Senior Substitutes

March 12, 2010 By

Senior Substitutes

The pastor and his wife had the privilege of being substitute teachers for the children’s class one Lord’s Day. The notice was short so they had to rehearse in the car on the way to church for their only preparation. Mrs. Preacher was trying to get the right tune for “This Little Light of Mine!” For this was the song they were to practice with the class in order for them to sing before the entire congregation. And she was, at the same time, looking in the preacher’s Bible concordance to see if Zacchaeus was still in the Book of Luke chapter 19!
The preacher had gone out under the oak tree in their front yard as they were leaving and pulled a young, small oak seedling. He had previously rummaged through their own grown kids old toy box to find a Play School plastic figure to present the story of Zacchaeus.
To get the lesson started, they folded their hands, and with bowed heads and closed eyes the preacher begin to pray. He purposely prayed very slowly and distinctly, while sitting on the little blue wooden chair behind the kidney shaped table. And as he was praying he became aware that one little boy with the baggie full of Thomas the Train toys was softly repeating every single word he was saying for his own prayer. – It was so sweet the preacher was almost distracted from his prayer!
Then as he began reading the story from the Bible and showing how the Lord walked by with Zacchaeus, (the Play School figure), up that tree (the little oak seedling), the cute little blonde girl, directly across the table from him seemed as if she was gonna stare a hole right through him with a fixed gaze. He stopped and asked her a question to try to get her to talk about the lesson. Well, it worked. But then he couldn’t find a way to get her to stop!
Each child was allowed to put Zacchaeus in the tree, with the Assistant pastor’s boy finding a way to hook him in the fork of the little branches so that he wouldn’t fall down! Then he shook the tree quite severely and the figure finally fell out! Trying to use the situation, the preacher immediately stated, “Well, the Bible did say that Zacchaeus MADE HASTE and came down!”
The session ended with the two senior substitutes trying to get the words and tune right for the class to sing “This Little Light of Mine!” They both tried to read each other’s lips, and sing softer than the other, making word-like sounds, hoping for the others musical leadership. It seemed like a lifetime before they could get through with that song and then with, “Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man!”
They hoped that the lesson which they wanted to leave with the children was that although they might be too little to see Jesus, Jesus could always see them. And that Jesus knows where they are and knows their names.
And now – Does anyone know how to get that tune of “The wee little man” out of your mind?
Pastor Gene Breed

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Keep On Digging

February 8, 2010 By

When I was a young boy I would walk from our house on King Street around the corner and down Hines Street to play with Mack Bowles. He was a little younger than me, but he had a good ‘dirt’ spot under an elm tree in his side yard between his house and Mr. Pugan Wallaces’. We always saved our Popsicle sticks to us as road scrapers to carve out roads for our stick cars.
We lost ourselves in designing roadways and cities, with our imaginations running so fast that the term, “Let’s play like …,” being repeated over and over finally evolved into just one simple word, “Plike!” (Rhymes with “spike!”). At that time Mack’s Uncle Terrell and his older friend came over looking to entertain themselves by aggravating us.
Now it took me the longest time to accept the fact that Terrell could actually be Mack’s uncle, when he was just a few years older than we were. But everyone I talked to about it always insisted that it was so, no matter how much I continued to question it!
As these older boys approached our empire, I was digging a small hole which I was going to pack down and fill with water for a “lake!” Of course, the only “equipment” that I had to dig the hole was the end of one of my “road scrapers,” which still had a faint sticky orange coloring on it! The boy with “Uncle” Terrell started pushing the dirt from our construction work back into the hole with his foot. In doing so, he not only filled up my prospective lake, but he also destroyed a good deal of the “city” which we had designed.
I just kept digging, one small orange Popsicle stick load at a time, as he kept pushing every bit of the dirt back in. I don’t remember getting angry or acknowledging him in any way. I just kept on digging!
Finally “Uncle” Terrell, I now realize, was probably just seeing all the fun taken out of any aggravation they had expected, and therefore told his friend to stop. Back then I thought that he did so because he had taken our side and came to our rescue. At any rate, from that time forward I never argued with anyone again that Terrell was not a true “Uncle” to Mack Bowles!
But these days that which really strikes me as the greatest mystery, is not that I could have accepted Terrell as Mack’s “Uncle,” but that I could have on the other hand, so easily accepted any man being named “Pugan!”

Gene Breed
March 27, 2003.

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Grammar School Merchant

January 11, 2010 By

Grammar School Merchant

We have been living in this house for the past twenty three years. And as our children grew up they pestered the neighbors to buy various items in the various seasons, for the various school projects. Then, after their graduation, it became our turn. We have bought fruit, candy, ribbon curlers, ornaments, gift bags, wrapping paper and other large assortments of mostly useless, but pricey stuff.

But in this present season we have wound up with the most unique items ever. Even if it had been what was ordered, this would have been a step and a half below useless! We should have known something was going to be wrong when this same little third grade merchant delivered our “Classic” Christmas stationery in boxes, no doubt, she had opened, and with pens oozing ink. No way to wrap opened stationery for someone’s Christmas gift. And the pens, – need I say more?

But she really out did herself with this last delivery. I guess if she ever knew the alphabet she has no idea how to apply its use! There they are, three little Christmas Mama Bears. Each one has her long red skirt with a plaid jacket. And each one has wings, no less, extending from behind. And each one holds up a white star in both paws with just one letter written thereon. (And here is the witness to the merchant child gone bad.)

For when you place the little figures side by side, their star letters read “J – O – J”! That’s right, “J- O – J” to the world! Or, may this season bring you and yours, hearts of “J – O – J”! How frustrating!

After the ordeal of choosing from her dog-eared catalog; writing out two different checks, and she had no idea to whom it should be made out; waiting all those weeks; and then finally receiving opened stationery, with leaky pens -  what do I get? Three illiterate bears with “J – O – J” to the world!

The only thing that helps me through this is the thought that somewhere in this very neighborhood, maybe even on this same street, someone has three Christmas bears bearing signs that read “Y – O – Y” to the world!

Gene Breed

December 11, 2001.


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How To Live With Your Mother – again!

December 18, 2009 By

How To Live With Your Mother – again!

Be sure to observe  the “Back Yard Rules”! -

1. Go out the back door, making sure it is tightly closed.

2. Walk as far back into the yard as possible.

3. Raise your chin and open your mouth wide.

4. Scream as loud and as long as is necessary to make you feel the universe is listening and that you have a voice in it.

5. Return into the house and resume normality, just as if nothing’s happened.

6. Answer all resulting phone calls with a calm sweet voice, assuring the neighbors that everything’s o.k. & they don’t need to call 911.

7. Make sure they understand that this may possibly reoccur from time to time, so they won’t call Animal Control either.

In the house understandings:

1. Understand that your cooking and grocery buying will most certainly be a topic of daily conversation! Be prepared to learn to shop with two separate grocery carts, keeping two separate bills.

2. Understand that to her you will now officially become the bad guy!

3. If she talks on the phone, DO NOT LISTEN, unless you are prepared to hear unfavorable remarks about yourself.

4. She will also become the victim and you will be the old meanie to everyone outside your home.

5. Keep her away from all stairs.

6. Be prepared to make several useless trips to the E.R.

7. Always go into the doctor’s exam room with her and make her tell him the truth.

8. Be prepared to have visiting relatives ‘take over’ only during their visit to “straighten out” the poor dear’s life that you have “messed up.” They will get glorious credit for really messing things up, and you will be left trying to get things back to normal again once they leave.

9. NEVER let her get her hands on the instructions that come with her prescriptions from the pharmacy which list the side effects!

10. Do not put a little bell next to her bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11. You will have to learn to overcome the constant feeling that “Mama’s in the house” in order to ever do anything again with any degree of privacy.

But other than these, you should find it an endearing time to reacquaint yourself with your parent. Have a nice day. :-)

Gene Breed

02-21-02

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My Wife’s Dog

December 17, 2009 By

My wife’s dog, “Jessie” – A Jack Russell ‘Terror’-

It’s come to be my job to take Jessie out every night after the news, around 11:30. We go up to the stop sign at the top of the hill and back. He has to wet on every mailbox. He backed his little skinny rear up into a Yucca plant and stuck himself on the pointed ends and didn’t get to finish his toiletries on one occasion!

All the dogs in the neighborhood get started barking at us – an old fat dog with a raspy Bonnie Tyler voice gets them all started! You can just hear it spreading up the street and then even over to the next block. The big German dogs of the folks from Pennsylvania that moved into the last house on the street are the bass section! Then the Redneck’s tinnie-winnie dog is the tenor section. The Country Guy’s Heinz 57 varieties run the fence line at full speed, stopping inches before making waffle indentations on their noses with the chain link fence. And then Larry, Curley, and Moe, over a block, add in with their Three Stooges’  “Woo-woo-woo”! They all try to sing solo, intending to have no unison, but it is really an amazing concert.

If that wasn’t humiliating enough, having K-9′s sass you, my most embarrassing moment is getting caught in some headlights just when Jessie is making “smoke”! He’s all hunched over, straining every muscle, pushing his creation out like a natural childbirth in a birthing center, – and wouldn’t you know it – here comes a car! I pull my collar up on my coat and turn my back and stupidly hope that disgusting thing being done on the other end of that leash tied to my arm, somehow can’t be connected with me! – And he ain’t even “my” dog! His true ‘owner’ (if anyone could be said to ‘own’ that wild spirit!) is back at home in anonymous comfort, without any headlights piercing the dark, revealing a ‘stinky’-making creature tied to her wrist!

I just want to strangle him for the embarrassment. But when we get back home, she says to him, “Did my baby make poo – poo?” – I could just scream!!!

Learning humility;

Gene Breed

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Devastation on 9/11 – ’02

December 10, 2009 By

DEVASTATION ON 9/11/ – ’02

Well, we were all expecting it! The FBI and CIA had us on the orange alert! That was the highest alert status since the attack! And sure enough, it hit! It was a well used building. It had no air conditioning, was dimly lit and was small as buildings go. There were no elevators. The last paint it had seen was made by the original Dupont as an experiment in his chemical lab. The two wooden steps were so worn by logger’s boots that they could have easily been used as a yoke for oxen! It was heated in the winter by a wood stove. And it was right in the middle of Tyrone, Ga.! Now it’s gone!

It was located smack in the middle of a maze of tracks which were part of a thriving transportation hub! Ð At least it was back in the 1940′s! And there was that big ole fork lift machine that Tony used to load the pine onto the rail cars. When he fired that thing up, it made your grits taste like propane! It had big long loops of cables which surrounded a half load of a pulpwood truck’s burden at one time, and placed it on the rail cars. They were always getting hung up, so one of the employees had to get up on top of the pile to try to get them unstuck with this big bat with a steel hook on it. Tony had been the CEO of the Tyrone Wood Yard for as long as I’ve been in these parts! You could always see him going to the Shamrock for his chili dogs at noon every day in his old red Dodge pickup. – At least we all agree that was the original color.

But all that is no more. We should have expected this would happen. A huge grinding machine was quietly brought into town a few weeks back. All the remaining logs were ground up. There were only huge piles of wood chips remaining. And those piles are now gone too. Swarms of pickups swooped down on them and men armed with shovels took every chip and vanished to their own private shrubbery beds.

Then came 9/11! A monster machine was eased into town on a flat bed trailer. There stood the police directing traffic at the local Elementary School. It passed right by them! No alarms went off. (We evidently don’t have any alarms for wood yard demolition!) Wham! Hope Tony’s cleaned out his desk! Blam! Homeless roach bugs are on cell phones calling their real estate agents! It was awful! Ka-fluey! Now the wood yard shack was a pile of kindling itself! Somebody should have listened to the FBI!

On the morning of 9/12 cars, vans,  and pickups drove slowly by that which used to be a thriving wood yard. There wasn’t even any kindling pile left! No more pulpwood will be shipped out of Tyrone! No more of those quaint one door pulpwood trucks with the drivers in full chest-length beards and overalls! No more of their familiar back-firings and smoke belchings as they strained to make it just a few more blocks with their overload. They were uniquely customized machines with chain saws and axes tied on the side!

Man! Come to think of it, it just might have been the EPA that shut Tony down, and not Osama!

Should somebody call the Shamrock and cancel that standing order for two chili dogs?

Gene Breed

9/12/02

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