It wasn’t long before we noticed a young boy in an aluminum johnboat at the very back of the cove, almost to the lone dock. He had paddled out a little way and was tied up to a big tree at the edge of the water. As we drifted in his direction—without a bite for what seemed like forever— we noticed the lad catching a fish every few minutes. You know how it is; when you’re frustrated, you want to know what bait a “lucky” fisherman is using. As we got closer, Uncle Mike and I watched as the boy baited a hook and dropped his line straight down by the big tree. Just like before, only four or five minutes later, he caught what appeared to be another bass in the several-pounds range. Unable to resist our curiosity, Uncle Mike and I had to talk to the young angler.
“Whatcha usin’ for bait?” I inquired.
“Stinging worms, sir.”
“What was that?” I asked, not sure I’d heard him right.
“Stinging worms,” he repeated.
Uncle Mike and I looked at each other. Neither of us had any idea what a “stinging worm” was. As we watched the boy bait his hook again, we noticed him jump and yank his hand away from the bait can. Then he reached in again and pulled out a large brown worm. This called for a closer look, and we eased up alongside the johnboat.
“Can we see those worms? We might need to go buy us some,” I said with a grin.
“Sure, here. But you can’t buy ’em. I got these under a log behind my house.”
Uncle Mike reached over and took the can. We both looked inside at the same time. In a fraction of a second, we knew—snakes. These were small rattlesnakes; and about ten of them were left! Uncle Mike asked if he could see the boy’s hands. We soon saw that they were covered with small welts—snakebites.
Uncle Mike said, “Son, these aren’t stinging worms. These are baby rattlesnakes, and you need to go to the hospital—now!” The poor little angler’s face went pale.
“My mom and dad are at home. I gotta go see ’em,” the frightened boy blurted. We immediately untied his boat and towed him over to the dock. As we helped him out, we noticed he had turned white as a sheet. He said his right arm and stomach were starting to hurt. I picked the boy up and carried him to his parents’ house. His mom was in the kitchen preparing lunch. We immediately called 911 and kept the boy quiet until the ambulance came. I rode to the hospital with him and his mom, carrying the can of “stinging worms” to show the emergency room doctor. The little guy was very lucky. Although he got quite sick and the pain was real bad early on, he recovered completely.
No surprise—Uncle Mike and I didn’t place in that tournament. Usually when I skip church to go fishing, I reckon God isn’t going to let me catch anything anyway. However, on that particular Sunday, he had other plans for us.
T. J. Greaney
Angels Among Us
January 25, 1986—I’ll never forget that night! My band and I were driving back to Nashville after performing at a police benefit in Albertville, Alabama. It was raining hard, and our van and trailer were stopped at a light as we waited to cross a four-lane highway. I was sitting in the back of the van on the left, and our road manager, Randy, was driving. As I looked out the window, I saw an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the highway toward the intersection. I thought to myself,My God, if his light turns red, that truck d rive r’s not going to be able to stop his rig!
As I looked up, I saw our light turn green. . . . all in what must have been a split second. But it seemed like forever, and ever, and ever. . . . as if everything had suddenly switched to slow motion. I felt Randy lift his foot off the brake—we started moving forward—and I got an awful sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.
“Stop!” I yelled at Randy, sensing that he didn’t see the truck. Randy jammed on the brakes just as the eighteen-wheeler— air horn blasting—slammed into us. Miraculously, the truck just clipped the front-left side of my Dodge maxivan—the strongest part. Our equipment packed trailer was ripped off its hitch as our van spun around on the wet pavement. Although the Dodge was totaled, we all survived with minimal injuries. Had the collision occurred just a moment later, we would have been broadsided and—from what the police officers told us—most likely killed.
So it had come to pass. . . . The angelic prophecy was manifested. . . .
Shortly before Christmas 1985, I had started getting premonitions that I was going to be in a bad vehicle accident. Night after night, I lay in bed, drifting off to sleep when suddenly I’d sit up with my heart pounding, thinking to myself, I’m not re ad y to go ye t! Each time, I was overwhelmed by a sense of despair—a sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. This went on for weeks, right on through the holidays. I feared I might lose my mind! Then, in the wee hours of the morning of January 24, 1986, something very weird happened.
I was in my kitchen, making a birthday cake—chocolate, of course—for a gathering I was having the next afternoon to celebrate my birthday. As I stirred the batter, “something” took hold of me and urged me to go outside. I wasn’t really scared, but I felt very uneasy—like when you’re getting ready to hear something you don’t want to hear. I stood in the front yard, looked up at the starry sky and asked out loud, “What? What is it you’re trying to tell me?”
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. This loud, very strong, masculine voice said, “Be care ful—this may be your last birthday!” I felt slammed by that same sick feeling in my stomach that I got when I was having those bedtime premonitions. I just stood there in the yard, dumbfounded, asking out loud for more information, but no more was given. I knew I was being warned about something, and I had a pretty good idea that it was connected to my premonitions.
I went back in the house. My knees were shaking and my heart was pounding. My mind kept going over every word. . . . “Be—careful—this—may—be—your—last— birthday!”
“May” is the keyword, I thought to myself. Whatever I was being warned about must be something I can prevent— otherwise, why am I being warned? And who was it that was warning me? At the time, I thought it was God, or my sweet, loving daddy (who passed away in 1982) speaking to me in a voice not quite his own. . . . much deeper than I remembered.
After the accident, I realized that the voice from above belonged to my guardian angel. As soon as I understood that, I wrote down the title, “Angels Among Us,” in my notebook and started thinking about lyrics off and on for several years. It wasn’t until Christmas 1992, when I was sitting in my dad’s old easy chair late one night at my mom’s house, that I got the strongest feeling I had to finish the song. When I got back to Nashville, I worked with Don Goodman—a good friend and a great songwriter— and we put the finishing touches to “Angels Among Us.”
Not long afterward, the song was recorded by Alabama. Since then, I’ve had a hard time keeping track of the number of phone calls, faxes and letters I’ve received about how “Angels Among Us” has touched people’s lives. One of the best things happened right before Christmas 1996.
My husband, Duane, and I were in California, where he was playing a gig with Glenn Frey. That’s when I got an urgent call from Kim Armstrong in Alabama’s Ft. Payne office. Kim, voice cracking, told me that a nine-year-old girl in Virginia had been in a coma for twelve days following a bad car crash. The child had head injuries so extensive her doctor saw little chance of recovery. He suggested that the mother try playing some music for the little girl. When the chorus of “Angels Among Us” began, the little girl woke up and started crying—just as she and her mother had done before the little girl’s accident when they listened to the song together.
In the next few days, the article about the little girl appeared in newspapers all over the country, and my phone rang off the hook. A few weeks later, I got to talk with the little girl’s mother. She said it looked like her daughter would have a complete recovery, and the child was already back at school!
That one bit of news made my whole Christmas! Maybe writing this song was one of the reasons I wasn’t taken on January 25, 1986.
I hope there are more reasons. Lots more!
Becky Hobbs
Nuns in the Country
Two nuns were driving down a country road when they ran out of gas. They walked to a farmhouse and a farmer gave them some gasoline; but the only container he had was an old bedpan. The nuns were happy to take whatever they were offered and returned to their car.
As they were pouring the gasoline from the bedpan into the tank of their car, a minister drove by. He stopped, rolled down his window and said, “Excuse me, sisters. I’m not of your religion, but I couldn’t help admiring your faith!”
Dan Clark
When the Frog Got His Wings
With all the innocence of a six-year-old, I asked, “Bob, are you prejudiced?”
Never looking up, he replied, “Everybody’s prejudiced— black, white, men, women—everybody.”
Not to be disregarded that easily, I continued, “Well, what are you prejudiced against?”
“Sin,” he said as he shined his customer’s shoes to a mirror finish.
Somehow, I sensed that our conversation was finished. Bob must be weary, I thought. And when Bob was weary, he didn’t want to talk—not to me, not to anyone.
Nomatter. My attention had already been diverted to the popping sounds of the razor strop as the barber sharpened his blade to a fine edge. The broad smile on the barber’s face clearly said, Bob got the best of you again, didn’t he ?
I ignored the stupid barber and returned my attention to Bob. Looking up at his customer, who had just handed him a half-dollar and turned to walk away, Bob said, “Too much, sir. The tip’s got to relate to the price.” Back then, the price for a shoe shine was fifteen cents. Bob handed the bewildered customer a quarter and thanked him for his business.
My conversations with Bob Watkins continued with some regularity over the next several years. During that time, Bob became my friend, my confidant and my teacher—quite a different relationship from the one evident from our first meeting.
My first trip to the barbershop—sometime near my fourth birthday—was a total disaster. The fear associated with my first haircut was more than enough to unnerve me. Then I saw Bob. I burst into tears and was about to run from the barbershop, when a soft, deep voice summoned me to the shoe shine chair. I looked slightly upward into the most radiant face I had ever seen. The sparkling eyes and toothy grin, beaming from the coal black face erased all my fears.
Instinctively, I was drawn to Bob despite his appearance. His ebony face, with the large indentation in his forehead, always glistened. His short legs didn’t match his upper body, giving the appearance of a man on the legs of a child. But his feet—those huge feet encased in giant black shoes—turned backward, and this was more than I could comprehend. And, when he sat back in a resting position on the tops of the shoes, Bob looked forever like a giant frog, ready to leap at any moment.
I later learned that both of Bob’s feet had been amputated, just above the ankle, in a railroad accident—the same accident that left the ugly indentation in his forehead. It then became clear. Bob’s feet were not backward; he had no feet. He stood, and even walked, on his knees and lower legs which were covered with the large, cushioned black leather shoes, giving the appearance of abnormally large feet turned backward.
From time to time, I tried walking on my knees and lower legs, but after a few minutes, the pain was unbearable. I then realized that Bob must have been in severe pain, each day of his life. Some time later, it occurred to me to wonder why Bob spent his days quoting Scripture and praising God, the same God who allowed the accident, the pain and the suffering. I was even more perplexed.
Evidently Bob sensed my confusion, for one day when the barbershop was empty, Bob motioned me to sit in the shoeshine chair. There, he described in detail the railroad accident and his hospital recovery. Bob said he had been a bitter young man, unhappy with life and seemingly unable to change his destiny. He claimed that he had been a drunkard, a gambler, a womanizer and a whoremonger. I didn’t know what a womanizer or a whoremonger was, but I guessed that they must have been pretty bad, being listed with drunkard and gambler, terms familiar to me even at my early age.
Bob explained that he had spent the night with another man’s wife, leaving during the early morning hours before her husband returned. Drunk, without money and totally disgusted with himself, he attempted to board a freight train for the short ride to the railroad station. He lost his footing on the side ladder of the railroad car and fell to the tracks. A few minutes of excruciating pain were followed by total darkness.
A week or so later, Bob regained consciousness in a hospital bed—without feet. Bandages covered the ugly indentation in his forehead as well as the cuts and severe abrasions on the trunk of his body. He was at the point of death, with no will to live, cursing God and everyone around him.
After a while, as he regained his strength, he noticed a Bible on the bedside table. For some inexplicable reason, Bob started spending his time looking at the Good Book. Then, one day he noticed that the Bible was open. His curiosity aroused, Bob picked up the Bible and began reading about a man called Job. He was intrigued by Job— and later by other men of the Bible who had endured great hardships, yet remained faithful to God. Bob could relate to these men—at least to their hardships.
His reading was slow, lingering a moment on each word. Later, he bought a dictionary, and much later, biblical reference books. But for his long hospital stay, Bob was content with reading slowly. Sometimes he read all day and well into the night. In his condition, at this point in his life, time meant nothing. He had nowhere to run.
Ultimately, Bob Watkins’s life was transformed from drunkard, gambler, womanizer and whoremonger to servant of God. And with this transformation came a radiance— a glow—that masked the ugliness of his injuries. Together with an uncanny understanding of both the Bible and life itself, he blamed his accident and injuries not on God, but on his sinful ways. He claimed, without reservation, that the accident was his blessing. From that accident, Bob had found God, and with God at his side, he had a life with fullness and meaning.
At the close of each business day, Bob struggled to slide his heavy shoes, one in front of the other, down the main street of town on his long journey home—a furnished room in an old, deteriorating building a half mile from the barbershop. He stopped every so often to look toward the surrounding mountains, particularly Keeny’s Knob, the highest and most majestic of all the mountains surrounding this quiet, rural valley town. According to Bob, “God is everywhere, but he likes the mountains best—that’s where he gave Moses the Ten Commandments and allowed him to see the Promised Land; that’s where Noah’s ark landed. Most of the great events of the Bible happened on a mountain or at the foot of a mountain.”
Bob rarely walked or shuffled more than a block from the barbershop, though. Passing motorists, often by design, almost always stopped to give Bob a ride home or to work and, on Sundays, to church. It didn’t make much difference to Bob which church he attended, as long as God was inside and God’s people filled the pews. To no one’s surprise, Bob was welcome in every church in town—black and white.
Nevertheless, Bob was somewhat partial to one of the white churches. The pastor of that church often huddled with Bob on a regular basis in a corner of the barbershop deep in private conversation. The barber invariably laughed and whispered to his customers, “The preacher’s getting his sermon for next Sunday.”
Of all the people I have known in this life, Bob Watkins was the only person totally without prejudice. He was also loved and respected by everyone he met, regardless of race, color or religion. Even the worst of sinners were welcomed by Bob with love and kindness. Bob reasoned that he was commissioned to do that which Jesus would have done, including offering love and kindness toward the most despicable of humankind.
To me, Bob Watkins was without fault, except maybe for the times he claimed he was “weary” and didn’t want to talk. On those occasions, he seemed al
most to be in a trance, transfixed on someone, or something, or someplace far away. My father said that Bob knew so much about heaven he was forever homesick.
Sometime before midnight on a clear summer night, our Heavenly Father called Bob Watkins home. Bob was found the next morning by his landlady—slumped in his dilapidated easy chair—with a smile on his face. His tattered old Bible was opened to the book of Acts. A part of Acts 7:55 was underlined, which read, “. . . looked up to Heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” On the floor, beside the easy chair, lay a small white feather.
The frog finally got his wings.
H. R. Ayers
4
LIVING
THE DREAM
When you stop dreaming, you stop living.
Lorrie Morgan
What It Takes
One of my most memorable experiences took place when I worked as Associate Director of ASCAP in Nashville. At the time, Rod Phelps, one of my Texas friends, asked me to talk with a new guy he was sending to see me. You must understand that in the music business, it’s common courtesy to listen to your friends and spend time with the people they send you. Soon after talking with Rod, the new guy dropped by my office and played me some songs. I remember I didn’t pull any punches; I told him his songs were only “fair.”
In the middle of our conversation, I was distracted when one of my writers—a guy with money problems— barged in. I asked my guest to excuse me a moment while I got the writer some paperwork to support a bank loan application. Later, I asked the new guy to keep the writer’s situation confidential because it was a private matter. My guest responded, “Man, I recognize that writer. He needs a bank loan?”
Chicken Soup for the Country Soul Page 12