God Always Has a Meanwhile

This one has stuck with me for a while.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

Because it was rather threatening in a way.

Like, if God always has a meanwhile, then are there days were I’m not His sole interest?

But it’s turned around for me.

And I actually take a lot of comfort in that statement.

I know that while God is busy in His Kingdom, ‘Forming worlds, and causing stars to shine,’ like some song says, that I am as important as those worlds, as powerful as each sun that bursts out in blinding light and energy.

Because, meanwhile, while he is doing all of that, He is with me, just as sure as the first day I started walking with Him.

I think I get it mixed up, somehow, on the days when I’m not doing so well.

I tend to think that God left off on his attentions to me, and someone else more important has claimed his attention.

So, I go about in a swarm of busyness and despair, on those days.

Busy, because I feel like I must find Him to make everything get back to normal.

And despair, because as the day wears on, I don’t find him, and I become convinced that the day will end before I find him again.

We humans are interesting that way.  Seems like the more stressed out we get, the more stress we take upon ourselves that is entirely not ours to carry.

We forget that on that dreadful day when we realized the sky would crash down upon us and consume us and our sins, should the end of the world arrive, that we did nothing to reach God.

All we did, was gave up; said we couldn’t do it, and, if we could still halfway think, we spoke his name into our night in one last desperate gesture of utter loneliness. 

And in that moment of total loneliness, our world became a little less dark, and a little less cold.

It was then, in that light that shined around us, light that we did not generate, that we saw His presence, and we realized that His presence had come a long way from some Kingdom much more glorious than we’ll ever know, and that His presence now leaned up against us, steadying, upholding, and sustaining.

And, thankfully, He found us; because we could never find him on our own.

And He found me, because He had a meanwhile.

And that meanwhile is what made it possible for Him to reach me at the same time as he reached so many others, and at the same time as he was flinging new stars against velvety blackness, and causing new worlds to shine.

Every Fourth Tie

I picked my way through the worst spots as I drove onto the yard.

It’s true, we had just had a good-sized blizzard and the melting snow was making everyone’s yard a travesty. 

But I’ll have to admit, theirs was the worst.

I opened my car door and stared straight down and out into puddles and soupy mud.

I noticed the water in the puddle directly under my door had an iridescent color to it, and it wasn’t long before I smelled the diesel fuel mixed in it.

I stepped out, trying to skip the worst of it, but evidently, I wasn’t successful; my shoe pulled off my foot and I had to stop and try to balance on one foot in slippery mud while I pulled my other shoe back on.

I entered what I supposed was the office.

Only a few of the lights worked.  The rest were burned out.

It looked like a modern office; the floor was contemporary, but it was mostly hidden under a trail of mud that led towards the back. 

I stood for a few moments, looking at the dust covered desks that were piled over with overcoats and mismatched gloves. 

Hearing a voice somewhere in the back that sounded like it was giving directions, I started picking my way back there. 

I entered a completely darkened break room, and then finally came to the room with the voice that was still speaking.

I saw a youngish man sitting sprawled in an office chair, clicking his mouse on what looked like a spread sheet of sorts.

He didn’t hear me, and after a bit I scuffed my shoe on the floor to make him look up and back at me.

His eyes looked at me without any reason to think anything more or say anything.

“Is this hallowed ground?” I asked.

“Do what?” It looked like he wasn’t used to that combination of words.

“Is it okay if I’m back here?” I asked.

“If you don’t do anything stupid,” he grunted.

I chuckled inwardly. 

I was his senior by as much as twenty some years, and the thought of who might do something stupid, whether it was him or me, amused me.

I told him my reason for being there, and he let me know with several oaths that explained his lack of understanding my opening statement sufficiently that the higher uppers were heading this way and I could talk to them when they got here.

I retired back to the front room with the musty smell and burned-out lights. 

After a while, an engineer entered.  (I was at the head office of our local railroad, by the way.)

He was a lot more civil and a much cleaner spoken person.

He told me a lot about where he lived and how he was a traveling engineer, just like the traveling nurses do at hospitals.

I asked him if he liked working for the railroad.

He said he did. 

I wondered why he did, when I noticed how slowly they operated on this track compared to one about 25 miles south.

“Oh,” he said, “It’s all in your mind.  This is a class 3 track which means top speed is only 10 m.p.h.  That one over there is a class 1 which means you can go up to 70.  You just change the way you think.  Takes me a full day to do 80 miles.  I can take in the scenery along the way.”

“The difference is,” he said, “is that track is a remedial track.  This one is reactive.  They have a crew on that other track that works full time on replacing every fourth tie.  Takes em’ a whole year.  They get back to the start and start replacing every fourth tie again, right in front of the tie they replaced last year.  That way, they have a new track every four years.

This track doesn’t do anything until something breaks.  Case in point, I just put two locomotives on the ground yesterday when the ties snapped beneath me, and the rails laid over to the side.”

“So that’s why you guys have as many derailments as you do,” I opined.

“Yep.”

*****

I thought on that for a while.  And I figure a lot of us are either the reactive or remedial category. 

I guess either way, you get to the point where you started out for. 

One way seems like it might have a little more up-front stress, and the other way seems like it might have quite a bit of backhand stress that you never expected and may have to deal with in the heat of the moment. 

A Stitch in Time, Saves Nine

I’ve known about this little phrase for most of my life.

I’ve presumed that it meant if you take time to take care of the small problems, they won’t become big problems.

And, whether my family agrees with me or not, I try to follow it, within reason of course.

I was a bit preoccupied with the cycle of events the other day. 

For one, I had told Mama J I would be home for lunch, albeit a bit late.

And really, nothing had thrust its unlikely head into my face to change that.

Other than a little late seemed to be stretching out in front of my grasp a little bit farther as the morning slipped along.

All I had to do was grab one of our trailers that had been scheduled in for new decals, run to the normal electrical supply store I used and pick up a few supplies that I had called in ahead of time.

It all seemed to be clipping along okay, other than the late dinner thing, and I was hurrying along, within reason, of course.

Sometimes though, the smallest impression alerts to the largest consequence.

I think that is what happened when, about ten miles into my journey home, I glanced in my side mirror as I changed lanes and saw the clearance lights twinkling along merrily at me.

Except I didn’t have my clearance lights on.

I didn’t have any lights on, for that matter.

So, I pulled off the road, walked back to the trailer, and stopped short.

Smoke was billowing out from under the trailer.

And a crackling, snapping noise could be heard, very distinctly.

A 100-m.p.h. glance showed me the trailer wiring harness had been dragging, evidently for the past ten miles or more.

And since we have a full-sized battery in the trailer for the jack and to help charge up hand tool batteries, cook dinner, etc., I figured I knew what might be going on.

Because we have that battery hooked up without a fuse.

And all the pretty little sparklies that my clearance lights were doing were going on within the wiring harness also.

I wasn’t sure what to do.  Plastic was dripping from where the greatest short to the trailer frame was occurring.  It looked too hot to handle with my bare hands.

I jumped into the trailer and grabbed a side cutter and tried to cut the offending part away.

But every time I tried to cut it, it showered me and the general vicinity with sparks and noise.

By now, the smoke had changed from a billow to a good-sized cloud, and I worried any of the passing traffic would call the fire department, and then I’d for sure have some crow to eat. 

Luckily, I was able to get the harness hacked in to after several tries, and most of the action died down to a small flicker, and then nothing.

Or so it seemed.

When I pulled the trailer up on the slab, the next day to repair, I saw that the energy hadn’t been completely eliminated.

Because as soon as I grabbed the harness to see what was what, it snapped at me loud enough that I let loose of it.

Bryce heard it, and came over to see what was going on.  He grabbed one of the wires and said, “You know this one’s still hot?”

Well, I knew something was hot, but until then, not what, exactly. 

So, I cut it out from the frame, and commenced on what I thought would be a leisurely hour of repairing the trailer harness. 

But karma was right there with me, and as I pulled on the harness, it completely disintegrated, and I could see it had melted way back into the frame.

Nine hours later, and many times up and down and working an unwieldy new harness through too small of holes and threading it back out of blindsided holes in the frame, I had the lights working again.

It seems I must have been in just enough of a hurry that I forgot to hook that harness up in the first place. 

My Americano is getting cold.  I need to get back to work.

Culture

‘Culture’, according to Seth Godin, ‘Is what happens when the community insists.’

And I would have to agree.

But just to make sure, I thought to put it to a test yesterday.

The afternoon was planned to make up some sausage with our children, and Taylors.

So, we got started cutting the bone out of the Boston Butts, and Jan got going on the beef, cutting the bone out of the chuck roasts.

For some reason, it fell to me to carve that bone out of the majority of the Boston’s.  Although I don’t think it had anything to do with culture.

Next, we began running the meat through the grinder for its first run, and from there to the dining table to be seasoned.

Once seasoned, it went through the grinder again, this time on a finer grind that left it looking as pretty as you see in the showcases in the store.

And I thought to myself.  “If culture is real, and what I think it is, I’ll hear it pretty soon.”

Sure enough, I heard the frying pans clinking even as I heard Bryce holler out from his place sealing up the bags, “Anybody going to fry some up?  We need to fry some up.”

Now I’ll ask, what good does frying some up at this point in the game?  Are we going to try to figure out what tastes off, (ask if we could) and doctor it up with something different?

No. 

It’s culture. 

Plain and simple. 

For as long as I can remember, whenever we have done sausage, we need to fry some up and, as like it was yesterday, Mama J carried her plate of neatly cut squares of fresh fried sausage around to the each of us, so we could get taste on it.

But about right here is where the culture thing started blurring the lines in my mind.

I looked at all the fat we had cut off, and saw small bits of meat left in it where it was too hard to trim it off perfectly.

I saw a fix and mix bowl full of bones that had even more meat on them.

And, I confess, I slipped it all away when no one was watching.

And, I sneaked downstairs and found the five gallon aluminum kettle we use for crawfish boils and whatever else, filled it with water about three fourths full, (which I quickly learned was about a pint too much) and once it got to boiling merrily along, I handed all those bones into it and snapped the lid on before anyone knew. 

But then Bryce came in a little later and said “Whoever is doing something with that pot in the garage, it’s boiling over.”

I was caught.

Almost red-handed.

However, I knew he didn’t know what I was doing, so I kept on with my game plan.

Because my game plan called for a taste of something long gone in the annals of culture.  

I let those bones boil along for close to five hours.

Then I pulled them out, and the meat fell right off of them.

I got a slotted spoon and fished the rest of the meat from the bottom of the kettle.

I saved a gallon or two of broth for later, and transferred all the meat mixture to my large skillet. 

I set it on a low simmer, and began stirring the meat, adding broth whenever it got too dry looking.

And about an hour or so later, my meat mixture had simmered off all the fat, and I had been knocking in even amounts of salt and pepper all along. 

It was time to pull it off and put it in Cool Whip dishes and then into the fridge. 

I smiled as I tasted what my culture calls ‘headcheese.’ 

Earlier, while those bones were cooking, I had the guys run the fat that I had snitched through the grinder on the fine grind and it went into the fridge for later.

Once the headcheese was done, I started dropping this fat into the skillet, again on a low simmer, and with the same dollops of salt and pepper.

It fried down to the most delectable little crispies of golden-brown meat, each with it’s own packet of salt and pepper inside. 

“Cracklins,” is what culture calls em’.

When I was all said and done, I pulled the chilled headcheese from the fridge and, using a sharp knife, sliced neat pieces, just like you would off of a loaf of cheese, and vacuum packed them individually to be fried up later and placed alongside a syrupy mess of pancakes, or eggs, or what have you.

In the end, from what we started with, all that was left was 3 cups of oil, a couple gallons of watery broth that I threw out, and the bones.

The bones I ground up and spread around the yard as fertilizer.  (At least that is what I think the dogs did with them.)

I won’t be surprised if I’m about the only one who eats the results of my work on the sneak, as it was mostly a younger generation with us, and I doubt their culture will insist on such.

Them

I saw them grouped up a little way away from me.

I realized that I had walked right by them once, without seeing them.

I slowed my pace and eased in near their group.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell they were all looking intently at something.

And, as I got closer, I realized they weren’t saying anything, actually.

What they were looking at was too much for words.

I couldn’t get in close enough for a bit to see what they were looking at, so I contented myself with them and their various attributes.

I saw one, a farmer, to be sure, by his stained clothing and work hardened, thick hands.

I saw his face softened and, at the corner of his eye, a little moisture.

I saw another, evidently a businessman of some type.  His posture was a little stiff and pensive, but I could tell he was moved by what he saw.

I saw a fellow there from the service, definitely soldier, to be sure.  I saw his pained expression; he seemed more moved than the rest for some reason.  It looked like he was trying to hide his emotions, but I could see them breaking out all over him.  I saw supreme remorse, sadness, and, if I looked closely, amazement.

I saw ladies there.

I saw a careworn mother, little child in tow.  I saw how gently she reached down and lifted her little one so he could see what she saw.

I saw a young maiden, still untouched by sorrow, or a life of responsibility.  I saw her eagerness; her vibrancy of life.  I saw how she took in the scene before her, and how though she came with zest for life, she left with quiet maturity.

I saw a factory worker, his family standing just a little back from him, in respectful deference to him; willing that he should have the time he needed.  I saw as he looked on, cataloguing each thing he saw, and I saw his eyes light up with that, “I knew it was true, I knew it was true!,” moment.

I saw folks I was amazed to see.

The town bum, for instance.  I never could figure out why folks called him a bum, though.  He always seemed nice enough to me, just a little eccentric was all.

And I saw her.  Her clothing told of her occupation.  A life of forced servitude to any man who would pay her master for her services. 

She looked so sad.  And I, looking on at her, felt her sadness descend upon myself as a burden almost too heavy to bear.  I knew she was trapped in her place in time; I knew what folks said about her.  I knew the scorn she lived with, the terrible plight that was her lot to have been captured as she was and indentured to the man who controlled her every minute.

But then I saw her visage change. 

She had seen something, I could tell.  And in a movement almost too quick to tell, she fell to her knees, sobbing and penitent. 

But somehow, her sobs weren’t the end, I could tell.  Because as I watched, her tears changed to tears of joy, joy lining out the path before her, until her life merged with it completely.

It was then the crowd parted a bit, and I saw what they were looking at.

Just a glimpse was all, but as I beheld them, I, too, felt the difference.

For there, before us all, and claimed by all, were two feet, each with a gaping wound, still freshly bleeding.

Freddy’s 

They were young. 

They had three children.  Two girls, and, I can’t remember if the baby was a boy or girl. 

His wife was loaded down with baby and backpack; he had the little girls’ hands in both of his as they approached the ordering counter. 

He glanced my way and our eyes met briefly. 

He and his wife discussed quietly what to order and, after ordering found their way to a booth near the southeast corner. 

He went to fetch condiments for their meal and, after bringing them to their table, went back for their drinks. 

When he got back to their table, his wife was just about finished settling the baby in, and his girls had let fall a several condiment packages under the table. 

He took it all in with a quick glance. 

So did I. 

And I saw that they had enough condiment packages on the table for their meal; they didn’t need those under the table. 

I don’t know if he thought about leaving them under their table or not.  I know I did for him. 

Another brief glance my way.  I’m not sure why our eyes met as often as they did.  Maybe I was staring?  But I don’t think so. 

He squatted down, reached under the table and retrieved the condiment packages. 

I half way expected him to let fly a bit at his family for their carelessness, but he didn’t. 

And then his wife looked up, and I knew what she was going to tell him, even though I couldn’t hear what she was saying. 

Because I have sat at the booth myself, and I know how cold the air is, pouring straight down from the air-conditioning vent overhead.  

He nodded, and started transferring napkins, car seat, little girls, drinks, and yes, condiment packages to the booth next where the air wasn’t so cold. 

And he did it all without murmur or complaint, not even a hardened look around the eyes for which I might have excused him. 

About the time they were situated, their food order was called; he went to fetch that and once back at the table parted out to each one what was theirs. 

And about that time Mama J and I were tossing our trash in the bin and she was pushing the door open to go to our car.  

I told her to go ahead, I’d be out in just a bit. 

And I glanced back to the table in the corner just in time to meet his gaze. 

I smiled and walked over.  

I told him he had a very nice family, and, that I felt he was training them up in a good way. 

I wish you could have seen his eyes; or could have heard his wife as she genuinely told me thank you for noticing.  

I wish I would have had time to sit down just opposite him and soaked up his family and, if the time seemed right, tell him a few of my thoughts. 

I would have told him how I saw myself in their little group, some twenty years ago. 

Although not at Freddy’s because, if you can believe it, Freddy’s wasn’t a thing yet, twenty some years ago. 

I would have told him I admired him for doing the things he was doing. 

Things that had an altogether different meaning than what it looked like to the casual observer. 

Things that it looked like he had a handle on that I’m quite sure I didn’t twenty some years ago. 

I would have told him that I’ve since learned how much it means to a lady to make herself look pretty. 

Even if it’s only for an hour, I would have told him how much a little outing, away from the daily grind means for a lady. 

I would have told him how, when he uncomplainingly changed to a warmer spot, that he was honoring and supporting the beauty of motherhood, and going, as we men can only go so far, into that realm of nurture of our little ones, and also acknowledging how his wife, or any woman for that matter, has intuition in these areas that we men don’t have. 

I would have told him how I learned that when my wife started telling me about her day and the different things, she encountered that she wasn’t seeking advice like I am wont to give; that all she really wants is me, just like his wife had him that day. 

I would have told him that I noticed he left his phone hooked to his belt for the entire time I observed them. And I would have told him how much it means to our lovely’s when we as men stand in solidarity against ourselves, providing a solid bulwark for our family to be secure in, without any fear or assumed responsibility for what is outside of that safe circle.  

I would have told him that if he kept on keeping on just like he was, that his little girls would grow up to love him deeply, but more than that, to look for the same qualities he had in their future husbands, further perpetuating the solid home that any country is so desperately in need of if it is to survive on a larger scale. 

In the end, I would have told him I knew he probably felt so insignificant and like such a basic thing as taking one’s family out, and the chaos that always goes along with it, is actually a huge thing in the whole scheme of things. 

I would have told him it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t remember it, or if his family doesn’t, because what really mattered was that he was there, present in every sense of the word.  

But in the end, all I said was that I liked what I saw, and I walked out feeling like I hadn’t said enough.  

But looking back at them from the door, I saw radiant smiles and happy eyes, and, maybe that is all that mattered.  

Why?

Some twenty years ago, our little family of five set out to camp overnight at a lake about an hour’s drive from home.

Expectations were high.

So high, in fact, that we stopped at Walmart along the way and bought two identical Scooby Doo fishing poles, both the same color, each about three feet long, and a Styrofoam cup full of slimy worms.

The sweet daughter, who had been helping me recently on the job, and, who had spoken of her deep love for salamanders when we found one under the valve box we were digging out, professed no love whatsoever for the worms.  (And, truth be told, when I tossed the salamander at her during the time of professed love, there was a deep gasp and shudder as she removed herself from thence.)

We got the tent set up.

 We got supper ready for when we came back to it from our fishing excursion. 

We set out to haul in fish.

I took each of the Scooby Doo’s and rigged them each with an identical hook from the same compartment in my tackle box.

I took a worm from the brown slime and tore it neatly in half.

I put one half on the one hook, and the other half on the other hook.

I saw a school of fish about 30 feet offshore top feeding and tossed the line of each Scooby Doo in nearby. 

Both bobbers were within five feet of each other.

Whereupon the one young lad began to haul in fish, and the other young lad stood disconsolately nearby, hauling in nothing.

And, I stood nearby asking, Why?

Why, when I had purchased the poles from the same shelf, rigged them with the same type of hook out of the same compartment, and cast both lines in myself, within five feet of each other, why did one boy catch fish and the other didn’t?

Why, later in life, whenever there was a raffle drawing, the boy who had pulled in the fish always won a prize and the other didn’t?

And the question remains, and although perhaps in a bit different format, the crux of it remains the same.

Why is it always me that prints the last page of paper in the printer and I am the one who has to restock it?  (Even though I’ve purposely held off my printing jobs when I knew the paper was getting low, it still landed on me to fill it.)

Why is it always me who seems to be the one who gets the last square of toilet paper and I have to try to turn around and reach the new roll from the back of the stool?  Or, horrors, be the one who finds out too late that the public restroom stall they are in is out, and there is no extra roll in sight.

Why is my group number always in the 7 to 9 range when it comes to boarding my flight?

Why is it always me sitting at the corner, and I see the vehicle approaching and it appears to be slowing down, but no blinker, so I sit and wait, until, of course, it turns just like I thought it would?

Why is it my soda that gets a full cup of ice and a half cup of soda?

On the other hand . . .

Why did the dude at the rental car counter upgrade me without extra charge?  Not once, but twice, in fact.

Why did I happen to be in the McDonalds drive through and when I pulled up to pay, they said the folks in front of me paid for mine?

Why did I find the exceptionally kind, generous and loving family to marry into that I did?

Why does my wife love me?

Why do I have two boys, (one who catches fish and the other who catches other things just as or more important) that make me feel like life is worth it?

Why did I happen to luck out with the daughters I got?

Why has it been that I have friends who stand by me, regardless of my disposition?

I’m suspicious this last list of why’s could be quite a bit longer than the first list.

Wait a minute.  Has anything I have typed up to this point made any sense?

. . . .I wonder how I could rig the toilet paper though . . . .

Delight

She was older, maybe 20 years or so more than I.

She made an attractive picture as she stepped out of the pharmacy.

Her neatly coifed hair was that beautiful hue of silver that some folks are blessed to have before it goes all white.

Her grey tweed jacket was a shade darker than her hair and her glasses were of a later fashion.

Even though she was older than I, she was well put together and looked not much older than I.

But her hesitation at the edge of the curb told me her true age.

The pharmacy was very busy that day, and she had parked farther away from the building than she was comfortable with.

And between the curb and her car, a large patch of sheet ice glimmered and slanted down and away from her in the mid-morning sun.

“Get going on that,” I thought, “and a person wouldn’t stop until they were wedged halfway under a car on the other side.”

I stepped up beside and asked quietly, “May I help you to your car?”

She accepted without hesitation.

As we traversed the ice, she kept saying, “I hate this ice, I hate this ice.”

When we came to the far side of it and within steps of her car, she thanked me, and I was grateful she didn’t gush with it.

But her relief was palpable, nonetheless.

And I?

I walked away filled with delight.

Because I know Someone who delights to help me, and I was grateful I could pass His help along.

Sing Glory

“Music is math,” he said.

He was taking a break from serenading the shoppers at an upscale clothing venue when I happened by.

He was a professional pianist.

He told me he had to take two years of college math before he could even touch his beloved music.

He raved about the predictability of music, about its orderliness.

He said if a song is written correctly, and you know your music (or math) you can tell what’s coming next without seeing a copy of the music.

He asked if I had anything I wanted him to play.  I asked if he knew ‘The Old Rugged Cross,’ and he struck the chords off systematically, ending with a rousing crescendo that left me spinning.

Later in life I would come to know a small part of his knowledge.

I would learn that a song properly written will have the total number of measures divisible by four.

I would learn that if they weren’t divisible by four, that an inner rhythm in each one of us would stumble in the area that was written incorrectly.

I would learn that each chord could be broken, or rearranged, but never without the third tone. 

And I would learn that if I doubled the third tone, in a major chord that is, that I would drive any sensible singer slightly insane.

I also found out, later of course, that each chord has its own companion chord that is needed to resolve the tension remaining from any discord within itself. 

And at an even more basic level, each note has its own companion note that is needed to resolve the tension remaining.

And, I found out that just as my pianist friend said, music is very predictable in this way. 

That if tension is introduced, it must always be resolved before the end of the song, or the singer won’t enjoy the song enough to come back to it again.

Later I would learn the intricacies of major and minor chords, and how a half step, placed in exactly the right place, changed each of them into the other.

I would find that certain progressions make for dead spots in the music and other progressions made things sound off key.

I learned that discord, when used correctly, is actually a beautiful thing.

I learned that we humans are beings of need for predictability and harmony, and how with a prolonged brush stroke of the opposite of those two, whole nations have been swayed into different and dark moods; how personal respect and clothing styles have been changed because of the lack thereof.

And so, 20 some years later, I come to agree with my pianist friend.

Music is math.

But I’ve also come to learn that math, in and of itself, is sterile.

And I’ve come to realize, over and over again, that the song the angels sang to announce peace and goodwill, had predictability to it, without a doubt.

But it also had something else, I believe.

It must have had within its very fiber the echoes and feelings of the glory from whence it sprang.

Elsewise would we still sing it today?

There’s more to music than math.

There is glory within it, that springs straight from its eternal source.

Sing that glory, and you and those around you will be filled this Christmas season.

Blessed tidings to each of you.

Easy, Big Fella

I have two weaknesses, for sure, that I know of.

Each of them involves western clothing stores.

One has to do with long sleeve shirts.

The other has to do with a certain section where paintings are displayed.

And, perhaps in a move better for my finances, I spend more time at the latter.

The paintings intrigue me.

Their cost leaves me speechless.

Through the years, there is one that always arrests my attention.

It’s a picture of an early morning round up; guys are choosing their horses for the day.

In the forefront stands a huge cow horse.

Evidently the horse feels threatened, or knows a long day is ahead, and is letting his intentions be known.

What gets me every time though, is the cowboy at his side.

He stands unruffled, saddle in one hand, and a kind, steady hand on the horse’s shoulder.

All around them is chaos.

But the scene distills down to just those two, and somehow, I know the horse is going to be okay.

And I’ve always sort of envied that guy with his hand on his horse. 

To me, he seems like a real man.

*****

The moon was barely a gibbous sliver in the southwest sky.

The wind, a constant presence, blowing it’s thirty-degree chill right into my bones.

I looked up and saw one lone planet above, and brief smatterings of stars intermittently glimmering through the haze.

In front of me was a 14 x 14 inch junction box that was already partially filled with large ought wire and their corresponding junctions.

We were there, Austin and I, to do an interconnection between our customer’s new solar array and the main service.

We were there late, around ten or so, to do the connection after hours so we didn’t disturb the workday and employees. 

It didn’t help that it was a multimillion-dollar company we were working for.

Neither did it help that, due to unforeseen circumstances, we would need to do our connection, inside that already busy box, live, or in our jargon, ‘hot.’ 

Which means we couldn’t turn the electricity off.

I shivered, but not from the cold.

It looked like it could be a drawn-out job.

I held the light as Austin carefully sorted the existing wiring out.

I watched and listened as he slowly talked himself through the plan.

We wrapped tape around our tools as an extra precaution and set to work.

I observed as Austin, with a surgeon’s precision and steady hand, made his first move.

We did the neutral first, as it was the least loaded of all the conductors.

Next was phase one, which was carrying around 20 amps. 

Blue light flashed around us as it arced while we pulled it from its socket.

It went easily enough.

Next was the wild leg, which was carrying nothing, so no arc, but still a definite injury or death if contacted with our body.

The box was getting fuller, now, and the cold wires stubbornly refused to bend.

After some muscle, the wild leg was done.

Now for the last phase.

This one was carrying more amperage, and, the box seemed soo full.

I had the skitters by this time, and had to take a firm grip on myself when the blue flame leaped out upon disconnect.

Finally, we were ready to reinstall the last leg.

And things happened really went fast for a bit there.

Because it started arcing immediately upon contact with the lug.

This wasn’t good.

If not corrected soon, it would weld itself into a new position that would end in a phase that didn’t carry anything.

And the multimillion-dollar business would grind to a halt.

Austin’s hand flew to push in on it. 

On instinct, my hand jumped to his and pushed down as hard as I could.

We both felt it sink home, and quickly tightened the lug.

I exhaled a shaky sigh and looked upwards, thanking the One who had put His shield between us and a very bad end.

The stars were gone, the moon settled in the west.

Somehow, I like to think that I almost heard, ‘Easy, Big Fella,’ last night, as I saw my son’s steady, sure hand against all the pent-up energy, and maybe, the same kind of men that observed that chaotic morning scene and mastered it in that long ago picture may still take their place among men today.

Here’s a link to the authors site if you wish to view the painting.

Easy Big Fella – Clark Kelley Price