Flannels, T-shirts, & Corduroy Pants
Yesterday I put on one of my comfortable flannel shirts in preparation for a cozy day at the home office, and decided to try something different. I tried buttoning it from the bottom up. What happened next may or may not surprise you. I immediately felt like my day would be doomed if I continued passed the second button. It just wasn't right... It felt undeniably weird. Shirts were meant to be buttoned from the top down, and that's just the way I see it. Buttoning a shirt from the bottom up is like eating ketchup on eggs, or putting the toilet paper where it rolls from the front instead of the back.
Actually, I prefer shirts without any buttons at all. That solves the problem altogether. There's nothing like slipping on a nice t-shirt to compliment your well-worn corduroy pants. My side of the closet is full of every kind of t-shirt imaginable: t-shirts of my favorite sports teams, retro t-shirts of nostalgic eighties movies, band t-shirts, souvenir t-shirts from traveling, t-shirts that were on sale, and t-shirts that were way overpriced but I couldn't live without. And then some. T-shirts rule all time!
Don't even get me started on corduroy pants! Wearing a good pair of cords is like the icing on red velvet cake, the jalapeño peppers on nachos, the ice to the tea, or even the extra inch of delicious yumminess you get from ordering a large latte instead of a medium. There's no doubt I could hike in cords and a t-shirt, eat barbecue in cords and a t-shirt, take a good nap sitting in my man chair in cords and a t-shirt, shoot a slingshot in cords and a t-shirt, read a novel in cords and a t-shirt, and do any number of adventurous things from my imaginative bucket list in cords and a t-shirt. I feel very strongly that the everyday attire in heaven will probably be cords and a t-shirt. Oh yea, and flip-flops.
Don't even get me started on flip-flops! To be continued.
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I Have Arrived!
I have arrived, or at least, that's what United Airlines has told me. You work hard your entire life with high expectations of hearing those beloved words. You brush your teeth twice a day, floss regularly, go to church, buy Girl Scout cookies even if they're out of Thin Mints, pay your taxes, help old ladies across the street, stir your coffee clockwise, and get to work at least ten minutes early every day. While these things are notable, they have nothing to do with my "having arrived". I just happened to have traveled enough air miles to finally, for the first time, attain that glorious status of Premier Silver.
Getting status doesn't mean that much. Five dollars and my United Airlines Premier Silver Access Card gets me a grande latte' at Starbucks. Of course, Starbucks really doesn't care about seeing the card they just want their five bucks! Maybe that's why they stare at me funny when I show it to them with that stupid grin on my face. All joking aside, the real glory in achieving status is finally getting to walk across that beautiful, high-end, industrial-strength, well-vacuumed, navy blue rug with the silver letters across one end that reads: "United Premier Access". That rug gets more attention at airports every day, than Lindsay Lohan gets in the news on Monday mornings! Questions about the rug are forbidden, it's roped off like a bengal tiger cage at the San Diego Zoo, and God forbid you step on it if you don't have status! Since getting status I've actually stopped in the middle of the rug, while boarding, just to see if I could hear angelic host of heavenly beings singing the Doxology.
Something happens to you when you gain status. Every other traveler—besides the first-class passengers and the brave men and women of the military—seem a little lower on the totem pole. It's not an intentional attitude, it just happens. You stand up straighter, tilt your nose a little higher in the air, and take great delight in squeezing your way through the Group 3,4, and 5 boarders crowded in front of you at the gate. I've found myself unashamedly relishing those moments. Then you board the plane and get a few arrogant looks right back at you from the first class passengers sitting snugly in their excessively comfortable, over-priced, padded thrones. Isn't it humbling to know that in arriving you still have not fully arrived at all?
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Leftovers and Layovers
The Overs. No, it's not the last name of a wealthy philanthropist and millionaire socialite family like the Rockefellers. The Overs is my reference to leftovers and layovers. I am not a fan of either one. Are you? I guess there might be that occasional person who likes pulling a cold slice of week-old pizza from the refrigerator and eating it for breakfast, or that unique individual who enjoys being stuck at an airport for hours between flights and twiddling their thumbs.
First, are the leftovers. They stare at you from inside their Ziploc bags and multi-colored storage containers when you open the refrigerator door. There's the large tub of mashed potatoes under the red lid. They went nicely with the pork chops last Tuesday, but now they're all alone in excessive amounts, begging to accompany your chili from a can on Thursday. That will never happen, so the mashed potatoes wait in silence for the moment they'll be dumped in the sink and ravished through the garbage disposal. There's also the small round container of black-eyed peas under the orange lid. The peas would actually go nicely with a lot of things, but there's just not enough of them. They're about thirty-seven peas short of being reheated on your plate of enchilada casserole on Friday. So, the peas just stare at you with their beady black eyes from their little glass prison. It's just creepy!
I like a nice, hot, freshly cooked meal steaming with all the enticing smells of delicious yumminess. Mmhmmm! The main course is getting along with the side dishes, and the side dishes are getting along with the dessert. Meats, fruits, vegetables, spices, sauces, starches, calories, cholesterol, and fat, abiding in beautiful harmony as one delightful collaboration that is dinner. It's one big happy family of prepared foods until they all get swooped up, slopped into storage containers, and stacked precariously on death row in the cold, dark fridge.
Then, there are the layovers. I absolutely and unequivocally do not—with a feverish and distasteful passion—like layovers. Layovers are those completely unpleasant stops at airports between flights. Some layovers are too short to do anything entertaining like: eating, writing, drawing, solving, playing, reading, planning, developing, snoring, or organizing. Other layovers are so long that you've already eaten, wrote, drew, solved, played, read, planned, developed, snored, and organized, and have nothing else to do but wait.
What could be worse than waiting at the airport between flights? Oh, you can count ceiling tiles, watch the arrival and departure screens flash with updates, or count the number of hyperactive children running back-and-forth on the people movers while their parents chase and yell at them. That gets boring. To make matters worse, there's that overbearing aroma of those extra-large, excessively iced, ginormous cinnamon rolls from the food court, circulating through your nose as you do everything humanly possible to fight the urge to devour them all. I rest my case.
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Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose!
Remember those darn things you used to say as a kid? ...That odd array of poetic rhymes you stored deep in the depths of your growing vocabulary and used in word battles? They were sayings like, I know you are, but what am I? That was one of the most popular sayings because there was always some name-calling happening on the playground during recess. Some bully would say, "Is that your face or did your neck throw up?" And you would reply with some weird, quirky smirk on your face: "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me!" That was allows a lie. Words hurt and would sometimes leave you paralyzed in emotional trauma.
I'm not talking about bad words either. The bad words were obvious and were never, ever uttered in the presence of any grownup, even the adults that used bad words themselves. There seemed to be some unwritten law of the universe that allowed grownups to spit out profanities like a machine gun, without suffering any consequences. I grew up in a God-fearing home in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, so when I heard dirty words it was when I was out in the world among the heathens. I remember one time when my parents left me at my Aunt Carolyn's daycare and, apparently, I unleashed some vile profanity that caused the wind to stop blowing. That resulted in the worst, most disgusting, washing-of-my-mouth-out-with-soap that I ever experienced in my life. I actually think my Aunt Carolyn used a bar of that gritty, lime green soap that mechanics used to scrub the grease off their hands. Gross!
There were more serious words and phrases more hurtful than amusing. I also recall, like it was yesterday, the first time a kid called me a "honkey." It was this awkward moment in the second grade when I had left class to go to the bathroom. The kid just stood there awaiting my reply after delivering his proverbial cutdown. I had know idea it was a racial comment; not even a clue. Oblivious, I did what any kid would do in my situation and called him an animal that rhymed with his word: Donkey! Thank goodness that uncomfortable confrontation lasted all of thirty seconds.
I can remember some of the random insults we would toss around as kids thinking we were hot stuff. There were times in class when your tongue was hanging out the side of your mouth while your No.2 pencil etched away at math story problems in your Trapper Keeper notebook. About the time "Billy went to the store and bought thirty-seven apples" you felt someone staring at you. It was always the little curly-haired girl with cooties and no front teeth, so you would look back at her and say, "Why don't you take a picture it'll last longer?!"
The absolute greatest, my most favorite, and the ultimate clincher of all kid sayings was Up your nose with a rubber hose! I wore that glorious insult out like the knees on my Toughskin bluejeans. Up your nose with a rubber hose was the coups de grâce of all comebacks, with stunning results that left hecklers frozen in their tracks! It also came complete with it's one tagline that resulted in a final knockout punch: Up your nose with a rubber hose WHERE THE GREEN GRASS GROWS!
Getting older meant dropping the childish kid sayings and moving on to single words that showcased one's coolness. I had the extreme honor of being a teenager in the Eighties, the greatest decade of all time. We were a colorful group of teenagers. No really, like bright, obnoxious, fluorescent colorful. We wore our checkered Vans, parachute pants, Ocean Pacific t-shirts, and Swatch Watches with great pride, and used sensational words like "rad" and "stoked" and "no duh!" Phrases didn't leave our vocabulary altogether, they were just more mature things like "It's on like Donkey Kong!" or "Yo momma!", or even Valley Girl talk like "Gag me with a spoon!" and "Totally tubular, like, fur sure!" Parents even tried to get in on the action by saying things like, "Act your age and not your shoe size!"
I'll admit it was hard for me to let go of Up your nose with a rubber hose, it played such a meaningful role in my adolescence. I can't say that I haven't been tempted lately to use it on the job in confrontations with coworkers. Wouldn't that be a real shocker in the conference room (*insert big grin here)?!
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more at jimedhardaway.com
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Playground Superheroes!
The bell rang... Kkkkllllaaaannnngggg! Kids flew in every direction as Mrs. Shirey, our grumpy old school teacher, barked at us to form a single-file line next to the classroom door. Mrs. Shirey had puffy, gray hair with white streaks in it and wore cat eye glasses. She gripped a wooden ruler in her hand and waved it around in the air like Darth Vader with his lightsaber. We dodged that ruler's fiery furry like Jedi Knights and hurriedly scrambled into place as if our lives depended on it. It was almost impossible for second graders to stand still knowing that we only had thirty-five minutes of recess ahead of us. We couldn't contain our hyperactivity.
Most of the children in our small town elementary school had been diagnosed with hyperactivity. The teachers said we were infested with it, especially the boys. Adults had the daunting task of determining if a kid couldn't stand still because they were hyper, or just had to go to the bathroom. Jumping to the wrong conclusion could be disastrous!
My hyperactivity caused me to dance uncontrollably in my Toughskin jeans with the reinforced knees. Moms dressed their kids in Toughskin jeans from Sears because they were rugged and cheap. My mother dressed me in Toughskin jeans because they were practically indestructible and came in all sorts of cool colors like denim blue and magenta. Toughskins were required active wear for kids who played outside from sunup to sundown. I wore Toughskin jeans inside the house, outside the house, to play, to school, to church, to McDonald's for Happy Meals, to Vacation Bible School, on campouts, and would have slept in them if I could have gotten away with it.
Mrs. Shirey, after corralling us for five minutes, finally gave in and led us down the long, noisy hallway and out the side door of the school building to our beautiful, gravel-covered playground. Once we cleared the threshold it was a mad sprint to claim one of the highly coveted seesaws, swings, or a place on the multi-colored, nauseating merry-go-round. Not my friend Matthew and I. We had our eyes fixed on the twisted web of gray steel that rose high into the sky like a cloud-splitting skyscraper, forming the greatest set of glorious monkey bars the world has ever seen!
I was Batman and Matthew was Robin, at least in our vivid childhood imaginations. The monkey bars was our Batcave and Monday through Friday it was our crime fighting duty to protect it against the evil villains who were out to expose its hidden secrets. Our friend Rodges was our archenemy The Joker. He and his mischievous gang of criminals came at us from every direction. Matthew and I would swing down from the top of the monkey bars using our Batropes and the fight was on. Bam! I raised my arm to block a swing from The Joker. Pow! Matthew countered with a punch to his evil sidekick. Boom! The Joker sent me to the dirt with a last-minute trip.
Every once-in-a-while a Catwoman would appear from nowhere to join the action. That meant all the seesaws and swings were taken and some stinky girl decided she wanted to climb the Batcave. Knowing we would get in trouble if she squealed on us, we would quickly call her "Batgirl" and let her on the monkey bars. Yuck!
Thirty-five minutes seemed more like only ten, and before we knew it the bell rang to announce recess was over... Kkkkllllaaaannnngggg! The playground superheroes were done for the day. Matthew and I dusted off our Toughskin jeans and jeered at the villains to let them know we'd be back tomorrow. The Joker always leaped on the Batcave as if he'd won the brawl, but we knew better. The good guys always win in the end and save the day. We growled and snarled at each other as we walked back to the school to get in line. Swoosh! We all dodged as Mrs. Shirey swung her monstrous wooden ruler. Wack!
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more:
The Scrawny Little Leaguer
The Chicken Pox Christmas
Hurricane Ghost Story
The After School Fight
Tale of the Snipe Hunters
The Half Court Basketball Shot
Pledge of Allegiance Dare Master
More great writings at: www.jimedhardaway.com
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The Scrawny Little Leaguer
*Dedicated to everyone who has ever been bullied.
I ran as fast as I could. My stiff blue jeans made a brushing sound as my legs passed each other going back-and-forth in a full sprint. The neighborhood dogs barked uncontrollably and chased me as I ran down the sidewalk beside a long chain-link fence. The untied laces of my sneakers flapped like the ears on a Basset Hound, and the worn out soles kicked up dust as I made a swift turn onto our driveway towards the front door. It was my first time ever to play Little League Baseball. Waiting for me inside the house was the news of what team I would play on.
The screen door slammed closed behind me as I dashed into the house. There it was, calling to me from across the room. The sounds of an angelic choir sang in my imagination as I stared in awe at its beaming glow. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window and illuminated that coveted red baseball uniform like a lightning bug at a campout. It was neatly laid over one of the dining room chairs with creases and folds that only a mother could make. A bright, red baseball cap with a bold, white “C” crested above the bill. Beside it, with the same crimson glow, was a t-shirt that read Cardinals across the front.
There was no time to waste; I had to try it on. I pulled that oversized t-shirt over my bowl-cut hair and tucked it so deep into the white polyester baseball pants that you could barely read the team name. Those elastic waist pants pulled up to just below my chest. I was a scrawny 10-year-old kid, one of the smallest on the team, and my big ears stuck out the sides of that cap like the wings on the Space Shuttle. The uniform was way too big, but that didn’t matter.
One day my parents drove me to the practice field next to the old red-bricked middle school. I dreaded every mile as our car sped over the battered asphalt, because there was an older kid on the team who had been bullying all the younger players. My nemesis was a portly—but stout—kid named Scott, and I was scared to death of him. Scott had more freckles scattered across his paunchy face than cupcakes have sprinkles, and a piercing, cold stare that burned a hole through your skin. He gave me the heebie-jeebies so much so that my bony kneecaps shook violently, as we got closer to the field.
My parents dropped me off behind the rickety old backstop behind home plate, and my pitiful shoulders sagged as I stood there in my dusty cleats and watched them drive away. In the next few minutes, I prayed and promised God that I would keep my pigsty of a bedroom clean forever if he would please let one of the coaches arrive before Scott did; it was the only way I would be safe from his devilish menace. It didn’t happen. I saw Scott coming towards me across the field, his eyes already burning a hole through my delicate flesh, and a look of disgust spread across his face like he’d just gargled nails and been released from prison. I was shaking in my undersized cleats and I tried tossing my baseball into the air to ignore him. That didn’t work either. I was clearly locked into his radar and in line to be his next unfortunate victim.
Scott walked straight up to me and bumped me with his well-upholstered chest, then leaned his sun-scorched face next to my ear. His words mixed with his reeking breath as he told me he was going to take off my pants and hang them in the tree, leaving me stranded in my tighty-whitey underwear for all to see. I was absolutely mortified! The scene ran through my head like a nightmare and I was completely defenseless. If only I had a baseball bat in my hand instead of that stupid glove I might stand a chance. So, I did the only thing I could, I ran like hell! This mild profanity is totally appropriate considering the fact that I was terrified at the mere thought of possible indecent exposure.
I had no idea where I was going but I ran as fast as my skinny body could go, leaving my synthetic leather glove as collateral and my baseball cap sailing off into the wind. Scott was hot on my heels! There was a neighborhood on the other side of the tree line—behind the field—and I had to make it to one of the houses. I wheezed with every stride and my throat burned from the humid air, but there was no way I was going to slow down. If I had one thing working to my advantage it was my speed, my love for Cap’N Crunch, and a fear for my life. Finally, he gave up chase letting me fade away into the distance. I could hear his mockery and laughter echoing behind me as I disappeared into the trees. I can still hear it today.
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more at jimedhardaway.com
Read another bullying true story: The Screamer
Be more than a bystander: StopBullying.gov
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The Chicken Pox Christmas
There was no snow on the ground that Christmas Eve night, nothing but a wind that whistled through the panes outside my window. I could see the stars through my bedroom curtains. They dangled from the sky just as the colored lights hung from our Christmas tree. I was supposed to be asleep, but my toes wiggled inside my footed pajamas because I was filled with uncontrollable glee. My baby blue eyes produced a soft glow on the ceiling. Static electricity drew thin strands of my red hair across the pillow, turning my bowl-cut hair into an electric halo over my head. It was a symbol of how nice I had been all year, and Santa Claus was sure to make good on it tonight.
A gentle smile pushed my cheeks aside. My tongue emerged through the space where my front teeth used to be and found a few crumbs stuck to the corners of my mouth from my mother’s holiday cookies. She had baked vanilla cookies cut in the shapes of trees, stars, stockings and candy canes, glazed with colorful icing, and topped with delicious sugar sprinkles. They were my favorite. I would have happily survived on them all year long, but my childhood was often disrupted with my father’s favorite blend of sauerkraut and weenies. Having to eat that detestable entrée was right up there with stepping in a fresh pile of doggy poo while playing in the yard. Both were major kinks in my quest for a perfect childhood.
I thought about my magnificent Christmas list as I lay there in bed. It was at least a hundred miles long. I imagine that if it had been dropped over the edge of the Empire State Building it would have stretched from top to bottom, then rolled into a manhole and landed in the abyss of the New York subway system. I could have easily just submitted the JC Penney catalog.
We always received our copy in the mail around Thanksgiving. I would find a spot on the floor and drag that paper monstrosity across my lap, using every tiny muscle in my body. With a crinkled nose reflecting my disgust, I would flip the pages past the bras and girdles to get to the toy section. Mr. Penney probably fired the person who was responsible for putting that most beloved section all the way in the back.
There were a few staples in every child’s collection of toys. Although Slinkies were among the top, Crayola Crayons probably took the lead. I gripped my favorite blue one in my hand and circled all the toys that I deemed worthy to adorn my wish list. There were Nerf footballs and Hot Wheels cars, Star Wars action figures and laser guns. I wore that crayon down until I was peeling away the paper from around it. Then I reached the most coveted creation of plastic innovation ever imagined. Its picture glistened from among the outdoor toys, somewhere between the bicycles and trampolines. It was a navy blue and yellow Batman Bigwheel!
Nothing said cool like a Bigwheel. These plastic tricycles—with the pedals attached to the oversized front wheel—were built for speed. The adjustable seat sat between the back wheels just inches from the ground, giving its rider the look of pure street dominance. The caped-crusader colors and graphics only accentuated its greatness. There was no doubt that this speed machine would proudly grace the top of my list.
That Christmas was a bit different from the rest. My holiday break from school began early when tiny red spots started appearing all over my small white body. My view of chickens was never the same. Their annoying pox had disrupted my holiday plans. My mother had quarantined me in the house, and if Santa were to come through with the Bigwheel my chances of riding it looked slim. There was no way my mother was going to expose the world to that vile disease.
Being confined inside our house with the chicken pox wasn’t too bad. Not only was I missing a few extra days of yucky arithmetic at school, but I also managed to catch most of the holiday television specials. Our Zenith tube TV had rabbit-ear antennae that reached into the sky, with aluminum foil crinkled around their tips for better reception. They looked more like a device used to communicate with aliens from distant planets. Through lines of static the TV illuminated the familiar images of Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the greatest of them all: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I never understood why Dr. Seuss wasted his time on being a doctor when he was so good at telling stories. I’m sure his inspiration for Green Eggs and Ham came from his own childhood sufferings with sauerkraut and weenies.
The night seemed to go on forever. Then, suddenly, there were noises coming from the hallway. Rip! Clank! Tear! Clink! My ears bent from the sides of my head like panels on a satellite. Could that be Santa Claus in my living room? I crawled out from under the covers and slid along the shag carpet to my bedroom door. One squeak from my end and the whole operation would be thwarted. I had to be stealth. This was my chance to get a firsthand look at Kris Kringle, my chance to dispel all the rumors at school that the man in red didn’t exist.
Gently I opened the door and peered out. There was movement in the living room at the other end. I heard the sounds of shuffling boxes, rattling paper, and clinking and clanking! My full-bodied footed pajamas were the perfect camouflage for the Delta Force Soldier I’d just become. I crawled slowly toward the light. Our short hallway seemed like a quadrillion miles long. My heart was beating outside my chest, and at one point I had to remove it and put it in my pocket to stop the pounding. This was it. One look around the corner and my prayers would be answered.
I was taking an enormous risk. Sure, I had done other stupid things in my short life that bordered insanity. There was the time when I ran across the classroom like a wild animal during the pledge of allegiance in kindergarten. Or the time I stole bubble gum from an open package at the dime store, only to be caught by my angry mother. She made me apologize to the manager and pay him the handful of pennies I had in my pocket. Crime doesn’t pay, and neither did my mother. Being caught roaming around the house on Christmas night could be catastrophic. My curiosity seemed to outweigh my fear of certain death, and I inched closer to the living room.
I had reached the end. Visions of Saint Nick’s fluffy white beard and bright red suit circled in my head as if they were angelic beings. I moved closer to the edge. Had he already eaten the cookies and milk I had left for him? I saw our glowing Christmas tree, some unassembled plastic wheels, piles of wrapping paper, and his shiny black boots extending into blue jeans? I shook my head in disbelief. Buck Owens and his Buckaroos were right when they sang: Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy!
With a dash and a flash of lightning, I slipped back into the shadows unnoticed. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. My feet began to sweat as I shuffled them back and forth to my bedroom. I gently closed the door and jumped back into bed. Part of me went into utter shock, but then I remembered those wheels. A smile appeared again and my eyes slowly shut.
No one really knows the moment in time when a child finally falls asleep the night before Christmas, but somehow it miraculously happens. The house falls silent with only the sounds of crickets chirping in the wilderness outside, and of the imagined hoots of a night owl. The clock ticked on.
The next morning, the sun rose bigger and brighter than usual. Our neighborhood witnessed a polka-dotted kid, dressed in a dark cape, white helmet, and footed pajamas, cruising down the street on his navy blue and yellow Batman Bigwheel.
Buy The Chicken Pox Christmas Book: CLICK HERE to order at JimEdHardaway.com!
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more:
Playground Superheroes
The Scrawny Little Leaguer
Hurricane Ghost Story
The After School Fight
Tale of the Snipe Hunters
The Half Court Basketball Shot
Pledge of Allegiance Dare Master
More great writings at: www.jimedhardaway.com
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Remembering the Mattster
One of Matt’s favorite things to do was talk me in to going to Taco Bell and placing an order at the drive-through window. Doesn’t sound too exciting, does it? Except that my small, navy blue Chevrolet truck had wiper sprayers that squirted not only the front windshield, but also six feet passed both sides of the truck. We always had a good laugh, after receiving our food order, soaking the drive-through attendant before driving away. Those were good times.
Matt was a skinny junior high schooler, and he definitely acted like it. He was the prankster, the one that kept everyone laughing. He always had some creative idea of how to have fun. My wife and I were youth pastors at a small suburban church in the outskirts of Dallas where Matt and his family attended. He quickly latched onto us, and spent a lot of time with us outside of our youth group activities. On Saturdays the phone would ring at our house, and it was Matt calling to see if he could come over and spend the day. We would sit around the living room eating pizza, watching movies, and trading baseball cards.
Matt’s enthusiasm was contagious and people loved to be around him. He had a winning personality. Upon meeting him for the first time you would never have guessed that he had a life-threatening illness. All his life Matt fought Cystic fibrosis, also called CF. Its a hereditary disease that affects the entire body, causing progressive disability and early death. He would go months in remission, but then the ugly disease would manifest itself. During these relapses he would either be confined to his bed surrounded by medication, or in the hospital chained to I.V. chords and constantly monitored.
His symptoms were horrible and affected his entire body: difficulty breathing, digestive trouble, and poor weight gain. It strained his immune system and inflamed his lungs. It was a lot for a kid to withstand. Each time I entered his hospital room for a visit I expect to see him depressed and withdrawn. But most of the time he was either teasing the nurses, or talking about what he was going to do when he got out. He made it hard to complain about menial things, when he had such a positive outlook about his situation.
A short year and a half later we had moved away to be on staff at another church, but we kept in touch with Matt. It was a difficult separation. He continued on through high school, was actively involved in his church, and had plans to be a pastor. But he never saw his twenty-fourth birthday and is now in heaven going through some drive-through window and squirting the attendant. I can see his smile.
The years have passed since Matt left this earth but I still fight to hold back the tears, even as I write these words. His life serves as a legacy of determination and his memory will always inspire me to journey on. Friends, what can you do today to leave an irremovable impression on eternity?
*Taken from the Epic Trek writings.
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Hurricane Ghost Story
Lightning cracked through the dark, stormy sky, illuminating the dense cumulonimbus clouds hovering above us. Heavy drops of rain and hail splattered on the windows as we nervously watched to see if the glass would crack. Our knees clanked together like the metal balls on Newton's cradle. We were sitting in a small room with big windows covering two walls, the windows giving the thunderstorm an advantage in the fear factor. Rolls of rumbling thunder followed every crack of lightning, creating a haunting orchestration of sounds that rattled the aging hardwood floors and echoed down the hallways. The glass in the windowpanes seemed to bow in with every roll of thunder.
A small gang of kids had gathered in the room, led there by my buddy Bill and me. We were the ringleaders, the two oldest in the bunch. At 12 years old we were just one year away from being official teenagers, so the other children looked up to us. And we definitely took advantage of the situation.
It was hurricane season in south Texas, and my father, the preacher, always opened up the church for members to take shelter if needed. Hurricane Alicia was knocking at our doors, and the weatherman predicted that the tropical cyclone would bring destruction. That prediction was enough to cause several families in the congregation to pack a few essentials, throw the kids in the station wagon, and gather in the church building.
All the parents and senior citizens sat in a long, narrow room behind the fellowship hall, playing cards and flipping dominoes. It looked and sounded like a Vegas casino in there, without the cigarette smoke and dirty words, of course. It was a family environment because all the deacons stayed at home to watch HBO. We kids took advantage of running around that ginormous old building in our socks, sliding around every corner in feverish games of hide-and-seek. That’s how we ended up in that front room with all the windows.
It was a perfect time and place for ghost stories.
Ghost stories are an important part of a child’s life. We told scary stories at campouts, at sleepovers, and on hayrides. It’s what we did to keep our attention off the disgusting teenagers who were making out at the back of the trailer, underneath the hay where the youth pastor couldn’t see them. Bill and I sat on two metal folding chairs in front of the other children, who sat facing us on the floor. Their backs faced those walls of windows and the horrendous storm outside.
No telling of ghost stories could be complete without the legend of the Hasema Wild Woman, a favorite in our small community. Hasema Road was a narrow, winding, dirt road that ran through the backwoods in our county. It had more potholes that anyone could count, which forced people to drive slow as they moved along. The trees stood tall on either side, casting shadows on the road and looking like skeletons. The woods were so thick that they eclipsed the sunlight, making it scary even in the daytime. The road went on for miles into the woods, and at the halfway point were an old, abandoned church and a cemetery.
Bill and I spoke in our scariest voices: low, scratchy whispers that gave the children chills. You could tell they were getting scared as their eyes widened and they huddled closer and closer together. Meanwhile, Hurricane Alicia continued sending her bolts of lightning that flashed through the windows and her claps of thunder that rattled the walls. Zap! Bam! Rumble! The wind began to blow harder as the storm got closer.
Bill described the Hasema woods in terrifying detail as I painted an eerie picture of the graveyard behind the abandoned church where the wild woman lived. There was one kid in particular who was near tears already. Jason pushed his way into the middle of the group, and the look on his face begged us to stop telling the story. But Jason’s reaction only fueled us on.
Zap! Lighting cracked outside, causing the children to jump and gasp. Roar! Thunder followed, pushing the gang closer together. Hurricane Alicia was cuing us to begin telling the legend of the Hasema Wild Woman. In spine-tingling detail I explained:
A family was traveling across the country during the days of the Old West: a father, a mother, and a baby girl. Their horse-drawn wagon rolled swiftly down the old dirt road when it hit a rock. The collision sent the baby girl flying off the back of the wagon and into the ditch by the road. Her parents didn’t notice and the wagon faded away into the distance.
I paused, and the wind outside began to howl as it wisped through the trees. Lightning flashes flickered off the falling leaves as they blew past the window. Pow! Lighting cracked again. Bill took over the story at that point. He described:
The little girl laid in the ditch helpless and afraid in the gloomy fog. Days went by, and her parents never returned. She was cold and starving. Then suddenly, red eyes peered at her through the trees. She heard growling as a pack of wolves stepped out of the darkness toward her. Slobber dripped from between their fangs. Suddenly the girl snapped back at them with a growl so chilling that the wolves cowered in submission. The pack of wolves took her back to their hidden den deep in the woods, where they raised her as their own.
At that point, rain was battering against the windows as Hurricane Alicia rolled inland at full force. The children were completely scrunched together on the floor with their backs still toward the windows, frozen with fear from our monstrous ghost story. Lightning flashed and illuminated our faces to look like hollow skulls. I took over the storytelling:
More than a century later, and long past her death, legend holds that the Wild Woman still haunts Hasema Road. I said that her ghost reportedly appears to victims as a horrifying skeleton of a creature with pale skin; bony fingers; a creepy hunchback; long, wiry gray hair; and nightmarish crimson eyes!
The room was tense with fear––teeth chattering, knees shaking, and goose bumps on top of goose bumps! Bill and I had worked up a bone-chilling, whopper of a ghost story. Then we both lifted our heads from the children on the floor in front of us to the windows behind them and, without warning, let out a blood-curdling scream as if we’d seen a ghost outside. Kids flew in every direction like popcorn in a microwave! The most dramatic reaction was from Jason, who jumped up from the middle of the group and dashed off in a mad sprint across the fellowship hall. He screamed at the top of his lungs all the way into the “casino”, where the parents were, confessing his sins as he ran!
Bill and I fell off our metal chairs in laughter. Our guts were hurting from laughing so hard, and we clutched our bellies as we rolled on the floor. That is until a real wild woman appeared in the doorway in the form of my mother! Jason stood behind her, whimpering and crying. We were in big trouble! I wouldn’t say my mother looked like a horrifying skeleton of a creature that night, but my butt was probably nightmarish crimson. Thunder rolled again. Long live the Hasema Wild Woman!
Watch the visual storybook on YouTube: Hurricane Ghost Story
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more:
Playground Superheroes
The Scrawny Little Leaguer
The Chicken Pox Christmas
The After School Fight
Tale of the Snipe Hunters
The Half Court Basketball Shot
Pledge of Allegiance Dare Master
More great writings at: www.jimedhardaway.com
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The After School Fight
It was one of the strangest brawls I had ever seen in all my years as a student in the public school system. It happened my freshman year of high school in the early Eighties, a year when parachute pants, Ocean Pacific t-shirts, checkered Vans, and every fluorescent color imaginable mingled through the hallways. Tension had been brewing all day between two of my classmates, Ron and Michael. Trash talk, pushing and shoving, and nasty verbal threats led to a head-to-head match after school.
I don’t remember what they were fighting about, or why they were so mad at each other. All I know is that they wanted to rip each other’s faces off! They crossed paths throughout the day, staring each other down and talking smack about who was going down after school. Confrontations and chest-bumps happened in the cafeteria, in the gym, in the library, and in the hallways between classes. Michael had his band of brothers with him all day, a group of troublemakers who acted like they wanted a piece of the action too. I don’t think they were sticking up for him, they just wanted to see a good fight. Ron had his following too and I was one of them, and I can tell you for a fact that’s all I wanted to see.
The final bell rang and reverberated through the school. We poured out of the building like the Israelites through the Red Sea, in a mass exodus to assemble for the duel. I was in the group behind Ron and across the parking lot came Michael and his gang. We walked across the street, off the school grounds, to an area in front of an apartment complex. We all made a circle around the two fighters to form a makeshift boxing ring.
There were at least a hundred students there. Talk spread through the spectators as to who would win the fight, and there may have even been a few bets placed on the side. Some hecklers chattered at Ron and Michael trying to fuel them on. The fighters exchanged some crass words and a slew of obnoxious profanities, the kind of words that get your mouth washed out with soap if your mother were to hear. The fight was on!
You won't believe what happened next.
I think it is safe to say that Ron outweighed Michael by at least 50 pounds. It was like a Rottweiler against a Chihuahua. Ron and Michael began dancing around with their fists in the air like Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns! After a few preliminary shoves and missed swings, Ron drew his fist back and punched Michael square in the left eye. POW! You could feel the reverberation and the crowd gasped. It was a direct hit! Michael swaggered back-and-forth like a drunken sailor then fell straight to the ground. BAM! He immediately grabbed his eye in pain and surrendered to his opponent. A one-punch knockout and this fight was over. Sadly, I think we were all a little disappointed.
Talk of the fight spread like wildfire the next day at school. Ron wore a gladiator’s smile, spreading his broad shoulders with pride, and relishing in his victory. Michael wore sunglasses and hid in the shadows, but nothing could hide his huge, swollen, black eye. He was embarrassed and defeated.
* This story is taken from the Memoirs of a Red-Headed Preacher’s Kid writings. Read more at jimedhardaway.com
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