The Last Leaf: A Childhood Memory of Raking and Jumping

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The sun’s rays offered a great warmth to my cheek as I began my walk along Frog Leg Creek. It had been many years since I eased my feet along the path I had run so swiftly as a boy. The water in the creek churned up a froth as it swirled over the rocks, aiming its strength southward.

A large brown leaf fell with a thump upon my head. Perhaps it wasn’t quite a thump—more like a quick poke. As I picked it up and examined its stem and structure, my mind glided across its smooth surface back to childhood. I was watching a young boy in a blue jacket, pumpkin-colored shirt, and blue britches, swinging a rake above his head. A voice rang through my head: “The leaves are already on the ground; you don’t have to knock more from the trees.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I returned to my task of making the largest pile of leaves in the history of our neighborhood. Beneath that oak tree—which must have seen Sherman pass on his way to burn Atlanta—the leaves seemed to gather in an endless volume that filled my afternoons as I worked to collect them.

The only real advantage of the adventure was the chance to take a running jump and land in the midst of the pile, of course sending the leaves flying through the air and scattering them across that section of the yard once again. It was worth it, though. The freedom of flight and the softness of the landing somehow made all the hours of raking and piling worthwhile. There was usually a small payment at the end from the neighbors who owned the big tree. I think I got ten dollars.

I forget how many bags the tree usually produced, but I remember once stretching enough bags across the yard to spell “Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas,” using one bag for each letter and still having that many left over.

Sadly, my desire to rake waned after my body weight no longer allowed a satisfactory soft landing in the pile. By then the falling leaves brought more dread than enthusiasm, although I never lost my admiration for that tree or for looking at the fall colors as they turned. When I moved into my latest home, it had no deciduous trees. All I have planted are evergreens, and if I keep it that way I will never miss raking another leaf. They are beautiful when they are someone else’s—or simply bringing color to the countryside.

I released the leaf I held in my hand and watched it fall, swinging back and forth as it drifted to the ground. As I walked away, I looked at the trees and thought how beautiful they are. I wished there was a big pile I could jump into, but I was glad to know it was not my job to rake them.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books available at our Store.

Cleanliness: Are We Too Clean For Our Own Good?

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How many times a day do I reach over, hit the squirt top of an antibacterial gel, and rub my hands?

As I think about this practice, I sometimes wonder how I ever survived my childhood. How did any of us?

We didn’t have throwaway wipes and all the other things we use so readily today.

As children, we left home in the mornings during the summer and we played. Our imaginations guided us through game after game with our friends, no matter where the adventure took us—storm ditches, creeks, backyards, fields, woods—wherever an adventure was to be found and the owner was amenable to our presence.

I remember one time sitting at the bottom of the drainage ditch after one of the girls in our group coaxed us into making mud pies. Of course, at some point one of the kids decided it was a waste of effort and that we needed to create something edible. I don’t remember what they brought from the kitchen cupboard, but we created something and, believe it or not, we ate it. It didn’t kill us, although it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to eat.

It is amazing, though, the precautions we now treat as commonplace in order to avoid some type of infection.

When I was little and got sick, I knew it meant a trip to the doctor and a big needle in my future. I remember that while visiting my grandparents one time, that happened, and Dr. Stephenson had a needle that looked as long as a pitchfork prong. It seemed that way when it was stuck in, too.

I reckon, though, that we are facing different issues today. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors had not yet permeated our lives with medicines to the point that we reached a major level of overmedication. Today, we face diseases that the arsenal of medicine just can’t touch, largely because we have medicated too much at many levels, including the food we eat.

In many ways, in trying to make ourselves safer, we are actually making our systems weaker.

When we got sick and overcame it, our bodies were more likely the next time to fight off the same strain of bug with less effort if we encountered it again.

Now we spend our time trying to make our environment semi-sterile for the children around us and for ourselves.

Are we healthier? Perhaps we avoid more illness, but I don’t know if we are healthier. I’m afraid that with every squirt, rub, and pill, we are making our systems more dependent on something from outside to keep our bodies in good shape.

The obsessive-compulsive person within me has managed to overcome a lot of the habits that once led my family to compare me to the TV character “Monk.”

Despite my concerns, though, I still find it hard not to use an antibacterial.

Would you look at how dirty this computer keyboard is? Where is that rubbing alcohol? I bet I left it in that drainage ditch.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books from our Store.

The Hidden Side of Life: Trials We All Face

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I have come to the conclusion that everyone, no matter how blessed, faces trials.

Some are ordinary: how to pay a bill, find a job, or cope with everyday stress. Others are far heavier. I remember a week a few years back when I was praying for friends and loved ones dealing with heart bypass surgery, Parkinson’s disease, accident recovery, cancer, and stroke. Any of these can feel insurmountable, especially when a doctor uses the word “terminal.”

Thirty-nine years ago I sat with my dad after he received a terminal diagnosis. He chose a treatment that might give him five more years if it worked. Even while facing his own death, his thoughts centered on making sure his family knew how he felt and that they would be all right without him. I never fully accepted how immediate his condition was, and I missed chances to share my feelings with him. Maybe it was the awkwardness of youth or simply not knowing how to say what I felt.

His sudden death left me more open with others for a time, unwilling to leave things unsaid. Over the years, though, I’ve drifted back into the habit of keeping those thoughts inside.

Our home church began a ministry several years ago for people caught in addiction. Has there ever been something you wanted so badly that your body ached and your mind could focus on nothing else?

When most people hear “addiction,” they think of alcohol or drugs. The list is much longer, and the damage is often the same—to the person struggling and to everyone around them. I have yet to meet anyone who cannot be pulled into some activity or fascination that consumes time, money, and energy, sometimes at real cost to themselves or those closest to them.

You may think, “How can I be addicted? I’m a good person,” or “I’m a Christian.” Consider a few less obvious possibilities: exercise, computer use, food, gambling, sex, or limerence (an obsessive romantic attachment). Any of these can become addictive.

Addiction usually involves impaired control, preoccupation with a substance or behavior, continued use despite consequences, and denial. The drive for immediate relief often overrides concern for long-term effects. Stopping suddenly can bring anxiety, irritability, cravings, nausea, and other withdrawal symptoms.

In truth, most of us have addictive tendencies. Unchecked, those tendencies can become addictions. Is there something you feel you have to watch or attend, even when it crowds out other priorities? (I’ve wondered more than once whether following every football or baseball game counts.)

I have spent much of my life encouraging young people to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and I have lost friends and family to both. I chose not to use them myself, yet I know the potential exists in me, just as it does in other members of my extended family. One step in the wrong direction can open a door. I am also a creature of habit. At times I have wrestled with behaviors that felt close to obsessive-compulsive patterns. Having worked through those, I now try to stay alert so I don’t slip into unhealthy routines.

If your church or a local nonprofit offers a recovery program, support it with whatever gifts you have. If a friend needs someone to go with them to a meeting, don’t stay home out of fear that people will assume you have a problem. Just be there.

Addiction is potentially within each of us. Some forms are simply less visible or less stigmatized, but they still affect our lives and the people we love.

Read more of Randall’s writing through his books available in our Store.

Seeing Through The Masks We Wear

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Have you ever wondered what lies beyond the face someone is showing you? Are there thoughts running through their head that differ from the words coming out of their mouth or the expression on their face?

There is probably not a soul on earth who has not faced a situation in which someone they respected or liked revealed themselves as someone other than expected.

In a recent small-group Bible study I attended, we discussed how, in the South, it is not unusual to encounter someone who is so sweet and caring, with an amazing ability to turn a phrase, adding “Bless their heart” to deliver a socially acceptable put-down. Others will often smile—or sometimes roll their eyes—if they catch it.

As an actor, I understand that we all wear masks. We begin creating them in childhood to gain acceptance, love, and friendship from our parents, friends, and teachers. Over time we add more of them to help us succeed, get along, and improve our relationships. By a certain point in life we have them for nearly every occasion, almost like the clothes we wear: the spouse or loved-one mask, the parent mask, the close-family mask, the distant-kin mask, the work mask, the club mask, the church mask, the close-friend mask, the acquaintance mask, the professional-peer mask, the classmate mask—and the list goes on.

We are so practiced at keeping them handy that we can change masks mid-conversation if the situation requires it, depending on whom we are with.

The thickness of the mask depends on how much we want the people around us to really know us. The goal is often to wear the thickest mask with strangers and acquaintances, thinning it as relationships grow closer so that, ideally, our true heart can be seen more clearly.

When dating, we often begin with the thickest mask, hoping that as we gradually put on thinner ones our partner will remember the best foot we put forward and forgive what we are really like. In many respects, I think this works against the process of genuine connection, yet the pattern is repeated over and over by each new hopeful seeking a soul mate.

As I have traveled through life, I have watched some of the greatest interpreters of the human condition for film and television. Watching them peel away their own mask and put on someone else’s for a role was an amazing learning process. Through the years, it has given me insight into the underlying intentions of the people I meet and come to know. I have found comfort in knowing that, at least in my experience, you can generally tell when someone is earnest and honest in their deeds and words.

I am still surprised sometimes, though—often when I have not looked closely enough at the wrapping to see beneath the mask and realize that what lies there truly deserves to be hidden from the rest of the world. If we saw it, we would only want to turn away. At times there are those who pose with a smile, then slyly berate another or try to tear them down to elevate their own standing.

I wish I could say that people like this don’t exist, but unfortunately they do. These days, most bad folks don’t even bother to put a mask on except when they are trying to evade being caught.

But the neat thing is, at least from my experience, more good folks are revealed when they remove their mask than bad ones. I pray you are one of the good folks, no matter which mask you are wearing, and I hope you always use your masks to uplift and encourage others.

Read more of Randall’s work in his books in our Store.

Song and Fellowship at the National Quartet Convention

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Each fall, folks from around the country gather to celebrate the people who bless them with the Word in song—on radio, from pulpits, and on stages. For more than half a century, the week-long National Quartet Convention has been the mainstay of the Southern Gospel music calendar. Today that reunion of sorts takes place in the mountains of East Tennessee, at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge.

It is a week of stage appearances, visits with artists at their booths, the Singing News Fan Awards, and the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductions—this year Phil Cross, Clarke Beasley, Clayton Inman, and Conrad Cook—along with record-label receptions and get-togethers hosted by artists for the people who follow their careers.

For lovers of quartets, mixed groups, and soloists, there is no better place to catch up, get a photo, buy the latest release, share a piece of anniversary cake, or congratulate an artist on an award.

Shaye Smith and Nick Poe of the Chuck Wagon Gang and Randy Shelnut, Sr. of the Dixie Echoes with Randall Franks fiddling on Great Speckled Bird.

I was blessed to attend this year’s event. From the moment I entered the building, I found friends at every turn. I sat and visited a while, then moved through the exhibit halls, seeing groups I knew and many that were new to me. Some of those newer names would later share their gifts on a showcase stage, and sometimes on the main stage.

The musical sets are timed to the minute. Ministries including The Inspirations (2026 Singing News Favorite Quartet, and favorites in the Musician, Lead, Baritone, Bass, and Tenor categories), Jeff Tolbert and Primitive Road (Favorite Band and Young Artist), The Troy Burns Family, Karen Peck and New River (Favorite Soprano and Favorite Song, “I Speak Jesus”), The Chuck Wagon Gang, The Dixie Echoes, Jeff & Sheri Easter (Favorite Duet and Alto), The Perrys, The Kingsmen, Eleton House, and so many others bless the thousands gathered. Day after day, song after song, the love of God flows and lifts those who are there and willing to be carried higher.

The early part of each day includes special musical showcases and preaching from pastors from around the country. You can also catch artists giving television interviews, recording radio-station liners in a quiet corner, or talking with print media.

I would equate the NQC to a recharging station, where artists and music lovers alike can receive a full charge and go out for another year to spread the gospel in song—in small towns, mid-size towns, and big cities across this land.

Whether I was sitting in the audience, standing and talking with artists in the exhibit area, or taking out my fiddle to play a few tunes with longtime friends, I came away happier, hopeful, and more content to face the world.

I encourage you to make plans to attend the National Quartet Convention in Pigeon Forge next fall (natqc.com). More than that, I ask you to support the gospel groups who come to your town. If you see them in concert at a local auditorium, buy a ticket, fill a seat, bring a smile, and go home blessed. If they are in a nearby church, attend and put a generous donation in the offering.

The life they lead to uplift us is not an easy one. Your support could make the difference in a bill being paid, the bus being filled with fuel, or the group choosing between hamburgers and bologna.

Bless others so they may bless you with their gifts. If you love gospel music, show love to those who leave their homes and families to share it with us.

Read more of Randall’s writings through his books in our Store.

Black Ice, Truck on My Tail, Road My Ancestors Walked

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I pushed on through the mountains, the Chevy Lumina taking the curves with surprising accuracy. Snow lay along the roads as I watched for black ice on the interstate.

I had hit black ice before, when I was about 20. I exited Atlanta’s I-285 at Doraville, heading home from a concert in Marietta. About 20 feet onto the circular ramp, the car spun out of control. Using what I had learned in driver’s ed a few years earlier, I did not fight it. I turned into the spin and prayed until the car came to rest, facing oncoming traffic.

I was blessed that it was about 2 a.m. and no one was exiting behind me. I let the car slip backward off the ice, turned around, and drove on, feeling as if I had just walked out of the scariest scene in a horror film.
Now, crossing that same kind of country, I thought of my ancestors making their way west through these mountains without the advantages of modern travel. I am sure my heart pounded much as theirs did when a bear came close, or when they tried to avoid a hunting party in the woods. Time and technology do not change the basics of the human condition. We still face fears, some imagined, some real.

Then I looked in the rearview mirror. Headlights seemed to be on top of me. My heart raced as Jim and Jesse’s “Diesel on My Tail,” a song I once recorded, began to feel like prophecy. I hugged the curves, trying to stay ahead, but I was not going fast enough in the dark, icy conditions to suit the trucker.

I moved into the other lane, even though the ice looked worse there. In the mirror, no matter where I went, the truck stayed behind me. Maybe it was only the turning roads. I kept pushing, hoping to reach the flatlands.
Finally, as we cleared the Appalachians, the truck passed and sped off into the night.

I continued home from North Carolina, more relaxed now that the ice was behind me. My greatest concern was keeping my mind occupied and my eyes open.

What makes such moments worthwhile is that they remind us the world is beautiful and filled with God’s creations, and that we can still find ourselves with a racing heart and a mind given over to fear. How we react, knowing God is with us in everything, shows whether we can keep walking the path our ancestors walked: one step at a time, into the unknown.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books available in the Store.

The Walk You Set: Leadership That Lasts a Lifetime

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Have you ever wondered whom your walk each day impacts? Are you a leader in your community or your church? How about in your family?
Do you set the pace that everyone else follows?
What does it mean to be a leader?
As I look back at those in my life who inspired me to follow them, only a handful have made a lasting difference.
Throughout my education, certain teachers, by talent and care, urged me forward in my studies. I cannot point to one who became a leader to me, though I am sure many were leaders in their own right—among their peers, their groups, and their families.

Among my childhood peers, some drew others to march to the beat of their drum. I never really found their beat. I walked my own path.
As I grew, I watched national and international leaders muster people to inspiring speeches, lofty goals, and hopeful aspirations. At times my heart beat with the excitement of their visions of what lay ahead.
Even as I found my footing as a Christian and dedicated my childhood efforts to following Christ, there were Sunday School teachers, pastors, and youth leaders who made the effort. Still, it was hard to find a worldly leader I could look to who furthered my faith.I have always heard that hindsight is 20/20. When I look back at my life, the greatest leaders in it were my father and my mother.
Through their example I learned to care for others, to show compassion for those less fortunate, to follow a path that cannot be questioned, and to live a life that puts others’ needs above my own.
Problem after problem, trial after trial, their steady and true approach to living provided a pattern upon which leadership flourishes.
Others stepped forward as well. My scoutmaster was a tremendous example. My first employer taught me how to encourage loyalty in those you hope to inspire. I saw fine leadership, too, in musical and entertainment mentors who fostered my talents.
No matter whom you have looked to in learning how to lead your family, your church, or your community, are your choices reflecting the best that leadership can offer?
Jesus provided a wonderful template for servant leadership and for passing that legacy from generation to generation.
What are you passing on to your children—and to the children of your community?
Will they look back and remember you as a leader, or as an example of what not to be?
Read more of Randall’s writings in his books in our store.

A Farmhouse Tale: A Fiddle and a Fireplace

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I don’t know much about my Grandpa Harve’s childhood, although I am told his tales of life on the Tennessee River rivaled Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

When my dad was a boy, Harve gathered the children around the fireplace and, before bed, told a story of an orphaned boy named A.J. (his real initials), filled with the intrigue of riverboat gamblers and the dangers of riding the rapids on a handmade raft.

By then Harve had grown into what my late cousin Reece Franks called a demanding man. After Reece came in from the general store, Harve often sent him back out to tend the horse and buggy while the older men sat and reminisced.

For some reason, as Harve became a man, the waters of time brought him to Catoosa County, Ga., where he courted a young girl named Emily Jane Bandy—Grandma Emmer to the family. Already a talented fiddler, he brought the fiddle along when he courted. Grandma Emmer often thought he spent more time a fiddlin’ than he did a courtin’. He eventually won her heart, and the couple settled into a life of farming and raising children.

He shared that love of music with several of his children: Tom learned the fiddle, Henry the banjo, Ethel the piano, Jesse the harmonica and the jaw harp, and another son the guitar. As the sun lowered itself behind the hills, the clan would often gather in the parlor after supper and play a few tunes like “Turkey in the Straw,” “Leather Britches,” and “Camptown Races.”

Lester and Griff would roll back the rug, and although she’d probably not admit it the next Sunday at the Baptist church, Emmer and Harve danced a jig or two.

Harve had already passed his love of music along when a farming accident injured his left hand and left him unable to play. That loss likely pained him deep in his soul. Henry’s death later took the sound of the frailing banjo from the group, and as the children married, they carried the music with them.

As the grandchildren came buzzing around, I know he would have given anything to pick up his old black fiddle and play them a tune, but instead Harve entertained them with stories of his youth making his way into adulthood in the Reconstruction-era South.

I wish some of them had written the stories down, but alas, they are lost to time, and even the memory that those stories existed is nearly gone.

It was from my great-uncle Tom, who made his home in Gordon County’s Sugar Valley, that I first heard the fiddle played up close. He played some of the same licks his father had played before him. While Grandpa Harve was not there, I could imagine him sitting at the fireplace, his old black fiddle in hand, playing while his great-grandchildren gathered around him.

While many take their musical cues from the pop icons who parade across the Grammy stage, I still draw strength from family roots that run deep in Appalachian soil.

Find more of Randall’s writings at our Store

Heroes or Anti-heroes: Where Have All the Good Guys Gone?

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From my earliest days of watching Westerns, sci-fi shows, and family sitcoms, I was inspired by heroes who stepped up for the underdog, brought the bullies down, put criminals to justice, and defended the innocent.

Those lessons came from a generation of men and women who had fought World War II alongside America’s allies, then came home to write, produce, act, make music, and give us moral plays. Many of them had been reluctant heroes in real life, and they hoped to raise generations that treated one another well, fought for the right things, and still believed in tomorrow.

As the years went on and those legendary creators stepped off their stages, much of what was made for our entertainment turned darker. Antiheroes became a staple. People doing bad things became the main characters, and too often the writers and directors asked us to admire them. The old moral play was turned upside down.

Clear-cut good winning over evil became, well, less evil winning over more evil—and we were told the less-evil person was a hero worth looking up to.

That shift, along with similar changes in popular songs, helped erode the moral lessons Baby Boomers and Generation X were weaned on. With each new generation, writers, directors, actors, and songwriters have reflected a slightly different idea of what is good, what is bad, who is a hero, and who is evil.

People talk about a generation gap. I believe this is one of the few periods in American history when four generations—Baby Boomers through Generation Z—have occupied the same country with different moral compasses at their center.

Many of our founders said this country would succeed only if a moral, largely Christian people upheld the principles in our founding documents. As we move further from a shared sense of right and wrong, it becomes harder to keep the country and its future stable, and harder to find leaders in every field who look out for all of us.

What will the future hold for those of us raised on Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Captain Kirk, and the fathers and mothers of The Andy Griffith Show, Father Knows Best, and Leave It to Beaver?

I fear a measure of disappointment. We now watch people raised on antiheroes—The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and that earlier 1970s turn toward Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey in Death Wish—alongside sitcom parents more interested in themselves while the children run the house, rather than being trained up in a positive way.

Will we ever go back to what it was? No. Are there still chances for redeeming lessons in television, film, and music? I think so. In every generation there are still people inspired by the good. They can be lights among their peers, and that may make the long-term difference.

Are you one of them? Can you inspire heroes rather than antiheroes? Can you write music that teaches something worth keeping? Maybe it is time to step up. Maybe the Greatest Generation did leave a lasting mark—passed down in their creativity and in everyday heroism.

Read more of Randall’s writings in his books at our Store.

A Long Stride : In My Father’s Footprints

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Sometimes I wish I could find my way back to a simpler time, when things felt good, problems belonged to someone else, and worries were few and far between.

Lately my memories keep reaching back to the days when I was a boy and my father still held the center of the house.

Upon his shoulders lay the challenges of the household: the bills, the unexpected repairs—plumbing, electrical, sewer, and so much more. If the television or the radio died, if the typewriter, the sewing machine, the vacuum, or even a light went out, it was Dad to the rescue. He was the fix-all and be-all of our world.

When I think of the years he was with us, I remember feeling safe whenever he was near. His stories of youth filled the car on road trips, especially when we had a chance to see something of our history. I wish I had scribbled those tales down so I could share them with you now. He could spin a yarn I imagine was passed down from his grandfather, who was said to have the same spark.

I lost a good deal of time with him to a sleep that would overtake him and hold him for hours. Once he fell into it, he was gone and could not be roused. I still wonder where he went in that slumber. Perhaps, like me today, he was dreaming of a simpler time when his own father stood at the center of his world—a place where sleep lifted the tasks, the fears, and the responsibilities. No matter. He always woke refreshed and went back at it full steam.

He taught me to pitch a baseball and to play cards. More than that, he taught the lessons of life and the skills of fixing and building—the things he believed a man should know. Men, in his world, worked, provided, taught boys to become men, advised, and solved problems. They stood ready to protect the women and the young. My mother seldom needed protecting; she was a force to be reckoned with herself.

Dad left us too soon, at 54. I miss him every day, especially when I catch myself using a lesson he left me. I wish I could once more set my little shoes in the footprints he made as he walked ahead. I hope I measure up to that stride.

Read more of Randall’s writing at the Store.