I remembered several things today that I
haven’t considered in a very long time.
I was a manager
for Kinney Shoe Corporation in Gadsden, Alabama, and responsible for a lease
department in what used to be referred to as “Woolco;” (a competitor of K-Mart,
and forerunner of Walmart.)
I remember doing “Blue Light Specials,”
and I’d been wanting to spice them up for some time. And so… a somewhat dumb
idea occurred to me. I dressed my little boy, Steve, in a clown outfit. Then,
brought wheelbarrows full of tennis shoes to the center floor, and dumped them
on a table display.
I can’t remember
whether we sold many or few, but it was great fun, and we created a memory
together.
Then again, there
was the time my family and I traveled from Gadsden, to a nearby town; in order
to fill in for a vacationing pastor. You see, I was both a shoe store manager and a minister. Things went quite well
‘til after the morning service ended, and we were ready to drive back home.
Suddenly, my three
year old daughter, Kimberly, picked up a small rock and put it up one nostril!
I remember our frustration. After some doing, we managed to get it out, her
nose no worse for wear.
Then there was the
ride back home. We were driving between two mountain ranges, one on each side
of the road, when our car ran out of gas; in the proverbial “middle of no where.” We had just passed a station, and I decided
to get out and “hoof it.”
To my dismay the
“Mom and Pop” station was closed. But I managed to raise the owner, who lived
on the property. Strangely, he didn’t want to sell me a gallon, even after I
explained our dilemma. Eventually, however, he relented, and we were able to
resume our journey home.
Then there was the
time I lived in Stafford County, Virginia. The snow had come down in droves
that day, and since we lived in a mobile home park, we found ourselves
irrevocably “snowed in.”
I debated what to
do. Neither the city or county called “Stafford” was heavily populated, and I
knew of no tires sales places within several miles. I had considered getting
snow tires, but had never “got around tuit.”
The only course available to me was, as in
the previous illustration, walking. And walk I did. Fredericksburg, the famous
Civil War village, was easily ten miles distance. Perhaps I could get snow
chains there.
I had walked about
three miles when a car pulled over, and gave me a lift. I still don’t remember
my return trip, (whether I walked, or hitched a ride.) But I do remember the
pride I felt, since I carried several more pounds back home with me. You
guessed it… Snow Chains.
But as I tromped into my little
neighborhood, I realized that there was no longer a need for the chains. The
snow had melted away, leaving plenty of hard, black asphalt beneath it.
I had walked in
the snow and cold all day, only to realize how pointless my efforts had been.
And the chains didn’t fit my tires,
anyway. Talk about frustration.
Time would fail me
to tell about the “dead body” covered in neoprene, lying next to the bay; a bum
that turned out to be very much alive. The day I saw my wife, after six weeks
of boot camp, and several weeks of technical school. She was pregnant with my
first born, and wearing a red, white and
blue blouse. (Funny, as I write this,
I’m only now making the connection.)
And the evangelist that kicked his leg in the air as he
spoke, and who left me with my favorite phrase, “Stay Encouraged.”
Though the Past remains the past, and
there’s no going back, (though many of us yearn for a second chance,) we are
left with poignant memories; that only fade with advancing age.
There is a
memorable scene, at the end of the movie, “A River Runs Through it” that
depicts an old man fly-fishing in a Montana river. As he whips the rod, to and
fro, he reflects on a good life gone by. He considers a hundred visits to the
same river, with a father and brother, long since dead. He reflects on the
words of his father; of rocks and water and “the words under the rocks.” For as
his father once told him, “the words are the words of God” and “if you listen
very carefully, you might hear them.”
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