Front Porch Tales

by Philip Gulley

  We do ourselves a disfavor when we expect family life to be The Brady Bunch revisited. Truth is, most of our families lurch from one mess to another. And that’s not an altogether bad thing. Otherwise, how would we cultivate the fine art of forgiveness?

  My wife even forgave me after our first vacation. She said at the time, “You can’t help it. You come from a long line of men who don’t listen to their wives.”

  I said, “Excuse me, what did you say?”

  We’re saving up for our next vacation. We’re thinking about the mountains.

  “There are all kinds of places to lose a kid there,” I told my wife.

  But she knows I’m just kidding. Actually, I thank God every day for my children. Every day—just some days more than others.

  A Family Tradition

  My mother was the first to notice how our son Spencer’s feet and nose pointed in different directions when he walked. We took him to the bone doctor, who laid our one-year-old on a table and looked him over.

  “Your son has turned-in feet and a hernia,” he informed us. “The feet we can fix with arch supports, but he’ll need an operation for the hernia.”

  Surgery was scheduled for the following day. I called Mom to tell her the news. She reminded me that hernias were a family tradition. My younger brother David had one when we were little and shared a bedroom. I remembered.

  Mom and Dad had called the kids together. “David will need an operation,” they told us.

  “Could it kill him?” my sister asked.

  “We never know,” Dad said, “so we’d better pray.”

  I prayed, but not too hard, since I’d always wanted a bedroom of my own.

  David not only survived, he came home from the hospital with the neatest toys. His was the perfect childhood illness—serious enough to merit presents, but not so painful he couldn’t play with them.

  On the day of Spencer’s surgery, my dad met us at the hospital. I’d “guilted” him into it. Fifteen years before, he’d skipped my high school graduation. Sitting in a boiling gym while a local pundit admonished the students to rise above their mediocrity wasn’t Dad’s idea of a good time. So he stayed home. Now he feels guilty about it and pretty much does whatever I ask, especially if I start humming “Pomp and Circumstance.” So I called him and pointed out that my therapist feels very positive about my chances for a complete recovery barring any further rejection and, sure enough, Dad was at the hospital bright and early.

  Everything came out fine. The arch supports did the trick, and the half-hour surgery was textbook. Even the scars went away. Blessed is the family whose gravest problems are so easily remedied.

  A cousin of mine gave birth some years ago. A long-faced doctor came out and told her that her son had three holes in his heart. It tore a hole in her heart, too. Some scars are a long time healing.

  One thing I’ve never understood is why I’m so blessed—good parents, good wife, good kids, good job—and others aren’t. I used to think it was because I was nice to God, until I met some battered saints. Now I just think there’s a randomness in this world beyond my understanding. The apostle Paul said that on this side of things we see in a mirror dimly.

  If you woke up this morning and your kids were healthy and your parents loved you, then you don’t have any problems. You might think you do, but you don’t. And if at night, when you steal into your child’s room and watch her little body rise and fall with the breathing, and your heart aches with love, consider your life sublime.

  “Patches”

  Spencer was a year old when Joan and I took him for his first haircut. We wanted to take him to Linda, our beautician friend, but she won’t work on toddlers. Had we been smart, we’d have asked why. Instead, we took him to a barbershop around the corner. The proprietor, Ed, didn’t ask our preferred style. Just got out the clippers, went to work, and nine bucks later we were calling our son Patches.

  On the drive home I did a little math. Nine bucks a month for eighteen years equals nearly two thousand dollars. Two thousand dollars for the privilege of calling our son Patches. At this point, a reasonable man would have gone back to his beautician friend and asked, “Now why is it you don’t cut children’s hair?” Instead, with confidence brimming over, I said to Joan, “I’ve been to college. I can cut my son’s hair.” I later learned that college has nothing to do with cutting hair. Indeed, a few more years of education might have caused me to reconsider the task I was about to undertake.

  Joan, Patches, and I were at the department store the following weekend and came across a haircutting kit on sale! As a student of theology, I perceived this to be a sign from God. Joan had her doubts and put forth a vigorous argument. “A haircut was Samson’s ruination,” she warned me.

  “Samson was a free-love hippie,” I rejoined. “Besides, the apostle Paul said that men with long hair will burn in Hades.” He didn’t really say that, but I knew she wouldn’t know that.

  During the following weeks, I observed my son closely for evidence of hair growth. The evening before my debut as hair designer, I sharpened and oiled the clippers, then retired early to gain sufficient rest.

  What happened the next day was Father Knows Best meets Apocalypse Now. Because Joan had forbidden me to strap Spencer in his chair, I could hardly be blamed for the catastrophe that followed. Actually, things were going fine until I turned on the clippers. Then Spencer jumped, and the clippers took on a mind of their own. By the time I turned them off, his head had been clear-cut. The good news in all of this was discovering that a baseball cap is even cheaper than a haircutting kit.

  The thing I admire most about my wife, other than her movie-star looks and Mother Teresa saintliness (can you tell she’s still mad at me?), is her uncanny knack of knowing what she’s good at and what she isn’t. All too often I end up spinning my wheels in fields I should have steered clear of in the first place.

  The apostle Paul knew this. He not only talked about hair, he also mentioned something about valuing your gifts and working from your strengths. Which I suspect was what my wife was trying to tell me when she hid my clippers.

  Right Hearts

  There were five children in my family when I was growing up—four sons and one daughter. My sister, Chick, was the oldest child, and I came in at number four. Occasionally she would baby-sit us and, though we were bigger, she had a strong right hook and thus our wary respect. She was the scout for the family wagon train, and the rest of us looked to her to show us the way.

  Most of the family “firsts” belong to Chick except for marriage. She and Tom got a late start on their nuptials and wanted to squeeze in three children before she turned forty. They had three boys in three years, which is not the textbook way to go about it.

  There have been some problems, mostly with their oldest boy, the three-year-old, who acquired the habit of locking his two younger brothers in their bedrooms. Been a lot of anxious moments spent jimmying open door locks while those toddlers were on the other side of the door stuffing who knows what in their mouths, choking, and turning blue.

  Tom and Chick took all the doorknobs off, except for the one on their bedroom door, which they turned around so that the lock was on the outside of the room. This worked fine until one morning when my sister was making her bed and heard the door shut behind her with her oldest boy inside her room and the door locked behind him from the outside. The other children were downstairs, unsupervised and inaccessible, probably at that very moment poking their tongues into electrical sockets.

  She sat on the bed and cried and cried and cried. Forty years old, three children, and she’s headed for nervous breakdown country. This beautiful woman who graduated from college with a perfect 4.0, outwitted by a three-year-old. At that moment, she believed in day care as never before.

  She stuck her head out the window and yelled for a neighbor to come over and unlock her bedroom door, which a neighbor did. Chick was humiliated. She called me that night to tell me about it. She asked me n
ot to tell anyone. I told her not to worry, her secret was safe with me.

  She said, “Why did we turn that lock around? What were we thinking?”

  I admired her candor. If that had been me, I don’t think I would have told anyone, or if I had, I would have found a way to make it someone else’s fault. I have this sad little habit of needing others to think well of me. Not my sister. She was candid and willing to admit her lapse. Such a refreshing change from our know-it-all tendencies.

  I was singing in an Easter choir once, and a man asked me why the song said Jesus died on a tree. I was so eager to impress, I gave him a long, seminary-type answer about crucifixion methods in first-century Palestine. He listened to me go on, then said, “Oh, I just thought maybe they used the word ‘tree’ because it rhymed.”

  A lot of folks think closeness to God means knowing all the right answers. But I don’t agree. I think closeness to God begins the night we toss and turn in bed, realizing we don’t know it all. Look at the Bible. Some of its finest saints were long on questions: Job on his ash heap, the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray, Nicodemus grilling Jesus late into the night, even Jesus on the cross.

  Having spent much of my life showing off my smarts, I nearly choke on the words “I don’t know.” Still, I suspect those words might be the kingdom keys. What it boils down to is that God doesn’t care whether or not we have right answers. Just right hearts.

  Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

  My wife and I waited eight years to have children. I was in college, then graduate school, and thought I was too busy. My mother had five children in seven years, was principal of a school, and attended college all at the same time. And she did a good job, which I point out to her every Saturday when I visit her at the Home for the Mentally Distraught.

  Despite our childless state, my wife and I were willing, indeed eager, to share our perspective on child-rearing with anyone who would listen. Now that we have children, we seldom offer advice. The moment you tell someone else how to raise their kid, the odds increase that your own child will turn up on America’s Most Wanted.

  So we don’t give advice anymore, because as parents we’ve realized we don’t know anything about children. Before we had children, we knew everything. Now we have children, and the only parent we feel superior to is Ma Barker.

  It’s been hard to admit my ignorance about child-rearing. It’s easy to be smug when you’re driving home from someone else’s house saying, “When I have children, they will never act like that.” Now when our childless friends visit, I tell them when they leave, “Don’t talk about us on your way home.” They know what I mean.

  Most experiences don’t turn out the way we’d planned. Parenting is one of them.

  Take Spencer’s second Christmas. Someone in the church gave him a Nativity set as a gift. He was particularly taken with the wise men, one of whom he used as tableware. Dipped Balthasar up to his ears in ketchup and licked him clean. My wife said, “Honey, don’t dip the wise man in the ketchup.”

  There are many things we anticipated telling our children. Things like, “Because I said so, that’s why!” and “Not in this house you won’t!” and even “Don’t put that in the toilet!” But we never imagined ourselves saying, “Don’t dip the wise man in the ketchup!”

  That’s the kick about life. We think we have it figured out, but then we wade in and discover otherwise. Kind of like Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

  All in all, this is a good thing. For when our future is sure and certain, when all the corners are tucked in nice and neat, there is no need for faith.

  Consider King David. He grew up a shepherd, which was nothing to write home about. If your job can be done by a dog, it’s time to worry. So David grew up a shepherd, but he died a king. Goes to show we never know what direction life will take.

  This is especially true of being a parent. We never know everything there is to know. Only solution is doing your best and trusting God for the rest. At least that’s what my sainted mother used to tell me, back in my younger days, when I knew it all.

  Handyman Blues

  When we had our first child, everyone said we’d have to build on. Our house had three bedrooms and a good-sized living room, so I couldn’t figure out why we needed more room. Plus, in Russia they cram twenty people into a two-room apartment. Then our son turned two, and I learned what every parent knows: The extra space isn’t for the kids; it’s for the parents.

  We decided to convert our basement into living space. Called in a contractor for an estimate. Made sure to tell him about needing access to the pipes, because every now and then a big gob of potato peels jams the garbage disposal, so I have to go down to the basement, open up the pipe, and ram a clothes hanger through to loosen things up.

  First, we had to get the basement dry. Lately, it’s been getting wet every time it rains. I figured the drainage tile coming off the rain gutters was clogged with roots from our maple tree, which I will cut down just as soon as I get my chain saw fixed. (I broke it trying to cut some bricks.) Turned out it wasn’t roots. It was a squirrel that had fallen in the down spout and got stuck. Basically, what I had was a squirrel cork. I rented a plumber’s snake—twenty-five feet of cable with a slicer/dicer on the end, and now my basement is Sahara dry.

  Before they drywalled the basement, I was told I’d have to clean the mildew off the walls. This was something I didn’t understand. I was drywalling to hide the mildew, so first I had to clean the mildew? Why bother drywalling?

  I forgot to tell the contractor that sometimes the dirty water from the washing machine backs up through the floor drain. But I stuck a wad of duct tape in the drain and took care of that little problem.

  I have a friend who took a class in home maintenance. His house is perfect. When he needs a screwdriver, he goes right to his workshop and gets it. When I need a screwdriver, I head to the kitchen for a butter knife. I hate it when he comes to my house. He says things like, “I’m not trying to alarm you, but the electrical outlets probably shouldn’t throw out flames when you turn on a lamp.”

  I have another friend who hires everything done. He’s a man who’s made his peace with his ineptitude. Not me. I come from the school of rugged individualists. I figure Daniel Boone never called a plumber.

  Sometimes my three-year-old wants to help with household repairs. Once we fixed a leaky faucet together. I forgot to turn off the water before I started, and a geyser hit the kitchen ceiling. The next time we fixed a faucet, he put on his raincoat. Quick learner, my son.

  Tradition has it that Jesus was a carpenter. That means he went into people’s homes to fix things. You’ll note he found another line of work pretty quickly. Wise man, our Savior.

  Advice Givers

  If a well-intentioned person says to you, “Now it’s none of my business, but if that were my child, I would…,” please, for the sake of our Lord, stifle your impulse to choke them.

  Before our first child was born, my wife and I read several books about parenting. When Spencer arrived, we discovered just how useful those books can be, particularly for chewing on.

  When our second son, Sam, was born, my mother came to help. She’s a smart woman who reads quite a bit. She had just read a book about parenting and was eager to share her knowledge. Spencer, then two years old, threw a tantrum while Mom was with us. I hadn’t slept for two days, and after an hour of crying—mine, not his—I gave Spencer what he wanted.

  “Boy, that was a mistake,” Mom warned. And she proceeded to tell me that if Spencer gets what he wants by throwing a fit, there’s no telling where he’ll end up.

  “Probably in Congress,” I told her.

  Mom even had advice about sleeping. She advised us to have baby Sam lie on his back to prevent crib death. But someone else said they should lie on their stomachs for the same reason. So to be safe, I built a rotisserie crib.

  Be sure to pray that your child escapes the usual infant ailments, becau
se giving up vacation time to watch your kid is a real drag. But also because advice givers come out of the woodwork when they catch a whiff of sickness. Surprisingly, many people spoke about the curative power of whiskey in small doses. So I tried it, but it only made me lightheaded and woozy.

  The worst advice we received was from a man who told us that holding our baby would spoil him. Obviously, he didn’t understand how babies require the intimacy that cuddling provides. Besides, cuddling babies is fun and almost makes up for what our children do to us as teenagers.

  The best advice we received was from the lady who told us about baby-sitters.

  The Bible offers parenting advice. It speaks of sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Some folks think this means spanking your child, but the psalmist speaks of a rod which gives comfort. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” So it really has more to do with gentle guidance.

  I believe I’ve got this advice thing figured out. It isn’t that we think we know more than the parents. It’s mostly about lending a hand with something as neat as raising a child. It’s the same principle behind planting a tree. Twenty years later, we come upon it and delight that we had a part in its growing.

  So when folks start telling you how to raise your child, don’t think of them as busybodies, but as tree planters. That way, if your little sapling goes bad, you’ll have someone else to blame.

  The Second Child

  When we were expecting our first child, we decided we wanted to have five children. Then our first child was born, and we thought two children had a nice ring to it. We were at the grocery store when we decided that. Figured if God had wanted us to have more than two children, he’d have made bigger shopping carts.