What We Leave Behind

I can still remember it like it was yesterday. It had recently rained, the air was humid on the hot summer morning. I was very young, four years old or so but I know it was summer because the older boys, the ones who were the age of my older brother were there meaning school had let out. We were down the street, a good ways, as a matter of fact, from the small town Baptist parsonage where our family lived the first five and a half years of my life. Just at the end of our street where it intersected with the highway, was a large culvert. The culvert was full of muddy water from the rain and, according to our friend Shadrach, was full of crawdads. One of the older boys thought we were crazy and wanted to leave but Shadrach and I stayed there looking into the murky water as the others went away to find their amusement and adventure elsewhere. Shadrach pulled some bologna and string from a small brown paper sack he carried under his arm and carefully measuring the string, an arms length at a time, he reached into his pocket for a small folding knife with a shiny pearl-like plastic handle and cut the string the length he needed. Slowly and meticulously, in case I needed to know later when he wasn't around, he taught me how to tie the string around the bologna he had cut into small squares with the same small knife. Tied together like a small package from the mail, the bologna was lowered into the milk chocolate colored depths below. "Shhh..,," he said as he gently bobbed the bait up and down, back and forth through the water. Suddenly, the string jerked, not strong enough to pull it from his hand but strong enough to feel the bite. "Gotcha!", he said with a laugh. The job was done. We had reached the goal. A big, or so it seemed at the time, crawfish was on the end of that line. That is where my memory fades a bit because I don't remember if we continued to fish or if just the one was enough to satisfy our interests, but one way or another, I still remember how to tie that string around a square of bologna and catch a crawfish should the need arise, though it hasn't for the last fifty-five or so years. That was only one of the many stories I could share with you from a childhood that was full of daily adventures running around with friends, cousins, and my older brother. Bare feet, hot pavement or gravel, chiggers biting little sores that itched unmercifully around the ankles, sneaking into the Carl's Tasty Sausage plant to watch them kill the hogs, something my parents may not have known until they happen to read this, and something that ended abruptly when the workers ran us out. All of these are things that made up what I thought was a wonderful childhood. It was a simpler time. Probably not as simple for the adults of the day as it was for us kids but simpler none the less. A time when the most serious thing we had to worry about was looking both ways before crossing the street between the parsonage, church, and the icehouse that was on the opposite corner of the intersection, the spit and whittle club holding the bench down out front watching and surely commenting on our activities. I know that my parents didn't worry about our rambling around the town. For one, everybody knew everybody in that little place, and second, it was a time before children just a few years older than we were at the time spent their days riding by in cars shooting up the neighborhood as we hear too often today in the news. Things weren't as dangerous then as they are today. It would be unheard of to let your small boys sit by the side of a highway and play unattended for fear that some miscreant would attack or worse, steal them away. In a world that is overly concerned with what some person in Hollywood who is possibly a great actor, but other than that is possibly as dumb as a bag of rocks, really thinks about major issues in our nation or how you and I should raise our children. I would rather raise my own children thank you. And if I had my way, it would be in a little town like the one where Shadrach and I fished for gigantic crawdads, or better yet, in no town at all where my children, and now my grandchildren can run carefree on more acreage than they need to be entertained. I know, I know, that's living in dreamland. And you are right, because I dream of a place like that again. There used to really be a place like that. A place where families sat down together and had supper, that mom had cooked. A place where Sunday morning came and everyone got dressed in their best clothes, however poor they were and whatever "best clothes" meant for them and went, together, to church to worship God. Not some trumped up, feel good public speaker poisoned message, but the Word of God, The Bible preached with sincerity and in love. What ever happened to that place? It was a good place. It was special. It was the best in the world. You may have heard if it. It was called The United States of America. I know. There is no such place anymore. No matter what you call it now, it isn't the same place where I grew up. It is a sad thing too. Because as I said, I have grandkids. I wish they could know the place I knew and remember. God's word says to train our children in the way they should go, that is, His way, the way He has laid out for us in his word, and when they grow older they will not depart from that training. I know we can't live in that world anymore, but I can create it for them at least a little bit while they are with me on our little piece of land out in the country.

Off the beaten path, just far enough from town, there is a place where God is love and we love each other the way I remember when I was a child. In such a way that my little ones will know they are loved and the entire sixty acres is their playground. We will play in the dirt and swim in the little plastic pool. Soon we will camp out over night in the pasture, pretending to be "out with the wagon" (as soon as mom thinks they are old enough), riding our horses, and someday maybe even hunt and fish together. They will grow up with fond memories of life at Darlin' and Pa's house. Memories that will make them feel better in the world they happen to live in when they are adults themselves with children and grandchildren of their own. Memories of a world that was better. I do not have much to leave them by the world's standards. But, they will have those memories and the assurance that God loves them...that we love them. At least we can leave them that.