Whispers from Heaven's Front Porch

          What is it about the Front Porch and the South? In warm weather,  it is coolly inviting. Families congregated on the front porch for conversation, a cool glass of tea, and for watching neighbors and friends pass, signaling a greeting. The Front Porch is a Southern staple, as much as sliced tomato and cucumber summer salad.
                Back yards, patios, decks, and privacy fencing have moved our porch sitting habits to a more secluded area. Outdoor living spaces include grills, swimming pools, and outdoor lighting located in the rear of the home. Nothing replicates the inviting community feel of a beautiful front porch, though, as it welcomes folks to experience “porch sitting.”

Iconic Front Porch in Rector, AR

       In my imaginings, Heaven has a Front Porch. Family ancestors are occupying rocking chairs, or a porch swing, as I remember from childhood experiences. To me, Heaven’s Saints rock in oversize chairs on that Front Porch; the Cloud of Witnesses observe my life and yours as they sip sweet tea with a sprig of mint. 

                              Hebrews 12: 1 (NIV) - Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

                   This passage and the sermon preached called attention to the church balcony inviting us to picture there our own "great cloud of witnesses.” The pastor exhorted us to populate the balcony with the people in our lives who impacted our spiritual walk, our daily commune with our fellow man, and our interactions with the world.  These persons who occupy the pews in the imagined Balcony of Heaven observe us, witness our lives.  They live in us through their profound influence. 

In addition to the faithful whose stories are told in the Bible, we recall more people in the “great cloud." Teachers, Sunday School and youth leaders, neighbors and family members have shared their faithful lives with us and are on Heaven’s Porch, witnessing.  Listen for their encouragement.  It may be in that breeze that just whispered across your Front Porch.  Pictured: grandmother (L)Mildred Gordon Horne and great aunt (R)Frances Gordon Usrey.

If I Can Dream, Let My Dream Come True - It's Elvis Week

           Dig out your diary and your memories of Elvis.  It's Elvis Week. Did you attend a concert/Live? Did you have tickets to the concert in Memphis that never happened?  Which albums did you buy?  Which singles? What were your favorite Elvis movies?  After all, Elvis and James Dean were the original "bad boys" or our era.  Elvis, though, gyrated his hips.

Do you remember where you were when you learned that Elvis Presley had died in Memphis?

                                              August 16, 1977.  36 years ago.  He was 42.
               
                 I was leaving Germantown Middle School, driving toward Poplar Avenue, just at Germantown Village Mall.  Dinstuhl’s Candy retail store was my first stop because Becky and I were good friends.  She had the inside scoop; her then-husband was a Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy and often had some security detail for Elvis Presley.
               Memphis went nuts. Screaming, crying fans threw themselves upon the walls of Graceland. Drive-by motorcades stopped traffic on Hwy 51-S, later renamed Elvis Presley Blvd.  Elvis never made it to his customary floor at Baptist Hospital- Central, a structure that has now been razed.  He died, ungracefully, alone, on the bathroom floor of his upstairs, darkened retreat at Graceland.  By that time, he was a tad overweight, known now as the 'Fat Elvis.'
               

         In 1977, he was still handsome, but not the Elvis we remember from his Army photo, or the hunky Elvis with that sexy, one-sided smile in GI Blues or Blue Hawaii. Even at his fluffiest, Talya would have driven from east Arkansas and paraded at a crawl by his hospital room, hoping to glimpse any movement, even as the sun reflected from the foil covering his windows.  Mary Ellen was certain I knew Elvis personally, and was privy to the inside scoop since I lived in Memphis and so did Elvis.
               When someone dies young, the person remains ageless in our collective memory; our Elvis will never be old, will never walk with a cane or forget the way home.  We’ll never see Elvis with gray hair and wrinkles and will never hear him trying to belt out his signature #1 Singles, trying to hit the notes or remember the lyrics, similar to the most unfortunate Glen Campbell, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.
             During Elvis Week, sightings are common. The Big Screen at the Orpheum features the Aloha from Hawaii Concert (January 14, 1973) and this year, the movie Viva Las Vegas will be shown at another venue. My favorite event featured The Memphis Symphony Orchestra in a pops concert with huge backdrop of Elvis video feeds. The musicians thrilled the audience with well-loved Elvis standards and Elvis’ gospel tunes, as Elvis himself crooned and moved about on screen.
              There is no separating Elvis from Memphis. Elvis will continue to stroll the streets and attend all Memphis Tiger athletic events, regardless of how often we are told that he has “left the building.”

Sizzling Wonder Bread, Bubbling Butter, and Melty Cheese Spillage

                 Comfort food needed. In today's unsettling atmosphere, the country craves comfort.  And, it’s not chocolate. 
                 It’s a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  The kind of delicacy served with a mug of Tomato Soup…on a Sunday night.  It’s the Grilled Cheese Sandwich with perfectly grilled, buttered bread, sliced to reveal oozing, warm cheese constituting a perfect side to vegetable soup on an autumn day.  After all, how can you ruin bread, butter, and cheese?  Unless you burn it.
                Richard is my Grilled Cheese Connoisseur.  As a child, he did bring down the gavel on the best fish sticks or pizza or hamburger.  It was popsicles and grilled cheese that satisfied Rich.
               So, when the first-grader would spend the week before school started with Nana and Poppy, he was the center of their universe.  Poppy played war and trucks and watched Cartoons; Nana cooked and catered to his every desire; and Lou, our neighbor, took him to the one and only McDonald’s for some fries and an adventure on the playground.
              I should not have been surprised when he handed me Nana’s Recipe for A Grilled Cheese Sandwich. “Oh, Nana,” my young'un reportedly said, “this is sooo good.  You make the best grilled cheese sandwich.  Would you write down your recipe for my mommy?” I have yet to live down that day in family history.
             Lately, I have been astonished to learn of the Grilled Cheese International, the 11^th annual competition to determine who makes the best Grilled Cheese Sandwich, with Categories.  The Missionary is the grilled plain bread, butter, and cheese variety and the Karma Sutra is “anything goes,” with an endless variety of add-ons grilled with zesty cheeses between two slices of who-know-what variety of bread.  How did this happen?
              In addition, there is The Grilled Cheese Truck in Southern California, making the rounds and scheduling various towns and avenues for stops so folks can order and pay over $5 for gourmet grilled cheese concoctions and more for sides of pickle spears, chips, or a cup of tomato soup.
              A stylized school bus, decorated, fabricated into the Grilled Cheese Childhood Experience food truck, promises to recreate the delicious comfort sandwich that your mom made for you.  By savoring one of their sandwiches, you relive a moment from your glorious childhood, unless, of course (they have a disclaimer), your childhood sucked. 
Their varieties include the Kindergartener and Pre-schooler (which is the same as the former, but with the crusts cut off!)

            

Where was my brain when these entrepreneurs began their journey to fortune with a Grilled Cheese Sandwich? 

After all, I have the perfect recipe!

The Serendipity of Facebook

                             Today, and for many days over the past months, I have experienced “writer’s block.” Nothing is worth the expenditure of creative energy…nothing seems funny or especially interesting, except for the exchanges between classmates from CHS, C/O ’66.
                           I’m a listener; I hear your voices, but I’m quiet, so you won’t realize I’m enjoying your good-natured banter.  I guess it’s rude to eavesdrop, but I’m allowed, through Facebook. Your comments transport me to a time I had forgotten.  I’m there, and you are, too.
                            Vicariously, I travel with you as former neighbors and classmates. Everyone is gracious and shares pictures and comments.  It’s  a pleasure to ‘like” your insights, recognize the same things as amusing or poignant.
                           Seeing photos of your children and grandchildren on vacations and at birthdays allows me a familiarity I once spent every day enjoying. Where did the years go?  I’m so glad to have a reunion with you daily.
                         

From the ages and days now spent, from the seconds that separate us in time, a singular thread emerges and weaves our lives together; we share memory, rich and full.
                           
This connection has been the serendipitous discovery in Facebook, and I am grateful to you all.

Surprising Texas

                                 Exhilaration! “OH!, WOW!, WHAT!?!” One kind of surprise thrills.
                                “Oh, I didn’t know that.  Hmmm.” Another kind of surprise reveals.
                                 Plenty of surprises “deep in the state of Texas.”

               Surprising Todd.  Outside, washing Colorado trail mud and dirt from his vehicle, bending over to position the sprinkler underneath the chassis, he was caught off guard by a strange Highlander pulling into his driveway, beeping that weird little horn.  Only glancing at the car and not at the sneaky passengers, he took on the look of a dumbfounded zombie.  When we opened the car doors and tumbled from the front seat after 11 hours, his mouth formed a big “O” and we had done it again – surprised Todd. After a few ‘what are you doing here?’ exchanges and laughs, he spoke words of truth, “I hope Kathy knows!” Of course, she does.  She invited us.

                   Gulf Breeze Surprise. All I knew about Houston’s weather can be summed up thusly:  Hot. That’s accurate, to a point. Houston is an hour inland from the coast and across Todd and Kathy’s back yard oasis blows a pleasant gulf breeze.  Surprise!  Who knew?  Certainly I did not. Closing my eyes, propping up the tootsies, leaning back and listening to the waterfall gently splashing into the pool, I am transported to a happy, peaceful place and the road tension evaporates.
                   Surprise! Speed limit: 75! Texas highways and interstates.  Fabulously well-marked and easy to navigate. 
                   Galveston’s Beach- surprisingly dirty-brown. The beach, appearing as a sandbar, stretches miles into the gulf.  A 15’ seawall protects the City of Galveston, the attractions, hotels, and restaurants along the shoreline.  Surely if I put my toe into the water, it would emerge filthy.  Three rivers empty into the Galveston region and the run-off seems to pollute the beach.  Hurricane Ike did a number on Galveston 5+ years ago and the area still attempts a recovery.  The Hurricane of 1900, the most devastating regional storm prior to Katrina, flooded the entire island and city and is the focus of Isaac's Storm, a fascinating book I recommend. No surprise: no beaches are as beautiful as those around Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Destin, and Pensacola.

            Downtown San Antonio, surprisingly lush: site of the Riverwalk, the 1968 World’s Fair, and The Alamo.  The remnants of the World’s Fair boasts The Tower of the Americas, second tallest (tallest is in Las Vegas) spire with restaurant atop. The Riverwalk’s ambiance attracts tourists with shops, restaurants, and overhanging enormous cypress trees, colorful umbrella tables, and mariachi bands.  The river is controlled with 3 locks and dams boasting flood prevention strategies that have worked – especially well with a drought.
One of the many collections at The Alamo displays Davy Crockett artifacts:  his billfold, vest, weapons, ammunition
 bags, and even a plank from his Tennessee cabin, made into a bench on which no one can sit.
                        The gargantuan highway map of Texas takes up the entire front seat in our Highlander. Even with Bossy Betsy and GPS, I like to hold a map. Folding it, however, is a monumental undertaking, (recall Clark Griswold’s map-folding experience in his family Vacation to Walley World).

“Remember the Alamo,” and remember that Texas was its own country (The Republic of Texas) prior to becoming a state.  That leaves little doubt, and no surprise, that everything, including the fun, is bigger on a trip thru Texas.

Hurricane Elvis - 10 years later - Do you remember?

 

           A trip to the ER. Mother was having a spell with CHF (COPD). By 2 AM, July 22, 2003, we were seen by a doctor.  By 3 AM, Mother was admitted to Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, TN, and we were taken to a room. She was bedded down had drifted off to sleep. After all the admission procedures were accomplished, I stretched out on the sofa under the room-width window overlooking the gigantic roof-top air conditioner units. At 5 AM, a storm of enormous magnitude packing winds of 102 mph and torrential rain hit downtown Memphis and continued to rip through the city, heading directly east.
          The hospital air conditioner units were ripped from their tethers and propelled against the window of Mother’s room, shattering the double pane window and littering me with shards of glass.  Had it not been for the reinforced glass and blinds enclosed within the windows, the A/C units themselves would have rocketed onto the couch where I lay listening to gale-force wind, not realizing what was actually happening beyond the hospital fortress.
                           The generator for the hospital powered up and all patients were wheeled into the hallways.  Mother was moved to a different room, for hers was littered with glass fragments.  We had no clue as to the extent of the damage outside Baptist Hospital.       When I left to get some things for Mother and to check on Richard who was staying with neighbors, I saw a snippet of the unbelievable damage produced by these straight line hurricane-force winds, later nicknamed Hurricane Elvis.

What’s life like 10 years after Hurricane Elvis?

#1 – Elvis is still “young” and will never really “leave the building.”
#2 -  Mother died in 2005. 
#3 – I remarried in 2006.
#4 – Retirement for Marvin and me came in 2012.
#5 -  My children grew up.  Richard is in Charleston, SC, working as an urban arborist with Bartlett (!) Tree Service after 3 years at UTC.  David is moving to Delta State University as an assistant soccer coach, completing a master’s degree in Sports Management/Marketing.

#6 – July 22, 2013 –in April, my personal Hurricane Elvis powered into our life. Blowing in unexpectedly, a myxoma was discovered and I underwent heart surgery to remove it. Undetected, it had grown  to the size of a golf ball and had caused me to experience heart failure. This surgery was performed by Dr. Ed Garrett at Baptist Hospital in Memphis, on April 26, 2013. I did not recognize the Hurricane Warnings that had been issued by my body. We relied totally on God’s hand to navigate us through the whitecaps to safe harbor.

                Today as I reflect on the date, and the blessings I’ve experienced in these 10 years, I also note that change has been phenomenal. There have been some tropical storms, some marvelous gulf breezes, and the calm assurance of “sunny and mild.” Today, the 10 year Anniversary of Hurricane Elvis, I am feeling super healthy, grateful for the advances in heart surgery, and basking in the warm, tropical winds of LOVE that swirl gently through my life. 

A Somewhat 'Modest Proposal' with Apologies to Jonathan Smith, 1729

            In the check-out line at the local grocery, the lady ahead of me watched as our cashier scanned and bagged purchases totaling an even $16.00.  “Wow,” she remarked, “how often does that happen?”
            I replied, “You should get a prize, especially since that is not only an even amount, it’s 1600.”
             She agreed immediately; we conversed briefly.
             I was speaking with the paragon of American History knowledge in this local community, the local American history teacher, Belinda Matheny.  She’s also the best cook in the county and bakes pecan pies that go for $50 at auction.  And, chocolate rolls.  Just saying.

            Checking out at Walgreens that morning, my total on the register: $14.92. Of course, I tried (!) to be clever and cute, engaging the young cashier in some friendly banter. It was early.  No one was behind me.
             “My goodness,” I said to the barely-19 year-old cashier, “there should be confetti and balloons!”
              “Huh?”  I need not say whose remark that was.

              “I should get a prize, or an extra bonus buck or something on my Walgreens card.”
              “What?”  A hugely quizzical look from the same spokesperson as before.
               “My total is a famous date in American History, '14 hundred and 92….Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue.’ Let’s Celebrate. My purchase is free, how about that?”
               “I can’t help you, Ma’m.  I’m just the cashier.  You’ll have to speak to a manager.” No emotion.  Dead-pan. Serious.

              I’m sure she meant that ‘she could not help me’ in numerous ways. (Crazy person at Register 1)

             After speaking with Mrs. Matheny (Her students roll their eyes, “She’s at it again.”), I determined that those of us old enough to actually remember and even have experienced some of America's  history must act to save the country and preserve the world’s "name that date" balance in respect for all that is Holy.
                    We don’t need Superman, or Wolverine, or Spiderman.  We need Amazon, I-Tunes, Facebook, and Candy Crunch Saga.

Herein is a ‘somewhat modest proposal.’
                Instead of scolding the clueless on their ignorance regarding important dates in American History, let’s reward them when they look up from their I-Phones, stop their thumbs from texting for 5 seconds, and allow their eyes to reflect that someone is at home and recognize that they are not the only ones breathing air on the planet. The proposal utilizes the reward system through various current hot commodities: Amazon with “Prime” points, credits, fabulous trips and extra lives or boosters or tokens for favorite  on-line games.
          The reward system should be employed as a tool for good. We must remember, this very-much-younger generation is being raised by our high self-esteemed children who received trophies if they signed-up for competitive breathing, sitting on the bench.  We are the baby-boomer parents who bought those trophies and have boxes of them saved in our attics.

       Imagine the thrill today’s youth might experience when the dollar total registered anywhere between $18.61 and $18.65, or for the sake of the economy, $1861.00-$1865.00. The informed youth could wildly exclaim, “Hey, I think that dollar amount has something to do with the American Civil War, often called the War Between the States, ending when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to

General Ulysses S. Grant inside a private residence at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.” POW! As many as 10 extra lives, one for each detailed tidbit of correct historical information!  A universally significant dollar amount ($17.76 or $1776.00 - you get the picture) accompanied by a spewing forth of factual augmentation would result in a bigger prize, such as thousands of tokens or super-duper super powers.

 

                  Let us then be up and doing, asking not what our country can do for us, but with a heart for any fate, encouraging conversation about educating our youth using cash register receipts or totals contained in on-line Carts.  Gone would be “No Child Left Behind” with Federal oversight.  Bye-bye to math homework, as students would compute their rewards in record speed.  American history teachers’ classes would be filled with students clamoring, begging for information.  It would be a revolution, with consumer-youth now knowledgeable, still spending, and now competing for prizes celebrating their superior knowledge. The nation would be engaged in online conversations and even adults would post to their Facebook Wall as a life event occurred, such as "My grandchild's Cart amount was $19.63 today."  Their friend might respond,  "I like that comment and I'll raise you a $19.69."

               As potentially successful as this ‘somewhat modest proposal’ might seem, it could be taken to yet another level. Should America’s youth purchase a Sonic milkshake or an APP on specific Day/Dates in History, and should they actually recognize the date and acknowledge its significance, fabulous prizes like those on The Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune would be awarded.  Correctly identified purchase dates such as 12/7, 11/22, 9/11, 7/20, or 6/6 would set off celebrations, and with the correct answer rendered within 5 seconds, exotic cruises, concert tickets, box seat tickets for the Final Four or Super Bowl would be awarded.

                 Since so little progress has been made in finding motivational strategies for today’s youth, this ‘somewhat modest proposal’ could make significant progress in elevating our nation’s educational strategy from a “dumbing-down” apparition to an upscale presence with Facebook proportions.  Local school boards that adopt this proposal would find their budgets flush since student learning would be financed by Amazon, GEICO’s gecko, Apple, I-Tunes, Facebook, and Candy Crush Saga.  

Answers:             

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – the Address of the White House
July 4, 1776 – The United States’ Declaration of Independence Signed by representatives in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania….and thus, the revolution began.
1963 – Assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas, TX
1969 – Man landed on the Moon (Sea of Tranquility)
Dec. 7 – Pearl Harbor attacked by nation of Japan, FDR addresses Nation, states Day that will live in Infamy
Nov. 22 – President Kennedy (JFK) fatally shot
Sept. 11 – Twin Towers attacked and ultimately destroyed by suicide terrorists in hijacked commercial airliners.
July 20 – Man lands on the Moon
June 6 – D-Day – Invasion of Normandy
July, 2013 - Jane signed on to Facebook, and daily life was never the same.