More fire and the wonder years

Memorable transportation:

                                                                                                             For Today:

The ‘camp fires’ have been good to and for us. We continue to talk without being rushed.  We both enjoy feeding the fire, to be truthful, Sherry usually tends the fire. Lately she only does a little. Yesterday she felt pretty good all day.  A few days ago she did tuna salad for sandwiches, then black beans and rice was mine. She wanted a meal, so she asked me to do chicken and rice yesterday. Things are looking up. ;-)

I related one of dad’s stories I heard around the fire as a kid when we were camping in the Pisgah Forest of NC. Dad said:

“In the twenties (1920s), your mama and I used to lived up there in the ‘Pisgies’. Odis and Jr. were babies. We lived in tents somewhere near hear in the Forest. Your Uncle Doyle and Aunt Julia were here with their baby Billy. We walked a long way to work at the saw mill and hobo’d the train on the way back home. 

The tracks would be above us ‘up there’, (he pointed up the MT) as the old train got very slow climbing, it meant it was about time to jump off. One evening the clouds were so thick, we could hardly see the tracks. WE guessed and jumped. When we stopped we were just at the edge of the trestle just a few more seconds we would have jumped into thin air and it was straight down a hundred feet.

Me and Doyle were praying men, we took the time to thank the Lord for watching out for us.”

As a boy, especially a preacher’s kid, it is hard to see your dad working at a saw mill, then hoboing a ride home in the Forest; then swing on trees to the base where mama and Julia are fixing supper over an open fire in the Forest. WOW! I remember thinking, ‘I wish we still lived like that!’

Believe it or not, just today I heard from Jim Page. He was one of my best friends during that very time I heard the story above. Dad was pastoring the church Jim attended at that time.

Jimmy is about my age, he told me in the e-mail he had finally reached his Wonder years:

WONDER WHERE I PARKED MY CAR?

WONDER WHERE I LEFT MY PHONE?

WONDER WHERE MY GLASSES ARE?

WONDER WHAT DAY IT IS?

 Nite Shipslog