Stories I Should've Told Sooner
Contrasts in human behavior are sometimes not very difficult to describe. The battle of Nature vs. Nurture rages on--I will not enter that minefield in this column. What I will relate is first-hand witness to two men, during the same time frame, who were markedly different. (You may possibly identify one or both from your own experience.)
Claude (not real name) was the most feared, disliked (hated might be a better word), and reviled person I ever knew. By comparison, this man would have made Dickens’ Scrooge look like a Sunday School teacher. The monster under a child’s bed took frightening lessons from Claude!
I first became aware of Claude when our family purchased a small 80-acre farm that abutted a portion of Claude’s several hundred-acre farm. Shortly after moving in, my father gave me and my brother a strict warning not to set foot on Claude’s property. I was a freshman in high school when I first heard this warning, and at age 21, when I headed to the Air Force, I can faithfully report I never violated Dad’s warning.
Upon Claude’s farm was a dilapidated tomato canning factory and a super-size lake that I suspected held bass that were destined to die of old age and --- barn-door--- slab-size crappie, and many acres of unused farming land. He carried a pistol (long before open-carry became law). And at age 65, Claude took flying lessons and purchased a small aircraft to keep watch over his forbidden land.
On many occasions, I observed the small plane flying over his property. (BTW: He flew over our property as well. Wonder what spying missions he could have performed if he possessed a hitech drone?)
Divine justice belongs to the Lord; however, we sometimes see events that we interpret as the hand of God in this temporal life. One such event happened in the life of Claude.
Three days of pouring rain caused the dam on Claude’s big lake to burst, releasing all those fish into a small stream. My close friends and I had a field day rounding up many of the monsters. One bass was so big we could not force it into the mouth of a ten-gallon milk can!
Crappies of record book size were also netted.
Have Told Sooner
We cleaned fish until midnight. If it was fish that Claude was protecting, he lost them all.
The second man was named Ben (not his real name). He worked in a diesel engine manufacturing plant 30 miles away from his home. He arrived home around 12:30 am, got up around 7 am, and worked his small farm until time to once again go to the plant.
On many occasions, he would be interrupted by a mother from a nearby farm asking for transport to the nearest major grocery shopping location, 10 miles from Ben’s home. This mother had five children and an alcoholic husband who worked when he felt like working. Often Ben would get her home, rapidly cleanup and rush off to the plant.
On one occasion, she ran to Ben’s house, saying her youngest son had shot himself in the hand. Ben dropped everything and rushed the worried mother and son to the nearest medical facility.
At Ben’s funeral (BTW: Ben lived 100 years and 3 months), the daughter of the poor mother said to the preacher, “Without Ben’s continuous help, we probably would not have made it.”
Another man, much younger than Ben, had worked with Ben at the plant, said to that same preacher, “Ben purchased the car of his dreams, and at lunch, one worker with a five-gallon gas can would pour gas into Ben’s new car. We asked Ben about his gas mileage, and Ben told us he had not purchased gas since taking his new car home. Finally, we all broke down and told Ben about our dirty trick. Would you believe it, Ben wanted to pay us for the gas we used to fool him.”
I am that preacher, and Ben was my Dad. Dad’s small 80 acres was the farm that abutted Claude’s massive acreage. Thank God for Dad’s life. He made such a difference then, and his giving heart continues to echo within me.
