Something from the tackle box:
Keep being concerned about each other as
the Lord’s followers should. Be
sure to welcome strangers into your home.
By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even
knowing it. (Hebrews 13:1-2 CEV)
I
recently got home from a few days visit to Gulf Shores, Alabama. It’s a trip that I’ve made every late
summer for the last several years now.
About twenty-five years ago my parents started spending winters in Gulf
Shores. A couple of months at
first, then three months, then four, and stretching out to five months by the
time they hit their seventies.
When it got to the point where they were spending more time in Alabama
then at their home in Michigan, my parents (wisely,
I think) decided to sell their home up here and buy a house in Gulf
Shores. And that is exactly what
they did about twelve years ago now, -
just before Hurricane Ivan hit their new home neighborhood hard in 2004!
Dad
actually took that storm as a good omen concerning their decision to move to
the coast. Their brand new home,
built in compliance with the most up-to-date codes, weathered that major storm
admirably, despite being located less than two miles from the beach. Aside from replacing a few shingles and
a couple of tipped over palm trees, Mom and Dad were able to move in and set up
house when many of their new neighbors, including their church and their favorite
place to eat, DeSoto’s Seafood Restaurant, were faced with major rebuilding and
repairs. Some of which they helped
out with as this was their new home, and those less fortunate folks their new
neighbors.
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| dad and joe on the U.P. hay farm |
Even
though my parents love being Alabamians now, complete with a Gulf Shores P.O.
box, Alabama driver’s license, and voter registration cards, they do drift back
north to spend the summer months of June, July and August at our cottage on Long
Lake in Cheboygan County, Michigan.
After all, there is the Jarvie family reunion picnic on the 4th
of July, Mom needs a chance to visit with friends and relatives she wouldn’t
otherwise see living in Alabama, and Dad wants to drive tractor and bale hay on
my bother Joe’s farm just across the bridge in the U.P. While some of the Rudyard locals up
there, including a few relatives, have let my brother know that he shouldn’t be
letting his 87 year old father work like that at hay time, my Dad says that he will
whip anyone who mentions that in his hearing. And so Mom and Pop come up in the summer to stay connected
with family, old friends, – and to help bale hay.
This
brings me around to my annual trip south at
the end of each summer. While Dad
is still capable of making the twelve hundred mile drive from the Straits of
Mackinaw to the Gulf Coast by himself (Mom
can no longer help with the driving because of her failing eyesight) it’s a
lot easier to do it with some help.
Now, at the beginning of each summer, my brother Joe flies down to
Pensacola and he and dad share the driving north to Michigan. Then, at the end of the summer, I share
the drive south with Mom and Pop, spend a few days in the late summer heat of
Gulf Shores with them, and then fly home from Pensacola. It’s actually gotten to be an enjoyable
and somewhat anticipated tradition for both my brother and myself. And this finally brings me around to
the focal point of this story – DeSoto’s
Seafood Kitchen!
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| my parent's car is closest to the door, as usual |
Since my
folks first started spending the months of January and February in Gulf Shores,
close to thirty years ago now, their very favorite place to go out and eat
lunch has been DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen. Mom and Dad were introduced to this local landmark by new
friends already devoted to this Gulf Shores institution, and soon fell in step
with this local lunchtime tradition.
All these years later, they still eat lunch at DeSoto’s every single day
they don’t have some good reason to be somewhere else for lunch. At the very least, they eat at DeSoto’s
five days out of any given week, and usually more. They have their own table reserved for 11:00 o’clock, when the
place opens up and Mom and Pop will be found up towards the front of the line
waiting at the door to get in. Lunch
at DeSoto’s is de rigueur for Elmer
and Junia Jarvie.
Now, I’ll
be the first person to tell you that the seafood at DeSoto’s is good. In fact it is very good,
and always has been. DeSoto’s
reputation as a first rate seafood restaurant is of long standing. But lets be honest, there are at least
a couple of dozen very good seafood
restaurants within a fifteen minute drive of my folk’s place in Gulf Shores, a
couple of them are within sight of DeSoto’s, and I’ll bet that there are
several hundred within an hour’s
drive. Why this unwavering loyalty
to this one – albeit very good – eatery?
This was
a question that had puzzled my wife and I for over two decades. My Dad always
told us it was the broiled grouper, which he orders almost every day for lunch,
but since I’ve been making the long drive back home with Mom and Dad these last several years now, I’ve learned
the real answer. Yes, the food is good, but what really
makes it the place to be for my
folks, is the sense of belonging to a
caring community, which they
experience at DeSoto’s, and that
brings them back day after day.
Now,
belonging to a caring community entails
more
than what it sounds like at first hearing.
There is more to belonging to a
community than making sure that everyone is greeted with a pleasant
smile, warm greeting, and sincere inquiries as to how you are doing.
It’s always nice to ask how someone is,
it makes for a pleasant meeting, but it is quite another thing to be a
participating agent in how that person is, a real factor in whether or not they
are doing poorly or well, before you even ask the question.
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| mom and dad at "their" table by the window |
Let me
explain how it works for my folks at DeSoto’s. When we arrive at their home after our trip south it’s about
three in the afternoon. Way to
late to get their usual table by the window at DeSoto’s for lunch. But Dad says, “Well, lets go there for
dinner tonight. (by which he means five
o’clock in the afternoon) The
dinner menu is more expensive than lunch – but that’s OK. – We can afford
it!” My Mom and Dad like a good
lunch deal, but they are not afraid to shell out good money for a good meal
either, they tip very well too, and so we walk through the front door of
DeSoto’s late in the afternoon.
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| the new kid at the door |
The first
staffer to see us is new, doesn’t know them, but politely and professionally
escorts us into the lower dining area, where older staff start spotting them,
and start congregating around them, so glad to have them home. They even
remember me, from last year when I
brought Elmer and Junia back to them.
Someone checks and finds that their usual lunch spot is just being
bussed. Another minute and we are
being ushered to an ordinary table with lots of light from the window shining
on it. It’s where they
belong. One by one the staff and
friends start dropping by the table.
“How was the lake this year? How was the drive south? Did you get in that big storm we saw up
in Michigan on the news? How much
hay did you get in the barn this summer?
How was the family? Will
you be playing bridge tomorrow at the senior center?” And my folks are asking them as many questions about
their lives as they’re being asked about theirs.
When we get up to pay
and leave we find the restaurant owner is at the cash register.
It all starts over again!
The laughing, the hugging, the
kissing.
She gets out her cell
phone and takes pictures, – and then messages them to all of the staff who
aren’t at work right now, - so that everyone knows that Elmer and Junia are
home.
On the way out Dad calls back from the door, “We’ll see you tomorrow
at the
usual time.”
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| the usual clientele and staff |
And
that’s when the homecoming really started. Now it’s not just the staff
– it’s everyone! We’re there at five minutes before
eleven and there are already three cars in the lot and five people waiting at
the door for the place to unlock.
They all know Mom and Dad.
One of them is Jerry. Now
Jerry is a true local, a genuine
Alabamian, whom I’m pretty sure has never been out of the state, and whom I
wouldn’t be surprised to learn hadn’t
ever even been outside of Baldwin County.
Jerry runs a one man lawn care service, that one man being Jerry
himself. Jerry mows my folk’s
grass while they are in Michigan for the summer. He also keeps and eye on the place while they’re gone. It’s a job. But Jerry acts like my Mom and Dad are kinfolk when he sees us driving up, like favorite cousins or
something, and it’s genuine.
It’s the
same with the other regular patrons that start filing in after we’re seated at our table. Our waitress, one of several that have been on staff for years at DeSoto’s, tells us how glad she was to see the picture of Mom
and Dad, home safe and sound, that
the boss had sent her the night before.
The talk then turns to family, her’s
as well as my folks’, joys and triumphs, illnesses and tragedies, love, and
really caring. Oh! – and the
grouper was fantastic!
Something to take home in your creel:
Being the
pastor of a small town, mainline church with an aging congregation, I have
grown used to hearing the continually echoed lament; “We’re dying! If we can’t attract some younger people
soon, we'll be closing the doors in a few years!” It is a constant sigh, breathed out with every breath it
seems, like background music in a funeral home. But, despite hearing it all the time, I’ve learned that it
is not necessarily so. A church’s spiritual health is not
dictated by its size and demographic composition. A growing church, full of active youngsters, in not necessarily a healthy church. An older congregation of a few silver
haired saints hanging on to their traditions is not necessarily a declining church. The only sure indicator
that I’ve found to gage how a church is doing, the direction they are moving in
spiritually, is how the people who are in that church are treating each other,
and how they are treating the world around them.
