RRN Online Volume 489

October 15 '05

Volume 489

Silver Street A Bit Of Heaven

Many Biblical scholars believe the writer of the Book of Revelation was John, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. Most of Jesus’ disciples were martyred, but John was banished to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. There John recorded his apocalyptic vision, which may have offered more comfort to the early Christians than it presents to modern ones.

Modern Christians are often captivated by the images John described and seek to relate modern events to signs that the world is about to end or that a particular individual is surely the anti-Christ or that the "mark of the beast" is a microchip that one day everyone will be required to have implanted in their hand or beneath the skin of one’s forehead.

For all the volumes that have been written that attempt to explain the Book of Revelation, none seems to have all the answers. Christians and others are no closer to knowing when the rider of the "pale horse" will unleash death than folks were two thousand years ago. And, if one believes we are living in the "last days," all that can be said with certainty is the end of time is nearer than it was yesterday.

John’s vision of the end of time culminates with the creation of a new heavenly city and a new earth; he wrote, "[T]he first heaven and the first earth had passed away." Christians’ view of heaven is painted with John’s words: "no more death…crying or pain," "The street of the city was of pure gold," and "The twelve gates were twelve pearls." John further explained a great river flowed through the city, "as clear as crystal," and there would be "no more night," no sun or moon or the light of a lamp, as such would not be needed because "the Lord God will give them light."

Christians, throughout the ages have found comfort and hope from John’s revelation, and many songs have been written and sung of the glory of heaven. The trials and troubles one faces in this life are made more bearable with the thought of a blessed hereafter in heaven. But, that’s not to imply one doesn’t experience a foretaste of heaven in this life.

I can think of many experiences that I could compare to heaven, but perhaps none are more appropriate than those of my childhood years lived-out in Okolona, MS. I was born in Pontotoc, MS, but my family moved to Corinth, MS, a couple of years later. I started to elementary school in Iuka, MS, and finished the second grade in Starkville, MS, before my family moved to Okolona, where we lived for three years before returning Pontotoc. During a single year of my childhood, our family moved nine times, though I’m unable to recall more than five moves in the course of that fateful year.

Though many of my recollections from my childhood are traumatic events, there were good times that I also remember. And, of the places we lived and the schools that I attended, before we returned to Pontotoc, my Okolona years are my favorite ones. I did a lot of growing up in Okolona. Having made it through the trauma of starting First Grade in Iuka and of being the "new kid" starting the second semester of Second Grade in Starkville, Okolona would become a little piece of heaven on earth. No, the streets weren’t paved with gold, but the graveled street, where we lived for the greater part of three years, was named Silver Street. Still, the friendships that I formed at school, in our neighborhood, and at church were ones that left lasting memories. Two of my buddies, lived on Silver Street, my best friend was just around the corner, and two of my classmates lived within two blocks of our house.

Our house was about three blocks from downtown, where the theater showed Saturday matinees for a dime. School was an easy walk from our house, and within a mile of our house a spacious park afforded several of us a place to enjoy sandlot baseball unsupervised and left to settle our own disputes.

There wasn’t a "crystal flowing river" through the park, but there was a small lake and a nice public swimming pool in which my older brother almost drowned before a life guard figured out he was not playing around and was in real danger.

Afterwards, my mom thwarted my pleas to go to the pool with, "You can’t go swimming until you learn how to swim."

She really said that; I’m not making it up.

Okolona didn’t have any "pearly gates," but there was a high, chain-link fence around the school grounds that kept us from straying into the highway traffic during recess. And, right in front of the entrance to the three-story building was a marble drinking fountain, where I caused a playmate to chip a front tooth when I pushed him from behind. I suffered a similar calamity when I was tagged while sliding headfirst into the metal manhole cover we used for third base on the school’s playground.

Unlike the heaven John saw, my childhood heaven in Okolona wasn’t bereft of pain or crying. If I misbehaved and got a spanking, it hurt and I cried. The same was true of my first visits to a dentist, for painless dentistry had not been invented then. Still, I loved living in Okolona, and I’ve often wondered how different my life would have been had I been able to complete my education there.

The seeds of my salvation had been sown when my parents began taking me to church in Iuka, but I recall feeling the first promptings of the Holy Spirit at the First Baptist Church in Okolona. Besides worshiping God, I worshiped other heroes in my childhood, such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and a few other cowboys of the day, whom I most often saw at a Saturday afternoon matinee at the local theater, in the days before TV.

Jesus said we shall neither marry nor be given in marriage in heaven, and in Okolona, I was too young for either. But, I remember wanting to marry my fifth grade teacher. I discovered girls in the fifth grade and that led to holding hands at the movies, which in ones prepubescent years is about as close to heaven as one can get.

I don’t remember anyone dying during the three years, I lived in Okolona, but I’m sure death happened. When my childhood sweetheart moved near Holly Springs, MS, in the spring of fifth grade, I felt like a part of me died. That summer my family also moved. We came back to Pontotoc, where the girls were as pretty as those in Okolona, but the boys were bigger and meaner. I would spend the next six years in the Pontotoc Separate School District, struggling to regain the status I had enjoyed in Okolona. It took all of that and more before I felt as socially secure and as loved as I had been while living on Silver Street in Okolona. Okolona wasn’t heaven, but it surely helped prepare me for a deeper understanding of the heaven John envisioned.

Halloween Time Vandals Start Early

Last weekend, Sarah’s yard was "rolled" on three consecutive nights, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Apparently, some of Pontotoc High’s "brightest and best" didn’t get the word that Mrs. Brown retired from teaching last year. Well, it could be they don’t care, as those responsible for the "rolling" are most probably among the students she taught last year. It’s been my observation that it takes a couple of years for "rolling" to stop once a teacher retires or leaves the school system.

Pontotoc’s police department is about as hapless as the Keystone Cops when it comes to preventing petty acts of vandalism, and without license plate numbers or video tapes of the perpetrators, John Q. Citizen isn’t likely to get much support from local law enforcement. While other North Mississippi communities have successfully addressed the insanity of rolling yards, Pontotoc’s officials seem to prefer the "head in the sand" tactic while hoping the problem will go away.

Persons who don’t take petty vandalism seriously, likely have not spent two or three hours of their time trying to get all the litter picked up, and should trees be decorated as well, then several hard rains will be required to flush the toilet tissue from the branches. Even then, bits and pieces are likely to be visible until the trees leaf out the next spring.

There was a time when such shenanigans were largely limited to the night of Halloween, but in recent years, yard rolling begins around the time of the first football game of the school year and can run right up through the holiday season.

Barbara and I were visiting Sarah last Friday night when I answered a knock on the carport door. There was no one there, so I was about to check the front door, when I discovered the yard had been decorated in toilet tissue and shredded newspaper. It was too early in the evening to clean it up, as without someone guarding the property the rest of the night, it could suffer another rolling.

The apparent disregard for another’s property is only one part of Halloween that’s worsened during my lifetime. The activity we describe as "trick or treat" has gotten completely out of hand. There was a day, when children went door to door in their neighborhood on Halloween hoping for treats. Treats might be a piece of fruit, homemade candy or popcorn, and possibly something store-bought. There was no expectation of receiving shopping bags full of candy treats, and there was no fear that any of the treats received would be maliciously altered to harm them.

Last year, of the hundred or so trick or treaters who came to our front door, we knew fewer than a dozen of them. Additionally, most of them didn’t live anywhere close to Dogwood Circle. But, our subdivision, Woodland Hills, and a lot of other subdivisions in Pontotoc are targeted by caravans of youngsters brought in from all areas of Pontotoc and Pontotoc County because the pickings are easy with an accessible and concentrated population having minimal safety concerns.

Barbara and I have always enjoyed small children at our door on Halloween, and we don’t mind if some of them are complete strangers to us, but when we lived in Greenville, we found too many teens showing up for treats on Halloween, and we found it best if we just spent the early evening at the mall. Fortunately, Pontotoc is not that bad, at least not yet. I imagine we’ll continue to welcome a hundred or so children this Halloween, right up until the treats run out or else dangerously low. Then, we’ll turn out the lights and go help Sarah fend off the vandals.

New Tires Quieter Than Before

Sarah can’t hear thunder, so I knew there was a problem when, while shuttling her somewhere, she asked, "Is that a tire making that noise?"

"I don’t know! It could be tires, and it could be the rear end," I growled.

I had heard the noise for several weeks and one day even mentioned it to my boss, who drives an Impala, too. He wasn’t riding with me at the time, but he shared that his car also had rear-end related noise.

"From what I'm told, that’s characteristic of this model," he shared, dismissing my suggestion that the tires might need replacing.

Twenty thousand miles later the noise was worse than ever. I stood behind my car recently and looked at signs of uneven wear on the outside tread of both rear tires.

"That’s got to be my problem," I reasoned.

I remembered having earlier mentioned the noise to one of my coworkers, and he had told me to run my hand over the treads to see if I could feel any unevenness. I never got around to trying his suggestion, but based on what I could see, the tires were getting in bad shape.

The treads on all four tires looked as though the tires could last another twenty thousand miles, but at 70,000 miles, I decided it was time to check on some new ones.

Historically, SUPERVALU, recommended Michelin tires as replacements, and when we had a truck shop in Indianola, I never had to shop around for a set of tires. I merely left my car at the truck shop and they took it to a local tire dealer and had new tires mounted and balanced and ready for me to pick up a few hours later.

Thirty years ago, I purchased all my tires for my personal car from M.K. Griffin’s Goodyear dealership and either dealt with Max Griffin or Billy Boyles. After that business closed and Billy Boyles opened his own business, I’ve generally traded with Billy. Billy carries the Cooper line of tires, and since the tires are manufactured in nearby Tupelo, I decided to price a set of tires for my company car locally, rather than in Indianola.

The last tires I had to buy for a company car were a set of Firestone tires for a car that was almost worn out and being turned back in for use as a house car. I don’t recall how much I paid for them but it was less than a set of Michelins.

Once, in an emergency situation, I purchased a Cooper tire for just over a hundred dollars. It served me as well as the three remaining Michelins, so based on past performance, I knew the Cooper tires would be reliable ones.

I was pleased to note the quote from Billy Boyles indicated the price was still about the same, and I accepted his offer.

Midway through changing out the tires, Billy came back into the waiting area to say, "I betcha’ folks thought you were a log truck coming."

"Like I told you earlier," I responded, "they’ve been making a racket."

My car is by no means a quiet car, so if I mention how quiet it is now, one should understand I’m referring to the difference a change of tries has made. But, believe me, it’s quieter now than before. Why, I can hear folks talking to me on my cell phone without the aid of an earpiece. I still hear road noise, but it’s a lot quieter noise.

There’s nothing like a new set of tires to make a car feel new again.

Bodock Beau Flat Tarr

It’s true we talk funny, here in North Mississippi, but we don’t have a problem laughing at ourselves.

Flat Tarr

There was this fellow from north Mississippi who had a flat tire. He pulled off on the side of the road, jumped out of his car, walked down the hillside and picked a bunch of wildflowers, and proceeded to put one bouquet of the flowers in front of the car and one behind it. Then he got back in the car to wait.

A passerby studied the scene as he drove by and was so curious he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was.

The man replied, "I have a flat tarr."

In response the passerby asked, "But what's with the flowers?"

The man responded, "When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back! I never did understand it neither."

Contributed by Ken Gaillard

A couple phoned a neighbor to extend birthday greetings. They dialed the number and then sang "Happy Birthday" to him. But when they finished their off-key rendition, they discovered that they had dialed the wrong number.

"Don't let it bother you," said a strange but amused voice. "You folks need all the practice you can get."

Contributed by Larry Young

What's in a Name?

A young man called directory assistance. "Hello, operator, I would like the telephone number for Mary Jones in Phoenix, Arizona."

"There are multiple listings for Mary Jones in Phoenix," the operator replied. "Do you have a street name?"

The young man hesitated, and then said, "Well, most people call me Ice Man."

Happy Hour...With a Twist

A bear walks into a bar and says, "I'd like a beer ............ and some of those peanuts."

The bartender says, "Sure, but why the big paws?"

A grasshopper hops into a bar.

The bartender says, "You're quite a celebrity around here. We've even got a drink named after you."

The grasshopper says, "You've got a drink named Steve?"

Source Reader’s Digest

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