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This photo was taken by our daughter, Sarah Timmons, or my wife, depending on who you ask. We were in Rehoboth Beach, DE on Easter Sunday, 2011.


Several years ago, on the way home from a family vacation, I picked up a notebook and quickly recorded an incident that had occurred involving our son. Eventually, I used that story to illustrate something about my spiritual walk as a believer in Christ. Thus began a deliberate attempt to document the significance of everyday events. Almost any ordinary circumstance in daily life can become fodder for another story. This, almost by definition, lends itself to a blog.

Of course, many of the entries here are just ordinary diary style stuff... the stuff of ordinary blogs. Good grief, I don't want to be ordinary.


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

When the Shoe’s on My Foot

One act of forgetfulness can have serious consequences.  I stopped by The Home Depot to pick up some material for the job I was working on.  One of the things I had to get was a 16’ piece of decking.  It was the composite type, which is very flimsy compared to real wood.  I only needed short lengths, so I cut 6’ off the end, putting that piece in the back of my truck, and strapped the remaining 10’ piece to the cap rack.  I also bought 5 sections of railing, which fit into the back of the truck as well.  So far, so good.  Much to my irritation, The Home Depot did not have the type of screws I needed for the job, so I had to make a trip to Lowes.  The two stores are only about a mile apart. 

When I came out of Lowes and approached my truck, the act of forgetfulness became apparent.  I had left The Home Depot with the door of the cap open.  One of the sections of railing was hanging out about a foot.  I did a quick count, and was relieved that all five sections were still in the truck.  However, the 6’ piece of decking had fallen out.  At close to $2.00 a foot, my first thought was to backtrack and hopefully find the missing piece.  It would be a small miracle if it had survived undamaged.

I was not even back on the main highway when I spotted the escapee.  It had landed in the crossover in my next to the last turn into Lowes.  I stopped my truck at the intersection and dashed out to retrieve the decking.  Traffic was light, and the retrieval was successful and uneventful.  However, when I returned to my truck, someone had pulled up behind me.  I didn't want to keep the person waiting, and went into high gear to put the piece back inside.  It would just barely fit, and I fidgeted with it a little to get it in, conscious all along of the possibly impatient driver no doubt staring and wondering what in the world I was doing and how I got myself into this situation.

At last I managed to get the piece in far enough to close the cap.  I turned to run to get back in the truck, and ran squarely into the 10’ piece of decking hanging off the end.  The first thing I noticed was the bend to the earpiece of my glasses which were still clinging to my head.  Without missing a step, I grabbed them before they fell off and continued to the driver’s seat.  It is important to look as if nothing has happened in a situation like this.  I looked for traffic, and pulled away.

The clunk to my head wasn’t all that hard, but my glasses caused a cut near my eyebrow.  I pulled out a handkerchief and applied direct pressure, all the while looking for a place to pull over which was far enough away from the scene of the crime so as not to look like, as I said, anything serious had happened. 

Once off the road, I could see that the cut was fairly insignificant, and it stopped bleeding within a couple of minutes.  But the area just under my eyebrow began to swell, enough that I could feel it began to encroach on my eyelash.  I pulled an ice pack from my lunch box and put it over the area. 

It wasn’t the actual injury that bothered me, as much as the thought of the potential for a more severe injury.  What if my eye swelled to the point that I couldn’t see out of it for a few days?  That was really going to screw up my work week.  Or even worse, let’s just say the lens of my glasses had shattered and punctured my eye, rendering me blind.  In a heartbeat, my life would have changed dramatically.  I pondered on these thoughts briefly, and then something hit me (perhaps it was God who had already hit me with the board hanging off my cap).  I realized that I had a small cut near my eyebrow, the same eyebrow that my son Asher had cut only months before. (see related story)

I thought of how it shook me to consider the idea of living the rest of my life with one eye.  I compared that feeling to what was going on in my head when Asher cut his head.  Certainly I was concerned, but it appeared to be a manageable situation.  Asher’s life with only one eye had not flashed before my eyes.  Living with a scar over his eye did in fact occur to me, but I did not really consider what he would think of his  scar.  In all actuality, my biggest concern was just getting through the crisis.  We were very intent on comforting him in that moment, but I was not terribly concerned about what was going on in Asher’s head about the future.

When it came to my own eye, I am ashamed to say, I attached a different level of concern to it.  I was quick to consider all that could have possibly happened.  My first response was to give a great amount of consideration to the possible implications.  When the shoe was on my foot, as much as I would like to think otherwise, it was different.

The knock on my head reminded me that it is extremely difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.  As much as we would like to empathize, unless we have actually been there, we really don’t know exactly what is going on in someone’s head.  And we are very unlikely to put the amount of importance on their situation that we, in fact, would if we were walking in their shoes.

We really don’t know how their experiences have affected them.  We don’t know how their lives have been molded by their experience.  But perhaps once I become aware of how my own experience has molded my thinking, then perhaps I can understand a little better how much that experience affects the way we live. 

With an extraordinary amount of effort and empathy, perhaps we can put ourselves in the shoes of others.  But that is unlikely for most of us.  We were not gifted with that kind of empathy.  So if I am fortunate, I’ll get a big knock in the head, and that knock will remind me that I really don’t know what someone else is going through, because I haven’t been there.  If I am fortunate, one day I’ll get a taste of someone else’s situation, and I’ll learn something about compassion I didn’t know before.

All this to say that God has His ways (which are not my ways) of working the character of Christ into my hard head.

First appeared in the July 2008 edition of the Manna. http://readthemanna.org

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Irene

I never intended for this blog to be a diary.  But since we just had a hurricane that was predicted to do all kinds of bad things, I feel compelled to post this picture of our damage.  This is in no way meant to make light of the lives lost and damage done by Irene.

August 28, 2011
Through most of my childhood, we had a neighbor with the name of Irene.  She was a best friend of my mother.  Before I started school, I would join my mother and go over to Miss Irene's house for mid-morning coffee.  My mother would let me drink coffee with them, against the advice of Irene.  According to my telling of the story as a child, Irene would say that children shouldn't drink coffee, as it gives them a "bad disabition" (disposition).

I disregarded that advice.  And I do have a bad disposition.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Earthquake

The day we get an earthquake in Delaware I'm going to quit my job and ....WHAT???!!!... Oh, wait....

Monday, August 22, 2011

That's Trouble

Our son Elias, 11 years of age, went with me to pick up some things for our bathroom project we are working on.  I loaded two pieces of 1/4" plywood into the back of my truck and hooked a bungee cord from the bumper to the lid of the truck cap to hold in the plywood.

Elias looked at it and said "is that all you're going to do?  That's trouble."

"Why do you say that," I asked.

"Because that bungee cord might break, the plywood would fall out, and BAM!, it could hit a car, and then we would get sued."

He went on to tell me that people sue for anything now.  You could drop a penny on someone's toe, and they would sue you.

We have raised a cynic.









Saturday, August 20, 2011

Body Life

Our local church body meets in a building that was formerly a furniture store on Market Street.  At one time there was a drug store adjacent to it, and at some point the two buildings became one.  The facade of that drug store had long ago been replaced with one big window which went the way of all flesh, rotting and decaying beyond what could reasonably be repaired.  So it was determined that the best course of action was to replace it.

Fortunately for us, we have a window manufacturer who is part of our fellowship.  These are custom made high-end windows.  Our window man prefers to build massively.  So naturally, the window was one large 5 by 17 foot beast, approximately 600 pounds in weight.  Once the window was finished, an installation date was scheduled.

I arrived at the building just after 7:30 a.m. on a bitterly cold Saturday, fully expecting to be the first on the scene.  But there were already several men there, ready for action.  So after a word of prayer, we began the demolition.  By about 8:15, the old window was out, and there were now approximately 16 ready, willing, and mostly able men to install the new window.

After some preparatory work to the opening, the time came to lift the monster out of the truck bed and tote it over to four trestle benches positioned in front of our brand new hole in the wall.  Once it was resting there, a board screwed to the bottom of the window needed to be removed.  So two guys risked life and limb and crawled under the 600 pound window to unscrew the board. 

The final task, or so we thought, was to gently lift the window over to the opening, a distance of about a foot, and slide it into place.  Once the window was seated properly at the bottom, we then discovered that the window trim was about an eighth of an inch too high.  So the window had to be leaned out so the top of the trim could be shaved down with a planer. 

It was about this time that one of the brothers spoke up.  He commented that we needed to take note of this situation, because it was a picture of the body of Christ working together.  The wise guy in me immediately surfaced, and I pointed out that there was a slight problem with the picture. The body of Christ wasn’t getting the job done.  We were stuck.   No one seemed to find the humor in my wit.
 
Much to our relief, once the top piece of trim was shaved down, the window then easily slid into the opening.  Mission accomplished.  Nothing left but the finishing up.  By noon we were on our way home.

The New Window Installed
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, others prepared for a church dinner scheduled for that very evening.  We expected a group of about 175, large by our standard.  We have done this for years.  We enjoyed the meal, the fellowship, and our teens led a time of worship afterwards.

The next morning, my wife and I sat at the breakfast table and discussed the previous day’s events.  We made an observation which had seemed fairly obvious in the midst of both of our tasks.  If not for leadership, neither job would have gone very well.  And it was to the benefit of all that everyone recognized who the leaders were. 

In both situations, nothing needed to be spoken about leading.  But it was understood that the final decisions would rest on certain individuals.  While the installation of the window did not go perfectly with everyone following the leader at every moment, for the most part, we couldn’t have asked for a smoother go of it.  As long as the group was paying attention to direction, we were fine.  The dinner also had its typical little glitches, if you even want to call them that.  Last minute mid-stream suggestions to do something differently, changes in the number in attendance, and a slight shortage of macaroni and cheese were nothing to get worked up about, unless of course you REALLY like macaroni and cheese. 

Our tasks that day were relatively simple.  We were installing a window and having dinner.  How difficult or critical could that be?  But we took our work seriously.  We did it as unto The Lord, as The Word instructs us to do ALL work.  Perhaps The Lord instructs us to do that because any old job is an opportunity for THE LORD to work.

The one brother was right after all.  There was an important picture illustrated by all our efforts that day.  But it wasn’t just about seeing the body working together; it was about how the body worked together.  There was a potential for that group of men to make an attempt to install the window, and end up with nothing but a pile of broken glass, splintered wood, and mashed fingers.  There was the potential for us to gather around a meal, only to find out we had a ton of potatoes, a shortage of turkey, and - gasp - no desert.

This is by no means meant to elevate one person above another, but the key was in working together under the direction of good leadership.  We use some imagery in church life that refers to a spiritual truth regarding this.  We have a leader who we call The Head.  That Head is Christ.  We use the imagery of a body to describe the church. Christ is the Head, we are the body. 

In a perfect world, everyone listens perfectly to The Head, and everything goes smoothly.  Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world.  Occasionally, as we had just witnessed in our two tasks, someone decides to call out instructions that are not in line with the wishes of The Head.  Often, there are conditions we don’t anticipate and we get stuck, and our only hope is to stop and focus more intently on the direction and desires of The Head.  Sometimes we think we may have a better plan of action than The Head’s which only hinders the progress.  Sometimes we are too busy talking to each other to listen to The Head.  Sometimes we get frustrated because The Head chooses a plan different from the one we would choose.

Ideally, we are all perfectly in tune with the desires of The Head, and under those circumstances, we do not conflict with each other.  We do not question each anothers' actions or motives.  We do not worry ourselves with the role of others, but only with our own work as it relates to the desires of The Lord God. 

Gradually, as everyone grows closer to The Head, the need for leaders on the level of earth will become less and less necessary, as everyone will be taking direction from The Lord Himself.  But we don't live in a perfect world.  We occasionally need living illustrations to aid our understanding until it becomes a reality in our hearts. 

Meanwhile, until that perfect day, we are frequently reminded that we fall short of always being in tune with Christ.  But hopefully we come to the realization that our flesh must go the way of all flesh: we must allow it to fall away, the stinking rot that it is, and be completely replaced with a newness that can come only from union with Christ.

©Brent A. Timmons 2011


Friday, August 19, 2011

Making Breakfast

One Saturday, I wanted to treat my kids to breakfast.  This is the exact response I got, which Sarah was so kind to illustrate in a cartoon.  For the record, the "runny eggs" were perfectly cooked over-easy style.

Sarah Timmons, 5/28/11









Sunday, August 14, 2011

Turning Fifty

(While I'm on the subject of letters and birthdays, here is another letter written to my older brother, Buddy Timmons, of Dagsboro, Delaware, on the event of his 50th birthday.  He is now 56.)

Brent & Bud, March '07

From an early age, it was apparent that you were different from me.  You had a gift that I didn’t.  It wasn’t that I was resentful of your gift.  It was more that you had something that I aspired to grow into, knowing that it didn’t come “naturally” to me as it did to you.  I have never “grown into” it to this day.

That gift was a combination of being completely at ease around people and making them at ease around you.  I recognized it in you at an early age.  You always had a large group of friends.  When you were named “most friendly” in high school, it was just more evidence of your gift.

We spent many days on the beach fishing.  We traveled down to Buxton, and in no time at all you would find someone on the beach to talk to about fishing.  Mike McComrick and I used to joke about how you could find a friend wherever you went.  We even thought of a second career for you in Buxton.  You could have opened a restaurant with a car wash attached (a facility we all thought was lacking in Buxton).  The name we chose was “Bud’s Scrub and Grub”



The Robinson Speed Shop Kart
An Older 2 cycle  Kart

Then there were the cart racing years.  I don’t know what you enjoyed more, the racing or the time talking with your friends.  I regret that I wasn’t settled down enough to join you in racing my own cart.  But it would have been a stretch to be the best crew chief ever and a top notch driver.  I should have gone with you that Christmas you raced in Daytona . You may have actually won.



Bud on his Custom.
Your involvement with the  Christian Motorcyclists Association is just a more developed form of what you have been doing your whole life.  You love to interact with people, and you love your hobbies.  And CMA provides the perfect opportunity to do both and to exercise that gift that God has been developing in you your whole life.  You get the best of all worlds there.  You get to play and have fun, you get to socialize, and you get to walk in something you were clearly called to do.  You are walking out your life with Him in the presence of people who He loves.  You live as He intends all of us to live… doing what you love, and doing what He loves.  There is no difference between the two in your life.  You have become one with Him, and the fruit of that is what we all see you doing. 

Keep on Truckin'
It is rare to see a person walking in faith who has become so at ease with living as his God wants, yet at the same time living as he wants.  There is no problem, because the two are one and the same.  It is a place many aspire to, yet never reach.  So keep on truckin', and your life will no doubt encourage the rest of us to follow in your steps.

You are my beloved brother in the flesh and as a fellow believer, and I look forward the second half of our lives together. 

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Learning to Ride, or Learning to be a Dad?

It was a few months after our son Elias’s 5th birthday.  I was summoned outside to perform another thing off of the continuous list of husband tasks.  Elias had been riding the bike we had bought for Katherine, who was now ten years of age.  We purposely invested a lot of money in her bike so that all of our kids could eventually ride it.  Elias would be the third child to commandeer it, and with the exception of a little rust, the bike was in fine shape. 

The Schwinn Gremlin
Tina and Elias had called me outside to tighten up the training wheels.  They were wobbling significantly.  I retrieved an adjustable wrench from the back of my truck.  But upon inspecting the wheels, realized that they were just plain worn out.  The bearings had disintegrated.  I would not be able to tighten them at all. 

I suggested what seemed to me to be the obvious solution - removing the training wheels altogether.  Tina was not thrilled with the idea.  “If I’m going to be the one chasing after Elias every day while he learns to ride, then those wheels need to stay on”, she said.  I thought it was an unnecessary comment on my wife’s part, yet also entirely based in truth.  She would actually be the one to put in most of the long hours of helping Elias learn to ride, as this would occur while I was working.

I made a quick decision.  I would take the wheels off, and do my best to bear the burden of helping my son ride his bike, starting immediately.  What a father I was, thinking that teaching Elias to ride was some sort of chore.  Not the proudest moment in my fatherhood. 

Of course, Elias was very excited about learning to ride his bike.  Apparently one of the training wheels was really loose, and barely touched the ground.  Elias informed me that he had already learned to ride on the two big wheels and one little wheel.  So he was already half way there in his mind.

I had already taught our two girls to ride. Strike that.  I think I taught Katherine.  I got Sarah started, and Tina took over, spending hours helping her in the afternoons (thus her reservations about taking Elias’s training wheels off). 

November 2005
I approached the teaching of bike riding very methodically.  I typically tried to explain to the children how to stay on the bike.  I told them to turn the front wheel in the direction the bike was leaning.  I told them that leaning in the opposite direction of a falling bike would serve no purpose at all, other than hastening their fall.  After the classroom work, I would put them at the high end of our relatively flat back yard, and run along after them holding the seat.  I could usually tell how much they were balancing on their own, and could judge when to let them go.

Elias listened attentively, and we started off on our first run.  To my great surprise, on that first attempt, I could tell that Elias was balancing quite well on his own.  But in the name of safety, I held on to his seat during the second run.  On the third attempt, I let go.  Elias rode unassisted to the other end of the yard.  We did that 3 or 4 times.  Then came the hard part - teaching him to get started by himself.  I showed him where to place the pedals for that initial push off.  I went through the motions with him, and pointed out what he was doing wrong.  This process had taken the longest to learn for the girls.  But by about the third try, Elias was a bike rider, needing no assistance from anyone.

He asked me about 10 times why mommy had said it would take him a long time to learn to ride his bike.  He never seemed to doubt that he could do it, especially since he could already ride on three wheels.  Did he identify that as his mother’s lack of faith in him?  I doubt it.  And thank goodness, I doubt he recognized the larger offense to his person, his father’s lack of noticing the maturing of his son.

It seemed to have turned out to be a triumphant day as a father.  Elias learned to ride.  Mommy didn’t have to spend hours in the afternoons chasing him down the street.  Daddy’s judgment about the timing of taking the training wheels off turned out to be perfect.

Ah, not so.  As a matter of fact, I couldn’t take the credit for anything here.  Elias was practically capable of riding on his own before I took the wheels off.  Instead of a great job on my part of teaching him to ride, in all actuality, I was a day late in teaching my son to ride because I was too busy to notice.

The Lord seems to know just what it takes to re-direct me when I get off track.  He uses that which speaks the loudest to me, that which tugs at my heart the strongest.  In many cases, that voice is my family.   It’s a good thing He placed me in the midst of it, because in orchestrating the lives of our little tribe, He lays out a straight path that even I can follow.

I was reminded of some valuable lessons that day.  I may think everything is up to me, but some things are going to happen whether I participate or not. The fact that my five year old was one step ahead of me was proof of that.   If I’m not careful, I can get so preoccupied with my own selfish ambitions that I will miss the best of life that is going on right before my eyes.  But if I’ll just take the time to be there, I get the great privilege of participating in the stuff that makes life worth living. 

Fortunately for me, The Lord is always at work on my heart, and He is faithful to use incidents like this to reveal to me exactly where I stand.  In this particular case, I was standing way too far back.

It is the story of our lives.  If we will just be sensitive to it, He will speak in a clear voice, gently showing us where our hearts are, and making the path clear when we manage to get off track.  And in the end, we may even see that His path is what brings us the greatest joy anyway.  Thank God for little boys who just want to ride their bikes.

(Note.  Elias just celebrated his 11th birthday.) 
 
©Brent A.Timmons 2011

Sunday, August 7, 2011

First Car

Our Katherine will turn 16 in September.  She needs a good, safe car - not some compact that would crumble like a tin can at the slightest impact.  She needs a car that could get scratched, and no one would notice, or care.

53 Chevy Bel Air
I'm thinking a 53 chevy two door, like this one: 

I told my kids about this idea, and they liked it, especially when I told them that their pop-pop used to own one, and drove it like this.

Actually, dad's 53 Chevy Bel Air is the first car I can remember our family owning.  It was Horizon Blue, just like this picture. And it had a stock engine, unlike the video link above.

Of course, once I find one, it will need just a few modifications.  And Katherine will need a few driving instructions.  She will be the coolest kid at school.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Not Just a Summer Job - A Tribute to Cashar and Mabel Evans

I worked at a restaurant – The Fenwick Crab House - in Fenwick Island, Delaware, during my high school and college years (1977-1982).  The restaurant was owned by Cashar and Mabel Evans of Selbyville, Delaware, from 1962 to 1983.  In February of 2006, I sent this letter to Mrs. Evans.  It appears here in a slightly edited version.  It is long, but there's an awesome life lesson summed up at the end (if I must say so myself).

Dear Mrs. Evans,

This correspondence is long overdue.  There were a few things I have been meaning to tell you.

This is no exaggeration… I have a dream about the Crab House two or three times a year.  It is always a similar dream.  I come in to work, years after having been there, and I am expected to cook.  But it has been so long that I can’t remember what to do.  It isn’t traumatic or anything… I just realize that time has passed, and I need to re-learn the job.  Those years in the kitchen must have made quite an impression for me to still be dreaming about it.

The Crab House
I became aware of job openings at the Crab House through Michael.  It was the spring after we got our driver’s licenses… 1977 (see my first car).  We were both looking for jobs, and Mike came into school one day and said he had gotten a job at the Crab House.  I asked what he would be doing.  Washing dishes and peeling potatoes are the only two chores I recall him mentioning.  According to Mike, they needed more people to wash dishes and peel potatoes.  I could do that, I thought.  And working with my best friend Mike would be ideal. 

A nervous phone call to Mr. Evans ended with an invitation to come to Selbyville to “interview” for a job.  He told me where you lived…a white house in view of a Rick’s Laundromat - the only house with a white picket fence.  I drove to Selbyville to a house with a picket fence in view of Rick’s.  No one came to the door.  A neighbor alerted me that I was at the wrong house.  You lived in the other only house with the picket fence.  I “passed” the interview, and had landed my first job.  I think it was my relation to my mother and Grandfather Elias that made you feel obligated to give me a chance.

Despite my inability to find your house, I did find the Crab House on the first day of work.  I drove down with Mike, thinking the company would help with first day jitters.  I had known a few people who had worked there, my older brother Buddy included.  He lasted about a week.  I recall riding with mom one rainy day taking him down.  It must have been before he got his license.  Perhaps the dreariness of the rain impacted his desire to work there.  I also knew of Donald, who had talked about eating strawberries when he was supposed to be making the famous strawberry pies while standing in the walk-in cooler.  I don’t know if he quit, or was fired for eating strawberries.

Potato Peeler
The Salad Slicer        
That first summer, I washed dishes and did occasionally peel potatoes, although you had that nifty potato peeler.  I learned that if you left the potatoes in too long, you ended up with potatoes the size of golf balls and cherry tomatoes.  And I also learned, or actually re-learned, to make salad.  We made salad on the table in the back porch next to the cole slaw mixer.  I was standing there one day doing the cucumbers.  It took no great skill… cut both ends off, and force them through the slicer.  But I managed to fumble on step one.  I was cutting the ends back to where the seeds started.  Mr. Evans came strolling in to see what we were up to.  “Why are you cutting so much off the end of the cucumber?” he questioned.  “Well, that’s the way my mother does it”, I responded.  It was then I first learned about the quick wit and intolerance for impertinence of Mr. Evans.  “HOW LONG HAS YOUR MOTHER BEEN IN THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS?” he bellowed.  I don’t think I intentionally determined to cut the cucumbers in a way that was different from how I was told to, but I did learn that day the importance of paying close attention to instructions.  We have gotten many a laugh recalling that story.  My mother especially enjoyed it.

The Cole Slaw Mixer.
It may have been about my 2nd year when my impertinence reared its ugly head again.  I was a slow learner.  Mr. Townsend, a very, very old man, would come in to eat several times a week.  I did not really grasp the significance of what Mr. Evans was doing for him at the time, because I was young and self-centered.  Mr. Evans would hand-prepare Mr. Townsend’s dinner.  It was usually - no, make that always - broiled chicken breasts- no skin, sautéed asparagus, and boiled potatoes.  Mr. Evans considered the task of cooking for his old friend a privilege.  I viewed it as just a chore.  Sometimes Mr. Evans would cut up the chicken himself.  But often he would come to me and ask that I go get a chicken and do the honors, as I was one of the resident chicken prep guys.  By this time in my Crab House career, I had advanced to Clam Man, a job I took over from Rex.  I thought that I was very busy one night when Mr. Evans requested that I cut up two chicken breasts for him.  A little exasperated and wondering why he couldn’t do it himself, I said “Mr. Evans I’m really busy right now.”  Wrong answer.  “You’re not too busy to work for ME!!!” he shouted.  I missed the whole point of Mr. Townsend’s dinners.  I was too young to have an old friend that I loved to serve.

I met my first love working at the Crab House.  She was a wonderful girl, and Mr. Evans loved her.  But he felt it was important to constantly tell me the hazards of first loves.  He warned me over and over about these hazards.  I ignored him, and finally figured out on my own that first loves should not occur during your senior year of high school.  A better time for a first love would be around the age of 23, after you have finished with college and have maybe worked a year or two.

I met my second love after ending the relationship with my first, also a waitress at the Crab House.  She was a wonderful girl as well, and Mr. Evans loved her as well too.  He did not warn me about second loves.  His mistake was that he should have warned the girls about me, not the other way around.  I was just too darned serious at the wrong time.  Like I said… 23 would have been a better age.  Or perhaps 31 would have been even better.

My first day on the job, I had come under the instruction of Will.  Will was only a couple of years older than I, but seemed much more mature and wise.  He became one of my mentors at the Crab House.  He seemed flawless in his job and in the way he related to the rest of the gang at the Crab House.  He was universally accepted as our peer leader. 

While Will was our peer leader, we also had our teacher leader, Dave (Dave was a school teacher, and spent his summers at the Crab House as manager).  How did you find these guys?  Dave had been there 13 years, and Will about 5, by the time I came.  They were whole-heartedly devoted to the restaurant, but most of all devoted to the Crab House family.  I had great respect for both of them.  You know as well as I that the Crab House would have been a very different place without them.  I learned from them what defined the proper relationship between us employees and you and Mr. Evans, the owners.  I never saw them be impertinent towards either of you the way I could be.  And they both became my guide in that regard.

I mentioned that I had taken over the job of Clam Man from Rex.  Rex had a way of joking and kidding that I really enjoyed.  One day, while training me on the clam steamer, he mentioned that if you aren’t sure if a clam is good or not, you can tap two together.  If they make a solid clicking sound, then both are good.  If one is dead, it won’t hold its shell tightly together, and it will make a dull thud.  It was legitimate instruction, I think.  You never knew about Rex.  He may have over-emphasized the necessity of this task, because I took him to mean that you should do this on every clam you put in a bucket for steaming.  So if you were to observe me doing clams, you would have heard an incessant tapping of clams.  I can be a little compulsive, and it became a compulsion to tap clams together.  I didn’t want a dead clam in the steamer.  Mr. Evans caught me doing this early on.  He asked why I was knocking the clams together, and I told him (not impertinently, mind you) that I was checking to see if they were good.  “Rex told me to do it” I added.  I had learned from the cucumber episode to follow directions to the “T”.  Mr. Evans roared in laughter.  From that day on, he referred to me as “Knock-knock”.  It makes me laugh just thinking about it.  The following spring, working some before the season started, he had forgotten what nick-name he had given me.  I reminded him, and “Knock-knock” stuck for the rest of my time at the Crab House.  Reminding him of the name was proof that I enjoyed his term of endearment for me.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I wasn’t really cut out to be a line cook.  My favorite thing to do at the Crab House was to cook out of Siberia II.  That’s because I would have just a couple of waitresses, and would be able to work on one or two orders at a time.  What I realized just a few years ago is that I am not a great multi-task person.  I don’t do well trying to do a bunch of stuff all at once - thus my attraction to Sib II.  The next favorite job was Siberia I.  It was not as busy as the main kitchen, and much less chaotic.  So even when it did get busy down there, there were fewer things to distract me from cooking.  Plus, it normally meant you would be the first to get off work.  I don’t know if everyone else knew all this about my abilities or not.  If they did, they were sensitive enough not to make an issue if it.  But my guess is that you all understood our strengths and weaknesses, and put us where we would work the best.  It was wise on your part, and as I look back, much appreciated on mine.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the pre-season work.  I enjoyed going with Will and Mr. Evans down to the Crab House before we opened.  The place had a peculiar smell.  Once in a while, I will be someplace that will have that same smell.  What I liked was being in that select few who could be on the “inside”.  Perhaps I was really seeking to be a right hand.  I wanted to be a go-to guy for Mr. Evans. 

On a Saturday morning after the restaurant season had ended, Mr. Evans called me at home.  He invited me to go to a University of Delaware football game with you.  It was the same day that my grandfather chose to dig out his potatoes, a yearly task for one Saturday in the fall.  He would plant rows and rows, enough to feed everyone in the family who wanted them for the entire winter.  We would all go and dig them out after he turned over the dirt with the tractor.  It was an all-day affair of digging, loading them into baskets, and transporting them to the pump house for storage.  I enjoyed it to a degree.  But I also viewed it as sort of an obligation, partly so we could share in the free potatoes all winter, and partly because Poppop couldn’t do it alone.  The day Mr. Evans called, I can’t really say I was totally thrilled about going to the game.  I had never even been to a college game.  And there were the potatoes.  Looking back, I am sure my family would have given me the go-ahead to go to the game.  But I dug potatoes instead.  I should have gone to the game with you and Mr. Evans.  I should have accepted your generosity.  It was a great privilege to have been invited to spend the day with you, and in my foolishness, I missed it.

There is a brick wall in front of Prince George's Chapel in Dagsboro.  Sections of it have been replaced over the years due to cars driving through it.  Some of those new bricks were due to Kendra driving her car through it late one night after work.  She fell asleep on the way home to Laurel.  I don’t know exactly what you did, but I recall hearing that you either loaned her the money to buy a new car, or gave her some money towards a new car.  Either way, it was a very generous and caring thing to do, and I took note of it.  It was completely in character for both of you. (More on Prince George's)

One summer, Dorothy had a hernia repaired.  You made a place for her out front, seating customers.  Perhaps it was a wise move on your part, as she was so cheerful, chatty, and cute.  But I was very aware that you were taking care of her until she was well enough to go back to waiting tables.

While I was dating Sherry, you invited us to a New Year’s Eve party in Rehoboth, the Old Landing Country Club, I think, or perhaps it was Rehoboth Beach Yacht and Country Club.  It was a very classy affair, as one would expect.  The old folks did the Jitterbug and what not.  We felt privileged to spend the evening with you.  I knew that we were much more than a couple of kids who just worked for you. 

And that is my whole point.  You and Mr. Evans made all of us a part of your lives.  We were not just employees.  You loved us, and we loved you back, because you earned it by investing yourselves in our lives.  I learned in those 5 years that life isn’t just about work.  It is more about people.  And when you experience it in the ideal way, you end up dreaming about it for the next 24 years.

I have often wondered if I could have better spent my summers someplace other than the Crab House.  At least one spring, I was considering looking elsewhere for a summer job.  I waited until late in the spring to call Mr. Evans and let him know I would like to return to the Crab House that year.  Mr. Evans seemed to know what I had been contemplating.  He didn’t say much about it, but said just enough to let me know it bothered him that I had felt the need to consider going someplace else for summer work.  I can only recall thinking about not returning that one year.

But if I had, in fact, done something else with my summers, I would not have learned about young love, a first hand experience I shall be sure to try to relate to my own children.  I would have forfeited the opportunity to work with a wide variety of young kids of all kinds of backgrounds.  The Crab House was a training ground for relationships.  I would have missed all that. 

And I would not have had the opportunity to work with a couple 50 years my senior, and to develop a friendship with that couple that went far beyond an employee/employer relationship. 

I do not think the fruit of that experience is over yet.  I fully expect some day to have an opportunity to befriend a young man or woman 50 years my junior and be able to influence their lives as you and Mr. Evans did mine.  And at that time, I expect to hear an almost-audible bell go off in my head, and I’ll say to myself… Now this is why I spent five of the most impressionable years of my life with the Evans'.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Flowers for Old Women

 After our girls’ ballet recital a couple of years ago, we wanted to do something special for their dance instructor.  I asked Tina if she would put together a flower arrangement for her.  So she took the girls to the market, selected some flowers and a pot, came home and planted them.

May 16, 2008
It was Memorial Day weekend.  “How about we go down to the beach for breakfast on Monday, and afterwards, we can drop the flowers off,” I suggested.  The beach was always a popular suggestion, so it was a done deal.  We had breakfast at The Royal Treat in Rehoboth and then headed up to Lewes.  The instructor’s home was easy to find.

We pulled into her driveway to find three vehicles parked there.  It looked as though she had company, and we didn’t want to intrude.  We had come unannounced.  Tina said she would take just the girls in, and we would get out of her way in no time.  She and the girls walked up to the door, knocked, and Mrs. R. soon let them in. 

“Mrs. R. is really going to like those flowers” I told the boys.  “Women always like getting flowers.  Just look around the yard, she obviously likes them.”

Elias had some additional information to offer.  “Yea daddy, and old women really like flowers.”  I hadn’t made that observation myself, but it sounded reasonable.

In a few minutes, Tina, the girls, and Mrs. R. came out of the side door of the house.  At that point, Asher made his own observation.  “Look daddy, she’s not quite all the way old yet.”  I am sure Mrs. R. would have been flattered by that comment.  I guess in Asher’s eye, she still had some life left in her.   Which was good for us, as the girls already had their hearts set on taking dance class with her next fall.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

The Boy Genius

Our son Asher, at the age of 2 ½ , came to me with a toy he needed fixed.  It was a car that went around a track, controlled by a remote.  It was a child’s toy, and not very sophisticated. 

The usual culprits in such a situation are weak batteries.  I started with replacing the ones in the car.  Four double-A alkalines.  No response.  Then I went for the remote.  A single 9 volt.  Still no luck.  I beat on both objects a little, hoping to jar a loose wire back in place.  That trick produced no result either.

I had taken the car apart previously with the boys when some hair got tangled in the wheels.  It was a laborious process.  The wheels had to be taken off to get to some screws in the wheel wells.  I had no desire to repeat that process at this particular moment.  So I told Asher daddy could not fix it now.  He was not happy at all. 

The next day I came into the boys’ room.  Asher was sitting on the floor with the remote in one hand and a Phillips head screwdriver in the other.  He was trying to either take it apart or put it back together.  Apparently he had already gotten the cover off, perhaps with the help of his older brother, but a tab on one side of the cover was not in place.  I took it away from him and told him with great authority and some irritation that it was broken, and could not be fixed.  He was extremely unhappy, and after much fussing on his part, I caved in and consented to working on the car.  I put the cover of the remote in its proper place.  Asher had also gotten the cover off of the battery compartment of the car.  I replaced it as well. 

Once I got it all back together, Asher started pushing buttons.  And then the unbelievable happened.  It started working.  I had no idea why.  I only know that my 2 ½ year old son, with a little help from his 5 ½ year old brother, had managed to get the car running.  It was a feat even their intellectual, mechanically inclined, super-dad couldn’t do. 

Outsmarted by my 2 ½ year old.  Now that was not something I was accustomed to.  Sometimes a 2 year old does something so befuddling, so unexplainable, so … “How’d he do that?!” that the only explanation that makes any sense is to chalk it up to just plain luck.  Or, on the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t luck.  Perhaps my son is a genius.

On the same day he fixed the car, our genius son, who was at the time in the midst of potty training, had an accident.  My wife marched him into the bathroom.  Soon I heard her laughing.  She had commented to Asher “We need a little boy who doesn’t have these accidents.”  Asher quickly assessed the problem and devised a solution.  He came back with … “We need a different boy.”

Yea, genius it is.

Now the only problem is knowing that a boy genius is following us around, soaking up everything we say and do.  It would be a lot easier raising a pet, which would probably be easier to potty train too.

Admittedly, I am a biased parent, and I may portray our children as extraordinary.  But the thing is, all parents have these little geniuses following them around, watching their every move, listening to every comment they make, and replicating that behavior perfectly.  I often hear one of our children say something in a peculiar way, and wonder how they came up with that.  Oh, wait… that’s exactly how I say it.

The good thing about this is that it is an easy and effective way to teach our children, provided that we are perfect teachers.  The trouble with this system is obvious… we are not perfect, and they learn the bad things too. 

As parents, what are we to do?  A healthy dose of awareness of the little eyes situation helps some.  But here’s the rub.  I can be as aware of this as possible. But it doesn’t change much.  I am going to be who I am, and live that out before my children, especially in those moments I don’t think anyone is noticing.  And our kids are going to duplicate that to a degree that would surprise all of us. 

The bottom line (I am a bottom line kind of guy) is this… in the big scheme of things, all this serves to cause me to run to Christ.  And when I get there, out of breath and at my wits end, I say to Him “You know what is going on here.  Only Your life is worthy to be duplicated by my children.  And for that to happen, You’ve got a lot of work to do in my life.  So please, do it.”

First appeared in the December 2008 edition of the Manna. http://readthemanna.org