matter how close the connections to home, the communications options of the mid-twentieth century were limited to letters and expensive phone calls, and we all know that in the daily grind of life time flies when you’re trying to survive in a competitive world. A case in point: my father’s family by 1960 had long since been spread across the United States. With parents deceased, the surviving children over a period of a few months decided the time was ripe to gather again near their old homeplace in Western Oklahoma for a “family reunion.” The ages of the “children” by the time of the first reunion in 1962 ranged from 42 to near 70 years of age, and needless to say they had produced their share of children and even grandchildren, albeit in smaller quantities than their own parents, Levi and Ida Lillian Downing.

At the time of the first reunion, I was 19 years old, recently married, and in keeping with my youthful immaturity, unaware of the significance of the family reunion. I went to the family reunion to see old cousins and play games, with only brief greetings to my elder uncles and aunts. The reunion was a grand affair with much reminiscing and domino playing (a major Downing vice in those early years.) It was so successful that another was planned the next year and into the indefinite future. But in the coming years, the inevitable began to happen. During the reunion in 1963, one of the “children,” an elder aunt of mine was stricken. I was the driver as we raced for the nearest hospital ten miles away, but it was too late. Amazingly, the same event occurred the next year with one of my elder uncles. In the fall of 1963, I joined the United States Air Force, and my wife and I lived a nomadic existence in the U.S. and Germany for the next few years. Unable to attend the reunions, we received occasional news of another passing of an uncle or aunt. To be honest, I’m not sure when the last reunion was held, but when the number of original children dwindled to a precious few, even they were too fragile to make the trip to Oklahoma, and the Downing Reunion of the Children of Levi and Ida Lillian Downing ceased. Their offspring, having created families of their own, internalized their interests within their own families, and though keeping in occasional contact with their near and far cousins, each new offspring family developed its own traditions and memories. It is the natural progression of life

In 2007 I was amazed to hear that there was another Downing reunion gaining traction. One of my dad’s older sisters, Mildred, had married Verlon Phillips when my dad was still a youth. Together they had four children, but shortly after the birth of the last one, Verlon passed away. She remarried to Manuel Pineda, with whom they had eight children…giving Aunt Mildred and Uncle Manny a total of twelve kids. One of Aunt Mildred’s childen, David, was close to me and like the brother I never had but was killed in an industrial accident in 1967. The others, however, have survived and flourished. Apparently about ten years ago the Phillips/Pineda clan, with their ages by then ranging from about 40 to 65 years of age, began having their own family reunion. In a spirit of true graciousness, they eventually decided to call it a Downing reunion and invite anyone from any branch of the Levi/Ida Lillian Downing family tree to visit. Only by accident did I hear that there was a Phillips/Pineda family site on My Family.com. It was too late into 2007 when I learned all these facts to visit the reunion of that year, and then as luck would have it, 2008 was not a good year for me. I went through open heart surgery and then it was discovered I had leukemia for which I received chemotherapy treatments the last half of the year. In 2009 I was still recovering my strength after being declared cancer free, thankfully, so it was not until this year that things worked out that I could plan to attend. Even then, Shirley could not go with me because she was recovering from knee replacement surgery, so I was on my own. The reunion was held at Tyler State Park, just north of Tyler, Texas. The reunion to be from Friday night till sometime Sunday, so I planned to arrive there around noon Saturday and stay through whatever festivities occurred Sunday. I left home about 9:00 a.m. and headed up IH45 towards Tyler. Exiting IH45 at Buffalo, I traveled up U.S.79 through Palestine and then highway 155 toward Frankston and Tyler.

I have come to the conclusion that Houston does not really represent the state of Texas. To live in a major metropolitan area like Houston requires you to give up a certain amount of your personal identity. We homogenize into an anthill of humanity constantly scurrying about in every direction trying to survive and make some sense of life. Getting away from this concentration of activity allows one to see what the real world is like. Personally, I would prefer an area where the local Brookshire Brothers and Ace Hardware are the largest outlets in town. Places where you don’t have Chevrolet dealerships…you have one dealership selling Chevrolets, GMCs, Buicks, Cadillacs, Volkswagens, and Hondas. Places where Fred’s Quick Stop is the main convenience store and Dairy Queen is the place to go on a Saturday night. Places where the internet is only available by dial-up connection. (Okay…now I’ve gone too far, but you get the idea,) When I get to areas like his, I feel a lessening of the tension and I feel like I can put my gun on safety…maybe even take the shell out of the chamber. In places like Houston, you always stay aware of what’s around you.

After checking into my motel room at the grandiosely named “America’s Best Value Inn,” (Actually, it was a very nice room at a good price.), I headed to Tyler State Park, just a ten minute drive up the road. I discovered a beautiful, forested park with a scenic lake complete with swimming area, lots of camping areas, and a pavilion in Area 10 reserved for the Phillips/Pineda/Downing reunion. The place was already swarming with first, second, and third cousins, many of whom I had never met. Fortunately, sitting outside were a couple of familiar faces (only because I had seen their photos on the MyFamily site), and I was able to begin greeting my cousins from years past…many of whom I not see in nearly 40 years. The next 24 hours was as enjoyable a time as I have had recently. To be able to reestablish contact with my relatives was a privilege, and, in observing the offspring of Verlon and Mildred and Manny and Mildred, I couldn’t help but sense a déjà vu, as if I were reliving those early Downing reunions of the 1960s. Forty years later, the Phillips/Pineda clan is repeating the traditions begun by the Levi/Ida Lillian Downing family. We who were the kids running about while the oldsters talked endlessly about the good old days have morphed into those same oldsters talking about our “old days” while our kids and grandkids go roaring about. It is a microcosm of life, and I’m glad to be a part of it. The Phillips/Pineda clan will have the same experiences in the future as the previous Downings as time begins to take a mortal toll. The lesson to be learned here is that we should value today. We appreciate the past and look forward to the future, but it’s in the present that we live, and we need to live it to the fullest.

The last remaining child of Levi and Ida Downing, my Uncle Thurl, now 90 years old and frail, was at the reunion and helped create a connection from the present to the past. It seems unbelievable to realize that, of the children of Levi and Ida Lillian Downing, the first child, Lettie, was born on October 8, 1896, and the last, Thurl, was born on September 28, 1919. With Uncle Thurl still living, it means that there has been a child of Levi and Ida Lillian Downing living on this earth for the last 114 years. Truly incredible.

Beyond renewing contact with the Phillips/Pineda family, it was good to see many of my other Downing cousins from Texas and Oklahoma, also. The years have left their marks on all of us, but we shared many good memories and I am thankful we were able to visit again. To the children and grandchildren (even great-grandchildren) who ran gleefully around the pavilion (just as we oldsters did 40 years ago) while we new oldsters reminisced about the old days, if I could give a word of advice it would be…value and appreciate those who are around you today. There is no promise of tomorrow.

The Bear Facts

2010-06-10T22:43:00.013-05:00

After my parents-in-law moved to Wyoming in 1971, it seemed only fitting and proper that Shirley and I visit them the following summer of 1972. Having never visited the Cowboy State and after listening to the glowing descriptions phoned back to us by my in-laws, we decided to see for ourselves this natural wonderland. Wyoming conjures up images of rugged, hardy pioneers settling the wild, untamed west, and since we couldn’t ride in a covered wagon to the new land, we decided the next best option would be to travel by car and camp along the way, thus going more or less back to the basics which would allow us to really tune in with nature when the opportunity arose.

I had recently purchased a 1970 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate station wagon, a behemoth of a vehicle powered by a 454 V8 that I learned on the trip would average 10.5 miles per gallon…and that was at a steady cruising speed before we hit the hills. But it laughed at mountains, took the steepest incline without a complaint, and had room for all our camping gear. We bought an 8’x10’ standard tent, bedrolls, lantern, cooking utensils, hatchet, propane stove…you name it. By the time we pulled out of Baytown, we were self sufficient and probably could have lived out of our car for a couple of weeks without ever approaching civilization.

The first day we drove all the way to Clayton, New Mexico, and our first opportunity to break out all the camping gear was that evening at Clayton Lake State Park (See photo). It wasn’t the most scenic place we would camp on our trip, but being the first night, it was memorable. The second day we traveled into Colorado and turned west toward Durango, where we camped near Silverton just past Molas Pass next to a ski resort that was closed for the summer. When we awoke the next morning there was a trace of snow on our tent and the portable heater we brought felt really good. Packing up, we drove north and then east along Highway 50 out of Montrose, stopping at a scenic camping area along the Arkansas River not far from Canyon City. On our fourth day, we viewed the Royal Gorge Bridge and then headed north into Wyoming to a joyful reunion with the family late that evening in Casper, Wyoming.

We visited for several days, exploring the surrounding scenic beauty (which will be the subject of a future story,) but eventually we continued our traveling. Being as close as we were to Yellowstone National Park, it seemed only natural that we take in the entire ambiance of Wyoming and tour our nation’s first national park. We traveled west from Casper on Highway 26, and about 285 miles later found ourselves at the South Entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Actually we had taken a short detour to Jackson Hole to marvel at this quaint western town and then retraced out steps to the entrance to Yellowstone.

There’s something exciting about entering Yellowstone; the incredible scenery with snowcapped mountains and the promise of viewing wildlife in their natural habitats, along with the official looking park rangers, all contribute to a feeling that something invigorating is about to happen. As we passed the ranger check station, we paid our park entrance fee and received all the park information, which along with all the obligatory maps and notations of scenic beauty, included a warning about feeding the wildlife. The opportunity to feed animals had not entered our minds, and we didn’t really think about it. There was something in the brochure about keeping your food put away when camping, but we gave it only a passing glance. Our son, Bobby, who was five years old at the time, was all eyes, however, as he scanned the sides of the road for any kind of unusual wild animal.

The day was quickly slipping away, and upon locating a camp ground just north of the park entrance, we ducked in, found a spot, and set up camp for the night. By this time we were pretty efficient in our camping techniques and within a few minutes the tent was up, cots and bedrolls ready, and supper was being prepared. To be honest, I have forgotten what we had for supper, but our normal evening meal when camping was sandwiches or some kind of soup or chili. As the sun set and darkness fell, the evening became cool as it usually does in the mountains, and we stirred up a lovely campfire and enjoyed cups of coffee. By this time, Bobby was running out of gas and decided he was ready to hit the sack, so he crawled into his bedroll and was soon sound asleep.

In time the fire began to die out and Shirley and I decided to find our own bedrolls. You have to remember that our tent was 8’ by 10’…with three beds packed inside there was not a lot of space. It was…um…cozy, but comfortable. Shirley, of course, cannot go to sleep without reading two or three books, whereas I go lights out when my head hits the pillow. So the last thing I remembered was Shirley reading by lantern light as I drifted into a lovely sleep. Until I woke up to someone banging me on the shoulder and saying in an excited whisper, “There’s something out there!" With my usual alertness, I rose up and said, “Huh?” and Shirley repeated, “Something’s out by the picnic table!”

"It's probably just a raccoon," I mumbled. At that moment there was a clatter outside the tent.

"That's an awful big raccoon!" she breathed as I raised up to sneak a look.

The “door” of the tent was drawn shut, but I cracked the fold of the tent just enough to peer out toward the picnic table…and saw it. The bear was black, about ten feet tall with yellow, vicious eyes, three inch claws and fangs hanging out of his drooling mouth. Okay, okay…that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but at first glance, that’s how it appeared. The second thing I saw was our food box and ice chest sitting on the picnic table, and suddenly like a revelation, the warning from the Yellowstone brochure flashed like a large neon sign in my mind. “Make sure all food is placed in a secure area for the night!" In the ensuing few minutes the bear ate every scrap of food we had. The fact that it was wrapped in baggies or whatever made no difference. He used his claws to unzip every bag as cleanly as a teenage boy going through a refrigerator after school. The most amazing thing I saw was when he got to the Tupperware container of cold milk. I am not exaggerating when I say that he put the half gallon container under his…er..arm (front leg?) and used the other paw as a claw to grasp the top and pop it off as smoothly as you ever saw in your life. Then with both hands (paws?) he raised the container to his lips and glub, glub, glub…drank the entire half gallon of milk. When he finished, he set the Tupperware container down, wiped his mouth, and continued to dig in the ice chest. If you don’t believe this story, I still have the Tupperware container with two claw punctures in the lid for your inspection.

During all this activity, we were sitting in our tent protected by a very thin sheet of canvas and trying to plan an escape. The table, our tent, and our car formed sort of a triangle, and we decided that our best escape would be to make a break for the car while the bear was occupied. At this point, silence was golden, and we were barely breathing. It was also then that I learned I had been too cheap in buying Bobby’s sleeping bag. Our two bags were heavy cloth and well insulated, but Bobby’s was made out of some kind of polyester and vinyl. When we tried to pull him out of his sleeping bag it sounded like we were crushing tin cans. We feared the noise would attract the bear, not to mention that at that same moment we realized there was coffee, sugar, and cream in the tent, and everybody knows that a bear can smell sugar at a distance of about three miles!

Then I realized…I have my gun! If I have to I’ll….no, that’ll just make him mad. It wasn’t a very big caliber and would just enrage him. I decided to take another look at the bear…and he was gone! Or at least he wasn't at the table. Suddenly there were more shuffling sounds outside and closer to us! I heard in the silence of the tent, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…” and realized that my wife had repented of all her sins and rededicated her life to God four times over, so she was ahead of me since I was only on my third repentance. We continued to sit in panicked silence for what seemed an eternity. Immediately with a loud scraping sound, the tent shuddered and the bear brushed the sidewall of the tent nearest my head. The lantern (long since turned off) rocked from its hanging position, and, I don’t know if we screamed, yelled, or passed out silently, but we froze in horror, expecting the bear to rip open the wall at any moment.

We sat…and sat…and sat. Afraid to speak or even breathe. Slowly I peeked out the door again and saw no bear. Only darkness and silence. We probably sat as statues for the good part of thirty minutes. And then we heard the crash of a trash can…but it was away from us! Without a word we grabbed Bobby, ripped open the tent door, and ran for the safety of the car, piling in and slamming the doors. Only then did we begin to breathe but still shaking from our frightening experience. I’m not sure if we slept in the car, but we spent the rest of the night there anyway.

When the morning came, we surveyed the damage, and, other than the fact that we were foodless, we were in good shape. I picked up the now-empty Tupperware container and decided to keep it as a memento of a frightful time. Other campers mentioned that they had heard that there was a bear in camp last night, to which we agreed that, yes indeed there was. We spent the day touring Yellowstone, but we did no more camping. I don’t mind telling you, the thought of a repeat performance of that night did not appeal to any of us. We drove back to Casper to visit with the folks again, and we camped one night in Nebraska on the way home (far from the threat of bears). But since that night to remember, my family has never spent another night in a tent. Shirley made it clear that the only camping she would ever do in the future would be with a solid wall between her and nature. In all the years we lived in Wyoming, we always camped in a trailer or motorhome. One encounter with a bear was enough for us.

Alamo Elementary, 1949-54

2010-05-29T23:06:00.011-05:00

In 1949, I began my public education career by entering first grade at Alamo Elementary. I was easy to pick out in the crowd of kids…I was the only one with a black tooth. That summer before school started Mom, Dad, and I were in a restaurant, and since I tended to be a little bit…um…restless, I started climbing around the booths. I don’t remember if the place was busy or not, but there must have been some empty seats. Anyway, all I remember is I was climbing over one booth to the next one when I slipped, fell, and hit the floor mouth-first. I split my lip and yelled like I was mortally wounded, which got Mom and Dad’s attention. They picked me up, stopped the bleeding, and settled me down, and that was it…we headed home. I don’t remember being spanked because I was horsing around, but I probably should have been.

A few days later, Mom looked at me and noticed that one of my front teeth seemed to be darker than the others. She was concerned enough about it that she took me to a dentist who examined the tooth and pronounced it “dead.” He explained that I must have hit that tooth hard enough when I fell that I jarred the tooth and severed the nerves at the top. The tooth was not loose, so he said the best thing to do was let nature take its course, and when the adult tooth appeared in a year or so, it would force the black, juvenile tooth out. So for the next nearly two years, I sported a shiny black tooth which I had to explain to every new friend I met. But sure enough, the tooth eventually fell out, and its replacement came in nice and white. It was crooked, unfortunately, but that’s a different story.

I remember only one event during my first grade tenure, and that was the first day. All of us kids were excitedly sitting in our brand new seats, and we were completely surrounded by parents lining the walls. I couldn’t figure out why all these old people were in our classroom. After teaching in public schools, I can tell you that the events of the first day of first grade for students and parents haven’t changed very much in sixty years.. At the school where I taught, the first day of school brought traffic jams, loads of teary-eyed parents, and hordes of excited first day students. Some students came willingly and some scratched, clawed, and hung on to mother for dear life. But within twenty-four hours or so, a resignation toward the inevitable took place, and mother and student accepted their new roles, and a new year began. My teacher, Mrs. Watson, was the quintessential first grade teacher, quiet, loving, and reassuring.

Mrs. Dobbs, my second grade teacher, on the other hand, was the opposite of Mrs. Watson. Students from grades one through six stepped lightly in her vicinity. Equipped with a strong voice and dedicated to discipline, she ruled her classroom like a queen. We didn’t fear her, but we made sure she didn’t focus too much attention on us individually. One time we boys, thinking we were safe from Mrs. Dobbs, were horse-playing in the boy’s restroom and making an inordinate amount of racket. Next thing we knew, Mrs. Dobbs was right there in the restroom in the middle of us with her voice drowning out any noise we had made. We all nearly had a group heart attack. To this day I can see her coming through that door with arms flailing, voice bellowing, and looking like one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.

My third grade with Mrs. Kirkland is my fuzziest year. I remember very little about it except the day I walked home in the middle of a school day without telling anyone. On that particular day, I was not feeling very well for some reason, and my lower abdomen on the right side was hurting. I asked Mrs. Kirkland for permission to go to the bathroom, and, once I got there, I really begin to hurt. Then I got scared, and decided I wanted to go home to Mother. So I did…I just walked out the front door of the school and ran the three blocks home. Mother must have heard me coming, because she met me at the front door, and I fell in her arms telling her I hurt. Of course, Mother began peppering me with questions…”Where do you hurt? Why do you hurt? What happened?” By this time I am REALLY hurting and can’t take a deep breath…and then the phone rings. It’s the school, panicked because that can’t find their favorite student. Mother told them I was home, and she didn’t know what’s wrong…she would call them back. She decided to take me to Baytown Hospital, and she roared through the streets with me in the front seat crying and moaning. Looking back, I’m sure I nearly scared her to death. The emergency room grabbed me and threw me on a gurney, which really scared me. Mother described my symptoms, and, you guessed it, they suspected an appendicitis attack. I was given a sedative to settle me down (probably to Mother, too), and strangely, in a couple of hours the pain went away. Further tests revealed the appendix had not ruptured, and the decision was made to monitor the situation before beginning any surgery. I was kept overnight with no further problems. I was sent home the next morning, and today, sixty years later, I still haven’t had another abdominal pain. Oh, well, it made for some excitement anyway.

Speaking of hospitals, I had another visit to the hospital that year. We boys loved to play cowboys and Indians. Every self-respecting boy had a set of cowboy six-shooters at home with a cowboy hat and also a few feathers in case he was called on to be an Indian. The bows and arrows, however, were usually created on the spot when the need arose. There were trees in the neighborhood called chinaberry trees which had nice, neat, straight limbs which were easily cut off and made into arrows and, using a little string, could be pulled into a very useful bow. On this particular day, being chosen to be an Indian, I had dutifully made my bow and a quiver of arrows. We played our game for awhile and then both cowboys and Indians sat down for a little breather. While sitting there, I decided to see how far I could shoot an arrow. I notched the arrow on the bow and pulled it back as far as I could. For some reason, I did not notice that I had pulled the arrow backward past the face of the bow to the point that the arrow was aimed at my right thumb holding the bow. I let fly, and the arrow entered my thumb just above the thumbnail, sinking in until it was poking the skin of the thumb on the other side…and then the point broke off and the whole tip slipped under my nail. You could see it through the nail.

To say I yelled would be an understatement. Compared to the appendicitis attack, this time Mom really DID think I was dying. She looked at my thumb and rushed me to the car. It was the same hospital scenario all over again. This time they took me into some kind of surgical room, covered my eyes for some reason, and used a local anesthetic to remove the point. Because it was underneath the nail, they had to cut an incision underneath the thumb and remove the point that way. I came home with a big bandage and a mildly irritated mother, but, boy, did I have a story to tell at school the next day!

A third event happened about this time that probably qualified Mom and Dad for some sort of emergency room discount. My sister, Judy, fell on (as best as I can remember) a broken fruit jar and cut a gash in her cheek. Another mad dash to the hospital, and she came home with several stitches under her eye. There was a lot of concern about a possible scar, and for a few years there was a slight trace, but in time the evidence disappeared.

My fourth grade with Mrs. Gunn, a quiet, dignified teacher who loved her students, was marred by my sins finally catching up to me. I received my first paddling at school. I can’t even remember the reason for the punishment (except to be sure that it was probably unjustified.) Whatever, Mrs. Gunn called Mom and explained what was going to take place, and Mom said “No problem.” Mother was not like the mothers of today who would have yelled, “You touch him and I’ll sue!” I remember Mrs. Gunn holding a wooden paddle and asking me to bend over, and, with Mr. Loy the principal looking on, popping me twice on the bottom. On the first swing she lifted me right out of my shoes, and on the second swing…….OK, that’s not true. I remember thinking that I don’t want this to happen again, but it was more embarrassing than painful.

It was in my fourth grade year that I discovered totally by accident that I was blind. One day while Dad, Judy, and I sat in our car in the Sears, Roebuck & Company parking lot in Baytown, Judy and Dad were playing a game which involved reading license plates of nearby cars. I wanted to play, but I discovered I couldn’t see the plates; they were all too fuzzy. Dad told Mom, and the next thing you know I was in an optometrist’s office being fitted for glasses. Funny, the same thing happened to my son years later during his fourth grade year.

Another rite of passage occurred during the fourth grade year…I turned ten years old. That may not sound too momentous, but there was a tradition in those days that when a boy turned ten years old, he was considered responsible enough to carry a knife. So on my tenth birthday I received a pocket knife and a real hunting knife. Many times during recess at school we boys would grab a limb or a piece of wood and spend our time whittling some sort of object. When it was new and shiny, I took my hunting knife to school to show the other boys. It was a beauty…five inch Swedish steel blade with a maple handle and stainless “S” shaped hilt. I can describe it exactly because I am looking at it as I type these words. Today, fifty-seven years later, it is a priceless treasure of my youth. Boys with knives at school….can you imagine that situation today?

The fifth grade was a momentous year. My teacher was Mrs. Hazlewood, who was Mrs. Dobbs on steroids. Where Mrs. Dobbs made you keep your eyes down, Mrs. Hazlewood made you want to climb under your desk. Actually, after the fourth grade beating(!) I endured at the hands of Mrs. Gunn, I had turned unto a pretty good kid, but some of the others were slow learners. But Mrs. Hazlewood could be funny…like the day when she was yelling at someone and her false teeth nearly fell out of her mouth. That was the day a lot of us boys learned to laugh with our mouths closed and with a straight face. When it happened, she stopped and quickly ran out of the room. We were all too scared to make a sound, but we were rolling on the floor.

The fifth grade was when I discovered…girls. I fell in love with Mary Jo Fields….no, it was Frances Oliver…no, wait, it was Dian Anderson…no, it was….well, you get the picture. There was no “going steady” or anything like that, but just knowing that someone “liked” you was almost like holy matrimony. Of course, I learned also that romance involved competition, and my good friends James Wallace, Vernis Haynes, Mark Blankenship, Sherman Davis, and others sometimes became my mortal enemies as we jousted for the favors of our Chosen One.

But when the chips were down, I won the grand prize. Our class had an election for the favorite boy and girl of the fifth grade, and I and Dian Anderson were the winners. She had been my favorite for most of the fifth grade, and I was in seventh heaven. To top it off, the fifth grade had been the top grade-level fundraiser for the Spring Festival, and as a result she and I would reign as King and Queen of Alamo Elementary for the festivities. It was a night to remember as we in our regal robes paraded through the packed auditorium, onto the stage, and assumed our thrones. Songs and various acts entertained the Royal Couple as we sat there happy as clams. My main memory? I wore a white shirt with a tie underneath my red velvet robe. When I took my robe off after the festivities, my shirt was red. I had sweated so much that the red coloring of the velvet soaked into my shirt. Mom threw my shirt away. But it was worth it.

Before I began my sixth grade year, my family moved to the home in which a Downing would reside for the next 55 years, at 6134 Cedar Bayou Crosby Road. I left my friends of Alamo Elementary and gained new ones at Cedar Bayou Elementary and Junior High, which I would attend for the next four years. We would all meet again at Robert E. Lee High School, but by then we scarcely knew each other. Young children are highly resilient and have very short memories, and by the time we entered the tenth grade, our circles of friends had vastly expanded. For some of my Alamo friends it would be only in this last year of 2009 during a class reunion that I would speak to them again. We have now lived most of our productive lives, and the memories of our youth have grown in value and sentimentality.

206 Hafer St. 1949-54

2010-05-25T16:13:00.008-05:00

We moved from James Street to 206 Hafer sometime in 1948. Although Mom and Dad continued to visit the Williams family from James Street occasionally, I lost track of my good friend Vernon, but made many new friends in our new neighborhood. Where James Street was a busy street and the homes small and crowded, Hafer Street was quiet, the yards much larger and the kids could roam around without too much concern for traffic. I soon learned that the place was crawling with kids, and since we were only three blocks from Alamo Elementary, I was soon introduced to a whole army of little people who migrated from yard to yard in the course of play. This was back in the days when neighbors actually talked to each other, and it wasn’t long before my parents knew all the neighbors in a 3-4 block radius of home and I knew all the kids. This was in the pre-television, pre-air conditioning (!) era, so people had their windows and doors open, and there was a lot of outside activity. You could tell what was going on in the house three lots away, and if you wanted to get involved, you just walked over and joined in. Neighbors welcomed neighbors. When Mom and Dad moved into 206 Hafer Street, they were given a “house warming,” which was a sort of party where neighbors and friends came by to visit and offer congratulations on the new home. Visitors would bring some sort of small gift or goodie to eat, and a happy time was had by all.

Dad’s family was a pretty close-knit family. By this time he had several brothers and nephews who had migrated from Oklahoma to the Baytown area. many worked at one time or another at Downing Roofing Company, Dad’s business, until they decided roofing was not for them (boiling hot asphalt and hot summer days do not mix well), and they were able to land other jobs.. The company prospered, and Dad was generous with his relatives. Many of them owe their early success to being able to come to Baytown, get a job with Downing Roofing Company, and start a financial base on which to build later.

Dad’s business success allowed him to become what today’s vernacular would probably call a “techno-geek." He loved electronics, although such hardware was in its embryonic state of development. We were the first family in our neighborhood to have a television, a voice recorder, and an air conditioner. I used to tell this story to my students at school and they would stare at me like I was a real living dinosaur, but it’s true…when we got our television there was ONE station in the Houston area…KLEE-TV, Channel 2. The television was an RCA Victor, round tube model (black and white, of course) in a sort of cabinet console which allowed the TV to fold back out of sight when not in use. It became a phonograph player when the TV was not on. We're talking cutting edge technology in 1948. Once we got the television, we had neighbors and relatives from far and near who just “happened to be in the neighborhood” around 7:00 p.m. when the Lone Ranger came on. The Downing clan, especially, came by on Friday night for Friday Night Wrestling and of course to play their beloved games of dominoes. In one of my other blogs (Robert L Downing, 1917-1991), I mentioned it was during this period when I was introduced to the wicked vice of beer by one of my aunts. Fortunately, I never acquired a taste for the devil’s brew. We kept the television until about 1951 when Dad and Mom started attending church on a regular basis and got away from some of their vices…including televison. During all the years we kids were at home, my parents never owned another television.

The voice recorder was another electronic marvel my dad enjoyed. In those days music was played on disks (records) which spun at 78 RPM (revolutions per minute). An arm with a needle rested on the grooves of the disk and sensed the variations of the grooves which produced sound. Record players worked due to the simple scientific correlation between vibration and sound. The needle would vibrate and the player would electronically magnify this sound…voila!...music! Each disk played only one song and was very fragile…easily broken or scratched. The voice recorder allowed the owner to make his own records. Sound was picked up by a microphone and magnified, which caused a needle to vibrate, which in turn scraped some grooves into a disk. Once completed, you had your own home-produced phonograph record, and people listened and marveled, “How can that thing do that?" On Christmas Eve, 1948, Dad had a bunch of his family over for a party, and he broke out the voice recorder and recorded family singing, joke telling, and Christmas greetings. I still have that recording to this day; however, I have put those voices and memories on a CD for long term safe keeping. It is a memory frozen on a disk….of 62 years ago. I feel old even thinking about it. Actually, I think the only reason Dad bought the voice recorder was to record the Grand Old Opry. EverySaturday night over some Houston radio station, the Grand Old Opry would come into our home, and everyone stopped to listen. Dad would place the recorder’s microphone in from of the radio speaker and record the whole program, and then they would listen to it again a couple of times before the next week’s broadcast. Even though I am now highly educated and sophisticated (choke), I still feel a twinge when I hear an old Hank Williams (“I’m Walkin’ The Floor Over You”) or Red Foley (“She Ain’t So Bad To Look At If You Can’t See Her Face!”) song. Somehow it connects me with my early childhood memories. I mean, those songs are classics!

In the late forties and early fifties, there was one threat which struck fear into every parent’s heart…the disease of polio. Polio characteristically struck children, and its cause was not known, but the idea floated around in the south that heat, humidity, and over-exertion could possibly cause polio. Polio crippled the muscles in a body to the point that the patient would be forced to live in an “iron lung,” a massive metal tube in which the patient was placed, exposing only the head. The “iron lung” used vacuum to compress and expand the patient’s chest and breathe for him/her. It was an awful existence, and thousands of children suffered. In the summer, it was not uncommon to see a neighborhood appear practically deserted as parents kept children inside during the heat of the day. Dad and Mom considered their next electronic marvel… a window air conditioner...to be the solution to this prevailing health threat, and so we were the first in the neighborhood with air conditioning.

In the summer, the air conditioner attracted neighbors and relatives almost as much as the television, and visitors would walk into the living room and act like they had just landed on the moon as they marveled at the refrigerator-like climate. There was only one way to run the AC…as high and as cold as it would get. We could have hung meat in our living room. In fact, in a few months Mom and Dad began to complain that it was getting harder and harder to get up any desire to go outside and, once outside, the heat seemed to adversely affect you even more than before. The event that spelled the death knell for our air conditioner, however, was the announcement that Doctor Jonas Salk had perfected a polio vaccine that would immunize anyone from the dreaded disease. Cities and towns across the nation handed out the vaccine to millions of people, beginning with children, and practically overnight, the fear of polio was gone. We kids could run outside in the heat of summer and get stinky sweaty without fear, and, with that concern gone, Mom and Dad sold the air conditioner, and we went back to a ceiling fan used at night to draw in air through the windows. We never missed the air conditioning. Nothing else was air conditioned, anyway…none of the cars and none of the stores. Most of us would not survive today without air conditioning.

During most of the productive years of his life, my dad was a “Mercury man." That meant he drove Mercury automobiles. I think that’s where I developed my love for cars, and to this day, I am partial to Mercurys. There was a lot of product loyalty in those days, and the first car I can remember my parents owning was a 1948 Mercury. In 1951 Dad bought a 1951 Mercury, and it was exactly like the Mercury lead sled that actor James Dean drove at the time of his death. Dad bought it because it was the first Mercury with an automatic transmission, and some of my more educated relatives would look inside the car and down by the brake pedal and say, “Man, that thang ain’t got no clutch!" Cutting edge technology again.

It may have been cutting edge technology, but the car was a slug when it came to performance. The automatic transmission was a two-speed automatic, and you could outrun it on a bicycle off the line. The thing I remember about this car is we took a trip in it to California in July, 1951. It was a black two door with no air conditioning. We blistered our skin while sitting inside the car as we traveled. Mom said, “Never again!" Dad was unhappy enough with the car that when the all-new 1952 Mercurys came out, Dad was first in line. He went back to a manual transmission. Air conditioning was still in the distant future. It's funny how you remember some details, but what I remember most about this car was the window crank. The car was a two door hardtop, and my place to travel was in the back seat behind Dad as he drove. To roll down my back window took 20 complete cranks of the handle. I never could figure out why it took so long to lower a window. The car was gray on the bottom with a black top, but Dad didn’t like the black top, so he had it painted a navy blue. After a few months, he decided he didn’t like that either, so he had it painted bright red. Here's another strange memory…I rode with Dad as he brought the car home from the body shop where it had just been painted red. As Dad pulled in the driveway, our neighbor across the street saw the red roof and yelled, “Hey! R.L., your car’s on fire!" Dad laughed. A few months later he went back to a black roof. It was in this car that I learned to drive. Well, sort of. We would come home from church on Sunday or Wednesday night, and, once we got to within about two blocks of the house, Dad would let me sit on his lap and “drive” the car the last two blocks and into the drive way. I could not wait for church to get over in the evening so we could head home, although there was one detour we all enjoyed. On South Main in Baytown was a place called the San Jacinto Creamery, where they prepared milk and dairy products. But they also had ice cream and the best malts on Earth. On a hot summer evening, those malts really hit the spot.

On one hot summer evening, we had all retired for the night, and midnight had long since come and gone. The telephone rang, Dad answered it, and the neighbor across the street whispered excitedly, “R.L.! There’s someone trying to break into your front door!" Dad hung up the phone and slipped to the closet and got his hunting rifle and eased to a front window. The house had a front porch with a kitchen window on one end so that a person inside the home could see the entire porch. The window was open, of course, (hot summer night) and as Dad looked outside, sure enough, there was a tall, slim person seemingly attempting to open to door handle. As Dad watched, the man straightened up and appeared to be looking at the top of the door. Dad laid his rifle on the window sill and quietly lifted the bolt and pulled it back to put a shell in the breech. As he did, the rifle made a distinctive clicking sound…and the person on the porch hollered, “Uncle R.L.! Don’t shoot!”

Dad jumped up from his spot, and, carrying the rifle, ran to the front door and flung it open. There stood Jimmy Sutherland, one of Dad’s nephews from California. He was in his Army dress uniform and had come by to visit. He said he had sent Dad a letter saying he was coming, but Dad hadn’t got it, and the reason he appeared to be looking at the top of the door was he was trying to read the house number. Just as all this transpired, up rolled the police, who saw Dad with a rifle and politely asked him to drop it. The neighbor, after calling Dad, had called the cops. After a quick explanation, the cops left and Jimmy came inside. Jimmy came back for several visits after that, but for the rest of his life Dad told the story of how he nearly shot his nephew. I videoed Dad a few weeks before his death telling this story for the umpteenth time to my uncle Leroy Wilson. I wish I had videoed more of his stories. To be continued…

Praise....or Worship?

2010-05-17T13:14:00.009-05:00

In the realm of religion, Pentecostals as a group tend to be a fairly demonstrative lot, and that trait is reflected in their church services. Quick to sing, quick to praise, quick to raise hands, Pentecostals sometimes have to dodge arrows from those traditionalists who contend that there is far too much unleashed emotion and far too little dignified restraint during the evolution of a Pentecostal service. Perhaps this enthusiastic participation in a church service is because Pentecostals feel they have embraced the entire concept of salvation as presented in the New Testament and each individual has been able to develop a personal relationship with his/her Creator. Pentecostals contend that the Church Age as we know it began in the second chapter of The Acts of the Apostles. If you view that chapter you will read the sermon preached by Peter the Apostle to the citizens of Jerusalem on the Jewish Day of Pentecost. The citizens had been observing a group of approximately 120 people stumbling out of a building acting as if they were drunk and speaking in many different languages. Although they accused the 120 of being drunk, the citizens were also puzzled how these obviously native Galileans were able to speak in different languages which they had never been taught.

Peter, assuming his leadership role, began to explain that this phenomenon was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and represented the establishment of the church of Jesus Christ for the latter days. He told them bluntly had Jesus had come to the earth to be their Savior, but they had rejected and crucified the only begotten Son of God. The citizens believed what Peter had to say, felt condemnation for their actions, and asked point blank, “What shall we do?”

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38 KJV

In the eyes of Pentecostals, every other New Testament scripture which refers to salvation is a verification of Peter’s commandment…even the scripture which is most commonly used by televangelists and pastors who do not accept the necessity of baptism or the receiving of the Holy Ghost…Romans 10:9: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The citizens of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, after hearing Peter’s sermon, confessed and believed, thus fulfilling Romans 10:9, but they were not saved until they followed the instructions of Peter.

So Pentecostals, appreciative of their personal relationships with their Creator and fully embracing Peter’s commandment, enthusiastically get involved in the process of a church service through active praise. Praise is accomplished through singing, prayer, raising and clapping hands, and playing musical instruments. There are many scriptures which substantiate these activities:

Psalms 9:11…….”Sing praises unto the Lord.”

Psalms 33:2-3….”Praise the Lord with harp, and an instrument of 10 strings. Sing unto him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise.”

Psalms 51:15…..”Oh Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.”

Luke 19:37…….”….the whole multitude began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice.”

Psalms 150:1-6…”Praise him with the trumpet…psaltry…harp…timbrel…dance…stringed instruments…organs…loud cymbals! Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!”

It is through praise that a person is able to create a communications channel to God. The action of praising forces us to concentrate on His blessings and disregard our personal concerns. The difficulty we have sometimes as mere mortals is in our attempts to approach God with a laundry list of things we need or problems we need solved, when His simple desire, repeated countless times in the scriptures is for us to praise Him. He already knows our problems, but we need to create an avenue through which He can move to help us overcome. Positive praise creates a positive attitude in our outlook and gives us greater determination and strength to face the challenges of living. The act of praise is not limited to during a church service, but may be given anytime or anywhere the desire for communion with God is felt. We are told in the scriptures, “He inhabits the praises of His people.”

If praise is the sugar that gives energy to the true believer, and if praise is the icing on the spiritual cake, and if praise is the match that starts the fire…then worship is the steak and potatoes which gives us long term strength and helps us to grow spiritually. Praise and worship are two words which are used many times synonymously, but their characteristics are distinct and separate. Notice the different tone in the scriptures referring to worship:

I Chronicles 16:29…” Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Psalms 95:6………..”Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel…”

Matthew 2:11……...” And when they were come into the house, they…fell down and worshipped him.”

Matthew 28:9……...”…And they came and held him by the feet and worshipped him.”

Worship involves a much more intense, personal, and introspective approach. Worship does not require great actions, loud music, active engagement, or group participation. It occurs when we are most directly in contact with God, and our love, appreciation, and, yes, perhaps even fear of His power demands that we approach Him is a reverential manner. We show humility to Him by bowing and kneeling. It is a moment when we search our hearts and souls. The old song said it clearly:

“Search me, O God, and know my thoughts today

Try me, Oh, Savior. Know my heart I pray.

See if there be some wicked way in me…

Cleanse me from every sin and set me free."”

Some of the most powerful services I have ever witnessed were some of the quietest. Years ago, our pastor at that time conducted communion services on a monthly basis. Although in our normal services we had a variety of musical instruments and we praised enthusiastically, for the communion services only the piano and organ were utilized. His sermons concerning the sacrament were quiet, intense, and very compelling. We members took the sacrament while kneeling at an altar and prayerfully looking to God for strength, guidance, and forgiveness. It was during these services of intense worship and soul searching that we gained power and strength, and as a result we spiritually matured.

Praise and worship are both vital elements to a successful church, and as such, there should be a balance between the two. Praise is the Snicker bar in the mid-afternoon which gives us a quick jolt and sustains us until the next full meal. The success of our praise, perhaps because it is more active and visual, is inaccurately sometimes measured in decibels, movement, and rhythm. hough not necessarily harmful, it is tantalizingly easy to put the emphasis on the sizzle and not the steak. In the final analysis, it is through worship that we come to His spiritual table and feast on the food that will give us life everlasting. In ancient times, when the king and his entourage paraded through the streets of his kingdom, the villagers were expected to offer honor and loud, enthusiastic praise. But those same villagers, had they been invited to the castle, would have approached the throne of the king with a deep, quiet reverence. True believers today do the same: we praise Him enthusiastically when He is in the midst of our services, but as we get closer to Him and His throne, we are compelled to bow, kneel…and worship.

"Jaws" Revisited

2010-05-07T17:44:00.011-05:00

My wife and I love the state of Hawai’i. Forgive me for spelling it with the apostrophe, but that’s the way it’s done over there. Were it not for money, family, friends, jobs, medical care, cost of living, church, and other various details, we would probably be living there. But, alas, since we don’t have much money, but lots of friends and family, and we need good medical care, plus the Hawai’ian cost of living is astronomical, not to mention that Hawai’i is politically heavily Democratic, we have chosen (been forced?) to settle in our own little Garden of Eden in Houston, Texas. The only thing you can say that is true about both Houston and anywhere in Hawai’i is that they are on the same planet. However we have made several trips to Hawai’i , and are now card-carrying kama’ainas, which allows us to get into all sorts of places nearly free and gives us the right to complain how all the mainland tourists are ruining the true Hawai’ian momona aloha.

We have wandered Waikiki, cruised Kaua’i, mellowed on Maui, snorkeled Lana’i and Molokini, and viewed volcanoes on the Big Island. We've dinner cruised on every sort of ship and went down in a submarine to view….well, not much. If you get a chance to take the Yellow Submarine, don’t. There's not much to see off shore and 150 feet down. We have practically been to every luau (beach festivity) in the islands and have eaten our share of i’a a poi. It would be easy to say about any activity in Hawai’i, “Been there, done that,” but the fact is, given an opportunity to “be there and do it again,” we would jump at the chance to repeat every Hawai’ian adventure we ever had. Hawai'i is truly a state of mind, and, once affected with the “aloha” spirit, every other place which is touted as “just as good as Hawai’i” somehow pales in comparison.

The last time we were in Honolulu, we stayed at the Sheraton Princess Ka’ialani, next door to the International Marketplace and across the street from the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, the oldest (built in 1903) and most expensive hotel on Waikiki Beach. We had access to it due to the fact that we were in a Sheraton Hotel, but our extent of usage was walking through it as we headed to the beach. Our first couple of days there were spent doing the things one does when in Honolulu…visit the famous sites, hit the beach, shop, and stroll around. On the second evening as we were collapsing in our room after a full day of activities and tours, I happened to see an advertisement in a tourist paper that headlined, “Fish for Shark…The Great Adventure!" The ad went on to say that the boat made regular evening tours with the prime directive of catching big sharks. Upon further reading, I began to hear the soundtrack of “Jaws” playing in my head and could imagine myself as the grizzled Robert Shaw battling the monster of the deep in mortal combat. The fishing excursion, strangely enough, did not debark the dock until 10:00 p.m “because all the big ones cruise and feed at night.”

Placing a quick phone call, I discovered that there was a trip planned that very evening, and there was space available. The gravelly voice on the phone said, “We catch more big shark than any other boat in the harbor! There is an 85% chance you will catch a shark!" Already, I was hooked. About 9:30 p.m. I headed downstairs to the lobby and shortly hopped in a van from Sushimo Fishing Charters. The other seven patrons were already aboard. I had been a little nervous about this trip. I had imagined it to be a test of my manhood…you know, the man vs monster plot that Hollywood has used for a hundred years. But on board with me were four giggly young girls, none older than 21, and three of their latte-sipping, quiche-nibbling nabobs that pass for young men now days. The fourth young girl was a girl friend of one of the other girls. I decided that this was a serious joke or that this adventure was not going to be as challenging as I thought. These young examples of America’s future (shudder) were much more interested in their personal interactions that the task at hand. The young girls looked at the large buckets of dead fish we would be using as bait and exclaimed,” Ewwww!" It was clear I was not in a group of serious fishermen. Oh, well, less competition, I thought.

Our boat for the night would be the “Explorer,” a well equipped 60 foot vessel that sported around 50 ready-to-go fishing rigs, including 10-12 rods and reels that looked heavy duty enough to reel in a battleship. Sure enough, the heavy babies would be our weapons of choice for the night. The captain gave us a safety pitch as we motored out of the harbor and assigned each of us a spot along the rails. The plan was the crew would bait our monster sized hooks, drop them over the side, and our job was to holler “Shark on!” if the line took off. When the alarm went out, all others were to reel in their lines to avoid tangling while the battle of survival was going on. Once the “all clear” came, the lines went back in the water. It was exciting!

We motored out of the harbor and the night was…enchanting. The full moon caused the water to sparkle, and the warm breeze created just enough wave action that there was a rhythmic slap against the bow of the boat as we slipped farther from the harbor lights. The lights of the Waikiki hotels glistened and reflected on the water. I had imagined that we would go offshore for 10-20 miles or so to bob for the big ones, and it confused me when we sailed out of the harbor, turned on our port beam and cruised until we were just off of Waikiki Beach. When we stopped we were close enough that we could see people walking along the beach in the light of the hotels. The captain explained that this was the best place to catch shark…we were in about 100 feet of water and relatively close to the shore because “sharks like to cruise the shoreline to feed." After hearing that amazing bit of news, I made myself a personal note…no more romantic midnight swims!

The crew started baiting the hooks and tossing them overboard. I was fisherperson number three. Mine went in the water, and about the time he got to number six, I felt a somewhat firm tug on my line and then suddenly my reel started spinning out the line like mad. "Shark on!” I yelled, and the crewman ran over and said, “Yeah, that’s a good one!” as my rod began to bend from the strain. "you want to try it yourself?” he asked, meaning that he would pull it in for me if I wished. My manhood issues popped up again, however, and I replied, “No, I want to bring him in." So he got a cable and anchored the reel and rod to the boat. I noticed he didn’t offer me a safety belt of any kind. Oh, well, tourists come and go, but fishing hardware is expensive. He did help me adjust the drag on the reel a bit so that I ceased to lose line, and afterward it became a tugging war between the shark and me. He stayed near the bottom and did not want to come up, but inch by inch, and reel crank by reel crank, he tired and slowly rose to the surface. When he got within about ten feet of the surface, the crew switched on spotlights, and there he was, a gray shark, about seven feet and around 170 pounds (captain’s estimate). Not the shark from “Jaws”, but big enough to make you decide to stay in the boat. Since this was all catch and release fishing, the idea was to pull him as far as possible out of the water for all to see, then cut him loose.

I had my camera with me and, while lifting mightily along with the crew’s help, I held the camera in my right hand and sort of aimed sharkward and hoped for the best. At least I got photo proof of my catch. By this time a crewman was holding the line leader lifting the shark and another reached down with some wirecutters to cut the line (see photo). What happened next could have been disastrous. When the crewman cut the line, it snapped back like a whip, and the backlash caught the captain, who was leaning over the rail watching the process, about an inch under his left eye and opened a two inch gash clear to the cheek bone. He fell back and grabbed his face, and grabbed a relatively clean towel and in a few seconds stopped the flow of blood. He put on a bandage and continued with his job. Tough guy.

With the shark gone and the excitement over, it was lines back in the water, but this night would prove to be a dud. About an hour later one of the young guys caught a four footer that caused a little excitement when it came off its hook inside the boat and the crewmen had to grab it without getting bit. Its teeth were snapping shut like a steel trap. Finally it was grabbed by the tail and thrown overboard. By this time the girls were tired of yucky dead fish bait and just plain tired, so they quit fishing and drank Cokes and ate hot dogs. The guys eventually followed suit, and I, like the Ancient Mariner, was left to go it alone. I had made my catch for the night, however, and since it was approaching 1:00 a.m., the captain asked me and I said yes, I’m ready to go home.

We heaved to the anchor, fired the engines, and made the short journey back to the docks. All in all (at least if you’re a fisherman) it was a worthwhile evening. I had a new experience, a cool photo, and another Hawai’ian memory to add to the collection. I'd go shark fishing again.

The End Justifies The Means

2010-05-01T19:52:00.005-05:00

It all started with my most recent interview with my melanoma doctor at M.D. Anderson Cancer Clinic. Since I had undergone surgery to remove a melanoma (skin cancer) on my right arm about a year ago, I have been checking in with him about every three months. Everything has been going well, and he was about to cut me loose from him and allow me to just visit a dermatologist occasionally. This time, just in passing, he asked me when I had last undergone a colonoscopy. When I replied that I had never had a colonoscopy, he stopped and gave me that look that only wives and doctors can give and said, “You’re 66 years old and you’ve NEVER had a colonoscopy??” After casting my eyes down in a repentant manner and shuffling my feet a bit, I regretfully answered that I had not. That response, of course, gave him the opportunity to launch into a lecture about the need for regular checkups, including colonoscopies, for anyone as ancient as myself and how all sorts of bad things can happen if regular checkups aren’t scheduled. The upshot of all this was that a colonoscopy was scheduled for me two weeks later. I was to go in on a Thursday for “anesthesia assessment” and the main event would start the next day promptly at 8:00 a.m. I was due to visit the clinic that Friday anyway for my six month checkup in the Leukemia Center, so this way I could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. You have to understand that at M. D. Anderson Cancer Clinic, every floor of the hospital is like a separate hospital. For melanomas, it’s the ninth floor; for leukemia, it’s the eight floor, for GI endoscopy, it’s the fifth floor, for lymphoma, it’s the sixth floor, for lab work, it’s the second floor. I have been on all these floors; I’m trying to avoid the other levels. Each floor is an entity unto itself having different registration procedures and totally concerned with only its mission…to treat whatever form of cancer is its specialty. They are incredibly competent, organized, and caring. I am convinced I am still here on earth because of God’s hand and their skills.

Now, if you’re under the age of fifty, it is possible that you do not know what a colonoscopy is. For those of you who are teachers, it has nothing to do with English grammar and counting, adding, or subtracting colons in an essay. Rather it is an up close and personal (REAL personal) examination of your intestinal tract. Your colon (or intestinal tract,) doing the critical job that it does for you, is fertile grounds for all sorts of bad bacteria, germs, and diseases, and therefore close monitoring of this very critical function within your body is a prerequisite to disease prevention. The actual examination is an exercise in state of the art technology and medical creativity. Doctors are able to insert a little video camera into the colon and visually inspect every inch of this tunnel of digestion. When it’s over, they’ll even give you photos, for crying out loud, of the inside of your colon! Seeing any abnormality, they are able with tiny scissors to snip away any bad stuff and remove it for closer analysis. “How do they do this?” you may be nervously asking. Well, the camera and any other tool is inserted through the….is inserted through the….through the…the…well, I’m sorry, I can’t say it. I was raised in a very sheltered environment, and there were just some words we did not say in public conversation, and that included the crude words used by uneducated folks and educated words describing the same things used by doctors and proper people. Let’s just say that the word describing the place of entrance rhymes with the word for the seventh planet from the sun, and let it go at that. If you’re not an astronomer, there are only a couple of areas of entrances into the human body…from the top down or the bottom up. And it’s not the top down. I think I’ve made it clear. It’s really better not to think about the process, anyway, just the results. Fortunately, when all this probing and photography is going on, you will be in dreamland thinking about candy canes. They will say, "This will relax you,” the lights will go off, and the next instant they will be saying, “Wake up, Sir! It’s over!” Piece of cake.

So, on Thursday, Shirley and I made the trek to M.D. Anderson for my “anesthetic assessment,” which is basically a question and answer activity to make sure I had no hidden allergies, previous bad anesthesia experiences, or potential problems. Each time you visit MDA, a blood draw will be taken along with “vital signs” which are weight and blood pressure. This data is then analyzed and compared to previous records for any changes. All was well with me, and we left MDA to head home via the drug store, where a prescription had been sent for me. The prescription was for the “prep” that would get me ready for the main event tomorrow. When I walked out of the drug store, I was carrying a jug that was bigger than a gallon milk container. In fact, at four liters, it was about a gallon and a pint.

Just for your future references, if you see any kind of medication with the work “lyte” in it, I would suggest that you make yourself scarce at the earliest possible moment. Medications such as Gavilyte, Colyte, Nulytely, and Golytely (someone had a sick sense of humor there) have an effect that, well, you just have to experience it to believe it. My medication was the tried and true Gavilyte, and all I had to do was drink the entire gallon and a pint of Gavilyte at the rate of 8 ounces every ten minutes. Needless to say, since the makers of these drinks have a sort of captive audience, they have no concern for taste or “drinkability” to quote a beer advertisement. In fact, one could come to the conclusion that the drinks had been designed as some sort of evil revenge for our past sins. Anyway, the taste was not too good. But it wasn’t too bad, either, and I downed the first two or three glasses with no effects. I began to think that this whole process may be pretty easy. A few minutes later, however, the inevitable took place. Without being too graphic, let me just say that in the next few hours I had plenty of opportunity to study my bathroom and make a list of trim to touch up, paintwork to do, and doors to adjust. I was able to determine that my new toilet, which I installed only three weeks ago, worked very well even under extreme conditions. By 4:00 a.m., I was able to find the bathroom in pitch darkness, do my job, and get back in bed without even opening my eyes. At 6:30 a.m. Shirley and I rose up to prepare for the MDA big day.

Friday morning the weather was muggy, warm, cloudy, and rainy…a bad day for someone like Shirley who is still recovering from a knee replacement a couple of months ago. People who have joint problems like arthritis or joint replacements are better weather forecasters than the best meteorologist on TV. When the weather changes for the worse, they feel it in their joints. And Shirley was feeling it this Friday morning. To make matters worse, she forgot her cane as we left home, and so she had to wander all around MDA without much help. Plus, she had to push me in a wheelchair for a short time. Her day was as hard as mine. The plan on Friday was for me to have my colonoscopy from about 10.00 to 12:00, and then visit with my leukemia doctor about 1:00. I had to get another blood test for him, so since we got to the hospital about 7:30, we went to the leukemia laboratory (8th floor) first. I weighed in, got my “vitals” taken, and blood drawn and headed to the GI Endoscopy Department (5th floor). Check in time was 8:00 for the 10:00 procedure.

Another thing to consider when entering a hospital is that you check your modesty at the door when you go in. Endoscopy is a prime example. We were cheerily lead back to a large room divided into maybe 16 individual cubicles with curtain walls. The sweet young lady said, “Remove all your clothing, put the hospital gown on, open in the back, lie on the bed, and cover with the sheet. When you have finished, open the curtain so we’ll know you’re ready.” I did so, and lie back to listen to the voices around me. You put sixteen patients with spouses and friends plus nurses in a big room, and cloth walls don’t mean much. The nurse visited the old guy across from me with the intent of giving him an IV, and he told her (as we listened) all the horrible experiences he had endured in hospitals. When she jabbed him with the IV needle, he yelled like his leg was being amputated. I can say truthfully that in the last two years I have probably been stuck with a needle a hundred times, and there have been times I did not know I had been stuck until I looked. The nurses at MDA are incredibly skilled. But maybe he got a bad one…I think it was in his head.

Think also, there were sixteen patients in the room and all still feeling the effects of their “prep,” and there was ONE unisex bathroom. The traffic was heavy. The Oriental lady next to me headed to the bathroom thinking she was holding her gown closed in back…but she wasn’t. Oh, well, we’re all in this together. Another husband and wife (patient) came in and was assigned to a bed. As soon as the nurse left, the guy said, “Well, there’s not much I can do here. I think I’ll go down to the first floor and have lunch. I’m sure they’ll call me when they’re finished.” And he left. I do not predict a long and happy marriage for that couple.

In a few minutes, a different cheerful nurse came in and placed an IV in my right hand, and said the big event would commence shortly after 10:00. Since it was still before 9:00 the interminable waiting had begun. In this regard, MDA is like every hospital; time is relative, and there’s no need to rush. But around 10:25, sure enough, in came the serious looking medics who, after telling Shirley to wait in the waiting room, wheeled me down a couple of halls to a large refrigerator. Well, it really wasn’t a refrigerator, but it was cold enough for one. I guess that’s just the characteristic of an operating room. I then had about a dozen wires attached with suction cups to my chest and arms and told to roll onto my left side (open back gown.) With nary a modest thought, I dutifully rolled, and then the nurse said something about relax…and that’s all I remember.

I awoke to someone yelling in my ear, “Mr. Downing, wake up!” and to the worst sore throat I have ever experienced. My chest was hurting and I was having a little difficulty breathing because I was so congested. I tried to speak, but I had no voice, and I felt I had swallowed a box of razor blades. I lie there for a few minutes until they determined I was back amongst the living and could respond to questions, at least with a head nod, anyway. I asked for a drink of water, but they said, “Not yet.” So I asked for a tissue and was able to blow some of the cobwebs out of my head and breathe easier. They begin to explain that the procedure had gone well, but midway I had begun to choke and managed to get some of my stomach acid down into my lungs. They could not explain why my stomach still had liquid in it while my colon was clean except to say, “Sometime that happens.” They had been forced to aspirate (suction) the liquid from my lungs using the gadget they force down your throat into your lungs. Hence the sore throat. I would assume in an emergency situation like that they’re not too concerned about the effects on your throat and vocal cords.

I was wheeled back to the recovery area where my faithful wife was waiting. I couldn’t say much to her since I could barely talk, and when I coughed, I sounded like a lifelong chain smoker. In a few minutes, the doctor came by, and said I still had some fluid in my lungs and to be very careful the next couple of days and watch for fever and difficulty of breathing. Pneumonia was a definite possibility because stomach acid can damage the lungs. However, I was able to see for the first time full color photos of my colon which I will not post here in the interest of delicacy and decorum. The colon report was very good and there were no problems. In a few more minutes, we were released from the Endoscopy department…just in time for lunch.

I was in a wheelchair by this time, and Shirley wheeled me to the first floor and the cafeteria. Although I had not eaten for two days, I wasn’t too hungry, and after a half of a sandwich, I was done. Shirley’s knee was bothering her enough that I couldn’t bring myself to have her push me, so we left the wheelchair in the foyer and headed to the eighth floor and my visit with my leukemia doctor. By this time, neither of us was feeling too well. I was moving slow because the procedure medications had not yet worn off and Shirley was limping badly. But we checked in right on time at 1:00. We were called back to Doctor Farhad Ravandi-Kashani’s (NOT a native Texan) office about 1:30 and waited….and waited…and waited. Finally the nurse came in and gave me my lab reports from the morning…and that was the bright spot of the day. My blood condition is the best it has been in probably twenty years. One funny note: since I had blood work and vital signs taken on Thursday and on Friday, she noticed that my weight on Friday was six pounds less than it was on Thursday. “How could that be?” she asked. When I said, “I had a colonoscopy this morning,” she smiled slightly and replied, “Oh.” Finally, over two hours after our 1:00 appointment, my doctor makes his appearance, checks me over and declares me sound. He asked when I wanted to come back, and I think if I had said in a year he would have said OK, but he said, “Why don’t we keep it at six months; that way I can keep an eye on you.” I agreed; a lot can happen in a year.

We pulled out of MDA shortly thereafter and drove home and collapsed. As I walked in our home, I began to have chills and a little fever with a still-awful cough. It began to assuage in an hour or so, and, other that just feeling worn out, I began to feel better. Both of us did very little besides recline in our sofas before bedtime. Saturday morning I awoke with a throat not nearly as sore and feeling much better, but not perfect. As I write this, I still have a hacky cough, but my prognosis is in a couple of days I’ll be back to my normal, cheerful self.

To you readers who are over a certain age, consider a colonoscopy. I think I had a rougher time of it than the usual patient, but truthfully, it is a vital part of your maintaining health vigilance. Remember, you have to go into it with the proper positive attitude and consider it an adventure. Plus, you’ll have photos that are guaranteed to break up any party whenever you feel the need!