Month: October 2015

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Warmth

I stood at the entry and surveyed the sanctuary as worshippers trickled in, moved past and made their way to their seats.  A gray-haired couple sat ten feet away, near the center aisle to my right. A pianist on the platform up front busied herself with sheet music before taking up a red hymnal.

Hmm, I wonder what songbook the folks do use here? The nearby gray-haired lady held a book of the same reddish tint. My mouth moved as I silently read the title. Cast in gold lettering beneath three delicate crosses it read, Melodies of Praise.   I thought. I like that.  A song book title with feeling.

Spotting a new visitor the pastor left the platform and came my way. His handshake and generous smile reinforced what I already sensed – the church’s warmth.  This may be a place I could get to know the Lord better – and some Rocky Mountain dwellers – all at the same time.

So Jerry, where do you come from? Where would you call home? The pastor’s interest seemed genuine and I warmed to it.

Well, I come from a small place called Okmulgee. It’s in Oklahoma. About thirty miles south of Tulsa.

The mention of Okmulgee struck a chord with the gray-haired lady holding the hymnal. Light refracted on the silver-gray hair as Mom Starbuck swiveled her head abruptly. Her eyes shimmered and her mouth betrayed delight – through the wrinkled face a little-girl smile.  In an accent common to my Oklahoma ears, Mom Starbuck offered her declaration. She was enthralled.

Okmulgee?!  A brief pause. . . and the clincher. I went to high school in Preston!

Astonishment overtook me – even as I smiled at an accent that rendered high school,  haah-skule.

How likely was this? A couple of Okies, she and I. Travelers of a twelve-hundred-mile distance to a common place of worship in the Wyoming Rockies. . .Mom Starbuck and me – united by a common culture – divided  by forty-five years.

Preston.

Where Typing Instructor, Mrs. Smith acquainted me with circular typing keys. With numbers, letters and symbols mounted on metal stems. I learned in her class to vigorously slide (a thousand times) the feed roller – along the machine at each lines end.  Here I entered  the world of black carbon paper.

And now, Wyoming. Mrs. Smith’s Typing I and Typing II inaugurated my passage to Wyoming. To Cody. And her warm-hearted people.  My vision moved generally toward the church ceiling. God, could you be doing something?

Two weeks later found me and my burgundy suitcase at Starbucks front door.

Oklahoma cooking. That will be nice.

©2015 Jerry Lout

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Welcome

Known simply as Mom Starbuck, she took her place behind the lectern. A stickler for faithfulness in Christian duty she let nothing short of pneumonia deny her its privilege. Hugging a Bible to her chest, she closed her eyes. A more sincere opening prayer I never heard. Her eyes opened and met with those of each person in the small gathering.

Beloved, let’s turn to the Book of Luke. We want to hear some things Jesus said. We’ll see him at work and we’ll listen to the counsel he gave some villagers. Timely counsel for us today.

It was the Lord’s Day. And Mom Starbucks Adult Sunday School class – homemakers, technicians, newly-weds, oilfield workers – all paid attention.

By my third Sunday in town I counted the Assembly as my church home. Mom and Pop, each of them aging but spry, approached me following worship, that late-Summer day. Of the pair Pop was the shorter – maybe by two inches. A sustained twinkle highlighted crows-feet about his eyes, giving the impression a frown had never visited his face.  His trademark chuckle – complete with faint shoulder-tremors – endeared Pop to the community. Mom was slightly humpbacked, perhaps from compensating over their height discrepancy. She was the more vocal.  I was both attracted to and unsettled by a conviction-fire  that sometimes visited her eyes.  I had noticed the odd way her closed lips moved about when something important held her thoughts. They moved that way now.

Jerry, Harold and I would like to give you something to consider.

Sure.

We know that where you live doesn’t allow for any home-cooked meals. So we were wondering.

Pop Starbuck nodded.

Harold and I raised three daughters. They’re all grown now and live at their own places. We’d like you to think about moving in with us – try out some of my cooking. Her smile couldn’t have been more inviting.

We can suggest a room-and-board amount and you can decide.  Do you think you’d be interested?

Entering the bedroom with my bit of luggage I took some seconds to adjust my vision. My eyes felt under assault. With pink.

I’ll need no explanation of  this. Mom and Pop raised girls alright. The grin on my face broadened as I inventoried my new living quarters.

Bedspread-Pink

Chest-of-drawers – Pink

Curtains and Drapes – Pink,

Etc.

Organ music filtered from the living room as I unpacked my suitcase. Afterward I paused at the doorway. My weaker leg wasn’t tired. It just felt good to rest against a wall inside a home. Where family dwelled.

The small organ bench supported a contented Pop Starbuck. Clearly at ease in his musician-role. And with himself.

Aromas of pot roast, simmering carrots, potatoes and who knew what else floated from the modest kitchen.  I felt my mouth moisten.

Shortly Mom Starbuck emerged and sent a smile our way.

Are you two gents ready to take in some food?

I entered the kitchen and approached a dining table set for three. And hummed a closing line I was taking in from another room.

Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.

©2015 Jerry Lout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wheels

With borrowed carpentry tools I dismantled the wooden crate my dad shipped from Oklahoma. Soon I straddled the unpacked merchandise and thrust the kick-starter. I was happy for the right-foot design. With my left foot’s polio history firing up the motorcycle engine would have been tough.

The 150cc Honda came to me a couple days after my bus arrival on Sheridan Avenue. Sitting on my bike felt good. A link with my home state, and memories. A wistful mood took me back.

I was ecstatic over my bike’s achievement one night. On the Honda I had opened the throttle on a long downhill stretch of highway, seeing what she could do.

Returning to the towns’ main street, I spotted a familiar green and white ‘59 Chevrolet – the wheels of a good friend. The Chevy was parked before a diner. Dropping the bike’s kickstand I strode in – primed to brag. At a booth I spotted my brother Tim, his friend Larry and a couple others.

Guys! Guess what. I just got seventy on my Honda.

Gale, the Chevy owner and the wittiest head among us, grinned my direction. Kinda crowded wasn’t it?

Another memory was the goose-egg my skull acquired from a Sixth Street pavement. I smiled again at the remark, Reckon we oughta get his bike off the road?

 Now my same white Honda carried me along the Shoshone River – into and past a canyon. The smell of Shoshone’s Sulphur pestered my nostrils as I leaned into highway curves. The bike hummed loudly through tunnels leading to the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. Cloud-shadows blotched Rattlesnake and Cedar Mountains. Peaks that – like sentries – stood watch over Cody. I ventured between them, then past the lake and up Wapiti Valley.

My motorcycle treks became therapy rides – the perfect answer to hours parked in a chair near an editor’s room. Where my fingers marathon-danced on teletype keys.

Weather attractive to motorcyclists held on till early Fall. Tourism slowed. Intermittent cold snaps knocked at Cody’s door, ready to usher in an approaching winter.

For the Honda and me, a last big trek lay ahead.

Toward the most unexpected, life-altering adventure.

©2015 Jerry Lout

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Big Sky

At sixty miles per hour, cold pummeled my face. The mountain air continued its assault as Cody, Wyoming receded back of me to the south. I had left before Seven a.m.  My destination this Labor Day Sunday was Billings, Montana. To lessen my discomfort I dialed the throttle back a notch with my right hand. I was shivering.

This was ranch-land in the raw. Clusters of sheep – like huddling athletes in white jerseys – congregated in tight groups.  My bike took me past similar groupings of cattle in the open range. An occasional head rose among them, nostrils emitting puffs of steam.

I crossed the state line. Minutes into Big Sky Country I slowed. Surveying the quiet main street of small-town Belfry I hoped for an open diner with hot food.  I must dismount this bike and catch a break from this cold.

Ah. Seems like a cozy cafe. Indeed, and at my journeys’ half-way point – a refuge. I requested my standard. . . two eggs over-easy, bacon, toast – black coffee. I smacked my gloved palms together and circled in short steps before a wood-burning stove. Beyond the effects of frigid conditions common to most people, my polio episodes seemed to hinder blood flow still more. Despite attempts at thawing my fingers, once my food came another two minutes passed before they held a fork with any ease.

It’ll be nice seeing Brother Fred and his family again. My thoughts anticipated Montana’s largest city as I spread strawberry jam on my toast.

Fred. The third man of the Creason brothers intersecting my world. I suppose I should have let them know I would come see them today.

The waitress extended a navy blue coffee pot – steam levitating above its spout. More coffee? I nodded gratefully.

Fred Creason, his German wife Erica and their two young boys, had till recently lived in my home town, Okmulgee. They were part of our church family. Fred, in the insurance business, moved his family to Billings on what could be thought by some, a whim. But a mystery dream, believed to be God-sent,  played a role.

An thought interrupted my reflections – tightening my eyebrows.

Never one to fuss very much over planning ahead, I realized now I lacked some important information. Quite important.

I had no Billings address for the Creason family. Nor a Creason telephone number. Further, I only assumed they knew that I now resided in Cody – a hundred miles near.

Wow. They could be off someplace on vacation for all I know. And, the Creasons are my only reason for visiting Billings. I don’t know another soul in all Montana. Wow. Well – something will work out I guess. . .

Stretching, I pushed back from the breakfast table and reviewed my road map. Then took up my wool coat, thick scarf and rabbit-hair gloves. I glanced at a wall clock. It was just past 8:00 a.m. when I stepped from the diner.

My first breakfast in Montana. Nice, I mused, cinching my helmet strap.  I eyed the northward highway and wondered of the town called Billings. And the Creason family’s whereabouts.

Something lay before me I could have never foreseen. Within hours I would meet someone. From this another journey would spring.  A larger, life-impacting one.

Of callings. Of dreams. Of covenant.

©2015 Jerry Lout

 

 

 

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Eyes

The term reasonable and prudent measured Montana’s legal highway speed for years.  Absent a daytime speed limit, drivers simply focused on the road ahead. Rather than radar-fitted patrol cars – or their own speedometers. Some motorists argue that Big Sky highways were safer in those earlier times – when reasonable and prudent described people themselves – not just speed laws.  My small-engine motorcycle threatened neither Montana nor Wyoming law enforcement of the ‘60s.

Crossing railway tracks at the south edge of Laurel, Montana, brought me within twenty miles of my destination. Funny how our senses usher us to times and locations. And memories. With its oil refinery, Laurel’s sights and smells wakened feelings of another place.  From the highway entering Tulsa we saw refineries layer the atmosphere in smoke plumes. Spreading their billows adrift – like a giant bedcovering flung from a housekeeper’s invisible hands.  Near the highway white storage tanks shadowed a larger-than-life sign. Boldly declaring, Tulsa, Oklahoma – Oil Capital of the World.

Well, it’s Sunday morning in Montana. If the Creason family is around, in a few minutes they’re likely entering a church. Somewhere.  

Downtown Billings was quiet. The abrasive air began to mellow as the sun made its upward climb. Leaving the parked Honda, I entered an upscale hotel and surveyed the lobby. There were two  mahogany phone booths, side by side – neither of them occupied. It wasn’t a telephone I sought. I flipped through the directory to the Yellow Pages.

C-h-u-. .  There it was. Churches. Hmm. Even for a city of sixty thousand, this seemed a lot of churches.

Let’s see. . . Non-denominational. If the Creasons are not away, they’re probably, maybe. Beneath the category the tip of my forefinger glided downward. Plenty of listings here, too.

A ballpoint, attached to a thin chain, lay close at hand. Resting my finger at a random name I copied the church and its address.  It didn’t occur to me to copy any of the others.

Absent the aid of a city map I directed my bike down a side street just beyond the hotel. After two or three turns, within a few blocks I was at the street I sought. Minutes after leaving the phone booth I spotted the church sign, Tabernacle of Faith.  I tipped the open end of my left glove. My watch read nine forty-five.

An outer church stairway led me up to the entrance. The warmth of the sanctuary enveloped me and I paused to take in the room and scan the few early arrivals. Drawing a long breath I smiled broadly.

Erica Creason – Fred ‘s war bride (as the era designated her) – spotted me. Her German accent traversed the sanctuary. Fred! Boys.

Erica remained astonished. Her eyes glistened. Look. It is Jerry Lout!

The foursome descended on me. Exclamations punctuated our laughter as we hugged.

Pretty amazing, I thought. The first place to look. And here they are. The Creasons. Wow.

Our mini-reunion quieted as piano music signaled an opening hymn. Taking up a red song book I fingered the graphic. Three gilded crosses. The corners of my mouth turned upward. Melodies of Praise. Throughout worship I felt closeness. Close to friends, close to others in the room – even the strangers. I felt close in our common purpose to gather in this place. To worship the Lord, to grow in our faith. What church is about, I thought. Following the morning sermon, the Creasons brought me to the preacher.

Brother Barnes, we want to introduce you to Jerry Lout. He’s a friend from Oklahoma, from our church body there.

Pastor Earl Barnes, a gregarious personality, smiled. He welcomed me, then signaled his family. I recognized the approaching woman as the organist. She carried herself with grace. Her smile was full, sincere.

Jerry, this is my wife, Mary, and our three children.

I nodded. He indicated their two boys. Our sons here are Jonathan and David. And this is their sister.

The pretty fifteen-year-old stood relaxed but poised. She held a scarf and woolen cap. Across an arm draped a winter coat that would soon conceal the light blue sweater she wore. Her name was Alice. Her blond hair framed a face as attractive as any I had ever seen and I risked an extra second to study it. Her eyes especially drew me. I forced myself to shift my gaze from their symmetry and beauty. I turned to acknowledge again her mother and father.

The girl’s first name was Alice. But she went by her middle name.

Ann.

©2015 Jerry Lout

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Friendship and Courtship

Reuniting with Creasons made for a happy Labor Day. The northwest air mellowed over the weekend and was kind on my return cycle trip home, to Cody.

Winter swept in. I really liked my Honda. Logic won out. In a nostalgic mood I traded it for a cozier ride – a car I could wish were mine today. The make was Chevrolet; the model, 1957.

With winter came bitter cold. The coldest day of my working life found me stuffing newspapers into the night for the weekly distribution. Equipment had ceased running and it was everyone on deck. A main gas line erupted outside town, shutting energy off to the city. By candlelight our Cody Enterprise crew stuffed papers until midnight.

Mom and Pop Starbuck’s home felt arctic when I finally crept in. Taking a banana from the kitchen counter, I found it solid. Peeling it I bit in. At current room temperature its coldness rivaled a banana split. That night I went to bed fully clothed. Only my shoes remained uncovered. We learned next morning of the thirty five below zero temperature that night.  By a miracle no lives were lost among the elderly or ill and the gas line returned to service.

Leisure times found me often with the church youth near my age. Friends Richard and Rommie became sweet on two sisters – Judy and Joyce. The quartet received me into their circle as if Wyoming were my home, and as if five weren’t an uneven number. Maybe they took pity on the fifth wheel guy from a distant place. I was happy in this fun, caring community. Our short jaunts carried with them sounds of current pop music. Strains of In the misty moonlight floated from the cars’ open window – our harmonies mellowing the night air. Romantic music carries power.  Eventually wedding bells rang for the two couples.

For a while I dated a nice town girl. Discerning the difference between friendship and courtship came early and our dating trailed off with no feelings hurt either way.

In time I found myself for a curious reason missing the Fred Creason family. Remembering I had been sure to get their phone contact I dialed the Billings number. Yes, they were in next weekend and would welcome a visit. Fred added that after Sunday worship they would join the Barnes family for dinner. Fred assured me I would be welcome as their guest.

My heart picked up its beat. A visit to the pastors home. I would see the pretty girl with the pretty eyes who went by her middle name. Ann.

Nice the Creasons hadn’t moved away.

©2015 Jerry Lout

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Trigger Treat

Halloween is at our doorstep. My wife and I don’t always join the culture in supplying dentists greater job security. This was one of the times, however, when a bowl of goodies lay inside our front door. For a reason neither of us recall Ann was away and the candy-dispensing role rested with me. An irregular parade of costumed munchkins was underway. . . 

The doorbell sounded again. Reaching to the dwindling stash of candy I answered – and took in an image that gave me pause.

Something about the trick-or-treater left me unsettled. Perhaps his height. Fully six feet tall. Then there was the military-camouflaged uniform.

The commando trick-or-treater stood there alone. A candy collection pail in one of his hands comforted me. A little. Then, shifting my gaze, I saw the rifle. He’s armed!

A shoulder strap supported a life-size look-alike (or was it?) automatic rifle.

In the second it took to swallow hard I studied the boy-man’s face. Beneath each eye a blaze of red marked his cheeks. Like scars

Against better judgment – or sanity – I released the storm door latch and edged onto my front porch.

This could go badly, I thought – tightening the grip on my makeshift armament. Tootsie Pops – one cherry-flavored, the other orange. If Mr. Commando made a wrong move, I reasoned, a tootsie handle could puncture a jugular vein. Or something like that. I covertly surveyed the youth’s neck.

I surveyed hm. His non-threatening posture put me a little more at ease. I felt tension in my hands release my Tootsie Pops grip. Raising my view to meet his eyes I voiced the question nagging me.

Mm, Should I be concerned? 

The boy-man’s matter-of-fact response accompanied a grin that looked genuinely shy.

Naw, It’s fake. I even taped the stock so as to make it clear the gun isn’t dangerous.

He pointed to bits of masking tape near the trigger guard. Drawing a fraction of comfort from our exchange so far I ventured a slow exhale – maybe my first since stepping outside.

Placing the Pops in his receptacle I extended my hand. I’m Jerry.

‘Jimmy’, he replied, shaking my hand.
“Jimmy, could I maybe offer a suggestion? Mm, you may want to rethink the outfit. Especially the firearm there.”

I offered a hypothetical that, if played out in real life, could be ugly. I shared my concern that a homeowner’s entryway could conceal an armed person who forgot the Halloween date or such.  The blast of a 30-30 could seriously damage one’s abdomen, even if discharged through a closed door. Jimmy considered the imagery.

“Yeah”, he finally offered. He shuffled a foot before turning aside. I figured I’d be going home pretty soon now anyway.

Depositing two extra Pops in his pail, I wished him well. I returned indoors, fingered the deadbolt with more attention than usual and switched off the porch light.

Enough ‘All Saints Day’ for one evening.

©2015 Jerry Lout

Question: Would you advise residents – or trick-or-treaters – this holiday? If so, with what counsel? How ought a believer in Christ view Halloween? Should I have left Jimmy with Four Spiritual Laws? . . Questions I mull over at times. COMMENTS are valued! Meanwhile, be safe.