Jamie was a young man, just 15. He sat in the family room in the back of the house, alone this night as he was frequently in those times. Jamie lived with his Dad and his older brother. His Mom had died about a year before.
What had been a house full of kids and a Mom and Dad in the young fellow’s lifetime had become an empty place. Neighbors didn’t come. Meals were attempted but the effort mostly abandoned. It was empty and quiet.
Jamie had determined this night to be honest with himself once and for all. He would decide what he truly believed. It was a young man’s way of dealing with things. So much had happened so soon, but he could not say that then; he could not be wise and knowing about the meaning of his experiences.
Taking a pen and paper, Jamie wrote, “I believe in God.” He pondered the statement, questioning himself rigorously if he sincerely believed what he had written.
Dad had gone out, probably to the Elks. Dad was pretty lonely since Mom had died and Jamie didn’t begrudge his Dad’s need for companionship and relaxation. Jamie loved his Dad, but he couldn’t articulate the numbness in his own spirit. Did he believe anything anymore, anything at all?
Brother was out, too. It wasn’t long ago they had fought, Jamie and his brother. It was a real fight, one with wrestling and temper. Brother told Jamie he’d better start helping around the house, but Jamie wasn’t going to do that. He didn’t care about the damn house. You’re going to care, brother said, and whacked his sibling with the kitchen towel. Jamie grabbed the towel to wrest it away, but found it tight in his brother’s grip. They wrestled with it tensely to the floor.
Jamie’s eyes streamed with tears and anger and a hollowness he himself could not understand. From his center he cried: “I don’t care!” “You’ll start caring!” brother rejoined. And so it went until they both lost their energy, lying side by side, weeping, weeping, anguishing about a power guiding their lives to such an emptiness.
Jamie hated. He didn’t know why, he just hated. Jamie hated Dad, and loved him. Jamie hated God, and loved him. He could not see that his hate was anger, and that his anger covered up his hurt. Love was in him, but it seemed to him to be a painful contradiction.
The boy thought of the fight with his brother as he peered at the words, “I believe in God.” Quickly, there was a shuffling at the back door, and the quiet was broken by the sound of people entering. Immediately the air was pungent with a strange perfume. Jamie’s father, and a woman he had never met, entered the room. “Oh what a pretty boy!” the woman exclaimed.
After pleasantries and a short visit, Dad and his date left and quiet returned. The smell of perfume lingered in the air as Jamie resumed his thoughts, feeling the urgency of deciding what he truly believed, feeling deep longing for the basic, the absolute, the unequivocal. There was indeed something solid about “I believe in God.”
Against all expectation, Dad was home again soon, surprising Jamie in his exercise of discovering the substance of his faith.
Dad sat in the family room. “What you up to, son?” he asked.
Jamie said, “I’m trying to decide what I truly believe, Dad. I’ve begun by saying I believe in God,” feeling the urge to engage his father in discussing this pursuit.
His Dad nodded vacantly. He said, “Did you like that lady I brought by tonight?”
“She seemed like a nice lady.”
“Well, she might be your new momma.”
“Really? Gee, Dad, that’s great.”
Outside, the young man expressed happiness for his Dad. Inside, he retreated in fearful confusion. Barriers and walls went up that imprisoned the emptiness he could not understand. He stopped trying to decide what he truly believed. He began trying instead to repel the pain of the certainty of his doubt. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on December 6th, 1987
Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Two friends with a longing
One of my favorite people in all the world is my friend Billy. We first met in the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia, 17 years ago.Billy’s an unusual person as persons go. He certainly follows the beat of his own personal drummer. He’s at once eccentric and ordinary, spiritual and worldly. Only in the past few years have I made the acquaintance with his spiritual nature.
The Lord has his ways, and when Billy and I met we both were very much indifferent to matters of faith. One might say we had a scoffing attitude in those days. What mattered were good booze and good times. Now that we both sport decidedly balder pates, we find ourselves having been on a pilgrimage together. Somehow now the Lord matters a lot.
Billy and I have been great ones for pilgrimages. Hindsight helps me to identify the longing which was in both of us, longing for what we didn’t know, but thought we did. A couple of pseudo-artists-poets-vagabonds. We spoke amusedly and often of abandoning all vestiges of our former lives, of traveling to Denver. Denver! we’d say, and that would open great vague auras of significance, memories of reckless freedom and hopes for amusements and satisfactions as yet unexperienced in the human condition.
We had a longing all right, but not for Denver.
My friend Billy is not a Catholic, and I doubt he ever will be. (Who knows, maybe someday you’ll get that straightened out, William.)
Billy and I have both come to a new relationship with Jesus Christ, though, and surely that has given our friendship a whole new dimension.
I can’t describe the affection I have for my friend. My kids think he’s great and always enjoy his visits. My wife loves Billy, even though he can be awfully obnoxious. I’ve just never found it difficult to accept him the way he is, however that might be in a given year. Sometimes he is a flush high roller with a new artistic achievement under his belt.
Sometimes I worry he’s not going to make it, but he’s a survivor. He worked for a while with a Friends group in Chicago helping older people: driving them to town, doing their grocery shopping for them, cleaning their houses, tuning in to such wisdom as he could find among those he served.
No, I can’t describe this fellow to you. Whenever we meet we take up from there. Last Christmas morning he called and said he was coming in from Chicago if his car could make it. His car didn’t make it, so we got him on the Air Wisconsin. He had crafted gift packages for the children from pasteboard; one was a house, one was a pyramid, one was a book. The next day he went back home on the Amtrak. That was the last time I’ve seen him. He could show up tonight, though; and that would be wonderful.
Well, William, I would say. So good to see you. And he would laugh: a hearty, glad laugh that would send feelings of warmth to the very spirit. The kids would run to him and he would call them all by their middle names. And day would turn to night and night to morning with conversation and eating and fierce determined competition in a game.
I missed you, Tommy, he would say. I missed you, too, Billy, I would say.
Along the line I’d ask, how’s your spiritual life, Billy? And he would say, never mind about me, Tommy, how’s yours? And that would launch the writing of the latest chapter in our pilgrimage to Denver. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 15th, 1987
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The real educators
The great educators of American youth may not be the pastors or principals, not the parents or the teachers, but with all due respect to these important individuals – the real educators may just be the school janitors.
I remember the janitor from my elementary school, Ss. Joseph and Paul, although I honestly don’t remember his name. I’m not really sure I ever knew his real name. I always called him Yogi Bear and he always called me Booboo. All the other kids called him Yogi Bear, too; and all the other kids had the same name I did. However, I knew in my heart and in fact that Yogi knew me personally, and that my name meant something very different from all the other Booboos.
So what about the education I received from the school janitor? Volumes could not hold these treasures.
Yogi Bear had a watch, a beautiful gold pocket watch with delicately detailed black hands. It was more than a watch, however. It was a tool. The school ran on it. Mass began by it. Important people may have set the times when things would happen, but they nevertheless happened by Yogi’s watch. He set the classroom clocks and the one in the principal’s office, too. The principal’s important timepiece determined many grave events, but its importance depended on a higher source. Sister Dorothy Marie may have taught me to tell time (or was it my mother?), but Yogi Bear, the school janitor, taught me about time itself, and the sway it held in people’s lives. I learned about time from the timekeeper.
Many privileges and responsibilities came my way in my education; patrol boy, president of the C.S.M.C., student receptionist. There was no task I approached with more awe, however, than those reverent occasions when Yogi Bear handed me the rope (me! imagine!) to pull the Angelus bell. As we awaited the famous watch to tell us just the right moment, Yogi gave me my instructions: the right tension, not too hard, let the rope slide for the second ring before pulling again. Wait. Rhythm is important. I, Booboo, made mistakes, but Yogi Bear had confidence in me. I learned from him that I could have confidence in myself. It might be odd, but I grieve for the boys and girls of today whose churches’ electric chimes deny them the opportunity to learn the mystical lesson of ringing the church bell. Honestly, I still feel its weight and response.
Yogi was a quiet man. He had his own niche in the boiler room, and I suppose I envied him that spot. Niches in boiler rooms are fertile ground for the seeds of contemplation. Yogi moved at his own pace, but always seemed to be working. He was kind to me, always ready to share his knowledge, but perhaps more importantly, his experience. Yogi didn’t necessarily teach the lesson, he was the lesson. He was nobility of character; he was humility – humility in touch with his own intrinsic worth. He was patience and calm.
Yogi shared important, lasting things. He knew about boys and pocket watches, boys and church bells. Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach; but he wasn’t the teacher. He was the school janitor. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 8, 1987
I remember the janitor from my elementary school, Ss. Joseph and Paul, although I honestly don’t remember his name. I’m not really sure I ever knew his real name. I always called him Yogi Bear and he always called me Booboo. All the other kids called him Yogi Bear, too; and all the other kids had the same name I did. However, I knew in my heart and in fact that Yogi knew me personally, and that my name meant something very different from all the other Booboos.
So what about the education I received from the school janitor? Volumes could not hold these treasures.
Yogi Bear had a watch, a beautiful gold pocket watch with delicately detailed black hands. It was more than a watch, however. It was a tool. The school ran on it. Mass began by it. Important people may have set the times when things would happen, but they nevertheless happened by Yogi’s watch. He set the classroom clocks and the one in the principal’s office, too. The principal’s important timepiece determined many grave events, but its importance depended on a higher source. Sister Dorothy Marie may have taught me to tell time (or was it my mother?), but Yogi Bear, the school janitor, taught me about time itself, and the sway it held in people’s lives. I learned about time from the timekeeper.
Many privileges and responsibilities came my way in my education; patrol boy, president of the C.S.M.C., student receptionist. There was no task I approached with more awe, however, than those reverent occasions when Yogi Bear handed me the rope (me! imagine!) to pull the Angelus bell. As we awaited the famous watch to tell us just the right moment, Yogi gave me my instructions: the right tension, not too hard, let the rope slide for the second ring before pulling again. Wait. Rhythm is important. I, Booboo, made mistakes, but Yogi Bear had confidence in me. I learned from him that I could have confidence in myself. It might be odd, but I grieve for the boys and girls of today whose churches’ electric chimes deny them the opportunity to learn the mystical lesson of ringing the church bell. Honestly, I still feel its weight and response.
Yogi was a quiet man. He had his own niche in the boiler room, and I suppose I envied him that spot. Niches in boiler rooms are fertile ground for the seeds of contemplation. Yogi moved at his own pace, but always seemed to be working. He was kind to me, always ready to share his knowledge, but perhaps more importantly, his experience. Yogi didn’t necessarily teach the lesson, he was the lesson. He was nobility of character; he was humility – humility in touch with his own intrinsic worth. He was patience and calm.
Yogi shared important, lasting things. He knew about boys and pocket watches, boys and church bells. Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach; but he wasn’t the teacher. He was the school janitor. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 8, 1987
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Msgr. Braun, r.i.p.
The last time I saw him was Memorial Day 1985 at Resurrection Cemetery near Whitesville, Ky. A gang of priests was moving about the grounds praying for the dead. Msgr. Peter J. Braun was there but standing by himself in the parking lot: too old, too feeble, I figured, to join the others. He prayed the Rosary with them. He was the only one wearing a biretta.
Msgr. Braun was always Monsignor to his face, but he was Father Brown elsewhere in Ss. Joseph and Paul parish, where his was a name which brought quick change in tone to any querulous state in the life of faith. The Josephinum Newsletter tells me he died in November. Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
I did not greet Msgr. Braun that day in the cemetery. It would not have been proper to interrupt his Rosary. Woe betide me if I had. The feelings are familiar in the human condition: approach-avoidance. In the bustle of the aftermath, I thought no, he wouldn’t remember me.
Oh, but I remember him; indeed have kept up with the news of the whereabouts and well being of my former pastor during the years. Now, my inquiries are at an end.
I suppose I should be ashamed of myself for not making the effort to be personal in my attachment to Msgr. Braun. He was a human being with feelings. But there was no particular reason for him to have an interest in me. “I think you have a vocation,” he told me once. But he was wrong. I was just another kid in the parish.
It was a Sunday morning in the late 1950s. I was one of the servers for the Mass that morning. Father Brown was late and Father Brown was never even slightly late. I recall the news hitting the sacristy in the businesslike tension of the substitute priest. I looked out the sacristy door toward the rectory where no one stirred outside, but where inside I suspected Father Brown lay dying.
He had been overweight and a smoker. The post-heart-attack man emerged an exemplary model of health. If he had slowed, his pace belied it. He became a brisk walker and came to be joined later by a small pet dog.
I knew him to be a genial man but with bearing and reserve. That did not mean he did not speak his mind plainly. His self-discipline was the butt of jokes; but no joke could pierce his essential trait. Msgr. Braun had dignity.
His love for each one made each one know there were others to love, too. His love meant very specific, deep and uncompromising things – not things fuzzy, superficial and maudlin. His notion of repentance had to do with unequivocal effort to change.
Let’s face it, Monsignor. Some people thought you were mean. Word was you sent more than one away from the confessional with his sins retained until you could discern some semblance of sorrow. Tongues wagged about that, and even more tongues would wag today, I suppose. They say Padre Pio sent some away, too.
You were one of a kind, even though you did have a twin brother. I ached for your loneliness, but I know you were every fiber the man God called you to be. Being one of the kids in your crowd, I was never intimidated by you. I never misunderstood where you were coming from. My fear was respect for you, even reverence.
I think of the example of your life only with gratitude. I am still blessed by your blessings. They went past the sign to the mystery of the truth. You were a man of God. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 13th, 1987
Msgr. Braun was always Monsignor to his face, but he was Father Brown elsewhere in Ss. Joseph and Paul parish, where his was a name which brought quick change in tone to any querulous state in the life of faith. The Josephinum Newsletter tells me he died in November. Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
I did not greet Msgr. Braun that day in the cemetery. It would not have been proper to interrupt his Rosary. Woe betide me if I had. The feelings are familiar in the human condition: approach-avoidance. In the bustle of the aftermath, I thought no, he wouldn’t remember me.
Oh, but I remember him; indeed have kept up with the news of the whereabouts and well being of my former pastor during the years. Now, my inquiries are at an end.
I suppose I should be ashamed of myself for not making the effort to be personal in my attachment to Msgr. Braun. He was a human being with feelings. But there was no particular reason for him to have an interest in me. “I think you have a vocation,” he told me once. But he was wrong. I was just another kid in the parish.
It was a Sunday morning in the late 1950s. I was one of the servers for the Mass that morning. Father Brown was late and Father Brown was never even slightly late. I recall the news hitting the sacristy in the businesslike tension of the substitute priest. I looked out the sacristy door toward the rectory where no one stirred outside, but where inside I suspected Father Brown lay dying.
He had been overweight and a smoker. The post-heart-attack man emerged an exemplary model of health. If he had slowed, his pace belied it. He became a brisk walker and came to be joined later by a small pet dog.
I knew him to be a genial man but with bearing and reserve. That did not mean he did not speak his mind plainly. His self-discipline was the butt of jokes; but no joke could pierce his essential trait. Msgr. Braun had dignity.
His love for each one made each one know there were others to love, too. His love meant very specific, deep and uncompromising things – not things fuzzy, superficial and maudlin. His notion of repentance had to do with unequivocal effort to change.
Let’s face it, Monsignor. Some people thought you were mean. Word was you sent more than one away from the confessional with his sins retained until you could discern some semblance of sorrow. Tongues wagged about that, and even more tongues would wag today, I suppose. They say Padre Pio sent some away, too.
You were one of a kind, even though you did have a twin brother. I ached for your loneliness, but I know you were every fiber the man God called you to be. Being one of the kids in your crowd, I was never intimidated by you. I never misunderstood where you were coming from. My fear was respect for you, even reverence.
I think of the example of your life only with gratitude. I am still blessed by your blessings. They went past the sign to the mystery of the truth. You were a man of God. – T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 13th, 1987
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Hot summer days
Memories of summer days flash like heat lightning at twilight – showing vague outlines, gently brightening, quickly fading.
Charley Pfiester and I crouched in the fine dust at the corner of his house, in the shade of a giant maple, peering intently at the conical indentation the size of a dime in the light brown powdery soil.
“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire! Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire!” we chanted in unison, first one, then the other – persistently, not giving up. Slowly, slowly the silt at the base of the cone began to shift, push up in the middle, A tiny mound in the tiny cone formed in starts, stops, starts – each push of the duped doodle bug escaping his burning house creating wonder for two bored lads on a summer day.
Charley and I did our share of doodlebug calling. Charley claims to have called one all the way out one time, but I was never that bored. There were apricots to beckon. They were big and fat.
They hung on the limbs of the forked tree in the side yard, the one Mrs. Pfiester was forever telling kids to stay out of until she gave up. It sat too good. God made that tree to sit in.
A pan of apricots went across the fence for an apricot cobbler. A bowl of apricots went down the hill for an apricot pie. For all the warnings: “Stop eatin’ those apricots!” and “Ya’ll are goin’ to get sick eatin’ all those apricots!” and “You’re goin’ to run into a worm!” – apricot eating continued on until the tree was bare those summer days.
Moms would send kids over to Mr. Winkler’s or down to Bess Hazel’s Blue Plate Grocery Store for a quart of Purex or a gallon of Ideal milk or a loaf of Bunny bread. (A rabbit rode a horse, played a guitar and sang a jingle: “That’s what I said, Bunny bread.” We sang it, too).
The drink box at Mr. Winkler’s was a pleasant trysting place for the weary traveler from home. Always plenty of Barq’s root beer, Nehi grapes and strawberries, RC’s and Chocolas. Sometimes a big orange would be just what you wanted and Mr. Winkler’s box would have one cold and waiting. Tony Payne won two dollars once under the cork on his Dr. Pepper cap.
Of course lots of Milky Ways and Hershey bars were available in the ice cream box with the Popsicles, the Push-ups and the Cho-chos; but you’d better get what you wanted and get out of it.
Miss Hazel had a spool of string rigged on a coat hanger wire with the end of the string dangling through a fashioned eyelet. She tied up purchases of side meat and baloney wrapped in brown paper.
A few in the crowd decided to see how deep a hole they could dig in the railroad field. It became a fair-sized neighborhood project before it was over. The talk predictably centered on digging to China before it turned to the great dangers inherent in a project of this magnitude, particularly after a ladder was needed to descend the great depth.
Certain advantages became apparent. Stifling and muggy vapors lifted from the thick weeds of the field, but it was cool in the hole. At an admirable depth there was much discussion of heading the excavations sideways. Main diggers could have their place to go be alone. They could put cardboard on the floor, take a candle down there, maybe mix vile poisons from milkweed and pokeberries and squeezings from unknown species.
But nah, that wasn’t any fun. Better to go watch Mr. Weber turn on the streetlight in the back alley. Let’s play hide and go seek, kick the can, wave out, or hum-bum runway. (“Ink, ink a bottle of ink, what color do you choose?” “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”) Let’s hook our feet in Buck’s fence railing and lean back in the lawn chairs, pretend this is an airplane – not just any plane, but a big plane.
Then the calls came. “Tooonnnyyyyy!” “Toooommmmyyy!” “Charles Lewis, you git in the house! It’s dark as the dickens out here!”
True, nostalgia brings memories likely not as true as they seem. Carried to extremes, it can cause heartache. But a taste now and then has a sweetness, a goodness, a serenity. It can soothe a troubled soul on a hot summer day. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on August 2nd, 1987
Charley Pfiester and I crouched in the fine dust at the corner of his house, in the shade of a giant maple, peering intently at the conical indentation the size of a dime in the light brown powdery soil.
“Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire! Doodlebug! Doodlebug! Your house is on fire!” we chanted in unison, first one, then the other – persistently, not giving up. Slowly, slowly the silt at the base of the cone began to shift, push up in the middle, A tiny mound in the tiny cone formed in starts, stops, starts – each push of the duped doodle bug escaping his burning house creating wonder for two bored lads on a summer day.
Charley and I did our share of doodlebug calling. Charley claims to have called one all the way out one time, but I was never that bored. There were apricots to beckon. They were big and fat.
They hung on the limbs of the forked tree in the side yard, the one Mrs. Pfiester was forever telling kids to stay out of until she gave up. It sat too good. God made that tree to sit in.
A pan of apricots went across the fence for an apricot cobbler. A bowl of apricots went down the hill for an apricot pie. For all the warnings: “Stop eatin’ those apricots!” and “Ya’ll are goin’ to get sick eatin’ all those apricots!” and “You’re goin’ to run into a worm!” – apricot eating continued on until the tree was bare those summer days.
Moms would send kids over to Mr. Winkler’s or down to Bess Hazel’s Blue Plate Grocery Store for a quart of Purex or a gallon of Ideal milk or a loaf of Bunny bread. (A rabbit rode a horse, played a guitar and sang a jingle: “That’s what I said, Bunny bread.” We sang it, too).
The drink box at Mr. Winkler’s was a pleasant trysting place for the weary traveler from home. Always plenty of Barq’s root beer, Nehi grapes and strawberries, RC’s and Chocolas. Sometimes a big orange would be just what you wanted and Mr. Winkler’s box would have one cold and waiting. Tony Payne won two dollars once under the cork on his Dr. Pepper cap.
Of course lots of Milky Ways and Hershey bars were available in the ice cream box with the Popsicles, the Push-ups and the Cho-chos; but you’d better get what you wanted and get out of it.
Miss Hazel had a spool of string rigged on a coat hanger wire with the end of the string dangling through a fashioned eyelet. She tied up purchases of side meat and baloney wrapped in brown paper.
A few in the crowd decided to see how deep a hole they could dig in the railroad field. It became a fair-sized neighborhood project before it was over. The talk predictably centered on digging to China before it turned to the great dangers inherent in a project of this magnitude, particularly after a ladder was needed to descend the great depth.
Certain advantages became apparent. Stifling and muggy vapors lifted from the thick weeds of the field, but it was cool in the hole. At an admirable depth there was much discussion of heading the excavations sideways. Main diggers could have their place to go be alone. They could put cardboard on the floor, take a candle down there, maybe mix vile poisons from milkweed and pokeberries and squeezings from unknown species.
But nah, that wasn’t any fun. Better to go watch Mr. Weber turn on the streetlight in the back alley. Let’s play hide and go seek, kick the can, wave out, or hum-bum runway. (“Ink, ink a bottle of ink, what color do you choose?” “One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”) Let’s hook our feet in Buck’s fence railing and lean back in the lawn chairs, pretend this is an airplane – not just any plane, but a big plane.
Then the calls came. “Tooonnnyyyyy!” “Toooommmmyyy!” “Charles Lewis, you git in the house! It’s dark as the dickens out here!”
True, nostalgia brings memories likely not as true as they seem. Carried to extremes, it can cause heartache. But a taste now and then has a sweetness, a goodness, a serenity. It can soothe a troubled soul on a hot summer day. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on August 2nd, 1987
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Hanley
When I was a boy I had a neighbor whose name was Hanley. I liked Hanley, and I still think of him often even though he’s been dead more than 25 years. He fell asleep with a cigarette and burnt up in bed. He was a good man, though many in the world may not have considered him such. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice. Sometimes he called me Tommy, but mostly he simply called me boy.
The reason the world may have looked askance at Hanley was because he was addicted to alcohol. We’d sleep out in the tent under the apple tree in the summer, and we’d wait for Hanley to come up the back alley from the First and Last Chance. We’d greet him, but at those times he often didn’t speak. He’d be drunk and staggering.
On many occasions I went to his house in the morning. He lived with his elderly mother who would pour Hanley his cups of strong coffee before he went to work at the light plant. His mother would smile broadly at me with her teeth out. Hanley would be unshaven and groggy, but it would be obvious that he was pleased that I had come in. Somehow I found their company warm and pleasant.
I know that alcoholism is a dreadful thing, and I don’t dismiss it in Hanley’s case. He died because he was an alcoholic. Being just a neighbor kid, I was spared the probable terrible ramifications of Hanley’s malady. As it was, I liked Hanley, and he liked me. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and I remember the tar stains on his fingertips. He was a raw-boned fellow and tall, with a weathered face and long hands.
My friendship with Hanley was by no means deep. There was enough distance between us that I took the news of his death with shock, but not with grief. I don’t want to sound cold, but the shock I felt was not disbelief, more the quality one experiences when stark reality sets in. Hanley’s end was not unexpected in our environs. Folks said well, they were shocked but not surprised, seeing how he was, seeing how he drank.
Sometimes I wonder how I ever had any kind of relationship with Hanley. Perhaps it was because I was a child. A child will go in where adults fear to tread. I never saw an adult neighbor at Hanley’s house at 7:30 in the morning, people who just stopped in early for no particular reason. Kids do that, but adults don’t. Trusting children take people as they come, without preconditions.
I read the 13th chapter of First Corinthians today, St. Paul’s great teaching about love; and I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love. After I read the Scripture, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if I would ever understand love in my time. In my mind, I saw Jesus on the cross and I knew that was love, but I don’t pretend to fully comprehend it.
I ask myself if I loved Hanley, and I think maybe I did. I don’t know what else to call it. Now that I’m old and crotchety, I don’t have relationships with people like I had with him. I have a tendency to judge. I’m forever imputing motives, second-guessing, suspecting, finding fault, making sure I find a shortcoming or two. In Hanley’s case, I never did do those things. I didn’t condemn him, didn’t think to condemn him. Even when he staggered up the back alley, I actually looked forward to seeing him. In my child’s mind, I’m sure I chuckled and probably said, boy he’s really staggering tonight. But I didn’t think that was good or bad or what an awful man Hanley was for being so drunk. He was just Hanley. I accepted him with no reservations, no expectations that he should change. He did not, in fact, ever change.
For sure, love is more complicated than the love I had for Hanley. Jesus’ love for me and Hanley is indeed infinite compared to the simple, detached friendship a man and a neighbor kid shared so long ago. Nevertheless, there was something there, a beginning perhaps, a place for greater love to begin.
It would be easy for me to take my adult perceptions back to those mornings in Hanley’s kitchen and recast them with all kinds of judgments. Rather, I prefer to bring those mornings into now and again smell the strong coffee on the gas burner, hear Hanley’s gentle bass voice say how you doin’, boy. There is no ego in the air, no condemnation – just acceptance. Maybe it takes a child’s eyes to see the beauty and good and sweetness in a broken man. Love is more than the love I had for Hanley; but simple as it was, it was greater than prophecies and tongues and knowledge… and has endured. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 3rd, 1987
The reason the world may have looked askance at Hanley was because he was addicted to alcohol. We’d sleep out in the tent under the apple tree in the summer, and we’d wait for Hanley to come up the back alley from the First and Last Chance. We’d greet him, but at those times he often didn’t speak. He’d be drunk and staggering.
On many occasions I went to his house in the morning. He lived with his elderly mother who would pour Hanley his cups of strong coffee before he went to work at the light plant. His mother would smile broadly at me with her teeth out. Hanley would be unshaven and groggy, but it would be obvious that he was pleased that I had come in. Somehow I found their company warm and pleasant.
I know that alcoholism is a dreadful thing, and I don’t dismiss it in Hanley’s case. He died because he was an alcoholic. Being just a neighbor kid, I was spared the probable terrible ramifications of Hanley’s malady. As it was, I liked Hanley, and he liked me. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and I remember the tar stains on his fingertips. He was a raw-boned fellow and tall, with a weathered face and long hands.
My friendship with Hanley was by no means deep. There was enough distance between us that I took the news of his death with shock, but not with grief. I don’t want to sound cold, but the shock I felt was not disbelief, more the quality one experiences when stark reality sets in. Hanley’s end was not unexpected in our environs. Folks said well, they were shocked but not surprised, seeing how he was, seeing how he drank.
Sometimes I wonder how I ever had any kind of relationship with Hanley. Perhaps it was because I was a child. A child will go in where adults fear to tread. I never saw an adult neighbor at Hanley’s house at 7:30 in the morning, people who just stopped in early for no particular reason. Kids do that, but adults don’t. Trusting children take people as they come, without preconditions.
I read the 13th chapter of First Corinthians today, St. Paul’s great teaching about love; and I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love. After I read the Scripture, I was a bit apprehensive, wondering if I would ever understand love in my time. In my mind, I saw Jesus on the cross and I knew that was love, but I don’t pretend to fully comprehend it.
I ask myself if I loved Hanley, and I think maybe I did. I don’t know what else to call it. Now that I’m old and crotchety, I don’t have relationships with people like I had with him. I have a tendency to judge. I’m forever imputing motives, second-guessing, suspecting, finding fault, making sure I find a shortcoming or two. In Hanley’s case, I never did do those things. I didn’t condemn him, didn’t think to condemn him. Even when he staggered up the back alley, I actually looked forward to seeing him. In my child’s mind, I’m sure I chuckled and probably said, boy he’s really staggering tonight. But I didn’t think that was good or bad or what an awful man Hanley was for being so drunk. He was just Hanley. I accepted him with no reservations, no expectations that he should change. He did not, in fact, ever change.
For sure, love is more complicated than the love I had for Hanley. Jesus’ love for me and Hanley is indeed infinite compared to the simple, detached friendship a man and a neighbor kid shared so long ago. Nevertheless, there was something there, a beginning perhaps, a place for greater love to begin.
It would be easy for me to take my adult perceptions back to those mornings in Hanley’s kitchen and recast them with all kinds of judgments. Rather, I prefer to bring those mornings into now and again smell the strong coffee on the gas burner, hear Hanley’s gentle bass voice say how you doin’, boy. There is no ego in the air, no condemnation – just acceptance. Maybe it takes a child’s eyes to see the beauty and good and sweetness in a broken man. Love is more than the love I had for Hanley; but simple as it was, it was greater than prophecies and tongues and knowledge… and has endured. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 3rd, 1987
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Looking at life through my son John’s eyes
My father-in-law died not long ago, and one of the things we brought home with us from Detroit was a picture of my wife’s family when she and her sisters were little. Our children have been fascinated with it.
Our two youngest sit on the couch and stare at the picture in its frame and talk. I’ve never been able to pick up all their conversation. I gather what’s happening is that they’re internalizing that their mother came from a family, too. But there’s more that our children are aware of concerning this great mystery that is life.
When my wife was still a little girl, her mother died and she went to live with aunt and her uncle. Subsequently they adopted her. For our children, that has meant grandparents in Maine and grandpa in Detroit. Our children always have known that grandpa in Detroit was their mom’s “real” father, and that their Maine grandparents are the adoptive parents of their mother. I don’t suppose we see things, though, until we see them through a child’s eyes.
I passed by my youngest’s bedroom the other night after he had already been to bed for a while. I saw and heard that he was crying. I stepped in to see what was making John so sad.
Why are you crying John, I said, what’s the matter? Grandpa, he said, I miss grandpa. He was my favorite grandpa.
John is named after his grandpa. His middle name is Robert. We call him that a lot. We call him John Robert. He is six years old. I touched John’s hair and hugged him. I told him I understood that it was hard to lose his grandpa. Grandpa had died, I said, but he had gone to be with Jesus and that we would be with him again someday when we die and go to be with Jesus, too.
Grandpa was mom’s real dad, he said. That other grandpa and grandma in Maine are fakes. They’re fakes, he said, and you could tell he wasn’t happy about that at all. It made him mad that his other grandpa and grandma were fakes.
I said, they’re not fakes, John. They love your mother. They adopted her and took care of her. They provided her clothes and her food and gave her a home and sent her to school. They cared for her as one of their own and she really was, and still is, a member of their family.
No she’s not, John said. They’re fake. A lot of people say that, he said. If they’re not your real mom and dad, they’re fakes and that’s what they are.
People may say that, John, I said, but they are wrong. Your grandpa and grandma in Maine are your mom’s foster parents. Who was Jesus’ real father, John? He was God, wasn’t He?
John gave me one of those faraway, thoughtful looks through his moist eyes. Yes, he said.
Yet when Jesus came down to earth, He had to have a father to take care of Him, to love Him, to be His dad. That man was St. Joseph. St. Joseph was not Jesus’ real dad, but he wasn’t a fake. He was Jesus’ foster father. St. Joseph gave Jesus hugs, made sure He had food, taught Him how to do things.
People may say that grandpas and grandmas who are not real moms and dads are fakes, John. But that just isn’t true. They’re foster parents, just like St. Joseph was Jesus’ foster parent.
John Robert didn’t say anything. I love you, John, I said, and I grabbed him close to me. I know it’s hard to lose your grandpa, I said. I smoothed down his hair and he pulled the covers up around him. Very soon, he was asleep. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 5th, 1987
Our two youngest sit on the couch and stare at the picture in its frame and talk. I’ve never been able to pick up all their conversation. I gather what’s happening is that they’re internalizing that their mother came from a family, too. But there’s more that our children are aware of concerning this great mystery that is life.
When my wife was still a little girl, her mother died and she went to live with aunt and her uncle. Subsequently they adopted her. For our children, that has meant grandparents in Maine and grandpa in Detroit. Our children always have known that grandpa in Detroit was their mom’s “real” father, and that their Maine grandparents are the adoptive parents of their mother. I don’t suppose we see things, though, until we see them through a child’s eyes.
I passed by my youngest’s bedroom the other night after he had already been to bed for a while. I saw and heard that he was crying. I stepped in to see what was making John so sad.
Why are you crying John, I said, what’s the matter? Grandpa, he said, I miss grandpa. He was my favorite grandpa.
John is named after his grandpa. His middle name is Robert. We call him that a lot. We call him John Robert. He is six years old. I touched John’s hair and hugged him. I told him I understood that it was hard to lose his grandpa. Grandpa had died, I said, but he had gone to be with Jesus and that we would be with him again someday when we die and go to be with Jesus, too.
Grandpa was mom’s real dad, he said. That other grandpa and grandma in Maine are fakes. They’re fakes, he said, and you could tell he wasn’t happy about that at all. It made him mad that his other grandpa and grandma were fakes.
I said, they’re not fakes, John. They love your mother. They adopted her and took care of her. They provided her clothes and her food and gave her a home and sent her to school. They cared for her as one of their own and she really was, and still is, a member of their family.
No she’s not, John said. They’re fake. A lot of people say that, he said. If they’re not your real mom and dad, they’re fakes and that’s what they are.
People may say that, John, I said, but they are wrong. Your grandpa and grandma in Maine are your mom’s foster parents. Who was Jesus’ real father, John? He was God, wasn’t He?
John gave me one of those faraway, thoughtful looks through his moist eyes. Yes, he said.
Yet when Jesus came down to earth, He had to have a father to take care of Him, to love Him, to be His dad. That man was St. Joseph. St. Joseph was not Jesus’ real dad, but he wasn’t a fake. He was Jesus’ foster father. St. Joseph gave Jesus hugs, made sure He had food, taught Him how to do things.
People may say that grandpas and grandmas who are not real moms and dads are fakes, John. But that just isn’t true. They’re foster parents, just like St. Joseph was Jesus’ foster parent.
John Robert didn’t say anything. I love you, John, I said, and I grabbed him close to me. I know it’s hard to lose your grandpa, I said. I smoothed down his hair and he pulled the covers up around him. Very soon, he was asleep. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 5th, 1987
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Perceptions and truth
They say we remember things the way we perceived them to be the first time. I recall my oldest brother grabbing me from my bed one winter morning, taking me outside and setting me down in the new fallen snow. It was up to my waist! I had never seen so much snow!
Many snows have come and gone, but my memory shows the great snow of my childhood. The point is: It wasn’t that we had tall snow, but that I was a short boy.
I used to think that the home of my birth was very big, but it wasn’t so big. The overgrown hilly field behind our house was not a jungle but a thicket.
Many more perceptions come into play as we grow older, things a lot more complicated than big and small. Take marriage, for example. That can be a shocker.
I’m sure I went into marriage satisfied with the old ’60s adage: “You do your thing and I do mine; and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.” That seemed like a reasonable sentiment. Certainly I believed my wife and I had it together, each of us with something to keep and something to share.
Good golly Miss Molly how things change. Things just didn’t work out 50-50 in our wedlock. Come to find out that marriage can be ninety-nine to one or a hundred to nothing. Come to find out that marriage just won’t work any other way.
It seems that so much of maturity deals with coming to terms with disillusionment. It seems so unfair that big things are really small, that snow that once prompted awe now prompts dread, that love can be hard and thankless and painful.
I don’t mean to imply that I go around disillusioned all the time. Far from it. Actually, in a kind of ironic twist, disillusionment has been a great teacher, demonstrating to me that real beauty is found in truth itself rather than in a perception of it.
Who can know the peace, the deep satisfaction, of a couple married 50 years, a Sister celebrating her Silver Jubilee, a priest who has been a priest for 30 years or 40 years? You and I know that they didn’t make those milestones easily or alone. Indeed, they could not have made them without God.
My wife and I have discovered that Jesus Christ must be at the center of our marriage if we are to do the loving that’s called for. We have discovered that He was there all along, whether we chose to acknowledge Him or not. He has that kind of love.
One of the things I tell my kids is that Jesus loves them and that He never stops loving them. Even when they are doing wrong, even when it seems nobody loves them – when they are happy, when they are sad, Jesus loves them. I tell my children this over and over and over again. Sometimes they say, “I know, Dad.” Or they will say, “You always say that, Dad.” Sometimes, though, they don’t say anything – they just look off in one of those childlike stares, seeing what a child sees as he grapples with believing.
Having come through a few disillusionments in my time, I know that my children will face them, too. I cannot spare them that. Maybe, however, when the going gets rough, when life gets unfair and they are called upon to love someone who doesn’t love them back, they will recall with confidence that Someone does love them after all, and never stops.
The Hebrew scholar says that God did not tell us how to begin things. That is His secret. He did, however, reveal to us a precious secret: How to begin again.
That’s what I’ve had to do as I have recovered from my disillusionments. I’m surely thankful that God, Who is Truth, has pulled back the curtain, from which way to go.
As I have begun fitfully and timidly on these new journeys, I know that the snow may not be deep, but it can be serene and pure and awe-inspiring, and that I can appreciate it in a child-like way. I know that love out there will not be based on some preconceived idea, but will be beyond all understanding. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 23rd, 1986
Many snows have come and gone, but my memory shows the great snow of my childhood. The point is: It wasn’t that we had tall snow, but that I was a short boy.
I used to think that the home of my birth was very big, but it wasn’t so big. The overgrown hilly field behind our house was not a jungle but a thicket.
Many more perceptions come into play as we grow older, things a lot more complicated than big and small. Take marriage, for example. That can be a shocker.
I’m sure I went into marriage satisfied with the old ’60s adage: “You do your thing and I do mine; and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.” That seemed like a reasonable sentiment. Certainly I believed my wife and I had it together, each of us with something to keep and something to share.
Good golly Miss Molly how things change. Things just didn’t work out 50-50 in our wedlock. Come to find out that marriage can be ninety-nine to one or a hundred to nothing. Come to find out that marriage just won’t work any other way.
It seems that so much of maturity deals with coming to terms with disillusionment. It seems so unfair that big things are really small, that snow that once prompted awe now prompts dread, that love can be hard and thankless and painful.
I don’t mean to imply that I go around disillusioned all the time. Far from it. Actually, in a kind of ironic twist, disillusionment has been a great teacher, demonstrating to me that real beauty is found in truth itself rather than in a perception of it.
Who can know the peace, the deep satisfaction, of a couple married 50 years, a Sister celebrating her Silver Jubilee, a priest who has been a priest for 30 years or 40 years? You and I know that they didn’t make those milestones easily or alone. Indeed, they could not have made them without God.
My wife and I have discovered that Jesus Christ must be at the center of our marriage if we are to do the loving that’s called for. We have discovered that He was there all along, whether we chose to acknowledge Him or not. He has that kind of love.
One of the things I tell my kids is that Jesus loves them and that He never stops loving them. Even when they are doing wrong, even when it seems nobody loves them – when they are happy, when they are sad, Jesus loves them. I tell my children this over and over and over again. Sometimes they say, “I know, Dad.” Or they will say, “You always say that, Dad.” Sometimes, though, they don’t say anything – they just look off in one of those childlike stares, seeing what a child sees as he grapples with believing.
Having come through a few disillusionments in my time, I know that my children will face them, too. I cannot spare them that. Maybe, however, when the going gets rough, when life gets unfair and they are called upon to love someone who doesn’t love them back, they will recall with confidence that Someone does love them after all, and never stops.
The Hebrew scholar says that God did not tell us how to begin things. That is His secret. He did, however, reveal to us a precious secret: How to begin again.
That’s what I’ve had to do as I have recovered from my disillusionments. I’m surely thankful that God, Who is Truth, has pulled back the curtain, from which way to go.
As I have begun fitfully and timidly on these new journeys, I know that the snow may not be deep, but it can be serene and pure and awe-inspiring, and that I can appreciate it in a child-like way. I know that love out there will not be based on some preconceived idea, but will be beyond all understanding. –T.R.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on November 23rd, 1986
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Sainthood is not reserved for the few
All Saints Day has always has been special to me. I am reminded of all the good and holy and God-fearing people I have known who are now with the Lord. I am reminded that sainthood is not reserved for the few who luck out, but for as many as will come to Him.
Now I’m not being presumptive. Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, but I have known saints. I am sure of it. None is on the Church calendar, but how would any of us know the Gospel – which is to say, really appreciate the Gospel – if we had not witnessed it in the lives of those around us.
I think of my friend Leo. He was a businessman who gave me a job, but my relationship with him went way beyond employer-employee. He was the most generous, selfless, giving man I have ever known. He accepted people just like they were, and that included me.
Leo’s fairness, right-thinking, patience and honesty have been an example to me throughout my life. There are times I made him mad with my shenanigans, but he always put up with me benignly. His evenness would make me see how cruddy I had been. By the example of his life I could come to see the shortcomings in my own.
He had an accident one time, and it was a freak accident. He was backing up and hit a lady with his car, severely injuring her arm. I’ve never seen Leo so distraught about something. Besides seeing to her financially, he went to visit that woman every day until she recovered.
Leo would honor a commitment uncompromisingly, fully and without fail. I know that in his business he had an arrangement with another business. Although his partner fell down completely on his end, Leo never flinched. He was a man of his word.
Long after I stopped working for Leo, I was always invited back to the company Christmas party, and of course went back to see him many times just to visit.
On his last Christmas on earth, I was living in Lafayette and could not make it back to the party. A former fellow employee told me that after the party that afternoon as they were leaving, Leo stopped, looked off and said, “I guess Tom’s not going to make it this year.” It made me very sad.
When I received word that Leo had died, I came back to his funeral. With the exception of two, every person who had ever worked for Leo was there.
I remembered seeing Leo at noon Mass during the weekdays in Lent. I remembered his laugh, a hearty chuckle, and his expression: “Good morning, glory.” Often he would talk about his World War II days in Italy.
The night before Leo’s funeral Mass, I went back to the place where I had worked for five years during high school and college and walked around the buildings. They had a spray of purple carnations on the door and I sniffed the fragrance of each one.
I loved him. I miss him.
Leo will never be canonized, but he’s a saint all right. He was a decent and good man, a caring father and husband. He loved his neighbor and he loved God. He was unassuming and gentle, but there was no doubt about his ethical convictions. He was surely conservative, but ask anyone who knew him about his magnanimity.
I pray for my friend all the time. But on All Saints Day, when I think of all the people God has called into His kingdom, all the simple souls who have passed unheralded into glory, I will think of Leo. – T.R.
written by Thomas Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 26th, 1986
Now I’m not being presumptive. Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, but I have known saints. I am sure of it. None is on the Church calendar, but how would any of us know the Gospel – which is to say, really appreciate the Gospel – if we had not witnessed it in the lives of those around us.
I think of my friend Leo. He was a businessman who gave me a job, but my relationship with him went way beyond employer-employee. He was the most generous, selfless, giving man I have ever known. He accepted people just like they were, and that included me.
Leo’s fairness, right-thinking, patience and honesty have been an example to me throughout my life. There are times I made him mad with my shenanigans, but he always put up with me benignly. His evenness would make me see how cruddy I had been. By the example of his life I could come to see the shortcomings in my own.
He had an accident one time, and it was a freak accident. He was backing up and hit a lady with his car, severely injuring her arm. I’ve never seen Leo so distraught about something. Besides seeing to her financially, he went to visit that woman every day until she recovered.
Leo would honor a commitment uncompromisingly, fully and without fail. I know that in his business he had an arrangement with another business. Although his partner fell down completely on his end, Leo never flinched. He was a man of his word.
Long after I stopped working for Leo, I was always invited back to the company Christmas party, and of course went back to see him many times just to visit.
On his last Christmas on earth, I was living in Lafayette and could not make it back to the party. A former fellow employee told me that after the party that afternoon as they were leaving, Leo stopped, looked off and said, “I guess Tom’s not going to make it this year.” It made me very sad.
When I received word that Leo had died, I came back to his funeral. With the exception of two, every person who had ever worked for Leo was there.
I remembered seeing Leo at noon Mass during the weekdays in Lent. I remembered his laugh, a hearty chuckle, and his expression: “Good morning, glory.” Often he would talk about his World War II days in Italy.
The night before Leo’s funeral Mass, I went back to the place where I had worked for five years during high school and college and walked around the buildings. They had a spray of purple carnations on the door and I sniffed the fragrance of each one.
I loved him. I miss him.
Leo will never be canonized, but he’s a saint all right. He was a decent and good man, a caring father and husband. He loved his neighbor and he loved God. He was unassuming and gentle, but there was no doubt about his ethical convictions. He was surely conservative, but ask anyone who knew him about his magnanimity.
I pray for my friend all the time. But on All Saints Day, when I think of all the people God has called into His kingdom, all the simple souls who have passed unheralded into glory, I will think of Leo. – T.R.
written by Thomas Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 26th, 1986
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
My friend is always there when I need him
Let me tell you about my oldest and dearest friend. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t around.
That childhood day in the swing on the front porch was quite a time. I sat there holding my old cat, Rhubarb, feelings so sorry for myself. “Rubie,” I said, “you’re my only friend in the world.” It was truly a feast of childhood self pity. I didn’t recognize it as such, of course. I was steeped in my bittersweet emotions with abandon. Who should come along, though, but my old friend. It wasn’t long before dumb Rhubarb had lazed off under the foot-a-nights and I was swinging high with my friend singing made up songs.
We used to run for high pop flies together in a neighbor’s field. It’s funny. I wouldn’t be aware that he was running with me. I was a terrible baseball player, but my friend never let on like he minded. I tried out for Little League. That pitcher threw the ball so fast I didn’t even see it. My fellow Little League aspirants were impatient for their turn to try out at bat. They kept taunting me with “What do you want, pal?” All I wanted was a ball I could hit. I was a washout, but my friend made me feel better about it.
I went to St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville what I was 14 years old and I was really glad that my friend went with me. When I hit those terrazzo floors and sniffed those unfamiliar smells at St. Thomas, I was one frightened and homesick boy. I can’t tell you how intensely my friend and I talked that first night when we were supposed to be quiet.
My friend and I rode home together for Christmas that year – Glory be to God! Home! I recall that “Telstar” was playing on the car radio and my friend and I “dum dah dummed” to that instrumental song with happy gusto. What a joyful and sweet day that was.
When I left the seminary in February of my second year in high school, I couldn’t believe it, but my friend came with me. That was particularly comforting because my parents weren’t too happy about me leaving.
When my mother died, I honestly could not have taken the pain without my friend there with me.
There were some years after that when I lost much interest in my friend. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with me. I guess I just didn’t want to be with him. He didn’t like beer bashes and I did. It’s hard to explain. I got all full of bitterness inside. My friend would get in touch with me, want to know if I wanted to talk. For some reason or other, I got mad at him. He just took it. I’ve never heard him say an unkind word to me.
I kept it up, kept it up. Here was a friend who had never hurt me, had been with me through thick and thin, called on me what I wouldn’t call on him; but I started blaming him for everything I found unpleasant in my life.
Somehow or other, we got back together. I’m reasonably confident it was his doing. I told him I was sorry for being such a jerk. He just shrugged and said forget it. He gave it to me straight, tough. He was as honest and true as you can get.
He said we weren’t kids anymore, and the time had come for me to decide if I wanted to be his friend or not. He’d always been my friend, he said, and he certainly wanted to go on being so. What was I going to do, though? Was I going to keep asking him to go places and do things I knew very well he didn’t like? Was I going to go on blaming him for every rough place in the road I came across? Was he going to be the only one to be the friend in this friendship?
He had a good point.
I know that there’s not another one like him. He’s bailed me out of more scrapes. I don’t understand myself sometimes. I forget about him, don’t call him. I can’t remember one time when he wasn’t there for me.
My friend told me one time that there wasn’t a single living, breathing human being in this world he didn’t love deeply. I said wait a minute, you know everybody I know, and even though you’ve been down the line with me, we’re acquainted with some pretty low types. He said, o yeah, who?
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 12th, 1986
That childhood day in the swing on the front porch was quite a time. I sat there holding my old cat, Rhubarb, feelings so sorry for myself. “Rubie,” I said, “you’re my only friend in the world.” It was truly a feast of childhood self pity. I didn’t recognize it as such, of course. I was steeped in my bittersweet emotions with abandon. Who should come along, though, but my old friend. It wasn’t long before dumb Rhubarb had lazed off under the foot-a-nights and I was swinging high with my friend singing made up songs.
We used to run for high pop flies together in a neighbor’s field. It’s funny. I wouldn’t be aware that he was running with me. I was a terrible baseball player, but my friend never let on like he minded. I tried out for Little League. That pitcher threw the ball so fast I didn’t even see it. My fellow Little League aspirants were impatient for their turn to try out at bat. They kept taunting me with “What do you want, pal?” All I wanted was a ball I could hit. I was a washout, but my friend made me feel better about it.
I went to St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville what I was 14 years old and I was really glad that my friend went with me. When I hit those terrazzo floors and sniffed those unfamiliar smells at St. Thomas, I was one frightened and homesick boy. I can’t tell you how intensely my friend and I talked that first night when we were supposed to be quiet.
My friend and I rode home together for Christmas that year – Glory be to God! Home! I recall that “Telstar” was playing on the car radio and my friend and I “dum dah dummed” to that instrumental song with happy gusto. What a joyful and sweet day that was.
When I left the seminary in February of my second year in high school, I couldn’t believe it, but my friend came with me. That was particularly comforting because my parents weren’t too happy about me leaving.
When my mother died, I honestly could not have taken the pain without my friend there with me.
There were some years after that when I lost much interest in my friend. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with me. I guess I just didn’t want to be with him. He didn’t like beer bashes and I did. It’s hard to explain. I got all full of bitterness inside. My friend would get in touch with me, want to know if I wanted to talk. For some reason or other, I got mad at him. He just took it. I’ve never heard him say an unkind word to me.
I kept it up, kept it up. Here was a friend who had never hurt me, had been with me through thick and thin, called on me what I wouldn’t call on him; but I started blaming him for everything I found unpleasant in my life.
Somehow or other, we got back together. I’m reasonably confident it was his doing. I told him I was sorry for being such a jerk. He just shrugged and said forget it. He gave it to me straight, tough. He was as honest and true as you can get.
He said we weren’t kids anymore, and the time had come for me to decide if I wanted to be his friend or not. He’d always been my friend, he said, and he certainly wanted to go on being so. What was I going to do, though? Was I going to keep asking him to go places and do things I knew very well he didn’t like? Was I going to go on blaming him for every rough place in the road I came across? Was he going to be the only one to be the friend in this friendship?
He had a good point.
I know that there’s not another one like him. He’s bailed me out of more scrapes. I don’t understand myself sometimes. I forget about him, don’t call him. I can’t remember one time when he wasn’t there for me.
My friend told me one time that there wasn’t a single living, breathing human being in this world he didn’t love deeply. I said wait a minute, you know everybody I know, and even though you’ve been down the line with me, we’re acquainted with some pretty low types. He said, o yeah, who?
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on October 12th, 1986
Monday, October 29, 2007
‘St. Joe and Paul’
They’ve torn down my old school, Sts. Joseph and Paul Grade School in Owensboro, Kentucky. I’m reminded that our children have been growing up but don’t quite realize it. They don’t discern the memories they’re accumulating.
St. Joe and Paul we called it. It’s funny the things that come flooding back from this place that is no more.
I remember wonderful red apples in a book in the first grade. Sister Dorothy Marie’s face shown so pleasantly from her Ursuline bonnet.
I was Sister George Ann’s “little messenger boy” in the second grade. Sister George Ann became president of Brescia College in Owensboro where I also went to school. She died a while back of cancer.
Sister Angelica was indeed an angel, such a kind person. Sister Mary Mercy was very strict and disciplined, but I knew her gentleness, too. Sister Sylvia Mary kept us nailed in our desks and our desks nailed to the floor. But I also remember taking a keen interest in “Voyages in English” that year.
I got my comeuppance as Sister Mary Rose told me one day, “You think you’re pretty smart, Tommy Russell, but you’re just average, boy, just average.”
Sister Mary Rose gave me an “H” on my Kentucky scrapbook. My family had gone on a trip around the state and I included silly things in my scrapbook: bark from a tree at the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial and a rock from the entrance to Mammoth cave. Our grades were S-, S, S+, H, and E in those days, with the more familiar D and F on the other end. Sister Mary Ruth succeeded Sister George Ann as president of Brescia.
Sister Rosita, my eighth grade teacher, got bopped on the head with a ball on the playground, knocking her bonnet off. You can believe there were wide eyes on the playground at that noon recess.
School days, what days they were! I recall tracing an outline of the National Cathedral on a stencil for the school paper. Every class put on a play. I recall dancing a minuet in knickers. I was City Mouse one year and had to eat real crackers on stage!
I so well remember serving Mass. “Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.” That was pretty easy. The “Suscipiat” was another matter. I recall laying out vestments, making neat designs with the cincture.
Every year we’d be surprised with fried chicken at lunch and we’d ask Sister what was the special occasion. It was a golden opportunity to tell us about the Feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
I remember the day I learned to spell “Immaculate Conception” and I ran to tell Sister Mary Rose. Sister Mary Mercy told us how important it was to have clean hands and fingernails, “It’s the first thing people notice about you.”
Sister Rosita said never begin a letter with the word “I.” Always think of a way to say something about your reader first, that way you’ll get their attention, she said. It’s also a good way to think about humility.
Sister Aloise, our principal, would play classical music during lunch, and a student would walk around with the name of the piece on a sign. Such odd words! I never entered the contest Sister Aloise conducted to see who could name the most classical melodies.
My school was all education, whether I was warming my hands on the chimney at back of church or having Sister Mary Rose show me how to put depth perspective in a picture of a lane. I learned the meaning of the word “uniform” by aligning all the slats in the Venetian blinds in the cafeteria. Sister Rosita taught me.
I value my Catholic education as one of the great treasures of my life. Those Ursuline nuns gave me gifts of love and friendship and knowledge and faith. My heart is full of fondness for them, and gratitude.
Our children are receiving their education now. It warms my heart to think of the richness of the thing that is happening. We’ll never know all about it. It will be something that belongs to them.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 28th, 1986
St. Joe and Paul we called it. It’s funny the things that come flooding back from this place that is no more.
I remember wonderful red apples in a book in the first grade. Sister Dorothy Marie’s face shown so pleasantly from her Ursuline bonnet.
I was Sister George Ann’s “little messenger boy” in the second grade. Sister George Ann became president of Brescia College in Owensboro where I also went to school. She died a while back of cancer.
Sister Angelica was indeed an angel, such a kind person. Sister Mary Mercy was very strict and disciplined, but I knew her gentleness, too. Sister Sylvia Mary kept us nailed in our desks and our desks nailed to the floor. But I also remember taking a keen interest in “Voyages in English” that year.
I got my comeuppance as Sister Mary Rose told me one day, “You think you’re pretty smart, Tommy Russell, but you’re just average, boy, just average.”
Sister Mary Rose gave me an “H” on my Kentucky scrapbook. My family had gone on a trip around the state and I included silly things in my scrapbook: bark from a tree at the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial and a rock from the entrance to Mammoth cave. Our grades were S-, S, S+, H, and E in those days, with the more familiar D and F on the other end. Sister Mary Ruth succeeded Sister George Ann as president of Brescia.
Sister Rosita, my eighth grade teacher, got bopped on the head with a ball on the playground, knocking her bonnet off. You can believe there were wide eyes on the playground at that noon recess.
School days, what days they were! I recall tracing an outline of the National Cathedral on a stencil for the school paper. Every class put on a play. I recall dancing a minuet in knickers. I was City Mouse one year and had to eat real crackers on stage!
I so well remember serving Mass. “Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.” That was pretty easy. The “Suscipiat” was another matter. I recall laying out vestments, making neat designs with the cincture.
Every year we’d be surprised with fried chicken at lunch and we’d ask Sister what was the special occasion. It was a golden opportunity to tell us about the Feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
I remember the day I learned to spell “Immaculate Conception” and I ran to tell Sister Mary Rose. Sister Mary Mercy told us how important it was to have clean hands and fingernails, “It’s the first thing people notice about you.”
Sister Rosita said never begin a letter with the word “I.” Always think of a way to say something about your reader first, that way you’ll get their attention, she said. It’s also a good way to think about humility.
Sister Aloise, our principal, would play classical music during lunch, and a student would walk around with the name of the piece on a sign. Such odd words! I never entered the contest Sister Aloise conducted to see who could name the most classical melodies.
My school was all education, whether I was warming my hands on the chimney at back of church or having Sister Mary Rose show me how to put depth perspective in a picture of a lane. I learned the meaning of the word “uniform” by aligning all the slats in the Venetian blinds in the cafeteria. Sister Rosita taught me.
I value my Catholic education as one of the great treasures of my life. Those Ursuline nuns gave me gifts of love and friendship and knowledge and faith. My heart is full of fondness for them, and gratitude.
Our children are receiving their education now. It warms my heart to think of the richness of the thing that is happening. We’ll never know all about it. It will be something that belongs to them.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on September 28th, 1986
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Lucy Alice
My mother died when I was 15 years old, almost 25 years ago. She was a friendly woman, hard working, deeply faithful.
Mothers are always special. It takes a long time into adulthood sometimes to believe they have any faults – any at all.
My mother was born near a place called Dermont, Kentucky. Actually, where she was born doesn’t have a name. It’s just the country. We had a blue plate in our home when I was growing up that testified about where my mother’s family used to trade. On the underneath side it said: “Sog Hinton’s Grocery Store, Dermont, Kentucky.”
Her name was Lucy Alice. I came in from playing one day and she was standing at the kitchen sink with her friend, Snooks Kluck. I said, “You’re name is Lucy? Maybe we ought to get a screwdriver and tighten you up!” She roared with laughter. I remember her laugh more than a lot of other things about her. It was so full and so ready and so uninhibited.
She was a strict disciplinarian. There was none of this sitting in the corner business. We got what she called a “thrashin’.” It came swiftly and without hesitation, with a belt or a hairbrush or a willow branch, whatever was handy. I loved her so awfully much.
She’d clean house every day, but Friday was housecleaning day in a big way. She’d dust the baseboards and the tops of pictures and wipe the bottoms of the kitchen chair legs. Lunch was most often leftovers, except on Saturday when there’d be Spanish bar cake and lunch meat from the A&P.
During the week, she lie on the couch at the noon hour in the T.V. room and watch “As the World Turns” on the Lowboy. She’d put her feet in my lap and I would rub them, and her legs. They hurt her from being on them so much.
Every night at 9 o’clock, we’d kneel down in the living room and say the Rosary. Dad would give and we would answer. My mother had a special devotion to Mary. Mother would have coffee many a late morning with her friend Madge who lived up the way. As often as not, it was a faith sharing.
We had a cloister of Passionist nuns near where we used to live. Madge would say, “Now, Lucy, how in the world can them women live in there like that? Seems like they’d go crazy. I would, I know.” And they’d both laugh, and my mother would explain. My mother would talk about Mary. She knew her as a protectress, an intercessor, a friend. To this day, Madge has a statue of our Blessed Mother in her living room. “She’ll keep me safe,” Madge says. She is a Baptist.
When the Rosary was ended, Mother would stand up and I would hold her because she was dizzy. I would hold my arms around her waist and look into her face. Her eyes would be closed and her head would sway gently to the right and left. Then she’d open her eyes and smile, and I would kiss her good night, as would my brothers and my sister.
My mother’s first two babies were miscarried. The doctors told her she would never have any more children. I was her ninth and last pregnancy. She died of cancer when she was 54.
When I was born, my mother named me “Alan,” after Blessed Alan, a Dominican who spent his days encouraging devotion to the Rosary. On my birth certificate, they put “Allen,” and that made my mother mad. She sent it back and made them change it. My birth certificate has “Allen” scratched through and “Alan” handprinted on it. A lot of people called me “Tom” or “Tommy.” My mother was wont to call me “T. Alan.”
My mother knew a lot of pain in her life. She wore a back brace for a long time because of surgery for a slipped disc in her back. I’ve never witnessed anyone have such pain for such a long time as she had with that.
But she also had joy. I remember her dressing up for a party in our home as a Chinese woman, just acting silly. There was so much happiness that night. Her friends were good friends, and many, and life-long. We were a home of extremes, I guess. Our pain was intense. Our laughter was abundant.
On Mother’s Day, all of us think of our mothers. It’s a simple observance, really. We remember that they gave us life. We reflect on how much we love them. For those of us whose mother’s are gone, the day is no less meaningful.
Sometimes in my mind’s eye, when I’ve done things I’ve had no business doing, I became aware that my mother knows everything about me now. I have no secrets from her.
Sometimes, too, I see myself coming into heaven and Momma’s there to greet me. She runs up to me and hugs me hard and says to me, “Honey, come look!”
Mothers are always special. It takes a long time into adulthood sometimes to believe they have any faults – any at all.
My mother was born near a place called Dermont, Kentucky. Actually, where she was born doesn’t have a name. It’s just the country. We had a blue plate in our home when I was growing up that testified about where my mother’s family used to trade. On the underneath side it said: “Sog Hinton’s Grocery Store, Dermont, Kentucky.”
Her name was Lucy Alice. I came in from playing one day and she was standing at the kitchen sink with her friend, Snooks Kluck. I said, “You’re name is Lucy? Maybe we ought to get a screwdriver and tighten you up!” She roared with laughter. I remember her laugh more than a lot of other things about her. It was so full and so ready and so uninhibited.
She was a strict disciplinarian. There was none of this sitting in the corner business. We got what she called a “thrashin’.” It came swiftly and without hesitation, with a belt or a hairbrush or a willow branch, whatever was handy. I loved her so awfully much.
She’d clean house every day, but Friday was housecleaning day in a big way. She’d dust the baseboards and the tops of pictures and wipe the bottoms of the kitchen chair legs. Lunch was most often leftovers, except on Saturday when there’d be Spanish bar cake and lunch meat from the A&P.
During the week, she lie on the couch at the noon hour in the T.V. room and watch “As the World Turns” on the Lowboy. She’d put her feet in my lap and I would rub them, and her legs. They hurt her from being on them so much.
Every night at 9 o’clock, we’d kneel down in the living room and say the Rosary. Dad would give and we would answer. My mother had a special devotion to Mary. Mother would have coffee many a late morning with her friend Madge who lived up the way. As often as not, it was a faith sharing.
We had a cloister of Passionist nuns near where we used to live. Madge would say, “Now, Lucy, how in the world can them women live in there like that? Seems like they’d go crazy. I would, I know.” And they’d both laugh, and my mother would explain. My mother would talk about Mary. She knew her as a protectress, an intercessor, a friend. To this day, Madge has a statue of our Blessed Mother in her living room. “She’ll keep me safe,” Madge says. She is a Baptist.
When the Rosary was ended, Mother would stand up and I would hold her because she was dizzy. I would hold my arms around her waist and look into her face. Her eyes would be closed and her head would sway gently to the right and left. Then she’d open her eyes and smile, and I would kiss her good night, as would my brothers and my sister.
My mother’s first two babies were miscarried. The doctors told her she would never have any more children. I was her ninth and last pregnancy. She died of cancer when she was 54.
When I was born, my mother named me “Alan,” after Blessed Alan, a Dominican who spent his days encouraging devotion to the Rosary. On my birth certificate, they put “Allen,” and that made my mother mad. She sent it back and made them change it. My birth certificate has “Allen” scratched through and “Alan” handprinted on it. A lot of people called me “Tom” or “Tommy.” My mother was wont to call me “T. Alan.”
My mother knew a lot of pain in her life. She wore a back brace for a long time because of surgery for a slipped disc in her back. I’ve never witnessed anyone have such pain for such a long time as she had with that.
But she also had joy. I remember her dressing up for a party in our home as a Chinese woman, just acting silly. There was so much happiness that night. Her friends were good friends, and many, and life-long. We were a home of extremes, I guess. Our pain was intense. Our laughter was abundant.
On Mother’s Day, all of us think of our mothers. It’s a simple observance, really. We remember that they gave us life. We reflect on how much we love them. For those of us whose mother’s are gone, the day is no less meaningful.
Sometimes in my mind’s eye, when I’ve done things I’ve had no business doing, I became aware that my mother knows everything about me now. I have no secrets from her.
Sometimes, too, I see myself coming into heaven and Momma’s there to greet me. She runs up to me and hugs me hard and says to me, “Honey, come look!”
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor in May of 1986
Saturday, October 13, 2007
His name is Eugene
His name is Eugene. He’s out there somewhere today – maybe Cincinnati, maybe Logansport or Lafayette. You might miss him, though, for all the angels crowded around.
Eugene came very quickly into my life and just as quickly was gone. But he was the closest I have come in a long, long time to Easter Sunday morning coming down.
The great miracle of Easter leaves me saying with the words of the old hymn, “I scarce can take it in.”
But the small miracle that came to me one Saturday afternoon helps me to understand that God loves us, that He sent His only Son that we might have eternal life.
I sat pouring out my troubles to the priest. My job had me down. I didn’t know what God wanted me to do with my life. I couldn’t see a way out. I hurt and couldn’t stop hurting. I was miserable, confused, frustrated, angry, broken.
Father was very kind to me. He showed me that he understood my dilemma and offered me patient and caring possibilities. We talked of prayer and soliciting the prayer of others.
As kind as Father was, and as insightful was his council, still I didn’t have much faith that things would change. I felt hopeless and detached, as if there was nothing anyone could do, really. I had prayed. It just didn’t seem like God was listening.
There came a ring on the rectory bell. Father left the room and I could hear him conversing with someone at the door. Before long, he returned asking if I could give a man a ride to the nearest truck stop. That’s what he wanted, Father said.
We talked a minute longer before I came into the hall and met Eugene.
He was looking for work, he said, and he couldn’t find any in Lafayette. He’d be willing to do any kind of job, he said. He wasn’t looking for a handout.
I told Eugene that I didn’t know which was worse, having a job or not having one. He said he’d be grateful if I could take him to a truck stop so he could catch a ride with a trucker to Cincinnati. He’d left Logansport not finding work. Lafayette didn’t have any jobs. Maybe Cincinnati would be the right town. I told him I’d be glad to give him a ride.
Eugene was in every respect a gentleman of the road. But unlike other fellows I have met along the way, his eyes were clear and his manner cheerful.
“I don’t have no education,” he said, “but I’m a good worker. I’ll find a job soon enough.”
I told him he seemed pretty confident of that. He said indeed he was. “God takes care of me,” he said. “I walk along the road, but I don’t worry about anything. I’m happy because I know God’s not going to let anything happen to me. I haven’t got nothing and I don’t have no good education or anything, but I haven’t gone hungry yet.
“I believe in God,” Eugene said. “I don’t drink, but I do smoke.” His clothes were not much, but they were obviously clean. His hair was combed neatly. He smiled often, and spoke animatedly and with conviction. I offered him one of my cigarettes.
“What’s your name?” he asked me. “Tom,” he said, “you know what I do when I’m walking down the highway? I pray. I don’t have anything else to do so I just talk to God. I pray for everybody. I’m not one of these that just prays for the poor people. I know everybody’s got troubles. I pray for them that’s not got money, and I pray for them that’s got money, too. I know God loves everybody.
“Sometimes I get scared when I’m walking along. These big trucks come by and I’m afraid I’ll get hit or something. But you know, Tom, God sends His angels down to protect me. He absolutely does. Before you know it I’m walking down the road with a bunch of angels.”
Not once at the rectory nor once along the way to the truck stop did Eugene ask me for anything but a ride, nor even indicate that he wanted anything more.
When we arrived at the restaurant, I told Eugene that I sure was glad to have met him, that he helped me a lot more than I helped him.
In my heart, I felt redeemed. I was reminded through this man that the quality of our earthly stay has more to do with confidence in God than in our circumstances.
He said he would never forget me. He said that when he was walking along, he would pray for me. He said that when we got to heaven we’d see each other again, and he was really looking forward to that.
Happy Easter, Eugene, wherever you are. I’m looking forward to seeing you again, too.
Eugene came very quickly into my life and just as quickly was gone. But he was the closest I have come in a long, long time to Easter Sunday morning coming down.
The great miracle of Easter leaves me saying with the words of the old hymn, “I scarce can take it in.”
But the small miracle that came to me one Saturday afternoon helps me to understand that God loves us, that He sent His only Son that we might have eternal life.
I sat pouring out my troubles to the priest. My job had me down. I didn’t know what God wanted me to do with my life. I couldn’t see a way out. I hurt and couldn’t stop hurting. I was miserable, confused, frustrated, angry, broken.
Father was very kind to me. He showed me that he understood my dilemma and offered me patient and caring possibilities. We talked of prayer and soliciting the prayer of others.
As kind as Father was, and as insightful was his council, still I didn’t have much faith that things would change. I felt hopeless and detached, as if there was nothing anyone could do, really. I had prayed. It just didn’t seem like God was listening.
There came a ring on the rectory bell. Father left the room and I could hear him conversing with someone at the door. Before long, he returned asking if I could give a man a ride to the nearest truck stop. That’s what he wanted, Father said.
We talked a minute longer before I came into the hall and met Eugene.
He was looking for work, he said, and he couldn’t find any in Lafayette. He’d be willing to do any kind of job, he said. He wasn’t looking for a handout.
I told Eugene that I didn’t know which was worse, having a job or not having one. He said he’d be grateful if I could take him to a truck stop so he could catch a ride with a trucker to Cincinnati. He’d left Logansport not finding work. Lafayette didn’t have any jobs. Maybe Cincinnati would be the right town. I told him I’d be glad to give him a ride.
Eugene was in every respect a gentleman of the road. But unlike other fellows I have met along the way, his eyes were clear and his manner cheerful.
“I don’t have no education,” he said, “but I’m a good worker. I’ll find a job soon enough.”
I told him he seemed pretty confident of that. He said indeed he was. “God takes care of me,” he said. “I walk along the road, but I don’t worry about anything. I’m happy because I know God’s not going to let anything happen to me. I haven’t got nothing and I don’t have no good education or anything, but I haven’t gone hungry yet.
“I believe in God,” Eugene said. “I don’t drink, but I do smoke.” His clothes were not much, but they were obviously clean. His hair was combed neatly. He smiled often, and spoke animatedly and with conviction. I offered him one of my cigarettes.
“What’s your name?” he asked me. “Tom,” he said, “you know what I do when I’m walking down the highway? I pray. I don’t have anything else to do so I just talk to God. I pray for everybody. I’m not one of these that just prays for the poor people. I know everybody’s got troubles. I pray for them that’s not got money, and I pray for them that’s got money, too. I know God loves everybody.
“Sometimes I get scared when I’m walking along. These big trucks come by and I’m afraid I’ll get hit or something. But you know, Tom, God sends His angels down to protect me. He absolutely does. Before you know it I’m walking down the road with a bunch of angels.”
Not once at the rectory nor once along the way to the truck stop did Eugene ask me for anything but a ride, nor even indicate that he wanted anything more.
When we arrived at the restaurant, I told Eugene that I sure was glad to have met him, that he helped me a lot more than I helped him.
In my heart, I felt redeemed. I was reminded through this man that the quality of our earthly stay has more to do with confidence in God than in our circumstances.
He said he would never forget me. He said that when he was walking along, he would pray for me. He said that when we got to heaven we’d see each other again, and he was really looking forward to that.
Happy Easter, Eugene, wherever you are. I’m looking forward to seeing you again, too.
written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on April 13th, 1986
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