As I turned the key and the engine on the gray Murray riding mower was balking, I sort of knew it was going to be one of those days.
With a little prompting though I was off and running. Many people love to mow, although I started mowing other people’s yards at about age nine, I really am not a mowing fan. In fact I sort of take the Los Angeles film set approach, let’s kill it and paint it green.
There are people that you meet in life sometimes become professional associates, some become friends, some become family.
As a child, I didn’t find it easy to make friends. Not because I did not try, but because I didn’t easily fit into the childhood molds and thus it took the other person to have to go beyond the norm to be a friend to me. I was more like an adult intellectually than a child, so oftentimes other kids couldn’t relate with me and would get bored. As a result, I often found myself alone and very use to those I allowed into my life falling short of my expectations and leaving me feeling friendless.
Despite that experience, I learned early in my life that we get to choose our friends and sometimes even an occasional person that we call family. The greatest challenge of choosing friends is sometimes those we choose fall short of the expectations we have built up for whatever level of friendship we place upon them.
Are they a best friend? Are they a close friend, an old friend? Are they simply in our circle of friends? Are they a friend of a friend?
Depending upon where in our friend hierarchy a person falls, what do we expect of them? A best friend is someone that you can rely upon. They are there in you low times, high times, poor times or rich times, they are simply a call away. They know your secrets; they are aware of your shortcomings and help to hold you accountable.
A close friend, comes to your aid when you call. They help you move; help you fix things when you need a hand. They may not be in your life every day, but once again they are a call away.
Sometimes old friends carry many of these same expectations. Distance and time may separate you from them but whatever level they once held remains despite the time and space that is between you. If a motivating experience brings you back together, they simply fall back into the rhythm that was previously left behind.
Last year, I took a fall, breaking my hip. This experience allowed me to see who was there giving me uplifting insights into my circle of friends. I was so blessed by all of those who reached out to me during that time and since.
What is the point of today’s meanderings? A lesson shared with me by my friend Arkansas fiddling treasure Violet Hensley, who is now 104: “If you want a friend, be a friend.”
What kind of friend are you? Are you giving all it takes to support those in your circle? Jesus shared with us to “Love our neighbor.” Neighbors are more than just the people who live next to you. It is amazing how if you are there for your neighbors, they return the favor in many cases, building your circle of friends.
What a wonderful world it would be if we all enjoyed large circles of friends!
I can remember going door to door as a youth collecting canned foods to place in paper bags with the blue letters marked upon the sides – Goodwill. This organization was one of the many that our family moved the young people in my circles to do work to benefit.
When parents work to instill in children the importance of giving their time and energies to help others, it provides solid stones upon which they may walk throughout their lives. I saw my parents take their last cash dollar and give it to someone who had even less than they did. I saw them both give endless hours to all types of efforts to uplift others.
Those lessons learned by watching their daily walk, changed my life and gave me a sense of hope that their generosity was the norm in the world. I assumed there would always be those that do the same. Unfortunately, despite that hope, in the intervening time I have discovered with each passing year I see fewer and fewer that reach beyond themselves.
That does not mean however that I have become jaded in what I have seen. I still loving caring people that reach into other people’s lives with their gifts of time, talents, and when needed money. Perhaps I see more of that because, those are the people I choose to live and serve beside.
In adulthood, I have seen many generous people give to others when needs arose. I have seen people who had nothing themselves, give to those who have even less. I have seen those who appear to be well situated also give. I personally have been the benefactor of other’s generosity when I faced hard times due to an unexpected accident.
As humans, as Americans, we are the greatest we can be when we put aside any differences that others place between us and we work together to make the world around us a better place. We uplift those that have less, we strive to create opportunities for people to improve their lives, whether through education, needed treatment, or simply eliminating barriers which seem to prevent a person from succeeding.
I have no idea what may be the need in your community. But we as individuals cannot solve the problems of the world or our own country. All we can do is make a difference locally. There are millions of us who can look around and find ways to change the communities we call home. Spread the smiles of hope, look to fill the voids, band together and find ways to bring your home folks together to create a better place to live for all your neighbors.
It is only locally that we can truly serve and uplift each other. Make the world a better place by starting at home in your neighborhood, your town, your county. Once we make things better in each of those, our country, our world will not only be better, but folks from outside will be less able to divide us, because we will know our neighbors’ true hearts of hope and help.
Today most folks don’t give a second thought if they get their clothes dirty to go and change into another outfit. Of late, I have found myself babying a electric dryer as I have been trying to get parts to keep it working, so I am a little more cautious about how many clothes I have to wash.
In the valley below the Gravelly Spur, an abundance of clothes in the closet was not something that most folks experienced.
The Wood boys, like everyone, were often faced with limited things to wear. Little Woody had long grown out of his white cotton dress that he wore in the shadow of his late mother.
The dresses provided mothers the added benefit to keep track of a child when they had to leave the room by lifting the old iron bedpost and placing it on the tail of the gown. That kept the toddlers from toddling into mischief.
By this point the young boy had graduated to two pairs of overalls and two shirts.
After working in the fields two days in a row, both pairs of his overalls and his two shirts were stained with red dirt and mud. He came to his older sister and said “I haven’t got anything to wear to school tomorrow.”
She took him into the bedroom reached into the closet, pulled out her extra dress, and laid it on the bed.
“Get that on and I’ll wash up your overalls.”
Little Woody didn’t have much choice in the matter it was either put the dress on or run around in his all together. So out of the clod covered overalls and into the gray colored dress he slipped.
So even though it was late in the day, she pulled out the washtub and the warshboard and scrubbed them overalls from rusty brown to a faded blue.
She took them out and hung them to dry on the clothesline, as one would normally do.
As the family went to sleep that night, the temperature dropped way below freezing. When the family slowly made their way out into the kitchen wiping the sleep from their eyes with the rooster’s crow, little Woody’s older sister sent one of the other boys to fetch the overalls while she cooked.
He brought them in frozen solid, straight as a board. He stands them in the corner taking a bit of delight in the feat.
Woody is standing there in her gray dress and says “What are we going to do, I can’t were those to school and I am sure not wearing this dress.”
She took the overalls and shirts and placed them on chairs by the fireplace and within just a short time the overalls and shirts had melted into something looking like the occupants had simply disappeared. She quickly ironed one of the shirts.
Woody could not wait to get out of the dress and as soon as the overalls were warm enough and before the iron had hit them, he was into one of the pairs and out of that dress.
While the experience might not have been so bad for little Woody if his older brothers did not see the whole thing as an opportunity for some good old fashion ribbing once they got to school.
When the Moss brothers asked the Wood boys what they had done the night before each mentioned some adventure they had but one of them had to say, “Woody didn’t do anything. He was afraid to come out of the house cause someone might see him wearing sister’s dress.”
Needless to say this was enough to get Little Woody’s blood to boiling and with a little more agitation its safe to say that clean pair of overalls picked up a little schoolyard dirt as the kidders found themselves on the receiving end of his frustration.
Good thing his sister washed both pairs of overalls or he’d been back in that dress all over again.
( From “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes” by Randall Franks)
