the church except the preacher. Maybe the Lord had dialed over to the First Presbyterian Church that morning. At least that thought entered my mind.
Appearing to me to be somewhat frustrated, our minister asked for the head-bowing, eye-closing response again while the choir sang softly in the background. When his expectations were not met, he said, to the congregation’s surprise, “I want everyone who has volunteered to be a missionary to the Congo to come to the front.”
“Sam,” he said, “that’s you and Sandra,” pointing to one of my friends who was the same age as me.
I was stunned but began to make my way to the aisle past my parents and siblings, who seemed a bit shocked that I was being called to Africa. Coming down the aisle toward the front, I saw my friend, Sandra, who was a pretty girl with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that could melt the heart of almost any preadolescent boy. But this morning she was not radiant. She was not smiling. She looked as if she were upset, and to make matters worse she was crying. The tears ran down her face in small streams, eroding her makeup significantly and causing her mascara to run down her cheeks. When I asked why she was so distressed, she sobbed with significant feeling, “I don’t want to go to Africa as a missionary!”
“I’m not too wild about the idea myself,” I replied in one of the great understatements of my life. Nevertheless, we made our way to the front where the pastor had us stand in line and be greeted by anyone who so chose to come by after the service.
Well, because of the time that had been taken up with the invitation, most people chose to hurry home to what in the South was a traditional large Sunday noonday meal. Only a handful of the faithful came to shake our hands and wish us well as we stood there in disbelief. Unfortunately, one of the most ardent of the faithful was at the front of the line. It was Miss Thelma, an elderly woman who was in church every time the doors opened. She was a great supporter of foreign missions and shook our hands so vigorously that I found my whole body shaking.
“God bless you children,” I remember her saying while thinking “God is probably the only one who can bless us, and I really wish the Almighty would make us invisible right now.”
Had the story ended there, I would have been humiliated and humbled but happy. However, the rest of my teenage years and into college were influenced by this bizarre Sunday event. For as old as I thought Miss Thelma was, she was not old enough to stop coming to church and asking me how my preparation to serve in Africa was coming along. Every Sunday during the school year I would see her and she would ask me questions about Africa, such as what was the capital of Liberia, where was the Horn of Africa, and was the Ivory Coast a place where there were a lot of elephants. Over time I became pretty good on African geography and history. Also over time I developed to the point where I was able to go off to college and I did—300 miles away!
At that juncture in my life, Miss Thelma had truly grown old and a bit senile. Nevertheless, she kept coming up in my life and would inevitably find me whenever I was home for breaks. She assumed by the time I was 18 that I was in Africa and only home on furloughs (which seemed too frequent and regular in her mind). She asked me how my missionary work was going, and because I was a Georgian at a North Carolina school, I interpreted her question broadly, telling her that I was doing my best to minister to the heathens who surrounded me daily. I assured her the uneducated were being taken care of. She would smile and then walk away.
As the years went by, Miss Thelma became frail and weak. Sandra got married and moved away. I eventually changed denominations and became a United Methodist. Although my awareness of myself and others increased a lot from having been called forward to the front of my church that fateful Sunday, most of what I learned came later. It specifically manifested itself in the form of being able to think quickly on my feet and to memorize a lot of facts about a distant continent. I finally went to South Africa in 2006, but as far as I know Sandra never went any further geographically than Savannah. I doubt either of us will ever be missionaries at this juncture in our lives, but I am sure the memory of that Sunday morning will dwell in our minds forever.
The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways, and what happens, when, and for what reason is not necessarily something that we ever are privileged to know. I doubt I will ever solve the mystery of that moment so many years ago. It does seem to me, though, that when people are allowed to make their own decisions, they enjoy life better and are potentially more spiritual. Not everyone needs to be volunteered for service in a far-away land, and there are a lot of Miss Thelmas in the world!
Chapter 11 My Brother Was a Home Run; I Was Strike Three
One of the most popular activities of my childhood was Little League baseball for ages 9 through 12. It was democratic. All you needed was a glove and some athletic skill. Although I had the first, I lacked the second. My brother, Russell, had both. He was an All-Star baseball player. He always made the Little League major league teams and was consistently chosen for the All-Star teams after the season ended. As they might say in Game of Thrones, he was a “handsome dragon” and a darn good player!
My adventures in Little League did not pay off nearly as well. I seemed to sprain the fingers on my glove hand every year. Ouch! In addition, I flinched when the ball was pitched over the plate. Instead of batting .500, I batted .050! To be honest, I was terrible! The coaches did not hesitate year after year to cut me (from their rosters, that is). I accepted my fate as a Little League failure better than many boys because I was aware of my skills (or lack thereof). It still did not feel good to come home from the tryout field, with sprained fingers, and tell my parents I had not been picked to join a team, especially because my brother was so good.
Finally, when I was 11, I made what was known as an “International League” team. The powers that were did not want those of us with little or no skill to feel like we had little or no skill. It was a nice gesture. Teams had an international name, but few of us could pronounce them, so we came up with unofficial team names. My team was known by the players as the “Jabberwocky Blue Jays,” and we competed with teams other kids described as the “Awesome Aardvarks,” “Crafty Coyotes,” “Slimy Salamanders,” and “Dirty Dirt Socks.” We played on a less than ideal field with red dirt and rocks, behind a dry cleaner building, a few miles from the pristine, finely groomed official Little League facility. There was no seating. Everyone stood for as long as they could stand to watch. My only dramatic moment on my team was sliding into first base. Other than that, I struck out a lot and made numerous errors in right field. I remember that after seeing one game, my parents never attended another.
Although my failure might have been crushing had I had more ability, to me the constant ritual of not making a Little League team just became a note in the book of life. Besides, I learned that I could keep the scoreboard in center field for those who were on the major league teams at the official Little League field. I was rewarded afterward with a moon pie and an RC Cola. Nothing could have been better!
Chapter 12 Water Works! A Rush Downstream to the Reservoir
On a car ride to Richmond, my sister taught me the words to the song “Once There Were Three Fishermen.” The song is playful with repeating words, such as “fisher, fisher, men, men, men.” In the song, the fishermen go to Amsterdam, and instead of repeating lyrics per se as a refrain the song deviates with the words “Amster, Amster, shh, shh, shh” instead of “Amster, Amster, dam, dam, dam.” I loved the song, for as a preteen I was forbidden to swear, and so instead of singing “shh, shh, shh” I sang “dam, dam, dam,” and my words were not considered profane.
Outside of the song, I was like many preteen boys and enjoyed building dams better than singing about them. One summer day, a group of us built a dam on Glen Creek, which ran through our neighborhood. During the middle of construction it started getting cloudy,
