Thinking Out Loud, Volume DXXV

Today the sun is setting in the west. I've learned that it does that quite often, and since my back porch faces east, it's an awesome place to sit late in the evening. As I write this, it's about sundown on a beautiful Sunday evening, with a soft southerly breeze blowing, and guess where I am. You got it! I should be enjoying myself, and I would be except for one factor....there's a disagreement occurring in my back yard. As the man of the house, I guess it's my place to interfere and restore peace, and if there's no resolution to this conflict soon, I intend to do just that. In the meantime, however, I'm learning some life lessons from the standoff, so let me hurry and share them with you so I can get this matter resolved. Here's what's going on. Angie had to run to Brookshire's, and when she returned, she brought Nellie and Fontenot, our two Schnauzers, each a rubber ball. At first they were running and playing with their new toys, having a wonderful time, until Fontenot carelessly walked away from his for a minute. Nellie quickly laid claim to his ball, and she is now standing over it, as well as her own, daring Fontenot to try to get either one of them. Fontenot is standing there barking, wanting his ball back, while Nellie is standing there glaring at him, as if to say, "You try to take this ball and you're dead meat." I'm learning two lessons from this latest episode of "Nellie and Fontenot." Here's the first one: Fontenot is not able to enjoy his new toy, but neither is Nellie. I don't believe greedy people are enjoying life, or even their possessions. They're too busy trying to make sure no one gets what belongs to them while trying to acquire what does not belong to them. Instead of enjoying what they have, they spend all their time and effort trying to accumulate more and more. I knew an older couple who hoarded canned food, much more than they could ever eat, and when they died, they had canned food stacked in every room in their house, to the extreme that it was even on the furniture. They never received any benefit from any of it. I'm of the opinion that generous people enjoy life much more than the greedy. The second thing I've learned: Although the way I've told this story makes Fontenot sound like an innocent victim while Nellie is evil, in reality, I may be giving a false impression of both of them. Nellie is one of the most affectionate dogs I know, and she loves her family, Fontenot included. Fontenot, on the other hand, is an escape artist, to the point to where I'm thinking of hiring experienced prison guards to keep him from getting out of the yard. Both of them are gentle, loving creatures, with flaws. I am a gentle, loving creature with flaws. You are a gentle, loving creature with flaws. If I hate Nellie because of her greed, then it's only fair that you hate me because of my flaws, and someone else hates you because of yours. I tolerate Nellie's greed, while there are flaws in my character that my good friends have to tolerate. Thank God they do!! WHOA!! Fontenot just made his move!!! He grabbed his ball and ran!! Situation resolved. Wait!! The ball he grabbed was Nellie's! I wonder how this is gonna turn out! Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DXXIV

My dad never made it past the sixth grade, yet he was an intelligent man. I dare say he knew as much as most high school graduates of his time. Let me tell you a little about him. For quite some time in his childhood, they lived in a box car....one that sat on tracks and stayed connected with other box cars that were homes to other families. I don't remember hearing for sure just what my grandpa did for a living in those days, but I assume it was in the logging industry. When they were finished working the area they were in, a locomotive would hook up with the boxcars where the workers were living and they would transfer to their next location. Dad told me the story about one time when it was moving day, and all the adults were busy getting everything ready for the move. He said he was outside playing, knowing that it was almost time to head out, but as kids will do, he became absorbed in his game, and looked up to see the train was starting to move. He said he started screaming and running as fast as he could, but soon realized he would never make it to their car, so he sprinted to the last car on the train and was able to grab ahold and get on board. That would not have been a good situation if he hadn't made it, because the families in the cars had no way of getting the attention of the engineer. Living that kind of life didn't mix well with going to school. When he reached the sixth grade, they ended up having to move, and he had to drop out. The next year, he went back to the sixth grade, and the same thing happened again. Finally, after having to drop out a third time, he never went back. However, like I told you, my dad was a smart man. Here's why: He had several things going for him. Number one, he had an inquisitive mind. He always wanted to know how things worked, and as a result, he was a Mr. Fix It. I remember many times when a neighbor had a problem with a car, a washer, a dryer, or anything else mechanical, they would call Dad to come repair it. Secondly, he was a conversationalist. He had figured out a fact that still holds true today: Every person we talk to knows things we don't. He learned that if he would listen more than he talked, he would leave with some knowledge he didn't have when he came. Thirdly, he could read, and that was a skill he continued to cultivate for the rest of his life. I wish I knew just how many books he read. I remember when I was a kid, my parents subscribed to "Reader's Digest," and they had a bookshelf at home that held every issue of that magazine from several years. He read them cover to cover. Dad passed away in August, 1986 after a lengthy illness, but he read his Bible every day up through mid June of that year in his effort to read the Bible through in one year for the umpteenth time. July 17th of this year will be my dad's 99th birthday, so naturally the world has changed a lot since he was a boy, and the Information Age has really come into being since his death. A formal education is much more vital today than it was when he was a youth, yet if we only rely on our "schooling" to get us through, we're still missing out on a wealth of knowledge that our institutions of learning can't provide. At the time of this writing, I'm only four years shy of the age he was when he died. Even to this day, I still look to him as a role model, which means that although my graduation from college is well into my past, the learning must never stop. I will continue to read, to listen, and to inquire as long as my health allows. That's what he did, and when I grow up, I want to be like my daddy. Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DXXIII

My son recently shared a story with me, and since then I've given it a lot of thought. Please allow me to give you a brief summary to see if you get the same message I did. A young woman had about reached her breaking point due to some struggles she had been facing, so she went to her mother for advice. The older lady listened intently, then asked her daughter to step into the kitchen with her. She placed three pots of water on the stove and turned the fire on high. In one pot she placed carrots, in the next one she placed eggs, and in the third one she placed ground coffee beans. Without saying a word, she let each of them boil for twenty minutes. When she turned off the heat, she asked her daughter to look in each pot and tell her what she saw. "I see carrots, eggs, and coffee," the young woman replied. Her mom then instructed her to feel the carrots, which had become soft and mushy. Next she extracted an egg and removed the shell to find an egg that had become hard. Then she ladled each of them a cup of coffee as they sat down to enjoy it's rich aroma and bold taste. "What are you trying to tell me, Mom?," the daughter asked. Mom explained, "The carrots, the eggs and the coffee each faced identical struggles; the same kind of heat. The carrots went in strong and rigid, yet they emerged soft and weak. The eggs faced the fire with soft, liquid hearts, yet came out hardened. In both of those situations, the water that changed the carrots and the eggs so drastically, emerged basically unchanged. The coffee beans, however, changed the water and made it into something pleasant." You see, we can allow our environment to change us, or we can change our environment. Our world can change us, or we can change our world. The struggles we face can harden us, they can weaken us, or we can use those struggles to create something good. I told you this story a few months ago, but I once used the incident of losing my job to place me in a position to get a much better job. Instead of having a pity party, I held my head up and landed a job that I couldn't have gotten if I hadn't first gone through the turmoil of losing the one I had. Whether I be broken, depressed, joyful, or on the mountain top, it's not the things I've faced that put me here....it's how I dealt with the things I've faced. Am I carrots, eggs or coffee? The choice is mine. Preston

Thinking Out Loud, Volume DXXII

When you're ten years old and it's a hot summer afternoon, you say yes when your uncle asks if you'd like to go swimming. That was the situation for me one particular afternoon. My Uncle O.D. Haymon asked me that question as he and a group of teenage boys from his church were planning to head down to the Calcasieu River near his home in Indian Village, Louisiana, for a couple hours of fun. The location they had picked out for the trip had a sandy beach, which made it a perfect spot for a kid to play in the water, but the trouble was, it was on the other side of the river. On our side, there was a drop off at the river's edge and the water was very deep at that point. As we approached the water, all the boys, my uncle included, started running and jumped in. I stopped at the bank, and Uncle O.D. said, "Come on in." "How deep is it?" I asked, which was really a useless question since anything over four feet was too much for me. His reply, "Oh, about thirty feet." "I can't swim," I answered. He then said, "I'm right here. I will not let you drown." That's all I needed to hear, so I jumped in feet first. It was an experience like I had never had before. A vertical, feet-first jump takes you deep, and I have no idea how far down I went; all I know is I went down, down, down, but not far enough to touch bottom. I think some natural instincts took over as I began pushing downward with my arms, and I could feel myself beginning to rise, but it seemed like an eternity before my head popped up out of the water. As promised, Uncle O.D. was right beside me as I frantically fought the water, heading across the river. Eventually, it dawned on me that I was actually swimming, and I gradually began to calm down a little, until I finally felt something that was one of the most awesome things I had ever felt....my foot touched the bottom, and I realized I could actually safely stand in the water. For me, it was an unforgettable afternoon of fun, and when it was time to go home, I started back across that river, with my uncle right beside me, as a much more confident young man than I had been just a couple hours earlier. Oh, and the neat thing about it was, although he was beside me the entire afternoon, he never had to even touch me the whole day. That's how I learned to swim. A few weeks ago as I was attending a big gathering of Christian men from all across Northeast Louisiana, I heard a statement that reminded me of that day at the river more than a half century ago. The speaker said, "If you've hit bottom, be thankful, because that's as far down as you can go, and the only way from there is up." My mind immediately went back to that moment as I was learning to swim and how relieved I felt when my foot finally touched the bottom. Another thing I remembered was how it seemed like an eternity before I got my head back above the water, when actually it really only took a few seconds. If I had not completely trusted Uncle O.D., there's no way I would've jumped in that day, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. In fact, I was terrified. As I struggled with the water that afternoon, I kept looking to my right to make sure my uncle was still there, and though he never had to actually lift me up, just his presence was a calming influence. He helped me prove to myself that I had what it took to get across that river. I was a typical kid that day, and I played in that water for two hours without ever stopping to think I was gonna have to recross that river, but when that time came, getting back to the other side was much less traumatic, because I KNEW I could make it. I had already done it. I learned so much that day, although it would be years later before I would realize just how much. I learned how to swim through water that summer day, and though I didn't understand it then, I also learned how to swim through life. I now know that as frightful as hitting bottom sounds, it can also give me a base from which to spring up. I also learned that when I start to doubt whether or not I can make it, all I have to do is look to my right and there is Someone there, right beside me, who will not let me go under. Today I understand that the struggles I've faced in my past give me the confidence that the next time they come around, I've defeated them before, and I can and will defeat them again. Yes, I am now aware that although it seems like it's taking forever to get my head above water, it really doesn't take as long as it feels. You see, I'm more confident now. I've learned how to swim. Preston