NASHVILLE EXPERIENCES PART III

NASHVILLE EXPERIENCES PART III

Random Memories

I always thought we weren't much for socializing but in looking back we did have quite a few get-togethers at our house: the family, church members, the youth group, and a revival speaker and his wife. The basketball court with all its flaws came in handy during those times. It wasn't too bad when I would kill the grass growing between the cracks. We had a wooden free-standing swing and we had a deck, though we rarely used it. 

I went to visit Linda one time when she was down in her back. I spent the night and she needed to go to the ER in the middle of the night. I told her I was going to change clothes then would be there at the hospital. I was getting ready to turn into the hospital parking lot when I was approached by a young black man. He yelled through the window, "Do you know where the Jack in the Box" is? I had an idea but I wasn't going to tell him that. I said "No, I'm not from around here." He said "What, I can't hear you," and tried to open the passenger side door. Fortunately it was locked and he went on his way. There were supposed to be security guards in the parking lot but they couldn't be seen if there were any. I went inside and told some of the workers about the incident and they said for me to go tell the security guards. I told them there were no security guards out there. And that was that. Thank you, God, that that door was locked.

Mom and the twins and Mychelle and Brandyn were on their way to my house. They had turned off of the highway onto a road that eventually meets the road we lived on. The road they were on had a bridge that you wanted to take slowly. Mom took a Dukes of Hazard approach to the bridge and jumped it, coming down with hard thud. Mychelle was young and started crying. Everyone else was shocked. They were still talking about it when they got to my house. Who knows whether she did it by accident or on purpose. 

Linda Brink and I used to go to different stores, even ones in other towns, to do double couponing. We went to Centralia one time, did our double couponing, and drove back home using the back roads, doing about 65 mph and blabbing away. When we got on that same road where Mom jumped the bridge, but farther down, we heard the car make an awful scrunching noise. Linda asked me what I thought it was and kept driving. I shouted, "Stop the car. Now!" She did, and come to find out, one more rotation would have made the wheel come off and flipped the van. Her tires had been changed that day and the bolts weren't put on tight. We had to walk to her husband's partner's house in the pitch dark with no flashlight. But at least we had someone we knew to help us. If that had happened anywhere else on our round trip it could have been disastrous, especially going 65 mph.

Speaking of the Brinks, I was at work at Green, Cross and Pearcy's law firm and the head secretary was complaining about these kids that were riding go karts through her neighborhood making all kinds of racket and going through people's yards. I was about half paying attention to her and then it later dawned on me that that could be Little John and Kenton Brink, his best buddy. I tried to talk myself out of it. Sure enough, Little John 'fessed up when I got home. I never told the secretary who it was. 

We had no air conditioning in the house quite a few years until Larry Sowers gave us a window unit. We had no A/C in the car, either, but only because John (Sr.) removed the belt so we couldn't use it. John got a family season pass one summer because he painted the pool so the kids and I spent a lot of time there to escape the heat. Another summer we had a week or more of 104 temperatures. John decided to take us to Jane's in Olathe, Kansas because she had A/C. Jane, I and the kids went to Worlds of Fun. I don' remember John being there. The kids were going on the roller coaster ride and Jane and I just stood and waited and talked. Little John came running up to me as angry as could be. I asked him what was wrong and he said that Diana was at the top of the roller coaster ride. Bridgette was with Diana. I didn't think anything about that being bad until he said she was stuck up there. John expresses fear as anger. Otherwise he's laid back. They weren't up there too awfully long, though it probably seemed like a long time to them -- and John. The worst of it was that they had two loops to go through after they repaired the broken wheel.

Diana asked her dad if she could walk around the square with her friends. He said "No" and she asked him why. He told her she might get hit by a car. I told him that if he was going to say "No," at least give her a good reason. Well, as it turns out when one of her friends was crossing at an intersection, she got hit by a car and went flying through the air. I was dumbfounded. It was like John had an epiphany or premonition, though it wasn't Diana that got hit by the car.

I briefly mentioned this in another story, but thought I would add details. One evening I was in the hospital and John was at church. One or more people split the frame to the back door and were able to unlock the door. Then they went in the living room and took our tv. We called the cops but they didn't even take fingerprints. There is no describing how you feel when your house has been invaded by strangers and they take your personal property. The only word I can think of is violated. Much of your peace is stolen away and is replaced with fear. You lie awake nights. It upsets the kids. You feel like your house has been defiled and you want to spray Lysol all over it for the lack of anything else to do to cleanse away their presence.

Take this however you want but it happened. I was on my knees praying one day about the sorry state of my marriage and all of a sudden something washed over me and the verse came to my head "Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth." I don't remember memorizing that verse. But I did what Moses did and argued with God. I asked Him what that had to do with my problems. Of course the Bible is the way God speaks to us and it has all the answers if we seek them with all our hearts and minds. It was one of the motivators for me going to St. Louis Christian College. I wanted answers and I wanted them now but that's not the way God works. In the King James Version of the Bible the words "in due time" are repeated many times. I found that out by studying the Bible and found my answer as to why not now.