My Little Sister

I made the following remarks at the funeral of my younger sister, the fourth of five siblings who grew up together in and around Sweetwater, Texas, in the 1940s.

Lois Marie Webb Way

November 4, 1936 – November 11, 2017

Cleburne, Texas

She turned boys’ heads.

They stopped and looked when she walked by.

One night she went to a movie with our older brother Lee Roy and me.

As we stood on the sidewalk in front of the Texas Theater in Sweetwater, waiting for the earlier show to let out, some guys we knew started saying, “How did you luck out and get her to go out with you? Which one of you is she with?”

“She’s our sister,” Lee Roy said.

The other guys hooted: “Yeah. I bet.”

Another said, “Tell another one.”

“No,” I said. “It’s the truth. She really is our younger sister.”

“She’s young all right. You’re robbing the cradle.”

Of course, she was our little sister, Lois Marie. She was about twelve.  I was fourteen. Lee Roy was eighteen.  We were three of the five of us who grew up together.  Leta Joy at twenty was married.  Leonard Morris was ten and didn’t like to be called the baby of the family. At that age, Mother and Daddy said he was too young to stay out late. He didn’t like that either.

          It would be another twelve years or so before Lewis Ray, the absolute youngest in the family would be born as a surprise to everyone.

All six of us, plus Lloyd Wayne, who died in infancy between Lee Roy and me, had the initial “L” in our first names.

This led some wag to observe, “Your folks sure raised a lot of ‘L,’ didn’t they?”

My siblings and I have maintained that common “L” into adulthood and on into our senior years.  Everyone, that is, except that eye-popping, head-turning Little Sister.

About the time she and Lee Roy and I went to that picture show, Lois Marie began to try to shed “Lois” and become simply “Marie.”  She didn’t want to go through life as just one more in a long line of “L’s.”

A couple of years after that movie outing, as she blossomed further into physical young womanhood, Daddy relented and let her start going out with some of the fellows whose heads continued turning her way.

When she was “fifteen-going-on-sixteen,” a fellow my age named Don got her attention and managed to edge out most of his competitors. By the time he was eighteen and she was nearly sixteen, the contest was over.

In December 1952, Marie Webb became the bride of Airman Donald Jackson Way.

I was puzzled – No. Let’s say, “stunned.” –  that Daddy signed the license and that Mother went along with it.  When I asked her, “Why,” she said, ”They were going to get married, with or without our permission.  So I got Travis (our Daddy) to agree, as a way to keep peace in the family.”

Some of you have seen Marie and Don’s wedding picture in a frame.  Don in his Air Force uniform and Marie in a neat suit. She wore a hat, the only one I had ever seen her wear, other than the straw hat she had on in the cotton patch when we all were pulling bolls instead of being in school.

Her wedding ensemble also included a clutch purse and the highest heels I had ever seen on any female in our family.

Around the borders of that picture frame, you see the words to Nat “King” Cole’s song, “They Tried to Tell Us We’re Too Young, Too Young to Really Be in Love.”  Also, you see the final lyrics: “And Then Some Day They May Recall, We Were Not Too Young At All.”

We lived to see they were right.  When Don died last year, they had been married a few months over sixty-three years. Now we gather to thank God for the long life of our sister, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, cousin, and friend, a week after many of us gathered on Saturday, November 4, for her eighty-first birthday.

Most of you here today have been closer to Marie,  geographically, than I have. Pansy and I met at seminary in Kentucky and have spent most of our fifty-two years together in the Southeast – all around the Southeast: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina, as well as some time in New York and Texas.  Our two sons spent most of their growing-up years in Anderson, South Carolina.  But I’m two years older than Marie, so whatever the number of states between us, she has always been and always will be my Little Sister.

Two Scripture passages come to my mind as we celebrate her life and our blessed hope of eternal life through faith in Christ.

In the first chapter of Second Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes to this younger man whom he considers his son in the faith and in the ministry.  Paul gives thanks as he remembers Timothy’s genuine faith, and he looks back across two generations of Timothy’s family line, citing the influence of two godly women – his grandmother named Lois and his mother Eunice.

Paul also is sure Timothy shares this unfeigned faith of these women.  As I think of these three generations, I think of three generations of our family, with two godly women, including a Lois, or Lois Marie. These women were our Mother, Vandelia, and Lois Marie.  And I say to you, Garry Don, Terry, and Greg, I am sure their faith is also in each of you.

Another passage that seems especially appropriate to me today is Psalm 90.

The psalms are songs, and the singer begins here by acknowledging God as the Eternal One Who has been the dwelling place for generations among his ancestors – even before God formed the mountains, the earth, and the world.

As the One Who Inhabits Eternity, God’s time is not our time.  In God’s time, a thousand years pass as quickly as yesterday. Ages come and go as a dream. They are as flimsy as grass, here today and gone tomorrow, so to speak.

Our Great God sees our sins but stands ready to forgive.  As the psalmist thinks of his sinfulness, he thinks again of the shortness of his life in light of God’s eternity. Even a long life passes quickly.

He thinks of seventy years as sort of the standard length.  Not that we have the promise of those seventy years, but in that period, that’s about all a person might expect to live. Then the song says, If you’re extra strong, you may live to be eighty.  But if you do, you’re going to face trouble and sorrow.

Marie reached eighty a year ago, and she experienced pain and sorrow in her final months. In light of these thoughts in Psalm 90, Verse 12 is a key thought: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  The Apostle Paul expresses the same concern in Ephesians 5: “Redeem the time.  Buy up the time.  Make the most of whatever time you have.”

Then as the psalmist prays for wisdom, he recalls rough spots in his life, he asks God to balance the bad times with good times, to have as many good days as bad.

There’s nothing wrong with that prayer, but we have no guarantee that God will give you that balance.

We see a couple more prayers in Psalm 90. A prayer for the singer’s children: that they will see God’s glory in their lives and that his own works will outlive him, that they will be his lasting legacy.

Garry Don, Terry, and Greg, you know your mother’s loving, prayerful concern for you all through your lives.  You are her legacy.

Finally, I offer a prayer for each of you, each of us, from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians and Philippians:

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the glory of his inheritance in the saints” Ephesians 1:17-18).  .  .   Being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Amen.

GOOD SAMARITANS AKA GUARDIAN ANGELS

Disaster often lurks when Pansy and I take a trip, usually in no small part because I fail to tend to details.

Most recently, on our anniversary trip, for example, I didn’t set our first destination point on our GPS before we left home.  But I’ll also try to implicate the mountains of Virginia that often prevented adequate satellite transmission, once we made the connection.

Without the aid of our “eye in the sky,” I made an innocent stop at a McDonald’s, where I often stop for a quick cup of coffee and a potty break.  Returning to the car, I drove in the direction I thought would lead us back to I-77.  That proved to be abysmally wrong.  We wound up in a subdivision somewhere north of Greater Charlotte, North Carolina.

Frantically searching for a place I could readily turn around on a neighborhood street, I suddenly came upon a service truck for a communications company.  Its parking lights were on, and a man sat in the truck.  I pulled ahead of the truck, stopped our blue 2007 Honda Accord and walked toward the white and yellow truck.

I asked the driver if he could tell me how to get back on I-77 toward Statesville.  He tried to give me spoken directions but soon realized I was not taking in all the details.  So he said, “Follow me.  I’ll take you there. “

Long story fairly short, this man drove miles out of the way in order to get us back on our route. When he saw us safe and in the correct lane, he stayed in a different lane and left without my being able to thank him — face to face, at least.

But that’s not the end of the story.  his truck had the familiar question on the back: “How’s my Driving.”  It also had the vehicle ID and a toll free number to call to leave comments.  We followed him for roughly fifteen to twenty minutes, so I got Pansy to jot down that information.

Later in the afternoon, at an Interstate rest area, I called the company and tried to tell our story to the person who answered.  However, she wanted just barebones facts.  I felt frustrated because I didn’t have opportunity to praise this driver.  But then, to my delight, a company official called me back the next day.  He seemed bowled over to get a commendation: People call mainly to complain.  

The company rep gave me this Good Samaritan’s name, Carlos Salgado. He said Señor Salgado would receive a citation on the company’s entire internal communication network, making all his fellow drivers aware of this noble deed.

We arrived in the general area of Roanoke, Virginia, and should have gotten to our hotel well before dark, but in this mountainous region, our GPS worked only intermittently, so we went miles beyond our destination before realizing it.

Our next Guardian Angels were two intelligent, friendly, helpful clerks at a Pilot gas station.  After I explained our situation, they used their company computer and personal smart phones to track down our hotel while I gassed up the car.

These young women could have brushed me off with an indifferent, “I don’t know” or “We’re busy with other customers.”  But they used technology plus their collective knowledge of Greater Roanoke and wrote thorough details of the right route, and we arrived as dark was closing in (Neither of us feels safe driving after dark, any farther than just around our town).

I paid cash for my tank fill-up, and when we got to the hotel room, I found the postal address for the Pilot store on my receipt for the gas.  So I wrote high praise for these energetic, determined, and thoughtful women.

Through our entire stay in Roanoke — not just on our initial arrival — we had difficulty finding our way to the Quality Inn, although we would pass within a block or two of it every time.

Even with the aid of our GPS, we would sail by as we heard the female voice assure us, “You have arrived at your destination on the right.”  The problem arose because the inn is on a frontage road we overlooked repeatedly.

And this brings us to yet another Samaritan on our last night in Roanoke.  After I overshot the hotel a couple of times, I found our way into the parking lot of a Wendy’s fast food restaurant that was very near our lodging.

I got in the line for ordering food, and when I reached the young lady who was taking orders, I asked how to get to the hotel.  She did not live in the area, and she had no idea of how to find the nearby inn.  She called for help from a young management type who also could not tell me exactly.  

Our conversation was civil, but perhaps a bit loud, so others in line or seated nearby heard my questioning.  A fellow senior citizen in the store stepped over and said, “I know exactly how to get there.  You can follow me.”

She and her husband had just returned from the Mayo Clinic in Maryland where he periodically receives treatment for early stages of dementia.  They live near Wendy’s and had stopped in to get the company’s signature Frosty ice cream dessert before going home.

True to her word, this kind lady went with me to our car, greeted Pansy, and told her of the plan. She paced her driving to allow us to stay close behind her all the way into the hotel parking lot.

In these three settings, then, people helped us, people who had no obvious reason, no justification, other than having caring spirits.

EGO DEFLATION —EXHIBIT A

  

I’m always on the lookout for Bargain Books.

Part of this stems from scarcity of funds for textbooks when I was in college and seminary.  Often, I resorted to borrowing a book or trying to find it in the campus library.

Also, for the past several years, my wife Pansy has been collecting gently used books to take to an Appalachian mission ministry.  She makes regular trips to Good Will and Habitat for Humanity Re-Store along with locally sponsored charity shops.

Often a need arises for repair, so she takes those not-so-gently used books to her book hospital in the laundry room.

To remove writing and marks, she uses Q-tips, erasers, invisible tape, quick dry correction fluid, peroxide, alcohol, and Goo Gone to remove stickers, grease, tar and crayon marks.  To cover problems she cannot remove, she also uses stick-um name tags and attractive stickers that suggest connections with the stories. 

For my part in searching for inexpensive books, I regularly go to the book store in our county library. Most of their children’s books — either donated to the library or discarded by the library — sell for ten, twenty-five, or fifty cents apiece.  

Many of these originally sold in bookstores for twelve, fifteen, or nineteen dollars.  So I have congratulated myself for being a smart shopper, paying tiny fractions of the list price for books.

And then something happened on a recent visit to the library store that made me think or re-think these prices.

They have books for youth and adults as well as for children, and I browsed in other sections.  On a shelf of Christmas books, I was surprised to see a copy of one of my books,  Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy, that I wrote in 2008.

I got a second surprise when I saw the price tag: one dollar! One dollar for a book amazon.com lists for twelve dollars!

Then a third surprise when I saw the name of the person whose name was in the book.  I had personally inscribed the book: “To Esmeralda, a dear friend and colleague.”

So two blows to my ego in a matter of a few seconds.

Seeing my book sell for a dollar?  Why, sure, I know we get kids’ books all the time for a quarter.  But mine for a measly buck? That’s another story.  

And then a longtime friend devaluing my writing by giving it away!  Would I do that to her if she wrote a  book?  Possibly, but probably not, unless it became necessary to downsize my personal library. I’m too sentimental. I shudder and grab for a tissue to wipe away my tears as we put in the trash or take to the recycling center.

Both these aspects of finding my book in the get-rid-of-these-quick corner were genuine.  But I did not feel insulted or put down.  In fact, after I saw whose name is in the book, I stepped over to the counter, identified myself  to the volunteer workers and showed them what I had found.

We chatted and laughed about the price. Then one of the volunteers bought it for the dollar price and got me to sign it a second time, this time for her.

Bottom line: If I give something to someone or sell something to someone, of course, that person can and should do what she pleases with the gift or purchase, whatever impact that decision may have on my ego.

So I will continue going to charity shops and yard sales in search of rock bottom prices for children’s books to take to Appalachian children, and I will continue writing books for the widest possible readership, even for those who give the books away, even for those who buy one for a dollar.

July 4, 1945 . . . or Thereabout

They stood on a busy corner in Sweetwater, Texas, just across from the courthouse square with their satchels of “Watchtower” magazines.

I didn’t know it at the time, but it had been illegal until recently for them to be there promoting their Jehovah’s Witnesses faith.

July 4, 1918 .  .  .  or Thereabout

During World War I, when their group was fairly new, law officers broke up their public meetings because they were considered a threat to the nation.  Guest speakers brought in to lead services were run out of town.

Folks with this strange religion were considered traitors because they refused to salute the flag or say the pledge or go to war.  They had to take their appeal all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court before they were free to stand on that corner in Sweetwater.

July 4, 2017 .  .  .  or Thereabout

The Witnesses have had trouble in other countries.  They were outlawed in the old Soviet Union but enjoyed freedom in Russia until recently.  Now the hammer has dropped again.  Russian leaders are closing down Kingdom Halls, driving many congregations to meet quietly in homes.  It’s illegal to go door to door with their “Watchtower.”

Eight-year-old children of Jehovah’s Witnesses homes are humiliated in front of classmates in school.  Adult Witnesses get punched in the face because their religion is banned by the government.

As a Baptist, I have little in common theologically with the Witnesses.  But I share one essential belief with them: Jehovah’s Witnesses in this country should have the same freedom of religion that I have.  Unless Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses and atheists have religious freedom, then freedom for Methodists and Baptists and Pentecostals and Catholics is not secure either.

May you and they have a happy Independence Day.