You are never ready to say good-bye when someone passes away, and that is certainly the case with Uncle Paul. Jimmie Pitt had stopped in to check on him before church Sunday morning. He told Jimmie he didn’t feel well and Jimmie was helping him back to bed when he collapsed. Uncle Paul was 94.
My heart hurts for Uncle Paul’s son, Jackie, as he and his dad were best friends. Jackie drove out here from Clarksville (about an hour’s drive) practically every week day to spend time with his dad. Uncle Paul and Jackie are two men that I admire very much. It would be fair to say that both men are heroes of mine. I hope I will have the relationship with my kids that they have enjoyed with each other. One memory that stands out in my mind is how Uncle Paul took care of Aunt Bonnie, his first wife, when her kidneys failed her and she needed dialysis. He learned how to do the whole procedure and did as much as for her as he could.
Up until the last year or so you’d find Uncle Paul parked up at the four way stop in Cross Plains every afternoon. He loved to watch the kids get off the school bus in town. He had been a bus driver himself for 33 years. Uncle Paul’s driving had tapered off the last couple of years but he did drive himself to the Threshermen’s Show back in July.
Uncle Paul was never too old to be mischievous. He loved to pick at kids. Sometimes he would motion to one of the boys when we’d go to visit and say something like, “Come here and let me turn your nose upside down so it will rain in it.” I’ll never forget a story he told me about the wheat threshing days. This was back in the day when two men had to bag the grain when it came out of the separator. He climbed atop the separator, lit a cherry bomb and dropped it down the grain chute. When it exploded in the bag of grain dust went everywhere. The two men bagging the wheat were too busy blaming each other for the prank to notice him climbing down to the ground, laughing all the way. He was such a prankster that Aunt Mildred, his second wife, finally baptized him with a glass of water saying he needed it a second time. After Aunt Mildred died someone asked Uncle Paul if he would marry again. “Naw,” thinking of both very special women with a twinkle in his eye as he replied, “It costs too much to bury them.”
His mind was sharp to the very end. Jackie said that last week they rode all over the farm and that Uncle Paul pointed out the property corners and many other things he remembered. He loved the farm and fulfilled his wish to live there all of his days. I’ve always looked across the fields to Uncle Paul’s house whenever I am in the yard. Our houses are about a mile apart. (He once told me that when Mom and Dad were living here he and Dad would stand on their respective porches and try to shoot each other with their .22 rifles.) It gives me a very lonely feeling to look over his way now, but I take great comfort knowing that, as it is worded when a death is recorded in Genesis, he has been gathered to his people.
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Since I last wrote it has either been really cold (I noticed Friday we were 20° colder than Anchorage, Alaska) or really warm (no need for a jacket today). We’re just bouncing all around the average for this time of year.
A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM. Every year, on the second weekend of December, for the past 25 years Southeast Baptist Church in Murfreesboro puts on the Bethlehem Marketplace. What they have done is taken the idea of a live nativity scene and scaled it up to the village level in their gym.
When you get there you are seated in their sanctuary where you enjoy Christmas music while you wait your turn to enter the Marketplace. The setting is the day after Jesus was born and you walk though the town as the locals (church members in costume) interact with you. The first thing you see is the shepherds outside the town where they tell you what they saw the night before. From there you enter through the town’s gate where you must participate in the census (sign the guest register).
Inside Bethlehem you walk through the marketplace where surly Roman centurions patrol the street to keep order. You can also “shop” at the stalls of the basket maker, baker, brass tinker, tanner, carpenter, wine maker, weaver, and potter. There is also a food vendor, a perfumer, a jail, a fisherman selling the fresh catch on the day and an inn (no vacancy here). Whenever you hear the shofar blown you can make your way over to the synagogue to hear a short Old Testament story relating to the birth of the Messiah. On your way out you walk through the cave that serves as the stable setting for the live nativity.
They bring several animals in for this event. I was almost kissed on the lips by a six month old camel. The people do a good job staying in character too. Nate was in the basket maker’s booth looking at a basket he liked when the lady told him he could buy it for two mites. Not having any money she offered to trade for his garment (coat). She no more than said that then Nate shucked off his coat and walked away, the proud owner of a new basket. (They traded back as the garment would fit anyone she knew). It was a very neat Christmas activity.
Joe
