This was the first hymn I ever learned, Jesus Loves Me.
The sunlit path through the woodland, the sheep feeding on it…
If you could only find that path! It might lead straight to Jesus. The Shepherd won’t be too far from His sheep.
Tag: my childhood
The Things You Remember!
[He writes this before going to another doctor’s appointment.]
When I was a boy, my parents had to “entertain” from time to time. This meant having people over who weren’t friends or family, or even anyone they liked very much. Mostly they were persons whom my mother thought it useful to impress: persons who could give Dad a leg up in his career at the Ford plant.
When you “entertain,” you have to provide adult beverages. Some of these corporate not-quite big shots drank like fish. So my mother kept a well-stocked liquor cabinet for these occasions.
In our kitchen we had overhead cabinets, handy to both stove and sink. Sometimes there were special snacks up there–a box of Merri-Mints, say–and if I could climb onto the counter without getting caught, I could sneak a treat.
That was where they kept the Frothee.
What’s that? Well, it was for putting an artificial foamy head on a drink. Somehow it never made it to the liquor cabinet.
Year after year stood the jar of Frothee in the cabinet, like an ancient Roman household shrine. It never moved. No one ever used it. For all I know, it may still be there in the cabinet today… having stood there, now, for seventy years.
Ah, Frothee! Relic of a bygone time–my bygone time, at any rate.
But there ain’t no going back, is there?
‘A Reminiscence of My Father’ (2013)
Don’t let the picture fool you–this moth was HUGE!
My father liked to take his children with him when he had an errand. Our company was his pleasure.
Oh, how those memories touch me to the heart! Here’s just one of them.
Daddy parked on Main Street and went into Perry’s Store to buy something, while I waited in the car because he was only going to be a minute.
While I waited, the world’s biggest moth, I mean as big as your two hands put together, landed on the hood, right in front of me. Before I could collect my wits, it flew away; probably the car was too hot.
I can’t remember how I told my father what I’d seen. I think I might’ve been speechless.
Memory Lane: Family Cookouts
Ours was a very close-knit family, and summer was the season for our backyard cookouts. My aunts showed slides of their most recent travels, and my father and his kid brother, Uncle Ferdie, took my brother and me to the playground next door to play horseshoes.
Gee, I miss that! I’ve just realized I am now the oldest living member of my family: no one left with whom to play horseshoes. No more hamburgers on the grill. Grandpa John and his brother Jacob, visiting from Holland, used to treat us to harmonica concerts. I still have my harmonica, but no one to chime in with the mandolin.
The heat of the summer didn’t seem to matter, back then: we were all having too good a time to notice. Oh, the clinking and the ringing of the horseshoes on the metal stake!
But I’m sure there’ll be some of that in Heaven.
Raftin’ Down the River (‘Memory Lane’ Contest, Day 14)
This is it, folks–the last day of our Memory Lane Contest. If you’ve got a memory you’d like to share, post it here.
When I read Huckleberry Finn , ages and ages ago, I, too, wanted to travel down the river on a raft. And as luck would have it, all the materials were ready to hand: an informal dump site, discarded wooden pallets, old tires–and a stream.
On a blisteringly hot summer day, my friends and I assembled a raft, complete with an old tire at each corner to help float it. Hard work in all that heat! Took us almost all day. But we kept at it till we had a raft. And then we launched it.
Straight to the bottom. No waiting, glub-glub-glub–adios, raft. The old tires most emphatically did NOT float, they might as well have been four cinderblocks… *Sigh* Live and learn…
And now it’s time for your memories, folks. The winner gets a prize–although the memories themselves are a kind of prize, aren’t they?
Tommy’s Pond (‘Memory Lane’ Contest, Day 11)
Patty and I went out to sit by Tommy’s Pond this morning. Memories galore! All four seasons’ worth. Here we skated, sledded, fished, and tried to catch frogs. It was a big part of my childhood. I caught a newt here once–wow! I can’t decide which season was my favorite, at Tommy’s Pond. Just watching the little pumpkinseed sunfish guarding their nests was a treat.
Post your memories here for our Memory Lane Contest–only three more days to go, and then we’ll have the winner. All viewers, even first-timers, are welcome: enter as often as you like. You could sin a book or a T-shirt.
‘You Are My Sunshine’ (Memory Lane Contest, Day 9)
I think this may well be my earliest memory: my father rocking me in his arms at night because I couldn’t sleep, and singing this to me: You Are My Sunshine. I can’t have been more than two years old. Oh, Daddy!
Meanwhile, this is where you post your memories in our First Annual Memory Lane Contest. Anyone can play, and you can enter as often as you please.
We’ll even take more Gene Autry memories.
‘Memory Lane’ Contest, Day 3
In a bid to keep sanity, we bring you Day 3 of our Memory Lane Contest. Post your memories here. Two weeks later, someone wins a prize. It could be you!
Meanwhile, here’s this…
These water-powered rockets were big, big, big! on TV when I was a boy. Oh, how I wanted one! As you can see, they’re still around. I finally got one when I was in my forties… and it didn’t work! Grrr! Didn’t even sort of work. It just went “Pssht!” and fell off the launcher. Every time.
And now for some of your memories!
‘Memory Lane’ Contest, Day 2
Okay! We’re off to a good start.
Each day, I’ll post a place for you to post your entries. That way they’ll all be in the same place.
Let me get us started today–with milk machines. Remember them? The ones in our town had wooden platforms which sometimes fell to pieces. Golden opportunity! If you dug into the dirt where the platform used to be, you could find fabulous numbers of quarters that people dropped and that fell through the cracks in the platform. What a bonanza!
But that’s enough from me. Any readers’ memories today? Here’s the place to share them.
‘One Wide River to Cross’
Is this a hymn–or just a folk song about Noah and the Ark?
It’s both, wouldn’t you say? I loved it as a little boy, and I love it now.
Sung here by Chuck Szabo.