The Value of a Tombstone

Two weeks before my grandmother Ada Cloyd was nine (9) years old she lost her mother to tuberculosis (TB). Grandma did not talk much and if you wanted information you had to pry it out of her. I asked her once what she remembered about her childhood and she said she remembered that when her mother died she and her two older sisters, ages 13 and 11, and her younger brother, age 7 were all sitting on the bed around her father as he told them what had happened. She said that all of them were crying. That may have been my grandmother’s only lasting memory of her parents because two weeks later her father was found dead under a tree where he had been plowing with his mules. He was buried on my grandmother’s 9^th birthday, May 27, 1916. Uncle Vince and Aunt Lucy and their daughter, who lived just down the road on the neighboring farm, moved into their house and provided the care and guidance needed until she and her siblings were grown. I am sure there were lots of stresses and struggles with that arrangement but my grandmother always held Uncle Vince and Aunt Lucy in high regards.

Her parents were buried in the family plot in a country cemetery. I have visited that cemetery a few times and have observed that many of the older graves are simply marked with sandstone rocks without name or words of eulogy or notations of the deceased date of birth and death. Such was the case with my great-grandparents when they were buried there in 1916. Poor people have poor ways. There were more critical things to spend money on than a properly cut and inscribed stone. It was left to family and friends to remember where their loved ones were buried. It was the responsibility of the older generations to pass this information and the accompanying stories along. Though my grandmother had a limited experience with her parents, preserving their legacy and memory was important to her. Those barren sandstone grave markers were not sufficient to honor their lives. When she became an adult, perhaps twenty or more years after her parents death she purchased out of her own funds granite tombstones that have now for decades marked the resting place of Noah and Izabel Gill. I was born 41 years after the deaths of my great-grandparents. But I know their story because someone told me. I can find their graves because someone respected them enough to buy a tombstone. It is right to honor our dead. It is good to preserve our memories. It is healthy to recall who we are even if when we do not know the ancestors in our lineage that made us who we are.  Remembering our loved ones who have gone on demonstrates our love and gratitude and regard for them. Taking the time and effort to do so adds value and dignity to our own human story.

My Mother's Eulogy

Lois Cloyd

1934-2016

 

Intro. When I was a boy my Mama would make fudge. I would watch and as she poured the hot fudge from the kettle into the dish.  I would say “I get to lick the spoon”. Trouble was there was usually a brother or sister around who also wanted to lick the spoon. But that was not a real problem. Mother would just get a second spoon and give each of us a spoon of the remains from the kettle. In licking that spoon we got a foretaste of the fudge that we would get to eat after it set up. 

I have spent my life walking in the midst of the reality of things on earth and the foretaste of the glory divine that is to come. I grew up in church. Mother took me to church as a two week old babe in arms. I grew up singing gospel songs. I went to Sunday School. I heard about salvation. I heard about heaven and I knew you had to be saved to get heaven. I heard the Bible truths about what was right and what was wrong and how that we were supposed to live in the way that was right. I grew up hearing about missions and prayer and stewardship. I was told that I needed to listen to God and be obedient to whatever call God placed upon my life. I knew all of that because that is what my Mama and Daddy taught me.
 

I knew that whatever a person had here on earth was temporary. And whatever was laid up for us in heaven was permanent. My Mama believed that and indeed that is what the Bible teaches.

 

“For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a house not made with hands, an eternal dwelling in the heavens” II Cor. 5:1

 

So while I have lived my life trying to accomplish and experience a lot of things here on earth and trying to get my share of earthly possessions, I have done so with the acknowledgement that none of those things would last forever. That might be a discouraging thought were it not for the foretaste I have been given of things above.

That is the way my Mama lived. That is the way my Mama taught me to live.

My Mother was an ambitious soul. She worked hard to fulfill the ambitions of her soul.
  

Mother did not grow up with much. She did not have wealth or stature or a wide experience of places and things. But she wanted those things and she worked hard to acquire them.

She desired an education. With a stroke of providence she got the opportunity. After high school she was working as a waitress at the little restaurant in the corner of a drug store in London. As the fall was approaching a school principle came into the store and told my mother that another student was getting married and was going to forfeit her scholarship to Sue Bennett College and asked mother if she wanted it. Two years later she graduated and took a teaching job in a one room country school with 52 kids in 8 grades.

The job did not pay much but it was more than she had ever made and with a little money in the bank she started buying things. She was still living with my grandparents so she bought them a new sofa. They had never had a phone. She had one put in. When Christmas came she proudly bought a present for every member of the family right down to the youngest niece and nephew.
 

She liked teaching but she wanted a family. Then she met my dad. Mother said the first time she ever met Dad he was driving by on a Farmall H tractor. She said he waved at her. One day he drove by on the tractor, saw her, stopped, turned the tractor off, and right there, sitting on the tractor seat asked her for a date. That is the way my Mama tells the story. If truth be known she flagged him down.

Dad always said mother amended the details of that story. But however much the details of that story may have been amended the fact is that 5 months later they were married. By the time they had been married 5 years and 2 months four children had been born. And mother had what she wanted. Throughout all of her life what she was more proud of than anything else on earth were her four children.

As bad as the Alzheimer’s eventually decimated her mind and body there was something in her soul that fought hard to hold on to a remnant of that pride. About three weeks after dad died I drove to Blacksburg to see her. I found her that day in a state of chatter. I spoke to her and though I knew I would not be successful I tried to interact with her. But she stared blankly ahead oblivious to my presence and chattered away.


So I sat down beside her and for about an hour I just listened. Most of what she said made no sense but every now and then she would string 6 or 8 words together in a sentence. As I listened it occurred to me that there was something like a reel to reel tape playing her mind of events that occurred 50 plus years ago. In her demented state she was interacting with those events. I listened closely and discovered that I was on the reel to reel tape that she was interacting with. She would say “You know I have these two kids”. I would have been one of those two kids and that would have dated the event around 54 or 55 years ago. Once a brief smile came across her face as she said to one of those kids “Look at you, you are so cute” (I am quite certain she was probably referring to me). I realized something about my mother that day that I guess I already knew – The melody of her life was her children. That day she gave me a gift of listening as she recited the melody. Alzheimer’s had robbed her mind of the verses her life had written, but she was maintaining a feeble grasp on the melody.

Yes, mother was an ambitious soul. She wanted to have something. She wanted to be somebody. She wanted to contribute something to the world. She wanted to be known for the contribution she made. Mother never wanted to be just ordinary. She did not want her children to settle for the ordinary. She determined to inspire us to live beyond the ordinary.
 

 Mother wanted to be a teacher. But four children in four years had interrupted that dream. But at the age of 32 she enrolled in classes at the University of KY to complete her teaching degree. This meant she had to drive from Georgetown to Lexington each day to attend class. So Dad bought mother an old brown two-tone Plymouth. It was a big tank of a car. It had a rectangular steering wheel and push button gear shift. Every Sunday he would put a few bucks worth of gas in it and mother would drive it to class. Every day she would pack her lunch and put a dime in her pocket and when classes were over for the day she would take that dime and buy herself a coke as a reward for the days’ work. Two years later she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of KY.

Mother recognized a teachable moment and was not about to waste it. She never wanted us to miss school for anything. But that day she was not going to allow school to get in the way of our education. She took us out of school dressed us up in our best Sunday - go to meeting clothes. I had on a white sport coat and a black tie. All that was missing was a pink carnation. Dad took all four us, 5^th grade, 4^th grade, 3^rd grade, and 1^st grade to mother’s graduation in memorial coliseum. We sat high up in the balcony through a long graduation and watched my mother receive her degree. I never saw my dad more proud or more patient than he was that day. My mother and Dad had both paid a heavy price for that accomplishment. Afterwards we stood in the parking lot and mother still wearing her cap and gown gathered her four children around her and Dad took the Brownie Hawkeye camera and took a picture.

My Mama knew exactly what she was doing that day. She was using that moment to inspire her children to be more than ordinary. She was inspiring us to be somebody and to make a contribution to the world.


Mother always told us to get an education. She said that was something that no one could take away from us. She was wrong about that. Alzheimer’s can take away your education. Education is just as temporary as anything else on this earth. The best we can do is leave a legacy and build a foundation that others can build upon. I think my mother determined was through the children that she bore and reared and the students who were entrusted to her.


Mother lived in a lot of houses. Her home was important to her. Some of the houses she lived in were pretty simple but she was proud of them. The first house I remember living in was the Helvetia School house on Chaney Ridge Road in Laurel County KY. Dad and mother bought the old School house and converted it into a home. They got the first floor finished and ran out of money. Later dad finished two rooms upstairs. But they never did get enough money to remodel the outside. Mother was proud of that house but always felt like she had to apologize about the outside of it. She would say: “The outside does not look to good but “It is fixed up nice inside”.

We moved to Georgetown and left that house and some of our belongings in it and about a year later it burned down to the ground. And mother locked herself in the bedroom and cried. One of her dreams was destroyed that day. But there would be other houses. Some were fixer uppers and some were modern and the last one was new. When she moved from that place she left against her will. She did not want to go and she made sure we knew of her displeasure. I don’t blame her for being upset. I didn’t like it either. But the Alzheimer’s was already doing its dirty work in her mind and she needed help. She went to another house but she was never was at home again.
 

 The Apostle gives us a picture that you and I are far too familiar with. He says “Indeed we groan in this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven, since we are clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. (II Cor. 5:2-4 – HCSB)

 I have watched my mother do a lot of groaning as everything she worked to acquire here on this earth was slowly taken away. Her houses gone. Her education vanished. Her dignity and glory vaporized. Her body reduced to a shell.
 

 If that is all there is then life is a cruel joke.
 

 But my Mama lived in this world but in faith she longed for the world beyond. She dwelt here. But she lived for God. Her hope was in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the Spirit of God had given her a foretaste of glory divine in the world to come.

Everything on this earth is temporary and everything in heaven is permanent. Paul said “For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a house not made with hands, an eternal dwelling in the heavens” II Cor. 5:1

I am a little sad today. But forgive me if my tears are few. Because seeing what I have seen and knowing what I know I don’t want to cry but I want to shout “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, what a savior”.

 If mother were here she would try to help us put this day in perspective. And I know just how she would do it. She would write us a poem. But since she cannot write a poem I decided to write one for her. I tried to wrap my mind around her life. I tried to understand who she was and who she became and who she is now. I loaned her my mind and my pen. Here is the perspective that I think she might convey to us today.

 

 

            I Can Remember

         By C. Brent Cloyd

 

Once I could recall every birthday

To places I had been I knew the way

From memory I could sing gospel songs

I knew each verse, not a word would be wrong

 

I taught children to say the alphabet

A basic in life they must not forget

I helped them learn to add and to subtract

To multiply, divide, and be exact

 

I could organize a holiday meal

Entertain family and friends with zeal

Clean house, set the table, and decorate

Cook all the fixins and never be late

 

But then I would forget and be confused

From activities I myself excused

Alzheimer’s stole my dignity and glory

My life began a different story

 

My soul filled with pain, denial, and tears

As the disease tarnished my golden years

My heart beat but I could not remember

Nothing was left but a dying ember

 

You visited me but I never knew

My moments of understanding were few

The world became small, I rarely cracked a smile

Lonely, I lingered, through this earthly trial

 

Then God’s angel came in death and in love

We made the trip to the promised place above

I met Jesus, I worshipped and adored

He gave me a house I could not afford

 

I’ve met the neighbors, I know them by name

Seen old friends, now some new ones I can claim

I’ve not been here long but it feels like home

I know where I am, not afraid to roam

 

So don’t cry for me, but laugh and rejoice

I am singing hymns with new mind and voice

Of the heavenly choir I’m a member

And every song I can remember

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sifting Through the Shavings

My Uncle Raymond McWhorter lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five. Actually he was my great-uncle being married to my grandfather’s younger sister Ann. Together Raymond and Ann raised five children, all of whom went on to live successful, productive, and honest lives. Uncle Raymond did a lot of things in his life. He was deputy sheriff for a while and made an unsuccessful bid to become sheriff. He drove a school bus and ran a gas station for brief periods of time. Mostly he was a farmer and he always had a truck that enabled him to pick up a few extra dollars hauling for neighbors and others who did not have a truck. Uncle Raymond lived slow and easy never getting overly excited about much. That is probably what made him a good trader and such a good at handling cattle (and maybe what helped him to live so long). When I knew Uncle Raymond he would go to the stockyards two or three times a week. I guess he practiced what we called “pinhooking”. Meaning that he would go to the sale barn, buy a animal or two from those bringing cattle to market, in the hopes of reselling them at a small profit perhaps even that same day. Or maybe he just went to the stock yards because it was a good place to loaf and catch up on the news. I knew Uncle Raymond as a kind and gracious man who was always willing to help a family member or neighbor. He took an interest in people, even if you were a great nephew who was just a boy. Now Uncle Raymond had his vices. He smoked a lot of Lucky Strikes. He was known to have sampled his share of Kentucky Whiskey (though I have to say I never detected any evidence of that). For leisure he loved to fox hunt and would stay out all night with his dogs and buddies enjoying the sport. Sometimes he would have to spend the daylight hours rounding up his dogs. He would sooner sleep in a lawn chair in the yard, day or night, than he would sleep in the house. But if that is the most harmful thing you can say about a person you really don’t have much to say. That is particularly so when these habits are accompanied with a persona of kindness and charm.

Uncle Raymond was not a churchman. But that changed one Sunday afternoon when he was in his mid 60’s. Upon testimony and encouragement given by a family member he gave his heart to the Lord and that very day was baptized into Christ and joined the fellowship of the Mt. Carmel Christian Church. To the surprise of a lot of folks he became a faithful worshipper of the Lord Jesus. As Aunt Ann aged she developed Alzheimer’s. When this occurred Uncle Raymond blossomed into a gentle and compassionate caregiver. For two years he barely left her side tending to her every need. When it finally became necessary to transition her to a nursing home he still made the trip every day to see her.

After Aunt Ann passed away Uncle Raymond re-married. Stories get a little twisted sometimes but here is the way I heard it: One of Uncle Raymond’s old fox hunting buddies had died. Uncle Raymond called his widow one day and said “I am looking for a wife.  Do you want to get married”? She said “I don’t know I’ll have to think about it”. Two hours later he calls her back and said “Well did you think about it”. The details are probably a little different than that but he and Mary did get married and enjoyed several years together before she passed away. Sometime before she passed he had also buried one of his sons.

I stopped to visit Uncle Raymond one day not to long after Mary had died. His eyesight was failing him. But I found him sitting under a shade tree whittling. He did a lot of that because there were enough shavings under that tree to fill a garbage bag. I enjoyed visiting with him. I asked him a few questions and then waited and listened to his careful drawn out responses. It took time to listen to Uncle Raymond. He was not going to give you much quick. He was not going to give you any information he did not want to tell you. That is the way he always was and that part of him had not changed with age. He said something to me that day that I have reflected upon quite a bit. He said “I don’t know why I whittle, I don’t make anything. I just whittle. It is just something to do”.  I guess if you live to be ninety-five and all your friends are dead and gone, you have buried two wives and one son, and your eyesight has failed and you are not able to do much and you are limited in where you can go, finding a shade tree and whittling is an ok thing to do. But I think he did make something. He made shavings. And as he whittled he looked down into those shavings and remembered and relived and reflected on his life. Each shaving he whittled from those sticks of wood was part of his life story. In that pile of shavings were his memories of joys and sorrows, people and places, events and ideas. In that pile of shavings were his thoughts of who he was and who he had become and who he would become in that glorious place he would go when his life on earth was over. Uncle Raymond kept most of his thoughts close to his vest. But if I had the opportunity to sift through that pile of shavings I think I might have his whole story.

Forty Year Reunion

In the spring of 1975 I graduated from Scott County High School in Georgetown, KY. That was 40 years ago. They held a big reunion this past week end but I did not go. I have not been to any other of my reunions either so I am certain my absence was not a surprise to anyone. With the exception of one person I have not really kept any contacts with my high school friends. It has been much too long to make any real connectivity now. Besides I work every weekend and I live a lon...g way away. So the time and expense would be much too great for a rendezvous with people I barely know. Besides I am not that good at parties. I had lots of good excuses. So I ignored the invitations and pleas to come to the reunion and decided to let high school remain a distant experience from the past. In recent years however I have re-connected with a few of my classmates via facebook and somehow I got added to a group called Scott County High School Class 1975. The morning after the reunion people started posting pictures and I got curious. I did not recognize some of them. Of the ones I did recognize I was a bit relieved to discover that I had survived the 40 years as well as most of them had. There were 152 of us in that graduating class. I was saddened to discover that 16 of those have died. Surely in this age of modern medicine that is way too many. I mean I am only 58. That is not old is it?

That got me to thinking about the brevity of life. Indeed I have way more years behind me than I can expect to have in front of me. When this life is over there will be a glad reunion in heaven and I plan to attend that one. Indeed God has put eternity in the hearts of mankind. But since life is brief I want to live well and do something of significance while I am here. The British missionary C. T. Studd wrote a famous oft quoted two line poem: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last”.

Laid Out in a Straight Row

Brock and I just got back from a walk in the cemetery. I noted that the graves were all lined up in a straight row. Maybe that is why the heart monitor shows a straight line when a heart stops beating. It occurs to me that I am destined to lain out, flat and still, in a straight row. That is death. Some people suggest we live that way. And some folks do. But since I will have forever to lay flat and still in a straight row I prefer to live with a few zigs and zags and curves and swirls. I choose to do a few things contrary to the norm and explore things out of the ordinary. I want to take a few risks and sometimes just land wherever the wind takes me. I might die sideways or upside down. But so what? There will be someone there to pick me up and lay me out in a straight row.

A Thousand and Three Boxes of Girlscout Cookies

While driving down Main Street today I saw two girls standing in the cold and snow flurries dressed up as cookies. One was a Thin Mint and the other was a Samoa. I am a sucker for this scene. Not because I cannot live without the cookies. But because I appreciate the work of the Girl Scouts, like to support their work, and contribute to their entrepreneurial education. The look of satisfaction on the face of a Girl Scout when she makes a sale is worth the $4 price of the cookies. So today I drove around the block, stopped, chatted with the Girl Scouts, and bought 4 boxes. 

I have a soft spot for the Girl Scouts because of my experience with my daughter when she was a Girl Scout. She was the cookie seller and I was her sales manager. Honestly, I think I enjoyed the experience more than she did. I like selling things and I was determined I was going to make a salesperson out of her. I also had a rule that I was not going to sale them for her but that she had to make the contacts and take the orders. So on the first day of cookie sales we would hit the streets together and with my encouragement she would ring the door bell and when people came to the door she would ask “would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies”?  Some would buy and she would be happy. Some would say no and sometimes she would get multiple “no’s” in a row and would get a little discouraged. I tried to help her understand that often in life the answer was no and that a negative answer just gives you the opportunity to move on to the next door. We learned to take orders in places of business and that the orders were often larger there. She took her order sheet to church and found lots of friendly buyers there. We learned that repeat business was best and having secured phone numbers from the previous year’s sales sheet she was able to take a lot of orders by phone. Over the years she took special interest in some of her customers. Like the widower who lived a few blocks from us, had a house full of cats and always had to show her the weaving work he was doing with rugs. He would buy several boxes but the sale was never quick. You had to give him 15-20 minutes of your life. But he needed that and we were enriched by the experience. We thought she had sold a lot of cookies one year when she sold 737 boxes. But the next year she sold 1003 boxes. To put this in perspective, if you take the back two rows of seats out of a mini-van and fill it with 1003 boxes of cookies you have just enough room for the driver and the Girl Scout. Of course then you have to deliver all those cookies and collect the money. But when it was over she had helped her troop earn some money and she earned for herself some “cookie dough” to pay a large part of her way to summer Girl Scout Camp. Perhaps my daughter would say I was a tough sales manager. But for me it was a treasured experience that I got to share with her. And if I see Girl Scouts selling cookies I am going to buy some.

 

November 22, 1963

I was six years old. I was in my first grade class room in the basement of the East Bernstadt School in East Bernstadt, KY. My teacher, Mrs. Wilma Griffith got our attention and told us the news. President John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed. I do not remember much about how the class responded. Nor am I able to get in touch with the thoughts I myself would have had. I just knew that a bad thing had happened. I knew that my folks had not voted for Mr. Kennedy, though I think at least my mother would have liked to. But we were Baptist and in 1960 voting for a Catholic was a gulf that many, maybe most, Baptist could not span. Knowing what I know about the electoral preference of our county the president certainly would not have won the majority among the folks I lived around. Yet even as a six year old I sensed that people liked the president. At least they were intrigued with him. There was something fascinating about a young president with a winning smile and impressive family. It was a beautiful picture. Though people did not understand his background or his faith they enjoyed the glamour that accompanied him. Now he was gone. In one day he was gone, just gone.

This was before the days of the 24 hour news cycle but it would not have mattered anyway. We did not have a television. We got our news from the radio and the telephone and who ever might drop by to talk with us. Everybody was talking about it. The news sank in.

School was dismissed the day of the president’s funeral. My mother out of her own curiosity and probably because she wanted her children to have the educational experience made arrangements for us to watch the funeral. Our pastor, Rev. E. P. Whitt had a television. Pastor Whitt and his wife Sylvia lived in a house trailer in the back yard of the New Salem Baptist Church. Mother piled all four of us in the car and took us to pastor Whitt’s home. There sitting on the floor in the living room of a house trailer parked in the back yard of the New Salem Baptist Church we watched the proceedings of President Kennedy’s funeral. Now isn’t that something. A group of Baptist huddled around a television on church property watching a Catholic president’s funeral. Maybe that great gulf between Baptists and Catholics could be spanned.

He Showed Me His Life

Last week when traveling to North Carolina I made a stop in Laurel County KY and visited with my Aunt Wilma. Together we took a drive and went to see my father’s first cousin Roy Links. Roy is 82 years old. With the exception of his time in the army during the Korean Conflict he has lived within 3 miles of where he was born. Throughout all these years he has made his living as a farmer raising tobacco and cattle. He stopped raising tobacco 20 years ago. But he still raises full-blooded Charolais cattle. He began developing this herd 50 years ago and at the age of 82 he is still proudly raising and marketing this breed. Roy’s health is failing. He suffers with Parkinson’s disease. He has good days and bad days. He gets tired easily and has to rest often. But with the assistance of his wife Imogene and a hired hand he keeps the farm operation going. When you visit with him the conversation revolves around farming. One gets the feeling that the farm is what keeps him going. Some folks, perhaps most folks, would have quit long ago. But quitting or retiring does not interest Roy. Farming is what he knows. It is what he wants to do. I understand those sentiments. I left the farm long ago but my heart wanders there often.

About an hour into our three hour visit Roy and I took a ride. We got in his pickup and he gave me a tour. When he was a young man he began buying farms when they became available. Over the years he has bought 5 or 6 small tracts of ground and has had rental arrangements on other parcels. He took me to all those places. He talked about when he got them and even how much he gave for some of them. He has built numerous barns and other buildings on these properties. Many of these structures have been built from timber cut from his land. He has taken advantage of soil conservation practices and has improved the fertility of the land. He has been a good farmer. He has taken pride in what he has done. Yet one cannot help but notice a tinge of sorrow that age and health now prohibit him from doing all he would like to do. As we are driving from place to place it occurs to me that in reality Roy is showing me his life. It has been a life of hard work. It has been an honest and productive life. It has been a life of accomplishment and satisfaction. It has been a simple life. But it has been a good life.

I am grateful for the time I spent with Roy. It was a worthwhile journey that revealed an interesting story. As I reflected upon our time together I sensed a longing in my heart. For in a different time with a different set of circumstances with different decisions my life might have told a similar story. One only goes through life once so I think I will forego regret. Instead I will treasure the memory of an afternoon when one man took the time to tell me and show me the story of his life.

A Story Snaps the Picture

One of the most wondrous benefits of a story is that hearing a story might bring from our mind and soul a story of our own. Yesterday I shared a story about the now disconnected phone numbers that had belonged to my parents. Hearing that story my Uncle George, my mother’s younger brother, remembered a story about my mother.

My mother at age 20 had just graduated from junior college and obtained a job as a one room country school teacher. She was still living at home and wanted to use part of her new income to help the family. So she had a phone line put in. It was the first phone the family ever had. George recalls that the phone # was 865-W. To make a call you simply picked up the receiver and a real live operator would make the desired connection for you. It seems that mother also bought new living room furniture for her mom that year and at Christmas time bought a present for every member of the family right down to the tiniest niece and nephew. That was not a small feat since my mother had 10 siblings most of whom would have been married with children by that time. Uncle George remembers helping my mother wrap the gifts at the kitchen table and recalls how proud she was of herself and how happy she was to be able to do that. That would have been perfectly in character for my mother but I had never heard the story before. I am so glad my uncle shared that story because it gave me a slice of my mother’s life I would not have had otherwise. It enabled me to see my mother through a different lens. I saw a picture of her as a young single 20 year old three years before I was born. I can see her smiling face amidst a mound of Christmas presents on the kitchen table. That is a beautiful picture. A camera could not catch that picture but the story did.

An Outdated Friend

I said goodbye to an old friend today. For over three years this friend has been securely by my side, snuggled in the left pocket of my pants. Before this friend there were others like her, simple and dependable, yet able to connect me to friends, family, and even a few foes at a moments notice. All I had to do was get this friend out of my pocket, flip open her cover, press a few buttons, and miraculously I could talk to people who were far away as if they were standing right beside me. This friend never had a name, so I will just call her what she was. Flip phone. Her color was black but the years of riding against the cotton, and wool and polyester of my pant pockets and constantly being dinged by coins and keys and soiled with dirt and sweat had left her partially white or at least a dingy gray. She no longer held a charge very well, her contract was long ago up, and my continued association with her was causing others to think me ancient and out of touch. So today I traded her in. Yep, I got all of a $5.00 credit on my next bill. I embraced the future and left the Verizon store with a new I Phone. I am not to sure about my new friend just yet. I guess we will eventually get along ok but right now I am still trying to figure out how to flip her open so I can get to the key pad.

Just for the Experience of It

There are some things one simply has to do for the experience of it. Tonight, my wife Jeanette, my son Brock, and I went to eat supper at the Hard Times Fish Market in Grayville, Illinois. We did it just for the quirky experience of it. The Hard Times Fish Market is an open air seasonal fish restaurant located on the banks on the Wabash River. The hours are limited to Thursday lunch from 10:00 until 1:00 and Friday supper from 4:00 until 8:00. The atmosphere is rustic. We sat in simple chairs. A 2” x 12” board that surrounded the cooking operation served as our table. The menu was simple. Three kinds of fish all caught from the Wabash River, locally grown fried green tomatoes and fried yellow squash, baked beans, slaw, hush puppies and for desert deep fried doughnuts. It is all the same price so eat all you want and drink all the tea and soda you like. The Hard Times Fish Market has been owned and operated by John and Sue Farmer for the last 21 years. John catches the fish from the Wabash River, Sue helps him clean them, and on Thursday’s and Friday’s John cooks and Sue oversees the service and takes your money. John and Sue appear content and seem to enjoy their lives. As Sue says “we are not going to get rich but we will make it through the territory”. If you tend to stress out about your cholesterol you probably will not enjoy it. But if you like fish then I recommend that you bring your appetite and your wallet and enjoy the experience.

Lessons from My Father's Wallet

A month before completing first grade I watched my father leave for work. He was dressed differently this morning. Usually he donned his starched khakis and went to his job grinding feed at the Southern States Farmers Cooperative. This morning he wore a business suit and was beginning a new career as an insurance agent for the American Life and Accident Company. This new job would require that we re-locate. When my first grade school year was over we distanced ourselves 100 miles from family and friends and all that was familiar and began an adventure in a new place.

 

My father began his career in the insurance business as “debit” insurance agent. This meant that he went to the homes and businesses of his policyholders and collected the premiums on a monthly and even weekly basis. His clients were ordinary people whose resources were precious to them. His travels would take him back a dirt lane to the home of a sharecropper or down the manicured lane of a horse farm to visit the home of a day laborer. His route would take him to simple homes and apartments and to shacks in the poorer sections of town. He might call on some folks at a garage or a restaurant where they worked. His hours were often long and late. Many times my mother would warm his supper up after my siblings and I had already gone to bed. Sometimes I would get out of bed and was allowed to sit down at the table with him for a few minutes.

 

My father always carried two wallets; his own, and a larger one in which he secured company funds. A debit insurance agent will handle a few checks and a lot of cash in small denomination bills. Not long after he began this occupation my father contracted Billy Lamb to custom make a wallet for this purpose.  Billy had a large family of six children. To support them he worked as a maintenance man. He also owned and operated a shoe repair shop on South Broadway. In the after hours until 9:00 every night you could find him in the shoe shop. My Dad told Billy what he needed and Billy cut out the leather and sewed it together to my Dad’s specifications. It was a simple long double fold wallet with a compartment for checks and a compartment for bills and a little pocket to put business cards in. My Dad carried that wallet in his business until the wallet became so worn it could no longer be used.

 

A few years ago my Dad and mother were downsizing and preparing to move to Virginia. My wife was helping them sort and pack.  Dad pulled the old wallet out of a drawer and told her the story behind it and then proceeded to throw it away. With vehemence my wife stopped him, retrieved the wallet, and it is in our possession today as a precious piece of memorabilia. I treasure this worn out wallet because it tells my father’s story. It is a voice that speaks of his character and highlights his values.

 

The wallet is made of genuine cowhide. Even the stitching is leather. It occurs to me that my father is a genuine man. He never put on any airs. He never tries to be someone that he isn’t. He is comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He is just Larry Cloyd. He was blessed with a lot of raw intelligence, a massive amount of common sense, and was street smart to the world around him. He used those skills in a simple and genuine way to ply his trade and to care for those entrusted to him.

 

This wallet also reminds me that my father is a man of integrity. If you are a debit insurance agent handling other people’s money it is important that you can be trusted. First, your policyholders have to trust you. They need to believe that you are honest and not twisting the truth concerning the coverage of their insurance policy. The amount of security contracted in the policy might be limited and the premiums might be small but it is significant to them. When you collect their premiums they trust you as their agent to make sure they are properly recorded. Moreover the insurance company trust you to account for the money in an honest fashion. My father began as an insurance agent in 1964. He would come home sometimes with $1,000 maybe $1,100 in that wallet. That may seem miniscule today but in the 1960’s that was a chunk of change. At night my father would lay the wallet on the dresser in his and mother’s bedroom. Otherwise it was in his hip pocket. Either way it was guarded with integrity.

 

My father’s wallet symbolizes the seriousness with which he approached his responsibilities. I am quite certain that in his wildest dreams my father never envisioned himself being an insurance agent, much less spending thirty-seven years in the business. Perhaps he would have found his current job or a similar one more enjoyable. I am sure it took courage to make such a radical change in employment. His new profession was not one of choice but one of necessity. He had a wife and four young children whose needs were growing and whom he had great hopes for. To provide for these needs and enable these hopes required that he accept the challenge and pursue a new opportunity. He had his doubters and surely there were doubts that arose in his own soul. But commitment to his responsibilities drove him to succeed.  

 

My father’s old worn out wallet is a testimony of stewardship. As an insurance agent my father worked on commissions. Thus in a very real sense our livelihood flowed through this wallet. My father and mother made a decent living. Our needs were met. We never went without. We had all that was necessary and a few extras besides. They made sure we experienced the things that would broaden our lives. They assisted each of us in acquiring an education. When it came time to retire they had enough and were able to enjoy a comfortable retirement. They never were rich, but then that never was their goal. I am sure my father could reflect upon several times in his life that he could have made better financial decisions. I am also quite certain that there is one financial decision that he has never regretted. My father was a churchman. As a young man, when he was still donning his starched khakis and going to his job grinding and hauling feed, he made a decision to tithe his income to his church. No matter how tough times were or how tight matters were my mother and father always gave 10% of their income to the Lord’s work through their church. That practice is not just of benefit to the church but it is of benefit to the giver. In doing this the giver comes to understand that the real owner of everything is God and that we are simply caretakers of what God has given us. My father knew the importance of money. He knew what money could do for you. He knew how the lack of it could harm you. But my father was not a servant to his money. Rather he had learned how to make money his servant.

 

I do not think I ever really understood my father until I got to see him up close in his business. After graduating from high school I got my insurance license and worked with him for a period of time. I took note of the jovial interaction he had with people. People liked my Dad. I watched as he exhibited genuine respect for people and treated them with dignity regardless of their status in life. I listened as he carefully asked questions and how with precise annunciation he explained the benefits and details of their insurance contract. I observed a man of integrity. I am so glad my wife retrieved that old worn out wallet because every time I see it I am reminded of a life well lived.

 

 

 

 

My 1971 Volkswagen Convertible

The year was 1976. I was 19 years old and had just completed my first year of college. I was driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88. It was a big old tank with a 455 engine. It got about 10 miles to the gallon. My dad had bought it used a few years before so that my mother would have transportation back and forth to work. They gave it to me and said I could finish wearing it out. In the winter time I had to take the breather off, stick a screw driver in the carburetor to hold the choke open in order to start it. By spring I had grown tired of it and began looking for a new set of wheels. I found what I wanted in an orange 1971 Volkswagen convertible. There were a lot of VW Beetles around but there were not many convertibles and I thought they looked stylish. I reasoned that I could increase my gas mileage 3 fold and be cool all at the same time.

I bought it from a sassy little beautician who was a friend of mine but who would not negotiate very much on the price. She would not budge below $1300. I am sure she could tell that I wanted it. So I wrote her a check and off I drove in my orange Volkswagen convertible. I now had a vehicle I wanted to show off. It was a fun car to drive. You did not want to lug it, so in order to drive it right you had to wind it all the way out before changing gears. Those cars had a distinctive purr to them so people who knew you could always tell when you were coming. The cars were noisy. A friend of mine described it this way: “When I ride with you I feel like I have the motor to my grandmother’s wringer washer in my hip pocket”. There was no comfort to be found in a Volkswagen Beetle. You felt everything on the road. I drove it 750 miles one day and believe me when the day was over I knew I had been on a journey.

I am not sure what really attracted me to the car. Maybe it was the fact that it was a convertible. I did utilize that facet of the car quite a bit, especially when I was in college. My friends and I were even known to put the top down on a winter day and drive around campus in it. The car was quite a novelty. It was sometimes a little temperamental and had to be tuned up often but by and large owning and driving it was an enjoyable experience.

I owned the car for seven years. I drove it the rest of the way through college. I drove it to Kansas City, MO when I went to seminary. During that time I made several 600 mile trips between Kansas City and Georgetown, KY. Many of those trips were made at night after I had already gone to class and driven a school bus for 4 hours that day. I drove it back and forth to the places I was preaching in my seminary churches. During the course of the seven years I put well over 100,000 miles on the car in addition to the 45-50,000 that was on it when I got it. As most any VW Beetle driver would tell you, over that much time and that many miles you are going to have to overhaul the engine which I did. I also overhauled the transmission and had a new cover put on the top. I took my wife out on our first date in that car. Even though she was not a lover of VW Beetles she agreed to marry me anyway. It might be worth noting that she now drives a 2010 VW Jetta and likes that just fine.

By 1983 I was growing tired of the car. I began to think about selling it. It was around that time that my wife and I drove it to Northern Missouri (yes Northern should be capitalized) where I was preaching during the last year of seminary. It was Memorial Day weekend and it was late, close to midnight. I am driving south on I-35 when the light comes on telling me the car is overheating. It is an air cooled engine and when the light comes on you need to stop soon. You cannot limp along to the next exit because by that time you will have generated enough heat to warp the aluminum heads and perhaps do some serious damage to the engine. I pull over and stop not knowing what I am going to do. I have a flash light so I open up the engine compartment at the back of the car and I inspect and discover the problem. The pulley which turns the only belt and of course turns the fan which cools the engine is loose.  My memory is not real clear here but as I recall the pulley is made in two pieces, slips over a shaft, and is held tight and together with a nut and washer. The threads have striped on the shaft and thus there is not enough tension to keep the pulley together and tight so that it can move the belt. I am thinking that if I had another nut, the original nut could serve as a lock nut and I might get it tight enough so that I can limp home. But I do not have another nut and the only tools I have with me are a screwdriver and an 8 inch adjustable wrench. It is two miles to the next exit and there is nothing there and I know that it is 20 miles to an exit that has a station but it is Sunday night on a holiday weekend. And how do I get there? These thoughts are racing through my mind when a van pulls over. They ask if they can help, we discuss the problem and they offer to give us a ride to the station and back. The folks in the van are a little bit strange and I am not sure I trust them. But we are stuck on the side of the road at midnight and we decide to take them up on the offer. They give us a ride to the station where a kid is working who knows very little about mechanics but does help me find a nut that might work. The folks give us a ride back and in the middle of the night and with the light of their headlights I put the old nut and the new nut on the shaft tighten them down with an 8 inch adjustable wrench and hope. I thank the good folks in the van and by their help and the grace of God make it home. I learned a valuable lesson that night that I have pondered for almost 30 years. I learned that there are a lot of strange people in the world. Most of them are probably good people who are willing to help. If we can learn to look past their strangeness they can be a blessing to our lives.

I took the car to a mechanic the next day who fixed the problem correctly. But I decided after that experience that it was time that the orange Volkswagen convertible and I part ways. Within a week or so I placed an ad in the paper – FOR SALE: 1971 Volkswagen convertible. I got a few calls and within a few days along came a guy who was buying his daughter her first car. I could tell in her eyes it was just what she wanted. We haggled a little bit on the price. He offered me $2,000 and I said OK. He pays me and his daughter drives off in the car proud and smiling. I watch her drive away and I think to myself I hope she enjoys that car as much as I have.

 

Thirty Years Ago

My wife and I have been married thirty years today. We were married at a little chapel in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, just one block away from the Kansas state line. Our wedding was simple with just our parents, siblings, niece and nephew, and three other friends attending. My wife’s pastor performed the ceremony. Our life together has been a busy and circuitous journey. We have lived in just two states but have had 10 different addresses. I have had seven different employers. We have three children and together with them have traveled in 42 states and Canada. We have been a lot of places, done a lot of things, met a lot of interesting people, encountered a few challenges and have found solutions to or resolve with most of them.

Thirty years in some ways seems like a long time. For one thing there have been a lot of changes over the past thirty years. Thirty years ago we were still using one of those big heavy typewriters (and a lot of whiteout). We had scarcely heard of the internet. Yet here I am today communicating to people and places in different parts of the world with a click of a mouse. Thirty years ago we would seek to eradicate any mouse that got in the house and now I have a mouse at my right hand a great deal of the time. On the other hand thirty years does not seem long at all. It is not so long ago that I cannot remember holding my wife’s hands, looking into her eyes, and saying my vows. I can still hear her voice as she said her vows to me. I guess if you had thirty years with the wrong woman it would be a long time. But I have been fortunate to have spent the last 30 years with the right woman and it does not seem all that long.

Thirty Years Ago

©2013 Brent Cloyd

Man and woman, pledging no more to be single

Bride and groom, excited that their lives would mingle.

Husband and wife, in love, with hopes and dreams aglow

We were married at the chapel, thirty years ago.

Off the Exit and Over the Hill

The Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway was opened in January 1963 and became a much needed conduit of transportation into the mountains of east Kentucky. I traveled this road west on my way back from Virginia earlier this week. I took a slight detour at exit 60 and traveled highway 191 north over the hill to the small unincorporated hamlet of Cannel City in Morgan County, KY. I have been there many times before but this is the first time in nearly 30 years. It has not changed much. Most things are recognizable though perhaps looking a little tired for the years. The village got its name from a type of coal extracted from the area known as “cannel coal” which contained highly volatile constituents that burned brightly and was used to produce light for homes and businesses. The market for that type of coal is long past and a once thriving village has become a small residential area. Yet if one looks around and will take the time to be inquisitive they can still explore some of the artifacts left from the town’s heyday, including an old bank vault that still stands in the local park. I made the stop in Cannel City in order to say hello to my cousin Donna and her husband Bill. Donna works at the post office which is where I found her. The Post Office sits in the middle of the parking lot of the old Cannel City School, a historic block building built by the WPA in 1936. The school building no longer serves as an edifice of learning, her students having been transported to a more modern facility. But the U.S. Post Office Cannel City, KY 41408 sits proudly and noticeably right in the middle of the parking lot. It is perhaps the smallest free standing post office I have ever seen. I would guess the structure to be about 10’ x 12’. It is painted grey and has a front porch adorned with benches where people can sit and chat. I sit on the porch and visit for a while with my cousin Donna and a few of the local folk who come to pick up their mail or to just drop by and catch up on the news. The flag of these United States of America blows in the November breeze above our heads.  It occurs to me that I am experiencing something small and something big at one and the same time.  I am in a small place talking with ordinary folks in rural Appalachia while sitting on the stoop of a building operated by the largest government in the world. This kind of scene is perhaps fading quickly from the nation’s landscape and I fear there is not much I can do to change that. But this week I got to be a part of a special moment. It was well worth the detour.