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May 26, 2015August 28, 2017

Falling

My brother Tim and I fought. Not excessively but – as with many close siblings – enough.

By my second year in elementary school I learned more than counting and reciting the alphabet. To my communication skills I added profanity. Never mind my ignorance of definitions, my enlarged vocabulary was picked up mostly on school playgrounds.

I practiced cursing on my brother at least once. Angry with Tim over nothing noteworthy I unleashed a stream of language at a far higher volume than was wise. My mother overheard the rants and seized an educational opportunity. About two things. (1) Resourcefulness. The wire-handle end of her fly swatter-turned-switch. (2) Awareness. Of a zero-tolerance policy for profanity in our home. From that day if I wasn’t fully cured I was clearly more discreet.

Mother was also compassionate. Back of our house the ground sloped gently downward, to a simple red barn where we boys often played. Beyond this was a pasture. I had recently turned nine. From a window mother saw my struggle.

I ambled from the barn toward the house. In mid-step my leg gave way. I fell. Lifting myself up I walked a short distance, then went down again. By the third or fourth tumble my mom was hurrying my way. She helped me to the house. My dad responded to her call and we were soon en route to the local doctor’s office.

Learning of my earlier polio bout the physician assumed this was not likely the same affliction. By now both legs entirely failed to work. I was admitted, limbs weakened and stiffening, into our local hospital. My condition worsened. Another physician was called in. He ran tests and soon conveyed his findings.

Poliomyelitis.

Hillcrest Hospital occupies a spot near downtown Tulsa on historic Route 66. The virus spread rapidly across the country. Hillcrest administrators concisely labelled one of its wings the polio ward. The patients – mostly children – were confined to beds positioned at varied elevated angles. Specific treatment of the patient seemed to dictate the bed’s positioning. A freer flow of air was critical for those with strained breathing muscles.

Through an open doorway I glimpsed a daunting, one-occupant contraption (a word my dad used for any curious object). It reminded me at first of a greatly-enlarged tin can lying sideways. Several patients lay each in their own iron lung – their exposed head wresting on a pillow atop a small extended platform. In most cases the iron lung was critical for staying alive.

We entered a multi-patient room. With the help of my mom, a nurse settled me into a designated bed. A sudden cramp assaulted my limbs. I grimaced. After a time the pain lessened.

I relaxed a little. And guessed I would be here awhile.

Note: In ‘Comments’ I’d love to hear from anyone who’s experienced polio or perhaps a family member? Be free to share a little insight/experience if you wish.

May 19, 2015August 28, 2017

Commonality

The Plymouth sedan rolled to a stop in the parking lot of our little house of worship. The left door opened and a metallic glitter caught my eye as the driver began the process of exiting her car. It was a process. She swiveled slowly so both her legs, framed in stainless steel braces, dangled to the outside.

What caught my eye next was her face. Angelic? The adjective wasn’t in my word-store then but, yes. A quality beamed from the young woman’s face. Almost like a glow. Opaline’s smile overtook me. It has never left.

Falling in love with Opaline was more enchantment than romance. An unlikely combination of hardware and disposition fueled the attraction. Full limb braces on both legs combined with her smile. My meeting her at roughly age five spawned a long journey of regard. And affection. How can full-length leg braces and this kind of smile converge? My gaze dropped. I surveyed my malformed shoe fashioned so by pressure from an equally malformed foot. I smiled just as the reason for the smile caught up with the action itself. I shared a common affliction. . with an angel!

What could a flooded pasture and a paralyzing disease have in common? Perhaps nothing.

My father, Clyde Lout, was a living testament to a rural adage. Dust bowl issues succeeded in taking the boy out of the country and on to California urban centers. Nothing prevailed however at taking the country out of the boy. Oklahoma soil, long recovered from the droughts of the 1930’s, beckoned.

We moved to a small acreage outside town. Twin pear trees in the pasture – limbs heavy with their treasures most summers – supplied Tim and me with climbing and feasting pleasures. Don’t eat them when they’re green! was our mother’s (sometimes-heeded) admonition.

Our sister Betty exercised more wisdom than her young siblings. Tim and I first learned to swim near the same pear trees in the pasture. Not in a pond or in a stream running through the pasture. We set in motion our first-ever strokes in the pasture itself.

A red-brown waterway called the Deep Fork River snaked through the countryside west of our place. During a late spring season in the mid-1950s continued rains flooded the Deep Fork. Ongoing downpours overflowed every creek and stream.

Rising waters flooded lowlands, submerging much of our five acres. Once the rain stopped my brother and I splashed about in the chest-deep mix of water and floating debris. Discovering buoyancy we propelled our way through tree bark, sticks and limbs, assorted leaves and hollowed pecan shells. And here and there – given it was the habitat of farm animals – other matter as well.

My second bout with the polio virus far exceeded the first in its severity. Whether my pastureland swim factored into the soon approaching paralysis is unresolved.

I was nine years old. My legs simply stopped working.

May 12, 2015August 28, 2017

Tents and Braces

In the Summer of 1949 sounds of homespun music, clapping hands and shouts of Amen ascended into the night at the north end of our town. A tent meeting was underway.

Things about tents fascinate me. My mother-in-law’s Danish mom – Grandma Sadie – called up memories as a settlers’ daughter. People from Denmark are evidently tough. The family spent their first winter in Montana living in a tent. Sadie’s beguiling reflection, “but it was a pretty mild winter” prompted a reflection of my own; ‘there can be no such thing as a mild winter in Montana – in a tent.’

In my adult years, while living in a tropical region, I bought a weathered six-man camping tent. A patch in the roof presumably marked the spot where the tusk of an elephant punctured the dwelling. The agitated mammal, I was told, raised the edge of the tent off the ground before moving on.

In the ‘1940s and ‘50s open tents seated fifty to a hundred people and served the purposes of transient American preachers. Our visiting preacher, a lady minister oversaw with the aid of her husband, the tent’s inauguration on a vacant lot. A sawdust floor, wooden folding chairs, worn hymnals and a guitar or perhaps accordion completed the setting. The tent’s older visitors kept hand-held fans in easy reach. The preaching was Bible-centered, the messages vigorously delivered, the singing pulsing with strength.

Clyde and Thelma began attending the meetings with my sister, brother and me in tow. The music, preaching and testimonials seemed to usher in the Presence. The family never tired of experiencing the nearness of God in the company of other Jesus followers.

After a few weeks of conducting meetings the minister and her husband felt drawn to remain in our Northeastern Oklahoma town. They rented a vacant building. The Living Way Tabernacle became our church home.

After the polio experience my left leg was fitted with a knee to shoe brace. In my fifth year the brace came off for good. I was active without it and, lacking the benefit of therapy coaches in that era, my folks simply retired the brace. My limp became a little more pronounced from that time.

Support structures and supportive people. Good things to have in our lives. They are wonderfully provided (some would say from above) to help meet real needs, to make up the lack. It’s true that personal betterment can sometimes actually be hindered through over-support. That is, when a kind of assistance or a certain level of it is no longer appropriate.

Still, help is needed by all of us, through all of life. Different types of help and in differing amounts, for different seasons. Prematurely withdrawing support (as with braces) may damage or hinder progress along a road to wellness. Or, at least, better mobility.

I fell in love at age five. Her name was Opaline. She was beautiful. Even in braces. . Especially in braces.

May 5, 2015August 28, 2017

Impressions. Polio, first round

When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.
– Will Rogers

Impressions. Some are innocuous. Others are vital, setting life-altering forces in motion. An impression, when acted on, can foster adventure, inspire faith. Hardships seem postponed. Then they wash ashore and into our lives. Some in manageable waves. Others overwhelm us, tsunami-like, leaving us reeling til we re-gather ourselves. Hopefully in the comforting aid of others.

Impressions played their roles in the young Oklahomans. From their California arrival ten years earlier and going forward. .

Unexplained comfort administered through a sister-in-law’s hands drew them into a life new to them. They began the long journey of yielding themselves to the new way. A way of prayer. Of faith.

Clyde responded to a later impression, leading them to trust for added children.

On still another occasion Clyde met with an inner constraint. It was a tender, yet cautionary word while he was taking in a scene at a movie theatre. The path you’re on isn’t leading you to where your little boy has gone. He exited the viewing.

Then, on a Spring night in 1946 my mother, Thelma, dreamed vividly of our family travelling a long roadway.

Clyde, I feel the Lord saying we’re to return to Oklahoma.

His response was surprisingly sudden and certain. They both laughed. Sensing the guidance was sound, they followed the impression.

Okmulgee. Bubbling Water.

The winsomeness of its Creek Indian meaning was matched by the strangeness of the town’s name to an unaccustomed ear. (Ohk-muhl-gee)

I was five months old when we entered the land of my family’s roots. It would be my land, the place of my roots. We were home.

An aggressive disease showed up near my first birthday. The polio virus disabled my legs and feet before I had a chance to try them out. The assault was rapid and, thankfully, short-lived. It contorted my left foot, permanently curbing it’s range of motion. In time my left leg resumed growing. So the right leg trumps the left by more than an inch. The redesigned foot and the shortened leg combined to supply me with an uninvited trademark of sorts. A limp.

The disquieting polio intruder wasn’t finished. Awhile later the illness paid a second childhood visit. It was then the term iron lung entered our vocabulary.

April 28, 2015August 28, 2017

Family Addition(s)

It wasn’t an appealing dwelling place for a family but California’s Mojave Desert supplied one perk. Houses didn’t cost much. South African immigrants had assigned retired gold mining communities their names. A two mile drive west of Johannesburg led to Randsburg. Clyde, Thelma and seven-year-old Betty settled into their new home. He paid $150 for the house. His plumbing skills secured work for him at a nearby military base.

Clyde privately pledged that he and Thelma would have no more children. He vowed so during the agonized hours after Bobby’s drowning. For sure, his heart began a slow healing as he read through Bible stories. The life and words of Jesus especially drew him in, bringing more composure. And he sensed growth in his spiritual journey.

Still, something he dreamed after going to bed one night in their small Randsburg home left him astonished.
In his dream he pictured small children whom he couldn’t recall ever seeing before. They were lively, happy at play.

After some moments into the dream a crisp, convicting message – like a theme – overtook his mind. Bringing no further children into the world was not Clyde’s decision to make. Not really. His choosing this path closed the door to receiving precious little ones assigned to their family’s care.

Receiving? Assigned?

In the days following, Clyde could not shrug off images of laughing, playing children nor the dream’s assertion as he experienced it. The matter became a conviction. He yielded.

In due course Thelma delivered their third child. All nine pounds of Timothy Arthur Lout were clearly present. Exclamations erupted at Red Mountain’s hospital.

Now there’s a Big boy! He’s half grown already!

Timothy was still a baby when the family moved once again. Back to the Bay. To Berkeley. My mother (Thelma) later reviewed the setting and its seasons. When you were born, Jerry, Berkeley was just a quiet little college town.

I came into the world one year, one month and one day after my brother, Tim. I skinned up the tip of my nose from regularly rooting face-down into the bed sheets. For this the hospital nurses labeled me ‘little bull’.
How our small-framed mother actually delivered us bruisers, Tim and me, is a marvel. I trumped my brother Tim’s birth weight, tipping the scales at a disquieting ten pounds. A vital, robust life seemed clearly ahead.

During this period a word was finding its way into conversations all around. The word polio.

April 21, 2015August 28, 2017

A Sure Hope

The mourners dispersed. The flower-dotted cemetery reverted to its earlier stillness. Thelma almost whispered her words.

What is it, Dovie? This Presence. It’s inside me. . in gentle waves. What is this goodness and this . .safety I feel?

Thelma’s question hung in the air. The shadow of a Canary Island Palm stretched across the lawn before them.

She was hungry for answers. This utter absence of her earlier grief astonished her. She hoped that the extraordinary calm would somehow remain. Yet she feared it may take flight. Could she carry on?

Dovie, will this peace, or the source of it, be near again if I (she corrected herself) when I need it?

More questions. She had many and voiced most of them to Dovie over coming weeks.

Dovie was not a person of complicated notions or grand explanations. She waited. As she sensed a thought forming that brought clarity she pondered it, then offered a response. Otherwise she remained still. Prayerful.

The God that Dovie came to know and to love was real. And he was the giver of the Book. She knew that answers for questions that actually mattered were linked to the precious book. The pages of her own Bible showed uncommon signs of wear. It attested to truth. And to God’s presence.

“All I know, Thelma, is Jesus is real. It’s him. He’s the presence.” Her words were simple, uncomplicated. Dovie responded in this way it seemed every time. Always highlighting Jesus.

How do I get him. . have him in my life, Dovie? Can I? I don’t want to be without the hope. I need Jesus.

“Just say that to him, dear. Give him your heart. Surrender to him your whole life. Let him begin to take over. He’s listening. He doesn’t turn anybody away.”

Thelma yielded. As much as she knew how to. Shortly afterward Clyde kneeled, giving himself over to God’s care. Both of them were ready. They sensed it keenly. They needed God’s presence.

They were comforted too, that he understood the pain of releasing a son to the grave. Neither understood a lot of their salvation. They didn’t worry themselves over it. They just believed, and trusted.

Clyde and Thelma entered a new kind of life. Striding forward in faith, limping at times. In love. And hope.

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April 14, 2015August 28, 2017

Presence

Dovie touched the apron hem to her eyes and dabbed at gathering tears. She released it and the apron fell again, draping her cotton dress. Taking up the dish towel she wiped the last of the dinner plates. Her eyes were sorrowful. Still they displayed a quiet serenity. Dovie turned from the kitchen sink and tenderly regarded her sister-in-law.

Thelma sat near-motionless at the table. Soft catches in her breathing testified to sobs reluctant to go away. Her eyes were drawn, weary from the work of crying.

A fan in a distant room whirred rhythmically. Dovie lingered, treasuring the stillness here as a sacred thing. She moved slowly to the space behind Thelma’s chair. She rested her hands on the young mother’s shoulders. Dovie’s hands were weathered, not from age but from the Oklahoma field labor of earlier times.

Her lips moved silently in devotion, breathing only an occasional whisper.
Father, your peace.
Your peace, Father.
Her prayer seemed more a statement than a petition. An acknowledgement of nearness.

Thelma sensed the nearness. She let herself begin to settle into it. It was a nearness different than that of her sister-in-law’s gentle presence. She gave herself to it and it remained.
Into many years to come, beginning from this day, Thelma recalled Dovie’s closeness. And her quiet conversations with heaven – times of the presence. She savored the memories of her sister-in-law. She savored, even more, the presence.

Thelma’s account.

Dovie quietly came to me. Within moments of her hands being on my shoulders I felt differently. I was lighter. That awful sorrow, its horrible darkness lifted off me. There was peace. It was real, this feeling. I was calm. A sweetness came to the room. A rich Presence.

(Later. The day of the funeral) Walking to the gravesite I felt I was gliding along. I can’t explain. Like floating just above the ground. I was being carried. It was the same afterward, walking from the burial place. I never knew this kind of presence. And peace.

After a time Clyde and Thelma chose to move again to California. But only following another choice – a significant one each felt they must make.

©Jerry Lout 2015

April 7, 2015August 28, 2017

A Desert Place

Jack! Jack! O God.

The neighbor screamed wildly, again yelling the appeal. The young man pivoted. His eyes followed her gesture.
The canal!

Irrigation waters swept Jack’s young cousin downstream. The twenty year old ran two and a half blocks before catching up with little Bobby. He pulled him from the current and onto the canal bank. But Jack arrived too late. Three year old Bobby Lout was gone.

The young family had come to Phoenix from Berkeley for the climate. For the children’s health.

Clyde had long since atoned for his oversleeping bungle. His slim earnings as a plumber’s helper prepared them for a modest but happy welcome of their firstborn. Betty came within a year of Thelma’s pilgrimage West. Her little brother arrived three years later.

Thelma let his curly blond hair grow long. He charmed the family, neighbors, even strangers. Everyone adored Bobby.

Then asthma descended on the two children. The damp climate of the Bay area made the condition worse. Clyde considered the situation. They should move, he told Thelma.

His oldest sibling, Dovie, had settled in Arizona with her family. The Louts left for Phoenix. Clyde found a place to live not far from Dovie’s household. And in a reasonable time he had a job.

Then now, this crushing loss.

Bobby’s death lunged the family into grief. Thelma anguished over Bobby’s drowning so intensely it was questioned whether she would regain emotional soundness. Wailings gave way to sobs, then whimpers. Cycles kept alive with renewed sobbing, followed by long silences.

Limping is a thing that overtakes everyone in the race we call life. The death of a child, especially one’s own child, can bring devastating lameness. It cripples parents and siblings – at least temporarily – in ways not easily comprehended. Recovery from some horrors demands critical attention.

Crippling lameness calls for companionship. For authentic compassion. It calls for family – natural or otherwise.

Dovie lived nearby. A godsend.

March 24, 2015August 28, 2017

Promised Land

Arriving at San Francisco Bay, Clyde Baxter sampled the faint taste of salt air. He slowly filled his lungs and considered the untimely passing of his parents. The White Plague (tuberculosis) destroyed their lungs. The children received meager help from nearby relatives, themselves very poor. Clyde and his four older siblings were, otherwise, left to carry on alone.

He boarded a packed bus and jostled along with passengers of uncommon accents. He viewed their appearance and manners with a distant curiosity. While cities of the Bay supplied first-time visitors plenty of sights and sounds, Clyde remained focused.

Stories of California promised provision. And surely no job here would yield as paltry a wage as that of hoeing cotton back home. He hoped he was done with that job. He left school after tenth grade to labor under a punishing Oklahoma sun – for fifty cents a week.

Depression-era language crisply defines the word Hustle. To live by one’s wits, making an effort to obtain money. Years later, referring to his days of job-hunting around the Bay, my dad remarked without bluster, “I hustled.”

He found work.

On the first day at his first job, he studied the shovel handed him. The foreman indicated a long single row of drainage pipes stretched on the ground. “Dig the trench twenty inches deep.”

Not long afterward Clyde found another job. He made less money than as a ditch digger – at first anyway.

Beginning as a plumber’s helper he gradually advanced to journeyman plumber and pipefitter. The skill fed his household for years.

Now – to save money and get some bus tickets to her. He and Thelma Christine were starting life together in a beautiful setting where land and waterways meet. He smiled at the thought of her last name.

Bay.

Imagining creatively,

Planning resourcefully,

Laboring energetically.

Admirable qualities all.

Life was hopeful. Hardships could wait.

March 31, 2015August 28, 2017

Unforeseen Limp

Clutching her tan cardboard suitcase Thelma boarded the Greyhound bus. With her free hand she swept a film of dust from an empty seat. Dust. It was like a crazed intruder. Nothing seemed to deter it.

She settled in for the first leg of her journey. Unknowns lay ahead. What was it like anyway? This Golden State?

Clyde kept his promise. He wired her travel money. He would meet her at the other end of the line.

She considered Clyde’s qualities. Like anyone he had shortcomings. But he kept his word. Her nervousness eased. She was joining him soon just like he said. He’ll receive her with his wide smile and embrace.

The bus was on open road now. Thelma lowered her hands, linked her fingers over her midsection and looked out the window. One – two – three. She counted fence posts parading by.

An exodus of automobiles and trucks, some barely roadworthy, chugged westward. Most were bulging with Texans and Oklahomans – Dustbowl escapees. Every small town dotting the Mother Road received the caravan. And yielded it up some minutes later at the far end of Main Street.

Her last ride rolled into East Bay’s station. Thelma eagerly studied faces of locals receiving their travelers. Where was Clyde? Lugging her suitcase she alighted. She scanned the area until it nearly emptied.

Fingering a scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it she trudged off. The suitcase felt heavier.

Clyde hurried along the hilly streets. He was frantic and mortified. How could he have done it? How could a guy drift off to sleep like that – miss his girl’s arrival?

He turned a corner and saw her. Her luggage shoulder sagged and her face was flushed.

On the trip she saw them racing toward each other. Laughter.

Taking the suitcase he awkwardly hugged her. He apologized. At the entry to their apartment he apologized again.

Clyde was a man of strong conscience.

Today it pummeled him.