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I have a few odds and ends for you today. Then I'll get back to my story of our year's travel.
Barbara came down for the closing program for Kairos Prison
ministry. The seating for that final program is strictly scripted by the
Department of Corrections. The inmates sit on one side of the chapel, all free
world visitors on the other side. Two rows of Kairos men form a two line
barrier between the two. My six inmates and I were seated on the back row. My
men and I had become very close in those four days. When Barbara came in, I
thought, in my “Loose cannon” sort of
reasoning, what a nice gesture it would be to show my men that I trusted them
with the thing most dear to me in this world, so I took Barbara over to shake
hands with all my men. I knew Barbara never had fear of anything of human
origin, so I knew she would like that. I also knew that any one of my men would
have gladly protected her with their life.
As she was going down the line, meeting each man, a more experienced
Kairos man came running over to me, panic in his eyes, saying, “Get her out of
there! If the wrong guard sees that, he will kick her out, and maybe none too
gently!” She left, but she made sure she had finished meeting all my men
first. Afterwords, as the inmates filed
out, almost all my men glanced at Barbara through the two lines of Kairos men,
and silently mouthed, “Goodby, Mrs. Gillum.”
What a great thing
it would have been to add to her “Things I have done” list. How many people do
you know who have ever publicly been kicked OUT of prison?
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My friend Skeet, (short for Skeeter) is so extremely polite
in his driving habits, that it sometimes takes him an hour to get through a
four way stop. (his words) I suspect he always uses his GPS to get out of a parking lot,
and he always strictly follows the parking lot arrows, exactly centered on his
little red car or little red truck. I told him yesterday that he follows a very
narrow path through life, tightly bordering “A total genius” on the left, even
more tightly bordering “Totally crazy” on the right.
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Skeet has not
always been so polite. As a boy, he and two of his friends were driving a
little too fast, missed a curve, and their car slid through a yard, with the
back of the car going under a house. While waiting for the police, one friend
checked inside the house to see if anyone was hurt. As the police arrived, he
fled the house, screaming, “Get an ambulance! There's a woman dying in
here!” When the paramedics investigated,
they found the commode had disappeared
through the floor, and the woman sitting on it had gone crazy, thinking
the world was ending. She was physically OK, except for getting two major
bruises when she hit the floor.
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Skeet and I were once sitting in his big red fishing boat in
the middle of Lake Degray. Suddenly, Skeet just up and said, “Let’s go to
Wing.” Skeet had never been to Wing, Arkansas, where I grew up. My book,
Spreading Wing, was centered around there. I just had to know why Skeet wanted
to go to Wing, and why right now. “You’ve been talking so much about Wing, I’ve
just got to see it.” So, Skeet fired up his big red boat, and we were soon at
his house, with his two little red cars sitting out front, along with his big
red pickup. As he started to get into one of his two little red cars, I had
decided to use a very special approach to Wing for Skeet’s first trip, so I
said, “Take your big red truck.” I knew Skeet’s little red car would never make
it over the special approach to Wing I had in mind for Skeet.
Wing is 100 miles
north of Arkadelphia, sitting right in the middle of the Fourche La Fave River
Valley, The most beautiful little valley on God’s green earth. If there had
been a way to make a living in Fourche Valley, I would never have left it as I
did 50 years ago. Anyway, we headed across the Ouachita Mountains from Mt. Ida,
through Story, Aly, and on into the big mountains. On the south side of Fourche
Mountain, I had him take a hard left up Long Hollow, across Barnhart Creek, on
a tiny forest service road, and several miles on west. Skeet had me stop at two
different places, and after he had explored a little, he announced he wanted to
establish a homestead, right here. I had to disappoint him by telling him, The
US Forrest Service just did not allow that any more. Cutting hard right across
Scrougeout Mountain, we reached the top. Fourche Valley was spread out below.
The rains had been good this year and the valley was very green. We had to stop
there and look for a very long time. Fourche Valley is beautiful, any way you
enter it.
Dropping off the mountain, Skeet began to notice that every
car or truck we met had a smiling face behind the wheel, and they all waved. I
had to tell him, “Get used to it. That’s just the way it’s done up here.”
We stopped at brother Harold’s house for a visit. It took
Harold a while to figure Skeet out, and likewise, but we soon were heading back
south, the normal way. On top of Fourche Mountain on hwy. 27, we stopped for
one long, last look Wing. I pointed out to Skeet where the Gillum house used to
be, and that stop gave us our best look at the Valley, up and down.
Nowadays, If I ever want to head up to Wing alone, I have to
keep it secret from Skeet. He’s fallen completely in love with it, as we all
have. If Skeet gets the idea I’m headed for Wing, he’s always in my car with
me.
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