Life Ain’t Fair!

Posted June 25, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, Faith, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    June 25, 2014

 

                                           

 

   Today’s mini-story is part of WordPress.com’s Writing 101 challenge for the month of June. Today the writer is to take the view of a twelve year old boy watching Mrs. Pauley being evicted from her house across the street.

 

Mrs. Pauley baked me the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. She’d see me across the street and shout in that sweet high voice of hers- as sweet as her cookies, in fact- “William, I got too many cookies! Can you take a few off my hands?” She made me think I was doing her a favor.

Then Mr. Pauley died out of the blue. I could hear him coughing all hours of the day, and then he was gone. He was a hard-working hard-talking man who didn’t deserve Mrs. Pauley, but she was his anyway. He treated her poorly, and I could tell from my distant stoop on the other side of the street that she was afraid of him.

They had six sons…all grown up and gone. Three were wearing uniforms like my G.I. Joe play figures. One disappeared right after he got out of high school and had never been seen of again. One was a low-life living in jail, and the last one lived in a big city somewhere. I couldn’t figure out why none of them came home to check on the one who birthed them.

And then a Cadillac pulled up, followed by a police car, and I could hear Mrs. Pauley crying “Please…no! Please…no!”

I saw the man from the Cadillac, who was wearing a suit that looked all snug and proper on him, hand Mrs. Pauley a piece of paper and then her head dropped like she had been cursed or something.

I knew it wasn’t good, and I could tell God wasn’t in it either. My Sunday School teacher had taught me how to see what was good and what was of the devil. This was of the devil, and I watched…wishing I could do something, but I couldn’t. When you’re twelve it’s hard to help elderly women who have had their hearts broken.

I knew this was worse then bad. I crossed the street and went up the front sidewalk. I didn’t know what I was doing, or what words I might spit out of my mouth to make things all okay, but I quietly approached.

One of the policemen asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted to make sure Mrs. Pauley was okay. At that moment her eyes looked up from the depths and met mine and  she said, “William, I guess I won’t be baking you any more cookies.”

And then I knew she was leaving, that life isn’t fair even to those who deserve a double portion of blessing. The sweetest sometimes get handed the most bitter verdicts.

All I could say was “That’s okay, Mrs. Pauley!”, and we stared at each other for a long moment before the man in the suit started reading her more of his paper of bad news.

That day I lost some faith in mankind and became cautious and questioning just as I was entering adolescence.

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Fear Landscape

Posted June 25, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: Death, Freedom, Humor, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     June 24, 2014

 

                                       

 

Even though I’m sixty I’ve been reading the book Divergent. It’s more of a novel for young adults and teens I think, because there are less words of each page to give the reader the illusion that he is reading a lot.

One of the sections of the book deals with each person’s “fear landscape.” A fear landscape includes all of the fears that the participant faces in his life…from bed bugs to being kidnapped.

I won’t go into the book any more than that, but it did make me think about what my fears are, and what my fears aren’t. I’ve come up with a short list.

I am not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of dying in a way that people laugh. Like the guy who fell into a large vat of wine and drowned! Some might enjoy dying in such a way, but I don’t really care for wine. It would be second on my list to having a truckload of manure mistakenly dumped on you and then suffocating! Death for me will be a welcoming into heaven. The way I die causes me to worry!

I’m also afraid of spiders and snakes. Don’t ask me why…I just am! I am thankful that God has not tested my faith by telling me to handle rattlesnakes. I might be tempted to renounce my faith, or at the least have a fake fainting spell. I know that the Apostle Paul had a viper wrapped around his arm one time on the island of Malta, but I’m not the Apostle Paul. I’m the Fraidy-Cat Bill!

I’m no longer afraid of school principals. That means that at one time I was. My grade school principal’s name was Shirley Morton. He’s the only man I ever knew named Shirley, but he was to be feared. I experienced his paddle one time, and my butt sizzled for a week. Whenever I saw the movie Airplane, and heard that one verbal explain where Leslie Nielson says, “And don’t call me Shirley!” the memory of Shirley Morton’s strong forehand with his paddle would come back to me. Perhaps my fears subsided when I got elected to the school board and found out the principals put their pants on just like I do (the men that is).

I’m also afraid of Indian food. I had a roommate my first year in seminary from India, and Bontha lit me up with his Chicken and Curry dish. I would start perspiring just thinking about it. We have a few Indian restaurants in our city, but the scars from Bontha’s cooking are still pretty vivid.

One last fear! I’m also afraid of Oakland Raider fans!

But I think that’s normal!

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Lost and Found

Posted June 24, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, love, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          June 23, 2014

 

                               

 

My life has been filled with lost opportunities and blessed findings. Once in a while the lost comes back to be found.

Or, better yet, the lost is waiting to be found…like the lost and found box at the middle school that is filled with all kinds of coats, hats, watches, and bracelets. Each was forgotten for a while, left to sit until a stranger found it.

There are people who are a part of our lives who disappear around the margins because we forget, we become disengaged and focused on other things and people. And then, later, when we remember, they are no longer there. Neglect has a way of turning friends into acquaintances, and acquaintances into those that we lose track of.

Social media fabricates an atmosphere of connectedness. We are friends with those that we haven’t seen since high school. We comment on a one sentence post and, for some reason, think we are still connected.

In our culture of instant messaging, ironically, it is easier to be lost.

The answer may not be in how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers we have, but rather in having a few friends that we deeply invest in. we seek to find them deeply. The quality of our relationships is much more valuable than the quantity of our relationships.

I think about my life. Who is it that would be greatly effected if I lost my friendship with them? The list gets whittled down quickly, and it is in that downsized list that I find those that I must not lose.

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Church Softball League

Posted June 21, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     June 20, 2014

 

                                     

 

Depending on who you talked to God was in it or grieved by it!

The Independent Church Softball League was canceled after the sixth week of the  season. Some said it was long overdue; others said it was a sign of secular humanism’s takeover of the world. Y2K was linked to it by some since most churches are about twenty years behind the times anyway.

It started with the Freewill Baptist Church Flames, who protested the fact that the Brethren Church Brethren were permitting a woman to play on their team. The Flames did not believe freedom extended to the opposite gender when it came to church softball. It did seem kind of odd that the Brethren would be the only team to have a female put a glove on.

The disagreements between league congregations didn’t end there. Torrential rains canceled all games during the second and third weeks of the season. It was either forget about them or plan for a few to be made on Wednesday night. The Apostolic Holiness Church could not allow that to happen. Many in their church believed that Jesus was going to come back soon…and it would probably be during their Wednesday night prayer meeting. Not many from their softball team attended the prayer meeting, but if Jesus did return on a Wednesday night, and they happened to be playing softball they were certain there would be eternal consequences. The Nazarenes weren’t too high on the idea either, but their make-up game was to be against Mercy Bible Church who hadn’t won a game since Jesus was here the first time. The Nazarenes couldn’t let a sure win slip through their fingers, all because of it being a Wednesday night.

And then there were the Independent Irregular Baptist Church, who no one much cared for. They voted not to let a new church join the league because several of the players had hair that came almost to their shoulders. They forfeited their game against the long hairs rather than be tainted by the association. Brother Rice of the Irregulars stated that long hair was the working of the devil, getting men to take on feminine characteristics. To quote him: “You let one little thing pass, and pretty soon a tidal wave of paganism starts arriving every Sunday to the church.” The manager of Mercy said he thought Brother Rice was splitting hairs.

The final straw of dissension amongst the league’s members was when a visiting evangelist for the church of the Flames was asked by his hosting church to give the prayer before their game with the Second Street Wesleyan Church team, and he preceded to pray that the Wesleyans would turn away from their wicked ways and be saved.

After long loud debate and accusations the league disbanded. Some of the best players from amongst the teams got together and made a new team that was sponsored by Rosie’s Bar and Grill and played in the City Tavern League. Most of them rediscovered that playing the game is fun!

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Our Father

Posted June 20, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, love, marriage, Parenting, Story
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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

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Finding Carol

Posted June 18, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, Humor, love, marriage, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                         June 18, 2014

 

                                         

 

In my youthful years I lost a lot of young ladies. They would disappear as a result of my cluelessness, being clumsy, and uncertain as to what it meant to court a young lady. One of my friends, who was a bit of a Casanova, gave me some “lines” to use that he was sure would work.

One night I pulled one of them out of the hat. I looked at the attractive eighteen year old brown-haired blonde and asked her, “If I told you that you have a beautiful body would you hold it against me?”

She gave me a confused look that quickly cooled the temperature. If you’re going to use a line on someone make sure they are perceptive enough to understand it.

And then my friend, Jeff Slaga, invited me to a gathering of Young Life kids from Hinsdale Central. He added, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

The night of the gathering we gathered in the living room of Bud Bylsma’s house to meet and greet the number of high school students who showed up. As we stood around in conversational groups I noticed a young woman with long brown hair arriving, and being instantly greeted by Jeff. She looked very young, and yet I could tell she was not just another one of the high school girls.

To this day I swear that she was scanning the room trying to figure out which one I was. I know…I’m certain…that she had been briefed on the prospective male who would be there that evening.

With all my “lost romances” that night was the beginning of a found relationship as I met Carol Louise Faletti for the first time. She was funny and welcoming. We chatted for most of the evening after that, lost in the new finding.

The funny thing is that we dated for a couple of weeks, decided to date other people, became good friends, and then about a year and a half later found each other again in a new way. The second time around in our dating relationship resulted in an engagement two months after we started dating again, and marriage four months later.

Now our thirty-fifth anniversary is coming up in another month. Three children, two grandkids, and two son-in-laws have come along.

Now two sixty year olds continue to find each other each day, as we walk in the evening together and discover who each of us is, the ideas we think up, the moments of laughter.

Sometimes it is necessary that we lose some people, some young ladies who don’t pick up on our pick-up lines, in order to find the one to walk the journey with.

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Bald Spot

Posted June 17, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: Grace, Humor, Story, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    JUNE 17, 2014

 

                                              

 

My physician applied the freezing treatments. My head experienced brain freeze that only usually when I took a humongous bite of ice cream.

I had lived my life in easy denial…hatless…a sun-basker! I would lay by the pool, lather up with sun tan lotion, get brown. Summers were meant for baking!

My older brother was starting to lose his hair on top and I felt sorry for him. He was getting a crown on top that seemed to get bigger every time I saw him. Like one of our grandfather’s cultivated fields for a corn crop, his scalp was looking more plowed and less populated.

When I looked in the mirror I saw a forest staring at me just above my forehead. I had been blessed with the hair my brother was now missing, like a double blessing compared to his hair poverty.

My brother was following the barren pathway that my dad had traveled before him. What he was lacking up top he made up for with humility, grace, and wisdom.

And then one day my wife started talking about the fact that I was getting a little bald spot on top! I didn’t believe her because I couldn’t see it. Each morning after showering I’d have to comb my mop-on-top like always. I was about to learn that bald spots don’t descend on you, they slowly creep in.

Life went on! People started talking about something called sun screen and “covering up.” I didn’t take notice. Spending time in the sun was as normal for me as brushing my teeth. It was part of my lifestyle.

I had coached a basketball game and a mom of one of the players had taken some pictures during the game. One of the pictures was taken from the bleachers behind out team bench.

The “crown” could not be ignored! It stood out like young newly-weds on a bus with senior citizens. I was speechless. I started wearing hats outside, more to hide my spot than to protect my head.

When I went for my annual physical I told my doctor that I had a couple of places on my head that seemed to be more sensitive to touch. He examined my noggin, warned me to protect myself whenever I’m in the sun for more than a few minutes, and then he did the freezing on several pre-cancerous spots.

Since then my dad has had three different rounds of radiation treatments for cancerous spots and growths on his head and one of his ears.

I’m more wise now. Less wisdom is a recipe for destruction. Meanwhile my bald spot is growing into becoming a bald plot. It’s a sign of maturity, of advancing on down the road of life. I still can’t see it when I look in the mirror, but my family reminds me that it’s there! The good news is that most of my friends carry the same age signature. It’s like a symbol for our brotherhood!

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Growing Up Clean

Posted June 16, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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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!

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An Empty Donut Box and Styrofoam Cups

Posted June 15, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: Bible, children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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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!

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Fruitcake

Posted June 13, 2014 by wordsfromww
Categories: children, Christmas, Community, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
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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!”

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