Forever A Hillbilly: Only One Damn Road

Forever A Hillbilly: Only One Damn Road: The bridge into Canada was very tall, and driving over it in that tall RV was scary. Trying to get directions from a native, he told us, “T...

Only One Damn Road

The bridge into Canada was very tall, and driving over it in that tall RV was scary. Trying to get directions from a native, he told us, “That won't be hard to find. Hell, Ontario don't have but one damn road.” That proved to be almost true. Roads are very hard to maintain in the winter, and road crews work hard on their “One damn road” all summer. People seen to get impatient with the many long traffic delays on that road. Once, we were stopped in a long line of backed up cars. A northern redneck (yes, the South does not have the market cornered on rednecks) got out of his car and yelled, “Hey! What's the trouble up there?” Someone yelled back, “They're moving the bodies out of the road.” The redneck shut up.

     Sudbury is a city with no living trees within miles, except for tiny replants. A giant Nickel mine is located there, and the fumes from the plant just killed everything except the people. (Maybe I should say, everthing but the remaining people?) But, they had the most fantastic hands-on science center I have ever seen. I wondered if that giant company had built that as somewhat of an apology? I could have stayed in there for days. I even got to give a colonoscopy to a dummy. Not a live one. Before we went the way of the trees, we headed out.

     In Ottowa, we toured the Parliament Building, and Barbara got recruited to participate in some sort of play about their government. Outside, a Mountie sat at attention on his horse, full uniform, and Barbara tried to get him to get down and get his picture made with her. He didn't even blink at her, so she just hung onto his leg while I took the picture.

     Moving on into Algonquin National Park, we had just sat up camp when a French speaking family walked by. The kids started chasing a chipmunk which ran right up into our camp and into a hole by Barbara. She started talking to them, the parents yelled, “Americans!” and the kids fled in terror. You would have thought they had yelled “Rattlesnake!” but then, they don't have any of them up there. I guess they just had to have something to fear.

     I got up really early to drive around to look for wildlife, while Barbara slept in. I got a good look at, and several good pictures of, a moose in all it's glory. Barbara was jealous. It would be many weeks before she saw one.

     Quebec City is a walled city, from times past. The people seem to look different from others we have seen, but a lot like each other. I've noticed this before in isolated places. Those French speakers would not speak English to another Canadian, and were very standoffish until we told them we were Americans, then they warmed up and spoke English well.

     Barbara started reading the Bible through that day, and finished it on the trip. Gives you some idea how long that trip was.

     We discovered Expo Quebec was going on, something like our Arkansas State Fair, but very different. I found a parking spot in a man's yard nearby for a small fee. Then, the man said we had to leave our car keys with him, in case he had to move cars around. Now, that was not something I was accustomed to doing at our state fair, so finally, I just took everything of value out of the car, put it in a big backpack, and carried it around all day. When we got back at the end of the day, he was still standing right beside our car, guarding it. I felt bad, and I could tell his feelings were hurt, but he was nice about it.

     We saw a lot of new stuff at that Expo. Cheese sculptures, sand sculpture, all very intricate, chickens with feathers down to the end of their toes, milk cows with giant udders, and a woman diving from a 40 foot tower into a play pool of water six feet deep.

     When we got back to the RV park, and were loading up, Barbara drove the car up the ramps onto the car dolly. Those french women screamed with amazement, then they all came over and hugged her! You would have thought she had just dived off a 40 foot tower or something! Trying to drive out of the park backwards, because I couldn't read the sign, I got hung up between two trees. All those people turned out and started directing me, In French.

     Moving on out the St. Lawrence Seaway, we blew a tire on our car dolly at Bic. The man at the only station had only one tire that would fit, and there were no other possibilities anywhere around. But he still gave me a cut-rate deal. I'm not really sure if he just liked me, or he was helping me to get on out of there, but we always got very fair treatment at the hands of French-Canadians. Little did we know, they were about to save our necks in a major way, a little bit farther down the road.

     Farther along, we left the Seaway and headed inland, across the mountains to the Acadian Coast of New Brunswick. The Acadians were kinfolks of the Louisiana Cajuns.

Forever A Hillbilly: On the Road for a Year - The Beginning

Forever A Hillbilly: On the Road for a Year - The Beginning:      I was kidding with Barbara one day. “When we get out of the studio, let's buy an RV, rent out our house, and travel for a ...

On the Road for a Year - The Beginning

     I was kidding with Barbara one day. “When we get out of the studio, let's buy an RV, rent out our house, and travel for a year.” To my great surprise, she didn't even need to discuss it. She just said, “Okay.”

     We put our house up for lease. Luckily, Rhower BF Goodrich was just about to open up in Arkadelphia. We leased it to them for a year, to be used by their executives coming into town to train new employees, as a sort of hotel. We bought an older model RV, 32 feet long. We also got a dolly to pull our car on. Barbara began to pay our major bills off, a year in advance. Everything else was on automatic withdrawal. Our house rent would pay for our lodging. We sold the business to Kinley and Mickey. We would be free as a couple of birds!

     The first day out, I began to learn how to drive that big rig. I saw right off that, in making a left hand turn, the trailing car would be thrown out into the far right lane. I had to learn to take over both lanes when about to make a turn on a four lane road. Many months into the trip, I would pay the price for that little problem. The big rig caught a lot of wind. On the interstate to Memphis, seemed like every big    truck that passed us was blowing us into the ditch. And, I could not back that long rig very far, with the car on. I had to have half a football field to turn around in. Our plan was to travel a couple of hundred miles to a destination, hang around until we had seen it, then move on.

     We only traveled to West Memphis that first day. I had enough of that new stress by then. The second day out, Barbara made one of our best moves of the trip. She bought roadside service Insurance.

It was on special for $69.95. It would quickly pay for itself, as it turned out. We camped near St. Louis that second night, and I ran into a lady I knew from Arkadelphia in the park. That never happened again.

     We decided tomorrow, Sunday, would be a good day to see St. Louis. That proved to be true, and we toured many large cities on a Sunday after that. The St. Louis Arch proved to be one visit Barbara regretted. The trip up and down proved to be very crowded, claustrophobic, and the arch swayed. Although we did have a magnificent view from the top, she was so sick by then, she didn't care. I had trouble getting her in that tiny car for the ride back down. We learned another lesson that day. Mark where we park the car well. We almost never found it.

     Our next stop was in the driveway of our friends, Cheryl and Wes McGowan, in Hannibal. One of our less expensive stops.

     Moving on to Chicago, we camped a few miles outside. We toured the Field Museum. We saw the two lions who killed scores of railway workers in Africa, and actually shut down the project until a Great White Hunter brought them down. At the Museum of Science and Industry, we saw many more amazing sights. Then we spent lots of time just driving around seeing the sights of Chicago. Lost, most of the time.

     The next day, driving through Indiana headed for Michigan, our RV just shut down on us. The RV, fortunately, was old enough that a semi-shade tree mechanic could work on some things. I made a lucky guess, pulled the car off and bought a new fuel filter, and it worked.

     We arrived in Holland, Michigan just in time for the Blueberry Festival, just the first of many special events we would run onto, by accident, that year. Holland is all about wooden shoes, tulips, and people who came from the real Holland. We also got to watch diving pigs at the Michigan State Fair.

     After detouring inland from Lake Michigan to see the Gerald Ford Library, we drove on up through Michigan along the lake on a cold day, for us. We realized northern people are just different. They swam in Lake Michigan on that cold day, in droves, while we stood shivering in our coats watching them. Those pore' people just have no summer, and they just work with what they get. They even acted like they enjoyed it.

     We took a ferry over to Mackinac Island and spent a fun day in a society with no motor vehicles. Even the UPS man drove a horse and buggy. Someone clued us in on a neat little trick. Go into the Library, pick up a newspaper which keeps you from loitering, walk out back, and you will see the very best view of the island.

Forever A Hillbilly: On the Road for a Year - Florida

Forever A Hillbilly: On the Road for a Year - Florida: On our way back up Florida from the Florida Keys, we camped at lake Okachobee for a time. Then we moved on up past the lake and reached C...

On the Road for a Year - Florida

On our way back up Florida from the Florida Keys, we camped at lake Okachobee for a time. Then
we moved on up past the lake and reached Cypress Gardens. It was very beautiful, and had been there a long time. Since then, I hear it has closed. That's a big loss to the flower lovers of the world. Disney world was nearby, But Barbara and I have seen it before with the grand kids and all. Corey already had reservations to take his family there when 9/11 hit, and they went anyway. The planes were nearly empty, there was no waiting at the rides, and the Disney characters just mobbed a child when they could find one.

We moved on up to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We have spent a lot of time there in the summer. Our son  Corey, when he was a portrait photographer at Little Rock, advertised all year to his customers that he would be there on a certain week or two, and available to take portraits on those beautiful white beaches. He got all the takers he could handle, and he got Barbara and I to got to go down with them. We photographed during the sweet light near sunset, and at sunup, and played the rest of the day. A fun time. I was the human movable light stand, Barbara the poser. He eventually stretched his time out to a month, with a stay also at Destin, Florida, and stayed busy photographing. If you are good, they will come. And Corey was a very good photographer. And he got that way quickly, with a family to support. It only took him two or three years to move from asking us what an F stop was to speaking at photography conventions. He liked his customers to think he grew up in photography, honing his skill since childhood. But he got serious about “honing” when the bills started rolling in. Then he became driven, and has been a very self driven, hard worker ever since. 

We stopped at our favorite spot for ribs and big, red shrimp, and ordered a large batch. After we had eaten half of it, the manager came by, started looking at our shrimp, said they were bad, took them back, and started cooking us a new batch. Barbara and I just looked at each other. What about those we just ate?

We survived it, and headed on up toward Arkansas. Passing Vicksburg, Mississippi, we looked hard as we passed the golf course. Brother-in-law Bill Arrington could normally be seen, any day, during the daylight hours, out there, just slicing and hooking away. He must have been sick that day

When we arrived at Arkadelphia, we camped at the KOA campground. Other campers thought we were strange, camping at our home town. But Rhower BF Goodrich execs were still living in our house, which we had leased to them for a year. We hung around a week or so, and it was the coldest weather we experienced on our trip.

After Christmas, when our gifts were exchanged and goodbyes were said, we headed for Texas.

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge is on the Gulf Coast. They have a really fun, ten mile loop along the coast, just chock full of wildlife, some we don't have in Arkansas, like the javelina. They are a very distant relative of the common barnyard hog, lean, mean, and tough, with long sharp tusks. Before I got well acquainted with them, I got a really close photo of a large one, glaring at me, hair on his neck standing straight up. What I didn't know was, they will attack anything and anybody, and the hair standing up was his last warning before he charged over and cut a fellow's legs all up. I get a shiver every time I look at that photo. Well, Aransas had lots of different kinds of wildlife, but the king of them all is the whooping crane. At one time, there were only 16 of them in the world. They are coming back a little now. Most of them winter at Aransas. I had been there many times, but had never gotten a really close look at one, much less a good picture. This trip, I meant to change all that.

Barbara and I were talking to a pro photographer of some sort, who had a really big, really long lens. We got the word that a pair of whoopers had been spotted, and we headed out at a fast walk. We walked past a deep patch of grass, and heard a very close, hissing sound. Barbara wondered what that was. I was afraid to tell her that was a big, bull gator, telling us to get out of his space. After a mile or so, we could see the whoopers. But they were still just a white dot in my undersized lens. We're pore' folk, you know? I never could afford one of those really big lens, which really had no practical application in our type of portrait photography. The other guy set up his tripod and camera with his big lens, and got several good shots. Then he told me to put my camera on his lens. I jumped at that, and got a few really good shots of the whoopers. They were so big, they made ducks beside them look like mosquitoes. Barbara later saw a pair of pink spoonbills, so we were both happy

After a stop at Rockport, where we found the cheapest gas of the whole trip, and saw lots of birds, we headed on down to Brownsville.

     Brownsville is a neat place, a good place to be in the winter. It's pretty well as far south as most of Florida, but it often has a stiff wind coming off the Mexican coastline. That warm, moist air blows right up through Arkansas, and cold air coming in from the west meeting up with it cause a lot of tornadoes along the I-30 corridor, one of which I got a close up and personal look at.

At Boca Chika Beach, which runs right into Mexico a couple of miles south, a ship was stranded a mile out. It was foreign, and they had no papers, couldn't come ashore. The owners were bankrupt, so they couldn't sail home. They were running out of food, and local people were taking some out to them. A drawback for the eternal traveler, like us, was, we seldom saw the end game play out for situations like we run into. We never knew what happened to them.

Forever A Hillbilly: A year on the Road - The Big Trees

Forever A Hillbilly: A year on the Road - The Big Trees:      We pulled up a very hard hill to a campground. Only after we were set up, and walked to the top of the hill, did we realize it was a...

A year on the Road - The Big Trees

     We pulled up a very hard hill to a campground. Only after we were set up, and walked to the top of the hill, did we realize it was a major auto racing park. No race was going on, but we enjoyed watching the drivers put their cute little cars through their paces.

     We soon were getting into an area I had wanted to see all my life. Only smaller plots of huge Coastal Redwoods so far, then more and more. The big trees. Where one walks through, quietly, reverently, looking up. Ferns as large as me. I had known all my life they must be fantastic, but I was not prepared for this. Before daylight the next morning, I was in among those unspeakably majestic trees, lying on my back, just looking up, until the sun was well up into the sky. I  never wanted to leave that spot. To try to describe them in words, or capture them in portrait, was impossible. I'll just have to let you go, and see them for yourselves. And, if you have not, put them at the top of your bucket list.

     Moving on into Oregon, The coastal scenery didn't drop off much. But inland, I was a little disappointed, with hundreds of acres of clear cuts. I hate clear cuts. A lot of my forestry friends are mad at me about this. I always fought against clear cuts, tooth and nail. Especially in the National Forests.

     We moved on up into Washington, and followed the Columbia River inland, and were soon setting up camp near Mt. St.Helens. The road up to the volcano was not opened up yet, still too much snow.

     We took the car off and made a loop north, through Seattle, where we ran into the Space needle by accident. Then through Olympic National Park, and Vancouver, British Columbia. In Vancouver, we just lost ourselves in it until coming out the other side. Took half a day. In the middle of the Rain Forest, a hamburger place advertised, “Free if it's not raining.” We paid.

     When we arrived back near Mt. St. Helens, the road was now opened up, just that day, and drove up there with thirty foot snowbanks on each side. We got within three miles of the crater. This was where scientists were watching the mountain when it blew, They had only a scant three minutes to continue to live and enjoy it though, before the concussion reached them. Dead, rotting trees lay for miles, each fallen away from the crater. Moving east along the Columbia River, we saw unbelievably high Multnomah Falls, and I was enjoying Bridal Falls so much, Barbara had to come get me out of there. Seems like I was holding up a wedding, waiting for me to leave. We camped at Walla Walla, just so we could have that address, even if just for a day. Out of Washington, into Idaho, we climbed into the mountains looking back at Coeur D'alene, Idaho, wondering how they they played that cute little island green on the golf course. Later, a man I met at Machu Pichu in Peru, of all places, told me. By boat. Duh!

     Crossing the mountains, now too cold for the motor to overheat, we camped at Missoula, Montana, left the RV there, and headed north. We went as far into Glacier National park as we could before the snow stopped us, then drove around to the other side and stopped for the night in an all-Indian town. Going into Glacier from the east, we got to see a good part of it before stopped by the snow again. Barbara spotted a big wolf, just standing, looking, just right for a good photo. She almost had the camera ready and focused when he loped off.

     Traveling through the Canadian Rockies, We saw a large group of Bighorn Sheep, and worked around until we were up close, picturing away. Traveling on, we were moving through a large area of giant rocks piled on both sides of the road. Turned out, a giant rock slide had completely buried a town. When the dust settled, the single survivor, a baby, in a crib, was setting on top the pile. We came upon the World's Largest Truck, with my head almost coming up to the hubcap.

     Arriving back at our RV, we set out to see a little of  Missoula when a late season snowstorm threatened to snow us in, and we outran it to Livingston, Montana. From there we made a one day dash into Yellowstone, and it was our best of many visits there yet. Half the road was open, and the large wildlife were all still gathered in the micro climate produced by the hot water of the geysers and other hot water attractions. Yellowstone under snow was a great attraction in itself.

     Moving into Wyoming, a very strong tailwind pushed us along quickly for a day, saving lots of gas. But, turning east the next day, the wind was now at our side, and some 16 wheelers were being blown over, and we got into camp early, to prevent a similar fate.

     Moving on to South Dakota, we camped several days in Keystone, to let our mail catch up. As our camp was right behind Mt. Rushmore Memorial, we hiked in and photographed it from the top. Before we left, we had viewed it and photographed it from all angles. We fell in love with the huge, beautifully white Rocky Mountain goats that were plentiful there. I even panned some gold, very little.

     Going on east, we were seeing pheasants everywhere, all day long. After setting up camp, we drove back in the car to picture some. We found none. We realized the tall RV gave us a much better view of small game.

     The lady who owned the campground told us a hard blizzard last winter stranded travelers, and some of these strangers lived in her house a while. Her swimming pool was level full of snow. People in Sioux Falls were just a different breed. They were nice. If one held a bit too long when a light turned green, they didn't honk. They just patiently waited until you noticed.

     Up through the eastern part of North Dakota, I guess we missed the pretty part. Moving into Minnesota, we traced the Mississippi river back to its source, a rushing stream from a large lake, near Bemidji. I stood on a single log across that river. We camped at Ely, the jumping off point for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I had always wanted to canoe that area into Canada, but Barbara was not big on canoes, and we just looked. My friend Neal Nelson, years later, did. They stacked their gear near another group's equipment, to portage the canoe. When he came back for it, his tackle box was gone, along with his fishing dreams. Neal jumped in his canoe and followed the other party through three lakes to retrieve his tackle, and when he finally caught them, the offending party turned out to be a world famous fly maker. The guy felt so bad, he gave Neal some of his flies that sold for thousands of dollars

     We pulled up a very hard hill to a campground. Only after we were set up, and walked to the top of the hill, did we realize it was a major auto racing park. No race was going on, but we enjoyed watching the drivers put their cute little cars through their paces.

     We soon were getting into an area I had wanted to see all my life. Only smaller plots of huge Coastal Redwoods so far, then more and more. The big trees. Where one walks through, quietly, reverently, looking up. Ferns as large as me. I had known all my life they must be fantastic, but I was not prepared for this. Before daylight the next morning, I was in among those unspeakably majestic trees, lying on my back, just looking up, until the sun was well up into the sky. I  never wanted to leave that spot. To try to describe them in words, or capture them in portrait, was impossible. I'll just have to let you go, and see them for yourselves. And, if you have not, put them at the top of your bucket list.

     Moving on into Oregon, The coastal scenery didn't drop off much. But inland, I was a little disappointed, with hundreds of acres of clear cuts. I hate clear cuts. A lot of my forestry friends are mad at me about this. I always fought against clear cuts, tooth and nail. Especially in the National Forests.

     We moved on up into Washington, and followed the Columbia River inland, and were soon setting up camp near Mt. St.Helens. The road up to the volcano was not opened up yet, still too much snow.

     We took the car off and made a loop north, through Seattle, where we ran into the Space needle by accident. Then through Olympic National Park, and Vancouver, British Columbia. In Vancouver, we just lost ourselves in it until coming out the other side. Took half a day. In the middle of the Rain Forest, a hamburger place advertised, “Free if it's not raining.” We paid.

     When we arrived back near Mt. St. Helens, the road was now opened up, just that day, and drove up there with thirty foot snowbanks on each side. We got within three miles of the crater. This was where scientists were watching the mountain when it blew, They had only a scant three minutes to continue to live and enjoy it though, before the concussion reached them. Dead, rotting trees lay for miles, each fallen away from the crater. Moving east along the Columbia River, we saw unbelievably high Multnomah Falls, and I was enjoying Bridal Falls so much, Barbara had to come get me out of there. Seems like I was holding up a wedding, waiting for me to leave. We camped at Walla Walla, just so we could have that address, even if just for a day. Out of Washington, into Idaho, we climbed into the mountains looking back at Coeur D'alene, Idaho, wondering how they they played that cute little island green on the golf course. Later, a man I met at Machu Pichu in Peru, of all places, told me. By boat. Duh!

     Crossing the mountains, now too cold for the motor to overheat, we camped at Missoula, Montana, left the RV there, and headed north. We went as far into Glacier National park as we could before the snow stopped us, then drove around to the other side and stopped for the night in an all-Indian town. Going into Glacier from the east, we got to see a good part of it before stopped by the snow again. Barbara spotted a big wolf, just standing, looking, just right for a good photo. She almost had the camera ready and focused when he loped off.

     Traveling through the Canadian Rockies, We saw a large group of Bighorn Sheep, and worked around until we were up close, picturing away. Traveling on, we were moving through a large area of giant rocks piled on both sides of the road. Turned out, a giant rock slide had completely buried a town. When the dust settled, the single survivor, a baby, in a crib, was setting on top the pile. We came upon the World's Largest Truck, with my head almost coming up to the hubcap.

     Arriving back at our RV, we set out to see a little of  Missoula when a late season snowstorm threatened to snow us in, and we outran it to Livingston, Montana. From there we made a one day dash into Yellowstone, and it was our best of many visits there yet. Half the road was open, and the large wildlife were all still gathered in the micro climate produced by the hot water of the geysers and other hot water attractions. Yellowstone under snow was a great attraction in itself.

     Moving into Wyoming, a very strong tailwind pushed us along quickly for a day, saving lots of gas. But, turning east the next day, the wind was now at our side, and some 16 wheelers were being blown over, and we got into camp early, to prevent a similar fate.

     Moving on to South Dakota, we camped several days in Keystone, to let our mail catch up. As our camp was right behind Mt. Rushmore Memorial, we hiked in and photographed it from the top. Before we left, we had viewed it and photographed it from all angles. We fell in love with the huge, beautifully white Rocky Mountain goats that were plentiful there. I even panned some gold, very little.

     Going on east, we were seeing pheasants everywhere, all day long. After setting up camp, we drove back in the car to picture some. We found none. We realized the tall RV gave us a much better view of small game.

     The lady who owned the campground told us a hard blizzard last winter stranded travelers, and some of these strangers lived in her house a while. Her swimming pool was level full of snow. People in Sioux Falls were just a different breed. They were nice. If one held a bit too long when a light turned green, they didn't honk. They just patiently waited until you noticed.

     Up through the eastern part of North Dakota, I guess we missed the pretty part. Moving into Minnesota, we traced the Mississippi river back to its source, a rushing stream from a large lake, near Bemidji. I stood on a single log across that river. We camped at Ely, the jumping off point for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I had always wanted to canoe that area into Canada, but Barbara was not big on canoes, and we just looked. My friend Neal Nelson, years later, did. They stacked their gear near another group's equipment, to portage the canoe. When he came back for it, his tackle box was gone, along with his fishing dreams. Neal jumped in his canoe and followed the other party through three lakes to retrieve his tackle, and when he finally caught them, the offending party turned out to be a world famous fly maker. The guy felt so bad, he gave Neal some of his flies that sold for thousands of dollars

Forever A Hillbilly: My Hog Fat Affinity

Forever A Hillbilly: My Hog Fat Affinity: My Hog Fat Affinity              When I was in grade school, I just hated sitting still and being completely inactive for long perio...

My Hog Fat Affinity

My Hog Fat Affinity             

When I was in grade school, I just hated sitting still and being completely inactive for long periods of time. If my teacher was keeping such a close eye on me that I couldn't risk shooting paper wads across the room with a straw, pinching the kid in front of me, or the like, I got into the habit of chewing on the point of my shirt collar.

     I don't know why that was. All I can figure is, I had just developing an affinity for hog fat. All our clothes were washed with lye soap, and as you may, but probably don't know, hog fat is the main ingredient in lye soap. That affinity may have been caused by eating so much salt pork. Or, maybe I was just nervous about what the teacher was going to catch me doing next, and what the end result would be. A little nervous habit.

     After Mom started noticing that most of my shirt collars were getting ruined, she laid down the law, and I agreed with her that I had no business doing that, and told her I would stop it. That worked for a while. But after a little time passed, I would catch myself doing it again. I just couldn't seem to help myself. Mom knew she had to put a stop to that. I had always been a pretty timid and well behaved kid around home, at that point, and Mom hated to have to bring out the big gun, the keen switch, for a kid like me, her baby. It was years later before she brought out that big gun for me, possibly because some of my siblings seem to have been a little wilder. So, at that point in life, I didn't need the big gun so much. At least according to some of the tales I've been told. My siblings had filled me in early on about what Dad was capable of, and what Mom, possibly the sweetest woman in the world, could do if one of us drove her to it.

     Mom, at that point in time, had no shortage of material to make new shirts out of. Those six hundred or so laying hens ate tons of chicken feed, from pretty, decorated feed sacks, during that time period. She could easily have made one new shirt for me after another. IF she didn't have anything else to keep her busy. But Mom was always the busiest woman I ever knew, what with everything else she did around that farm. She pretty well outworked the rest of us three to one. She hatched a plan.

     Castor oil was always one of the first lines of defense we had on our farm. When one of us showed sign of being off our feed. In my case, at least, a spoon full of castor oil in a glass of peach juice almost always did the trick, and, unless I was at death's door, I got well really quick, and showed Mom I didn't need any more medicine. To this day, I can't stand the thought of peach juice.

     The next time Mom washed my shirts, she ironed them up real nice, as she always did. Then she put a drop of castor oil on the point of each shirt collar. To this day, I work really hard at never, ever letting any shirt collar anywhere close to my mouth. Today, Barbara always finds plenty of reason to gripe at me about spilling food on my shirt, getting ink on the shirt pocket the first time I wear it, or letting battery acid eat a hole in it. But my shirt collars are impeccable.

Forever A Hillbilly: Pearl's Peace

Forever A Hillbilly: Pearl's Peace: PEARL’S PEACE -Shirley McMillan -  Guest Writer Several weeks ago I came to work feeling burdened with a heavy load.  Forgetting th...

Pearl's Peace

PEARL’S PEACE

-Shirley McMillan -  Guest Writer

Several weeks ago I came to work feeling burdened with a heavy load.  Forgetting that I have often claimed God’s promise that what He called me to do, He will do it, I sat down at my desk discouraged and heavy hearted that I was going to get a grant reduction due to not having spent a lot of my program’s stipend money two years in a row (a very important expenditure), and even though I’d done everything humanly possible, the situation looked even worse this year, which year was speeding by at breakneck speed!

Discouraged, I said, “God I don’t know what else to do.  If this program is to succeed, you’re going to have to intervene.”  I promise you that very hour, the phone began to ring, and it rang again and again as that day and the next couple of weeks passed by, bringing applicants galore, which would enable me to utilize the stipend money.  Suddenly I was worried that my grant would be overspent!  God doesn’t do things half way.  He runs our cups over!

Well, as usual after such a mountain top expression of His goodness, once again I slid toward the valley.  The excitement dimmed, and I began to trust in my strength once again.  I don’t know if I don’t really believe He’s in control, or whether I just don’t think He should have to “bother” with little ole undeserving me!  So once again I found myself sitting at my desk, having a case of the mully grubs.  When what did my wondering (or should I say wandering) eyes should appear, a beautiful cross reflected in the screen of my computer!  Talk about a feeling of peace.  My entire being thrilled at this tangible reminder of God’s presence.

Now, of course, I knew (or suspected) that God had used something ordinary to show me the cross, so I couldn’t be still ‘til I explored the office to discover the source.  I was excited to find that out the window, behind me over my right shoulder was a window in the building next door that had panes connected by silver strips.  When the sun shone on the strips, they reflected as a cross through the fronds of a silk fern sitting on my window ledge, onto my computer screen.  How wonderful that God shows us His presence through the ordinary things in our lives, and that every day now I would be able to see a visual reminder of that amazing presence.

Well, the day before yesterday panic struck.  I turned on my computer, and the cross was nowhere to be found.  I knew God was still present, but I wanted to see my visual reminder.  Why, oh why, had He taken my cross away?  I suffered all day long without my cross, and went home dragging.  Maybe now I understood what the Israelites felt like when Moses left them alone for 40 days and nights!  Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all to have a visual reminder!

Well, I decided yesterday that since it’s December, and the sun has moved off to the South a bit, I probably won’t see that cross reflected again until spring.  How will I make it through the winter without my cross?  Then it hit me.  I have to be assured of God’s presence whether there’s a visual reminder or not; whether I feel that excitement or not.  Some days just aren’t going to be exciting, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a feeling of the peace of His presence.  “Pearl, Pearl, you don’t have to have an ‘idol’ on the window sill, to know that God lives in you, and to feel the assurance that He lives in you, and will never depart!  No matter how busy, or lazy, or faithless you’ve been, you don’t have to let guilt overcome your assurance.”

Oh, joy!  Today the cross is back on my computer screen!  I was just looking for it in the wrong place.  Isn’t God good!