Archive for the ‘Parenting’ category

« Words from WW Blog home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Our Father

June 20, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    June 19, 2014

 

   (I’m doing a month-long writing test with WordPress.Com. Each day we are given a different assignment. Today’s was to open a book to page 29 and write a blog about the first words you see. In fact, we were to write it in letter form.)

 

Pops!

I know it’s weird, but Your name came up in my reading today. Who would have thought your name would be on page 29 of the novel Divergent!

Crazy!

Actually it was “our father” in the second paragraph that got me thinking about you. Since you celebrated your eighty-sixth birthday yesterday perhaps my eyes focused more on finding those words.

I thought I lot about you. The Omaha Steaks should arrive in a couple of days. Living in Colorado so far away from your place within a stone’s throw of the Ohio River makes me a little sad. I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you. Omaha Steaks are about as fitting a tribute as I can find.

Your hamburgers are still the best IN THE WORLD! I have not found any one who can contest that claim. It’s a family memory. My kids miss them just as much as I do.

My sister and brother will always remember special things about you when we say those words: Our father!

We will always remember your tendency to think before you spoke. It was as if you were sorting the words in your head like Scrabble letters, looking for the right combination that would be clear and wise.

Let’s be honest! Mom used up most of the words that were spoken in our household each day, but, Dad, when you spoke it was listened to. Not that we didn’t listen to Mom…just maybe a little less attentively.

That’s another thing that we will always remember about you, Dad! How you honored Mom, especially in the last few years of her life when she was uncomfortable, confused, and sometimes demanding. You sat by her bedside, fed her dinner, changed her when she soiled herself, and listened carefully to the mumbled words she would speak. Your love for 65 years was evident.

Continue to know that your children and grandchildren love you deeply. I wish I was sitting on the couch with you today watching the Reds on TV, talking about Kentucky basketball, and stories that have been told and retold.

We love you, Pops! Your the best!

Fed Ex me a hamburger, would you?

 

Your Son,

Bill Wolfe

Categories: children, love, marriage, Parenting, Story
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Growing Up Clean

June 16, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   June 16, 2014

 

                                    

 

There are some families who are well acquainted with dirt. It is welcomed into the house like the family dog, reclining wherever it pleases and shaking itself into a cloud of castoffs.

My family was different. Dirt, mud, and the other suspects were expected to stand at attention at the door and not advance from there. Our house was clean. The bald head of Mr. Clean was featured prominently in the closet, ready for action.

I wasn’t that into it! You might say that it was mandated to me to be clean. A bath at night, brushing my teeth, even cleaning my plate…those were like Biblical commandments. My underwear and socks always needed to be clean, also, because the threat of being in an accident and being found with dirty underwear was always a dreaded possibility. So every morning I had to make sure I put on a clean pair of Towncraft tighty-whities! My mom worked at Penney’s, so Towncraft was the only option for our family in those days.

My dad was clean…in a different way! Yes, his clothes were always neatly folded, but his cleanliness could be seen in tasks. When he sliced a tomato or an onion it was almost always a clean cut…a perfect slice ready to grace the top of one of his hamburgers. When he cleaned the grill it shone! The inside of the family car was always pristine. The lawnmower was seldom dusted with grass clippings, because Dad would keep it clean.

Mom was like an army sergeant inspecting the barracks. She would come in the living room right when the latest episode of Combat was at its tense climax and tell me that my room looked like a tornado had hit it. I was beg for a few minutes of “clean leave”, but would always be denied. Down the hallway I would run only to discover that the extent of the bedroom tornado damage was a bedspread slightly uneven in its slope down the side, and a closet door halfway open. To Mom “clean” was a state of utopia that could not be allowed even the hint of chaos.

My hair was clean…not from shampoo but rather from the barber. I was buzzed clean until I was in high school. Sometimes a few hairs in front were given amnesty, but the rest of my head resembled Mr. Clean.

When I look back on those days I realize that our family didn’t have much, but our house was always so spic and span we just thought our lack of clutter was because we were neat freaks.

Cleanliness was next to godliness, and our house was so clean we could touch godliness with a white glove!

Categories: children, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

An Empty Donut Box and Styrofoam Cups

June 15, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       June 14, 2014

 

                         

 

Most Saturday mornings I leave the house about 7:00 to lead a men’s Bible study group at church. Today was no different except…when I opened the garage door I discovered that I had been pranked.

It was a harmless prank, a trail of styrofoam cups leading up the driveway from the street and continuing all the way to the front door. Hansel and Gretel should have used styrofoam cups instead of bread crumbs. No chance of them being eaten.

On the first step by the front door the styrofoam cups ended right beside an empty donut box and milk carton.

I’m not sure what it all meant but it was creative. I never would have thought of pranking someone’s house with those three ingredients. In my day toilet paper was as creative and risky as we got.

My wife heard the “styrofoamers” about midnight and looked outside the window. They were hustling away and she was more tickled than upset. In fact, she left the cups and stuff for me to see the next morning. We’re pretty sure it was girls from my high school basketball team. The voices were suspiciously soprano-ed. I just wonder what happened to the donuts. You would think that they would have left one in the box, but no!

Over the years we’ve been pranked several times. One year some of our youth group “forked” our front yard. Plastic forks…about two hundred of them! Another year some of our youth “candy-caned” our yard. I was still finding candy canes four months later. A long, long time ago some of our youth group TP’ed our house and got caught in the act. They went ahead and came inside and we served them Pepsi’s. They left the unused rolls of TP for us to use.

About four years ago our youth group “sticky-noted” my office. They put sticky notes all over the place. I’m still finding them. I’ll get a book off one of my shelves, turn to page 121 and there will be a sticky note saying “Looking for something?”

I don’t mind the pranking, especially if we can use the pranking materials afterwards. Carol was cutting out the bottoms of the styrofoam cups to use for a Children’s Church craft tomorrow morning. We’re resourceful people!

What the pranksters don’t realize is that we have a secret resource. Our next door neighbor has surveillance cameras, one of which shows our front yard. I’ll be viewing film footage tomorrow…perhaps with a donut and glass of milk.

Say cheese!

Categories: Bible, children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Fruitcake

June 13, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       June 13, 2014

 

                                            

 

I don’t know which aunt brought it, but it was always there, sitting on the counter in the kitchen just waiting to be sliced into.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of fruitcake, but it was partially good. I didn’t much care for the candied cherries and pineapple pieces that invaded its goodness. The pecans and top side crusts were my favorite parts, but I had to take the good with the bad.

One time I pilfered the exposed inners of the circle of all the pecans I could see. My sin was discovered and atoned for by having to sit in a chair for almost a lifetime before I was paroled.

Fruitcake was always a part of our Christmas. I believed it was one of the Magi gifts brought to the Baby Jesus. I didn’t know what myrrh and frankincense were, so I figure one of them was a foreign name for fruitcake presented on a platter. That’s the only reason I could come up with that it only appeared at Christmas in our house.

It was also the only time during the year that I was allowed to have cake for breakfast, not much of a treat since the pieces of pineapple made my face twitch. A glass of milk and a piece of fruitcake got the day started.

When we weren’t able to go back to my family’s roots in eastern Kentucky at Christmas my mom would whip up a fruitcake at home. I knew when it was coming. The kitchen counter would be layered with the ingredients, all ready to fulfill their purpose. It also was the indication that Christmas wasn’t going to be held in a different state. We wouldn’t be traveling up river past Pomeroy and Gallipolis heading for the crossover into West Virginia and then Kentucky. An absence of pecan bags at home was a sure sign we were going to do some piling in the car.

Fruitcake was a symbol of the mixed blessings of Christmas. It was a gift, good and bad, like opening a box filled with Matchbox cars, and then the next opened gift containg socks and underwear. I never understood why underwear had to be wrapped up…kind of like why fruitcake had to have those pineapple pieces.

I would have been fine with a “fruit-less cake!”

Categories: children, Christmas, Community, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

Park Memories

June 13, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       June 12, 2014

 

        (Today’s writing assignment in WordPress.com’s “Writing 101” challenge for June was to write a post involving three people- a man, a woman, and an older woman knitting a sweater sitting on a park bench. The story was to offer three different perspectives of what was happening, beginning with the man and ending with the elderly lady. Tough task!)

 

He thought of things past, points of reference in a life that had taken several turns. As he walked with Sue along the park path they had journeyed several hundred times he remembered the conversation they had shared about Johnny.

“He’s no longer a boy, Sue. He’s a young man dressed up like a boy. It’s time to let him go, to let him be.” He felt her hand tighten on his in anxious disagreement. Ever since Johnny had received his high school diploma at the football stadium adjacent to the park he had become more and more determined to join the military forces. Bob understood. He had wrestled with the same decision when he turned eighteen almost three decades ago.

They walked in silence. Most of their walks these past two years had been in silence.  He often got lost in his thoughts as he viewed the white rocked cliffs to his right, thinking about when their son left home for basic training. His face was still not much of a threat to the electric shaver he had received for a graduation present, but he saluted his father as he departed that day.

Sue unconsciously clamped  down hard on Bob’s hand as they walked. She saw an elderly lady up ahead knitting something red. Red was the color of their son’s hair, but it also the color of his blood that spilled out at a roadside bombing in Afghanistan. She knew that when Bob saw the red garment he would breakdown emotionally. It was still so painful. She didn’t fault him for encouraging their son’s decision for military service, but she knew he blamed himself. No words could lessen the pain…so they walked in silence…grieved and bereaved…empty shells whose lives would never be the same.

Mrs. Jones didn’t know this as she knitted. The sweater was for her great grandson who was yet to be born, still tucked away in his mother’s womb. Her grandson was coming home on leave in a month, just about the time that the baby was due to be born. She wanted to make sure it was ready. Her grandson was her hero, fighting in harm’s way for his country’s freedom.

She noticed the couple drawing close. They looked like the walking dead, and then she noticed tears running down the cheeks of the man’s face, and she knew they had lost someone dear. The woman gave her a nod that seemed to carry a blessing with it. It was as if the passing lady who looked so sad was wishing only good things for Mrs. Jones.

Categories: Community, Death, Freedom, love, marriage, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Watching Pre-Schoolers

June 11, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                  June 11, 2014

 

        (Today’s writing assignment was to watch something, or a group of people, and write about what you saw. The twist was to attempt to write it without using adverbs.)

 

They come with sagging diapers, perplexed facial expressions, and short attention spans.

This morning I was watching a group of pre-schoolers at our Vacation Bible School be dazzled by the play parachute. The wonder on little faces, the squeals of delight. One two year old screamed through a wide smile. His happiness was erupting like a volcano.

A three year old girl scooted away from the little boy who was standing too close to her. She examined her sparkled shoes to make sure they were still attached to her feet, and then she allowed herself to laugh.

The woman in the middle used all of her faculties to keep the attention of the distracted. Her voice became gentle and then excited. It worked…for most of them.

One little boy who had just turned two became a balloon whose air was spitting out. in the midst of an instruction off he went. One of the leaders would corral him for a moment longer.

Pre-schoolers are sometimes like chickens with their heads cut off, colliding with one another…trains unable to yield.

And then I saw the faces of a couple of pre-school moms who were there watching. They were even more delighted than their offspring, seeing the gifts that God had blessed their lives with, the cherub faces of children who are lost in the moment.

Categories: children, Faith, Freedom, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Dressing Up A Pastor as a Princess or Yoda

June 10, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                        June 10, 2014

 

                           

 

It’s Vacation Bible School week at the church I pastor, an experience in contained hyperactivity. Somehow I got roped into being the focus of the kids bringing their coins and dollars bills to support the mission cause of the week- buying chickens for farmers for the southeast African country of Burundi. The Evangelical Free Baptist Church of Burundi is coordinating this project to help raise people out of poverty.

It’s a great cause, seeking to give farmers a starting point in establishing an ongoing more dependable income and living.

But…as I said, somehow I got roped into being the focus. There are two glass jars at the front of our sanctuary where we begin the VBS gathering each day. One glass jar has a name plate underneath it that says “Yoda”, and the other jar has a name plate that says “Princess”.

At the end of our VBS week the money will be counted and which ever jar has the most money…that is what I will have to dress up as!

What a contrast! Yoda or a princess…and not just an princess, mind you! As the week has progressed the princess has now become Anna from the movie “Frozen”, which I have not seen, but my three year old granddaughter has the words to all the songs memorized for.

And now I am to sing “Let It Go!”

Being Yoda would be a lot easier. After all, I look a lot more like him and am just slightly taller in height.

The campers have been scurrying to put their coins and one dollar bills in the princess jar. I countered today with a twenty dollar bill for Yoda. It looks like this is going to be an expensive week if I manage to be “Yodaized!”

Excited kids are running up to me with their costume suggestions…for a princess! I’m afraid glitter is in my near future!

There will be several thankful farmers in Burundi who will have no clue what it cost me for them to raise chickens.

And I guess I’m okay with that…although I’m bringing two twenty’s with me tomorrow !

Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Driving Miss Reagan

May 13, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          May 13, 2014

 

                                         “Driving Miss Reagan”

 

It started as soon as I entered the house through her front door.

“Granddad, I’m having waffles for breakfast.” (I won’t pepper my writing with her pronunciation, but breakfast comes from her lips sounding like “bweckfust.”)

I had volunteered for this chauffeuring duty, filling in for Miss Reagan’s dad, also my son-in-law, who was working out of town for a few days. Driving my three year old granddaughter around for a few minutes each morning sounded great.

For a three year old, Reagan can talk more than a stumping politician. Her “l’s” and “r’s” still sound like “w’s”. Last week when I showed her a scratch on my arm she asked, “Did it bweed?”

Without her older brother to share chat time with she is all out…constant…dizzying chatter!

“Granddad, would you cawwy my waffle…and be very careful, because if the wind gets it I will not be happy!”

     “Yes ma’am!”

      The twelve minute car ride to her other grandmother’s house has more topics of conversation than Time magazine has articles each issue.

“Granddad, do you like fire twucks?” 

      “Sure…it’s good to have a fire truck when there is a fire that is burning.”

      “I was in a fire when we stayed at a hotel.”

       “Oh…really!”

      “It was scawy!”

       “I can imagine!”

       “I wike wooking out windows. Do you wike wooking out windows?”

       “Yes. Windows are good.”

       “Does Grammy like windows?”

       “I suppose. We haven’t really had much conversation about it.”

      From behind my driver’s seat I can hear her taking a long sip of apple juice from her sippy cup, ending with a faint “ahhh” sound of satisfaction.

“Granddad, there’s a Chick-fil-A!”

      “Yes, there it is! Maybe we’ll go there for dinner this week. I think I’ll get a chicken salad.”

      “Noooooo….not chicken sawad! You’re siwwy, Granddad!”

      “Why is chicken salad silly?”

      “You have to get chicken strwips!”

      “Is that what you get?”
“Yes, with honey barbecue sauce and waffle fwies!”

      “Oh…okay!”

      “Do you like to dweam, Granddad?”

      “Sure…I guess I do. You mean when I’m sweeping…I mean, sleeping?”
“Yes, I dweam about Puggles and wearing new shoes and cotton candy.”

      “Oh…that’s nice. Are all those in the same dream?”

      “Noooooo…….Granddad, don’t be siwwy!”

      Being silly is a necessary element of a grandfather’s conversation with his three year old backseat passenger. The journey ends and Miss Reagan dances an original step in front of me to her “Nana” Hodges’ house.

I ring the doorbell and she bangs on the door. Nana greets her and Reagan is ready for the next conversation.

Granddad gets back in the car and leaves younger than I was fifteen minutes before!

Categories: children, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Mother’s Day Without Mom

May 11, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                May 11, 2014

 

                                    “Mother’s Day Without Mom”

 

     This is the first Mother’s Day I’ve ever experienced without a mom on this side of Glory. Mom passed to the other side last September, the day after Labor Day. So today I’m in a new place just as she is. I’m walking through it with a mixture of grief and gratitude, a strange mixture…kind of like putting ketchup on top of your peanut butter, you’re not sure if it’s good or bad!

The last two Mother’s Day with Mom were grief in process. Her health had declined to the point that she wasn’t able to carry on a conversation. Calling here on the phone was a painful experience with me being in Colorado and her in Ohio. Her health difficulties had reduced her verbal capabilities to a bare minimum…and my mom was always one to be vocal!

I would send her flowers for Mother’s Day. It was the best I could do for her. She loved the floral arrangements and foliage plants that FTD would deliver…once they were able to find the house! That’s another story for another day!

I remember my mom for who she was before her afflictions took her health away. On this Mother’s Day I remember with a grateful heart the stories, the influence, and even “the look!”

“The look” could stop a freight train. It was convicting! I remember that look one afternoon when I was about ten. Mom had told me that I could go to the park in Williamstown, West Virginia where we lived, but that I could not cross the main street in town to go to the little grocery store. Back in those days before aluminum soda cans a kid could find empty pop bottles and return them to the store for three cents a piece. Two pop bottles could net me a Pay Day or Mallo Cup. But on this day my mom had explicitly forbidden me to cross that main street.

“No problem!”, I thought! What she doesn’t know won’t hurt…me! I made the journey and was munching on my Pay Day on the way back across the street when in the distance I saw a car coming that looked like our family car. I sprinted back into the park and hid behind a trash can until I was sure she had passed. Finally I raised up…and there she was…sitting there, and giving me “the look!” I was toast!

Besides the look, however, my mom would care for us. My brother and I always got new underwear for Christmas, just in case we were in an accident and they had to cut away our blue jeans. It was important to have intact pairs of “Towncraft tighty whities” on.

She could cook! And the thing is, she would cook dinner each night after working a full day at J.C. Penney’s. Not packaged meals, mind you! Home-cooked masterpieces…skillet cornbread… green beans that I didn’t appreciate back then, but now miss greatly…fried chicken…squash casserole…need I go on?

My mom had a certain scent. It’s hard to explain that, but it stayed in the nostrils of your memory. Recently I traveled back to Ohio to help my dad get some things taken care of in preparation for his move to a new senior adult independent living complex he’s moving into. Going from his three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment has made these past few months a time of sorting for him. What will he take? What will he leave behind? What will he give away? My oldest daughter, Kecia, asked me to bring back a few specific items that she remembers about my parents’ house. A couple of the things she requested were some of MaMaw Wolfe’s dish towels and hot pads. Why? Because they have MaMaw’s scent that is special. When we would travel home to see my parents “the scent” would be a comfort, a welcoming, almost like entering a room with bread baking in the oven.

I’m grateful for “the look”, “the caring”, “the smells”, and “the scent.” Although Mom is gone, those things will stay with me…and on this different kind of Mother’s Day they make me happy!

Categories: children, Death, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Saying Goodbye to The Fifties

April 30, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     April 30, 2014

 

                                  “Saying Goodbye to the Fifties”

 

    In five days I will exit “The Fifties”, and change the first digit in my age to a six. I began the journey of my last week of this part of my life by going to the DMV and getting a new driver’s license. I fear, however that when the license arrives next week I will look like a dork in my new license picture…whatever a dork looks like! I should have worn a leisure suit to compliment my dazed and confused look.

I began the “fifties” with three children semi-living at home. Two of the three were either in college or that period when they are trying to “find themselves.” I exit the “fifties” with an empty nest. We don’t even have a cat anymore. She got tired of the same old food every day and had a stroke.

Two of our children are now married, and two grandkids have joined the family picture and brought new definition to the word “energetic.”

Ten years ago I was training for my first Pike’s Peak Ascent, a 13.2 mile race that Carol fondly referred to as “The Death Run.” It began in downtown Manitou Springs and took the crazed runners to the finish line on the top of Pike’s Peak. Ten years later I exit the “Fifties” with knees that talk to me each day in low moans and groans, and a back that echoes “amens” from behind. A flight of stairs now seems more daunting than a “14er” did ten years ago.

I began the “fifties” frequenting Chinese buffets around town. I exit the “fifties” as a frequenter of low-fat yogurt mixed with fruit. Chinese buffets now seem scary!

I began the “fifties with glasses. I exit with progressives. They make me sound like a liberal in my eyesight.

I began the “fifties” with one prescription for heartburn. Now a shoebox holds all of my prescriptions.

Ten years ago I’d stay up and watch “The Rockford Files” with James Garner after the late night news went off. Now bedtime comes before the late news comes on. It seems like a reward for making it through another day.

I began the “fifties” with both of my parents alive, plus my father-in-law. I exit this time with just my dad still living on this side of Glory.

The “fifties” were good. The “sixties”, I pray, are even better.

Unfortunately I’m stuck either way with my dorky looking driver’s license picture for the next ten years!

Categories: Death, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »