Schools I Have Known

This was my seventh grade year. By this point, I was starting to get an impressive resume of schools.

Resume order:

Grade, Town, Teacher, Reason for leaving.

Kindergarten, East Globe, Esther Preston, Globe, AZ, school district changed.

First Grade, Central Elementary, Virginia Dolan, Miami AZ, moved to seminary,

Second Grade, Bienville School, generic second grade teacher, New Orleans, LA, moved to better housing.

Second Grade, W.C.C. Clairborne Elementary, Ms. Grant, New Orleans, LA, same school. I tell the amusing story of The Second Grade here:

https://laughingatsid.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/discipline/

Third Grade, W.C.C. Clairborne Elementary, Ms. Danton, New Orleans, LA, same school.

Fourth Grade, W.C.C Clairborne Elementary, generic fourth grade teacher, New Orleans, left for a private school (lasted one day).

Fourth Grade, Clifton Ganus, generic fourth grade teacher, New Orleans, LA, moved to church field.

Fourth Grade, Valley Forge North, Diane Something, Kentwood, LA same school.

Fifth Grade, Valley Forge North, Daniel Carroll, Kentwood LA, moved to a better school.

Sixth Grade, Valley Forge Central, Anne Elzey, Amite LA, changed churches.

Seventh Grade, Southwest Mississippi Christian Academy, assorted teachers, Ruth, NS, left church.

Eight years, eight schools, are you starting to see a pattern?

To continue:

Eighth Grade, Mississippi Baptist Academy, assorted teachers, Dad took a church in Oak Ridge, TN.

Eighth Grade, Jefferson Jr. High, assorted teachers, same school.

Ninth Grade, Jefferson Jr. High, assorted teachers, changed school district.

Ninth Grade, Norwood Middle School, assorted teachers. It was a  tough school, and I kept getting in trouble.

Ninth Grade, homeschooled, my mammer, went to a Christian school.

Tenth Grade, Mt. Pisgah Christian Academy, my mammer again, Dad started a school.

Eleventh Grade, Hagen School of Kentwood, my mammer again, same school.

Twelfth Grade, Hagen School of Kentwood, my mammer again, graduated finally!

I really hesitate to post this blog because it sounds like me whining. These are fairly impressive statistics. I made fourteen schools in thirteen years. Military brats think my schooling was unstable. I met a girl once whose father managed hotels, and they lived on site who had twenty schools. I wasn’t worthy.

As a funny irony, Dad and Mom settled down in the same area and never moved again. Forty years later, after Mom passed, and Dad’s health was failing, he still would not move! It worked out fine, but I often thought that of all the times we moved, he owed me one move at my request. Alas, I could never outstubborn Dad.

To be fair to mom and Dad, they cared deeply about my education. In some of the changes, they spent a lot of money trying to give me the best education they could possibly give me. Often, they couldn’t help the situation. Three times, they had to leave a ministry suddenly without having that much of a choice. The really bad side of a quick move is that we had to move into something  temporary while they sorted out what their next move was in life. This usually turned three new schools into six.

Before you relegate my blog to the “Grumpy Old Man” file of perpetual whiners, I plan to discuss how the circumstances turned my life into the rich tapestry of experiences my life became. It was both painful and good for me.

The next stop, “Southwest Mississippi Christian Academy.

Summit Mississippi

Dad grew restless. Southern Baptists have networks called associations that are usually two or three counties or parishes large in the Deep South. I am spotty on the details, but I think Dad networked around and found Fellowship Baptist Church in Summit Mississippi.

Summit, true to its name, was a high point on the Illinois Central Railroad. McComb five miles south had a big railroad shop. Summit was at the crossroads of three big industries in the pine belt: the railroad, the paper industry, and the oil fields. There was a big railroad siding where pulpwood trucks would bring a load of four to twelve inch logs eight feet long stacked six feet high to be loaded on the train to the pulpwood mill. If I hadn’t wasted so much time on education, I could be a good pulpwood hauler to this day. I joke, but those people did hard, intense work and were good people.

Summit sat on its own little mound of crude oil in that region. It wasn’t like the fields of West Texas where an army of mechanical dinosaurs lazily pumped black gold from the unknown depths. It had its occasional pump hidden in the pines, and every once in a while a new derrick would punch the surface for another lucky strike. Sadly, one of our locals opened a valve too quickly and was cut in half with the pressure. Some of our church members worked in oil. I had a comical fun neighbor, Ralph Smith, who spent his last working years flying all over the world as a drilling supervisor. It still amazes me that a man from humble beginnings was sought by drilling companies worldwide for his prowess in his trade.

Jerry Clower, the famous country comedian, was from a town about eleven miles southwest of there. He yells a story about my literal next-door neighbor there named Cutworm Smith. Cutworm earned his nickname brandishing a pocket knife, threatening to emasculate you. The other story was that he cut across the bases in baseball. He was nice, but his pocket knife was sufficient to make me never want to cross him.

We went to the most bizarre school of my resume of fourteen years. Stay tuned for Southwest Mississippi Christian Academy in a future post.

Summit and Fellowship Baptist Church had its honeymoon. Our little road had a few nice kids on it, and I really liked my new friends. The church helped us with our move and painted the inside of our parsonage. Once again, we were in the country with miles of forests and fields we could explore. We fought in plowed gardens with huge dirt clods. I have a particular fond memory of my brother Tim getting hit in the face with a dirt clod as big as his head and crying little rivers of mud. I have another great memory of the neighbors digging a dug fort in the woods and us realizing it wasn’t smart to build a fire in a hole. There was also that fun memory of me trying to bust through a cardboard box on my bicycle only to discover it was possible to fly over the handlebars like Superman.

It was fun for about a year. In my innocence, I had no idea there was a storm coming.

On Time

Do you often feel like time warps around significant events in your life? For example, I hardly remember anything significant from late 1993-2001. I was self-employed. I contracted every job imaginable we had two new kids. Life was mostly work, play, and routine. That was seven years, and time moves on.

When I was in transition from teaching in 1991-1993, time slowed into a big warp bubble. I changed careers. I can recall the most insignificant details of my life because the setting was new. That was two and a half years, and time moves on.

Dad’s career at Lewiston was four years. I have had the same pastor for thirty-one years. It seemed like an idyllic eternity, but in reality, it was just four years, and time moves on.

A paving company got the contract to hot tar spray gravel on West Lewiston road. Within a day, Dad was driving a steam roller for them in his coveralls, grinning like a mule eating briars. I think their contract only lasted for four weeks. In his old age, he would describe like a career, but I kind of get it. It was almost the last time anyone compensated him for hard work. This was a career in the span of a month to Dad, and time moves on.

When we left Lewiston, we only lasted about a year and a half in any place he tried to minister. It was just awful. Every year, a new house, a new school. Every bad situation left another scar that changed Dad, and us. Slowly, as kids, we lost our faith and became the new bad kids in every school, and time moves on.

Dad got tired of being forced out of ministry jobs. He did something different. He bought a ministry. I grew up and moved away, and he stayed put till he died there. That was about forty years. My paradox is that I was always forced into moving, but I could never get him to move. Forty years slipped away, and time moves on.

His heart never left the church he cut his teeth on nearly fifty years before. He and mom are buried in the graveyard. His impact of a life well lived as part of a community was so much greater than the sum of short careers. Fifty years was a career, and time moves on.

I have wanted to write about the bad years, but the time wasn’t right. I needed to heal enough to be objective. No one needs to be castigated. I am not venting. It is cathartic to just tell the story and move on. It is finally in my heart to do this in a way that respects my parents and doesn’t belch black bitterness from an angry soul. It happened. It is alright, and time moves on.

Our next stop, “Summit Mississippi.”

The Water Heater That Changed my Life

This post is a bit of an overstatement. Truly, this was a fork in the road that seemed to change everything. I started writing this story almost eleven years ago. Dad’s first years in the ministry were an idyllic new adventure.

The story begins here:

https://laughingatsid.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/life-in-the-fishbowl/

And then I stopped writing here.

https://laughingatsid.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/a-weekend-on-the-church-field/

The infamous water heater made everything just go to crap. I couldn’t write about Dad’s ministry anymore. The memories weren’t that good. beyond that point.

So, giving a little background here, Dad pastored a little church in Kentwood Louisiana as a commuter ministry from seminary. The church, Lewiston Baptist Church, was the centerpiece of a small community. It was a beautiful time in my life, and I get a special joy each time I pass that last turn in the road and see that little country church. When Dad finished his degree, and then he did something unheard of for a new Southern Baptist preacher. He actually moved to the church field.

Southern Baptist is its own culture. From the “Robert’s Rules of Order” in a business meeting to the smell of the paint in the bathroom, they have their own signature that is all things Southern Baptist. The bathroom smell is strong urinal cakes and old lead based oil paint. If you grew up around it, you can still have that aroma floating in your sinuses. The four pillars on the church are the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Cooperative Program.

The concept of growing a church is usually strange to a career pastor in the Southern Baptist. As a pastor, advancement is usually taking a bigger church. In some ways, movement is a pastor’s only option. Southern Baptist churches are spaced so closely in the Deep South that you can play baseball using each church as a base without having a large outfield.

Dad loved his church, and Dad loved to work. Dad jacked up the sagging floors. He raked the leaves even in the crawlspace. He shoveled out the clogged septic tank before Sunday School. He started and often personally drove the nails in a major renovation. He preached the weddings and the funerals. He worked for weeks for a paving company to get new gravel on the church parking lot. He picked up half orphaned kids in his van. He physically helped dig graves. He loved his new life, but as time went on, the parishioners grew complacent.

We lived in a parsonage three feet from the church. Our bathroom had an outside door, which doubled along with another exterior bathroom as the “His and Hers” for the church. The outside bathroom contained “The Water Heater That Changed my Life.”

The water heater was tall, blue, and white. It had rusty galvanized pipe and was covered in old paint dust. Somehow, it had an element that was grounded in series to the graveyard fence. When it was cooking, it would electrify the fence, which would deliver a mildly painful shock to the bereaved souls visiting their loved ones interred beyond. Mom and Dad would jump up from their Sunday nap to kill the breaker to protect the visitors. Finally, the water heater, like the residents in the cemetery it was painfully guarding with high voltage, breathed its last, and died. Thus was the blessed end of “Old Sparky!”

The church members were good people, but tight to the point, they could back up to a wall and pull out a brick with their butt cheeks. Dad one time passionately pleaded with the board to help a missionary bring his family over from India. After fifteen minutes of dead silence, someone moved that they give the missionary five dollars to get the meeting moving along.

Even in late 1960’s money, they paid very little. They were generous with food from their gardens, but the basic wages didn’t even cover our commuting expenses. Dad was somewhat self-supporting, but it couldn’t go on forever.

Then dad asked for a new water heater. Someone came up with a bright, economical, and possibly Satanic idea that changed my life.

“The water heater is for your house, and it is your problem.” Dad was crushed!

Dad only told me about it in the last couple of years of his life. I never understood why we left the church. Dad had a deacon that owned a store, which, among other things, sold water heaters. He had men who did plumbing. Dad would have done the work, but the reality was that water heater was dangerous to the people who touched the fence. It serviced the church bathrooms. Dad told me decades later, “It really struck me low.”

Having installed water heaters all my life, I wish the older me could have bought one and put it in. The reality was that ministry was becoming unsustainable. Ironically, Dad couldn’t stand the concept of tithing. I don’t think it is the New Testament standard of giving either, but Dad never realized that a tip of spare change won’t pay a fair wage. No one could live on what they provided.

I spurn the concept of the “Prosperity Gospel,” The “Poverty Gospel” that so many Christian workers labor under is a terrible testimony.

This was the end of the innocence. Then Dad got restless, and life was about to go to crap.

I believe this was the last time he would voluntarily leave a ministry. He gave his notice, and I really believe the people were sad to see him go. Dad and Mom maintained close ties with those people until their deaths forty years later.

Dad was actually so good about it that he never told us anything other than we were called to a new church. I had no idea that the train had just taken a dirt road. “Old Sparky” had changed my destiny.

The milestones in life send me into musings. “On Time.”

Water Heaters I Have Known

In my assortment of vocational skills I have attempted over the years, I often get stuck with plumbing.  I think somewhere along the way, I concluded, “Why do I ever say yes to plumbing?” I absolutely hate it. I am reasonably knowledgeable of the theory and practice of the trade. I just hate doing it! It is just nasty and aggravating. Mistakes are costly and time-consuming. I never have all the parts. There is always the issue that I might go broke throwing another dollar in the swear jar for every utterance along the way. Nancy Reagan got it right. “JUST SAY NO!!!”

Of the subcategories in plumbing, I have a complex relationship with water heaters. It is my old nemesis. It is my old friend. If I have to do plumbing, it is my favorite job.

To correct your nomenclature before it starts, it is NOT a hot water heater! Why would you heat hot water? Technically, it is a cold water heater or in short water heater. It just grates my sensitivities like fingernails on a blackboard to hear that linguistic abomination. Yes, I have too much time on my hands.

I have installed gas, electric, tanked, tankless, solar, on-demand gas, on-demand electric, tall, short, and stumpy water heaters. I once installed 162 water heaters in one contract. I installed ten in one day. I have carried them on my back three stories. I could draw you schematics for them, estimate their life span, and repair them ad-infinitum.

On the day my middle son, Jeremiah, was born, I left the delivery room and installed a water heater. Twenty years later, I installed one with him on his birthday and reminisced two decades of the sameness.

Oddly, I don’t hate them. There is a familiarity with them, like working with a grumpy old man. Sure, he is a pain on the ass, but it is kind of fun to hang out with him.

In the summer of 1973, a water heater changed the destiny of my life.

[Stay tuned for “The Water Heater that Changed my Life!”

[Same bat time, same bat channel!]

https://laughingatsid.wordpress.com/2024/01/12/the-water-heater-that-changed-my-life/

On Wisdom

I settled the issue several years ago that my career path would be vocational. This was no profound “Damascus Road” revelation. It was a little more like I looked back on forty years of work history and said, “Sid, you sure have fixed a lot of broken stuff over the years.”

The old adage is “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” I kind of always hated that expression because I thoroughly believe one can master many trades. I get the concept that limiting one’s scope to one specialty is a great business and personal decision. But then again, where would life be if you don’t constantly push your boundaries and try new things.

I spent most of my life following yhe wise philosopher, Tigger, once said, “That is what Tiggers do best.” Sometimes my career decisions were as intentional as; I needed work, I bid on a job, I figured out how to do it by mimicking the work of others, and I stuck with it because I didn’t get paid unless I finished it and my customer was happy.

I wish I had taken the luxury of always only doing my dream job. Often, I don’t regret having to push my comfort zone because I believe that my offspring share a unique blend of creativity and work ethic that will carry through generations.

I used to dive a submerged graveyard in Lake Jocassee.  It’s a 140-feet down and 50-degree year round. The residents were reinterred fifty years ago or left in a silent, watery grave. I am struck with the thought that no one living knows them anymore.

In contrast, I believe that a skill set, a path of ethical behavior, a kind word, and even a glass of water can impact generations. On the converse, an evil path may go down a few generations. Busting a knuckle on a frozen bolt is significant eternal work.

The lessons of turning a bolt a quarter of a turn too far, misreading a schematic, or backing over a flower bed are often painful and yet the path toward wisdom. Often, teaching is letting someone make a mistake that hopefully becomes less than fatal often becomes great teaching.

So what would you like to know? Rocker arms have a particular order on a 68′ 318 Dodge. Bobcats have a tipping point. HI-VOC paint requires a respirator, and when you are painting high as a kite, you are making a terrible mess that you are going to hate in the daylight. You shouldn’t lose your temper with a boss over insignificant things. Go home, and the answer may come when you are rested. It is easy to mistake rebellion for childish immaturity. Don’t argue with dementia.

Sometimes, you become old and wise. Most of the time, you just get old.

A few years ago, I stumbled across a short story, “Alberic the Wise,” by Norton Juster. His story was so poignant that I ended up just sobbing at the end of it. Alberic, a simpleton, was inspired by stories of a wandering traveler to leave his life and learn a vocation in which he could establish his identity. He tried vocation after vocation, all with utter failure at try. As an old man, he unpacked his stories, and people flocked to hear him. He became disillusioned because he felt like a fraud. His conclusion was that he was the only one capable of judging him was himself. As a creature of Faith, I believe that God is the only true judge. I get the sentiment that the court of other’s opinion is not a place worthy to judge ones life. Alberic said, “It is much better to look for what I may never find than to find what I do not really want.” The “happy ever after” ending was, “Once again he felt the freedom and the joy of not knowing where each new step would take him, and as he walked along his stride was longer and stronger than was right somehow for a man his age.” (Juster)

“On wisdom, view it as a journey, with a destination you will never reach. Hopefully, you will get a little closer as you die trying. And that is all I know about that.” (Hagen)

Juster, Norton. Alberic the Wise and Other Journeys. Yearling, 9 Nov. 2010.

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