The Fisherman's King

Something from the tackle box:

       You can tell who the false prophets are by their false deeds.  Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven.  Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in.  On the day of judgment many will call me their Lord.  They will say, “We preached in your name, and in your name we forced out demons and worked many miracles.”  But I will tell them, “I will have nothing to do with you!  Get out of my sight, you evil people!”  (Matthew 7:20-23 CEV)

The Fisherman’s King

When I fish I love the King

    who brought me to this place,

        the sun, the water, gentle waves,

            that rock me in his grace.

 

I think upon the King I love,

    who blesses all my days,

        with fish and sky, and waters deep.

            Oh, let me count the ways.

I love him as my baby King,

    ‘cuz baby Kings don’t rule,

        but lay there wrapped in swaddling cloths

            and smile, and coo, and drool. 

I love him as my healer King,

    I like that gentle touch,

        he makes me feel all fuzzy warm

            when life becomes too much.

I love him as my brother King,

    I like him as my friend. 

        I love him as my Savior King

            who’ll waft me skyward at life’s end.

 

Oh how I love my King today,

    brother, healer, savior, friend.  –

        But does that have one thing to do

            with how he’ll greet me then?

Time fishing spent is blessing sure,

     gifted by my King so grand,

        the rest, the peace, the joy-filled day

            with rod and line in hand.

But it will all amount to naught

    if the blessing is not shared,

        if all the “others,” through my life,

            can’t see the one who cared. 

For my King is not a King

    who calls me as his own

        without I go and fish for folks

            and let His love be shown. 

 Something to take home in your creel:

       I wrote stanzas 3,4,5 & 6 of this poem for my sermon this past Sunday, the last Sunday in Ordinary time on the church calendar and the end of the liturgical year.  The last Sunday of the church year has a special name; “Christ the King Sunday.”  I make a big deal out of that fact in my sermon every year on the last Sunday before Advent, - and every year it catches almost all of my parishioners by surprise (except the organist, who’s tipped off ahead of time to pick out “Royal” hymns for the day).  They never remember from one year to the next that it’s coming up. 

       Lots of Christians in America, - be they Protestant, Catholic, low-church, high-church, conservative-evangelical, liberal-mainline, dispensational, or so-called ‘Spirit filled,’ - like the idea of calling Christ their King.  They do it all the time.  But when it comes to following the mandates of Christ our King by actually walking in his ways, rather than just paying lip-service to them, - well, - let’s just say the talk is way more impressive than a lot of the fruit that gets produced.  And I’m sorry to say that it goes for me too!

       Our King gave us a detailed outline of the rules of good citizenship in His kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount, the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5, 6 & 7.  If you want to call the baby Jesus your friend, healer, brother, savior and even KING this coming Advent and Christmas season, go right ahead.  In fact - be my guest. – Just don’t neglect to go back and periodically review just how our King would like his loyal subjects to behave throughout the year that follows.  Maybe even try to put a little bit of what you find into practice before our next “Christ the King” Sunday rolls around.  That’s what I’m going to try and do. 

       I love you all, - or I wouldn’t have said so, - I’d of just gone fishing for fish again. 

       M.J.

A Little Cold Water on Election Day

Something from the tackle box:

       Don’t let anyone fool you.  Many will come and claim to be me.  They say they will be the Messiah, and they will fool many people…. Many will give up and will betray and hate each other.  Many false prophets will come and fool a lot of people.  Evil will spread and cause many people to stop loving others.  But if you keep on being faithful right to the end, you will be saved.  (Matthew 24:4-5,10-13 CEV)

       I got up very early yesterday to vote in the election.  My wife Kathy wanted to get her ballot cast before heading off to her job at the community college in the first big town to the south of the small town where we live.  We figured that it would be a lot easier than waiting to vote in the evening after she got home.  So we were in line, along with a friend who had asked for a ride to the polls the day before, a good twenty minutes before the doors opened.  There was already a bit of a line when we got there, and by the time the doors opened the line stretched out into the parking lot.  I did not see a smile on anyone’s face. 

       The local election officials were expecting a good turnout and were prepared.  Things moved at a good pace and we had soon marked our ballots and fed them into the counting machine, just like many millions of others across the country were doing at the time. We walked out past an even larger crowd of waiting voters than before.  I still did not see any smiling faces, unless you counted one enthusiastically bouncing preschooler in tow with her mother.  Thank you God for the little things. 

       Kathy dropped our friend Tomi Jo and I off at the local diner for breakfast before heading off to work herself.  Tuesday morning breakfast with a half dozen or so of my parishioners, along with a couple of other community wags whom we allow to enjoy our company, is my usual habit.  The big round table at the C&R is already spoken for by the old duffers club, so we always pull a couple of the smaller square tables together, as far away from the old duffers as we can possibly get.  Which, as far as my opinion matters, is a good thing on a day like this election day.  Sometimes it’s bad enough having to put up with the talk of my own parishioners concerning the hot topics of the day, without the added layers of horse manure bravado that the old duffers can bring to any conversation. 

       You see, even though I am a genuine rural, small-town born and bred, hick-from-the-sticks boy myself, both related to and at home with red-necks, hayseeds, shop rats, duck commanders, catfish noodlers, and every other stripe of Midwestern country folk you can think of, somewhere along the line I got past and grew out of the political attitudes that dominate my native culture. 

       And dominate they do! At least on a local level.  I’m always amused by the ballots in small rural community elections.  Sure, we get the same choices that everyone else does for the National and State level races, but better than ninety percent of the time all of the local offices are uncontested, with only one candidate to vote for, and that candidate is affiliated with one certain party every time.  Those rare times when the man or woman from that party does have an opponent for an office, that contester will almost always run as an “independent,” rather than doom his run to certain failure by having it affiliated with that “other” party. 

a catch!

       This is the truth far more often than not in the rural small-town America that I’ve called home for sixty years.  In some ways it’s amusingly quaint, but in other ways it makes life very difficult for those of us who don’t think that the entrenched grand old party getting its way on every little thing, with everybody living outside of the big city, is necessarily good for the life of our grand old country as a whole.  I’ve felt that way for a long time now and have voted according to that conviction most of my adult life.  The results are that I’ve been on the losing side of almost every election that I’ve voted in over the last forty years, as far as the tally for my local precinct goes.  The upside of this situation is that, even though I’m often not smiling on election day, most folks are. 

       But not yesterday.  Even at my usual table, a hotbed of conviviality on most Tuesday mornings, the mood was glum.  And at the old duffer’s table, where they are in one hundred percent agreement with the social political norm of small town America, and ought to have been engaged in hearty back-slapping yesterday, not a happy face was to be seen.  I walked home from the diner under a grey, cold and sprinkle spitting sky as cheerless as the mood of the country, and that’s when I decided, I need to go fishing.

still feeling pretty glum

       So I got home, threw my insulated chest waders, along my best fly rod, into the back of the VW and headed for the Coldwater river through the drizzle.  It looked like a horrible day for fishing, and I sure wasn’t expecting to see a thing in the way of fish, but it had to be better than sitting home and moping about this God forsaken election day. 

       I had to drive a bit further than usual to fish, as by November the Coldwater is closed to trout fishing above the Freeport dam, where I like to fish, until next April when the season opens back up.  Below the dam is year-round fishing, so I set out for Coldwater Park in southeast Kent County where the access is easy.  Unfortunately, I’ve never done that well below the dam on the Coldwater River any time of the year, and didn’t really expect to this day, for that matter.  I just needed to get into the river and get my head on straight for an hour or two.  Fishing will do that for me like nothing else I know of, and I needed it bad. 

       The water was higher and faster than I had expected, which made wading below the rapids, the better section of the park waters to fish, harder than I really liked.  After a half hour of fighting to stay upright in the current while negotiating the big rocks underfoot, I got out and moved to much calmer waters and less challenging footing above the rapids.  And here I found some peace, - thank God.

looking down towards the rapids

       I did not work hard at the fishing yesterday.  Instead of playing out a lot of line and making long casts through the hazards of overhanging tree branches to likely looking eddys in the rocky rapids, I just waded out to the middle of the stream, well above the  rushing water, and made gentle roll casts to the banks on both sides, letting my little bead-head, wire wrapped bug drift along the bottom with the current until I decided to haul her in and do it again. 

a couple of low hanging trophies

       Not even the hint of a fish to tantalize me was in the offing, although I did snag and draw up sunken leaves and small branches from the bottom now and then.  It was enough.  All I really needed.  In an hour I was feeling better about life in general, if not about the future of our nation. 

       I noticed that, with almost all of the leaves down from the trees along the banks now, the hung-up and broken off lures of my less accurate, crank-bait fishing cousins, now decorated the trees like Christmas ornaments.  It was actually very pretty and amusing to see.  While most of these trophies were well out of reach I did wade over and brake off a couple of low hanging specimens.  If I wasn’t going to catch any fish I might as well collect some lures to take home.  It felt good to do that.  I felt better.  In fact, I felt much better.

Something to take home in your creel: 

       By one o’clock I was getting cold, despite my insulated waders.  The Coldwater River is aptly named.  I was hungry too.  So I got out, de-geared, and pointed the old VW back east.  Halfway home I stopped in the town of Freeport to get lunch at the Shamrock Tavern, not too far from the old dam site that separates fishable waters from unfishable waters on the Coldwater from October through April.  They serve one of the best olive burgers you can find at the Shamrock, in quarter or half-pound varieties.  I had an appetite for one after fishing.  They have good craft beer on tap, too.  Getting there well after the lunch hour, there were only four other customers in the place when I sat down, all at the bar.  I guessed that they had just voted, or were on their way to vote and thinking about the prospect, as none of them were smiling. – But I was. :-)

King Fisher

Something from the tackle box:

       Samuel told the people who were asking for a king what the Lord had said: -

       He will force your sons to join his army…. Still others will have to farm the king’s land and harvest his crops, or make weapons and parts for his chariots.  Your daughters will have to make perfume or do his cooking and baking.

       The king will take your best fields, as well as your vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his officials.  He will also take a tenth of your grain and grapes and give it to his officers and officials.

       The king will take your servants and your best young men and your donkeys and make them do his work.  He will take a tenth of your sheep and goats.  You will become the king’s slaves, and you will cry out for the Lord to save you from the king you wanted.  But the Lord won’t answer your prayers.

       The people would not listen to Samuel.  “No!” they said.  “We want to be like other nations.  We want a king to rule us and lead us in battle.”  (from 1Samuel:10-20 CEV)

 I really wish that we had a law in our great nation, mandating that everyone who is eligible to vote HAD to vote.  I also wish that it was mandated by law that a - ‘none of the above’ - box be printed on each and every ballot, so that voters could check it off if they thought that everyone running for the office wasn’t worth wasting any bait on.  And then, if ‘none of the above’ got the most votes, all of the parties would have to put forward a whole new slate of candidates, with no repeats from the ones they offered the first time around.  It might take a few months to do it, but I’d be willing to wait.  

For as far back as I can remember into my childhood school days, and I’m sixty years old now, I’ve always believed in that old saying that we’ve all heard over and over again, all our lives, about our American form of democracy.  You all know it, in fact I’ve heard some of you repeat it, I’ve repeated it myself in years past.  We say:  “Our system may not be perfect – but it’s still the best system in the world!”  

Well, I’m able to tell you today, officially, that I no longer believe that statement to be the truth, - at all!  If our system can’t do any better than it’s done this year then there ARE better systems.  There has to be a system, one that still leaves us with a Democracy, that can give us better options for leadership than the mess we’ve created in this election cycle.  (I myself am becoming a bigger fan of multiparty Parliamentary models of Democratic representation all the time, but that’s just a personal opinion.)

But, regardless of the fact that I’d really rather cut bait than fish in this year's election, I will be up bright and early on Tuesday morning to cast my vote!  And if you haven’t already done so with an early ballot, then you should too!  It is your patriotic duty to vote even if you have to hold your nose while you’re doing it and then go home and take a shower before going to the local diner to have breakfast and listen to all the political B.S. getting spewed out at the old-duffer’s table.   

So I want to see you there with me at the polls, and then later on at breakfast down at the C&R. Even if you’re voting for the other ridiculous lump than the one that I’m voting for, you still NEED to VOTE.  After all, if we’ve all really decided that we’re actually going shoot holes in the bottom of our rowboat because we want the people sitting in the other end of it to jump out – then it will work best if we ALL take a turn pulling the trigger.

 

Turnabout Is Fair Play

Something from the tackle box:

       Don’t fail to correct your children.  You won’t kill them by being firm, and it may even save their lives.  (Proverbs 23:12 CEV)

       Growing up in a house located on the corner of two intersecting country roads in rural Barry County Michigan I did have neighbors.  Although none of them lived closer than half a mile away, we were surround by neighbors in each of the four directions you could go from our place. 

       To the east was the Decker family.  They were good friends, and we knew them well as they had youngsters in the family too, some older ones that babysat for my two younger siblings and I when we were very little, but also a couple who were closer to our ages.  We got on the bus and rode to school together with them from the little shelter built at the end of their driveway.  We would also go swimming with them in their pond, or in our pool, in the hot summer months as we were growing up together. 

       To the south of us was the old Sprague place.  You can read about what an “adventure” it could be to try and bike past their farm on ones way to a favorite fishing hole.  That story is recorded in a post I made on this blog back in July. 

       A half a mile north of our place was the home of Bruce and Dortha Brumm.  We knew them well too.  In fact, they were like an extra set of grandparents to my brother Joe, sister Joy and I as we were growing up.  It was only a ten minute walk to get a homemade cookie any time that you wanted one.  They had a gentle collie dog that liked to play with kids.  They had the first color TV in our neck of the woods, and they’d let you watch Bonanza, or The Wonderful World of Disney, on it.

       Bruce and Dortha lived on a farm that took up a good chunk of the land north and west of the intersecion of Thronapple Lake and Price Roads.  They would have had everything northwest of that stop sign for half a mile in both directions, had they not sold the old farmhouse I grew up in, along with eight acres of land, to my parents several months before I was born.  The Brumms were good friends to my folks, and awfully good to us kids over the years we were neighbors, and while this story isn’t about the Brumms, per se, their friendship towards our family does play a role in this adventure.

       This story is about an incident involving one of our closest neighbors to the west, Ellis Garlinger.  Ellis and Dot Garlinger were an older couple who lived on a nice little farm on the south side of Thornapple Lake Road, just a half a mile west, and on the other side the road, from our place on the corner.  Across the road from the Garlinger place was about where the fencerows, fields, meadows and woodlots of the property owned by our good friends, the Brumms, had its western boundry. 

       Now, Ellis and Dot Garlinger were fine people, and good neighbors too, but as a kid I didn’t really get to know them all that well.  They had no children for me to play with, and they seemed to be busy with their own lives on the farm, which was as it should be.  I would wave to them if they were out as I biked past their place, and they would wave back, but I would never have dreamed of turning in their drive for a homemade cookie and cup of hot coco like I might have with our neighbors to the north.  They were just the older folks who lived down the road to the west, we knew them, but didn’t really take that much interest in them.  – That is, until they got the peacock. 

       I can still remember the first time I heard the bloodcurdling scream coming over the hill from the west.  I was sitting on the steps of the deck on the south side of our house, eating my Captain Crunch in the cool air of a beautiful summer morning, when the sounds of what I took to be raw human agony rent the misty peace and caused me to slosh half of my milk and cereal into my lap. 

       “Mom!  Dad!  Get out here quick!”

       “What is it son?”

       “I just heard somebody screaming over there!” I said, pointing to the west. 

       “THERE IT IS AGAIN!!”

       “My word!” cried my Mom.  “Elmer, you’d better get over there and see what’s going on!  It sounds like someone might need some help!”

       Dad just started laughing at us.  “Well, you’d better get used to it, because it sounds to me like Ellis has bought himself some peahens and a peacock for the barnyard.  It’s amazing how that sound will carry on a calm day.” 

       “Are you sure?” Mom replied, “Sounds to me like somebody is getting murdered with a hatchet.” 

       “I’m sure.  I saw Ellis putting up real high chicken wire around the empty henhouse yesterday and figured something was up.  I had imagined it would be turkeys or geese he was getting ready for, but that’s a peacock if I ever heard one.  We’ll drive by later and take a look.” 

       And that’s what we did, sure enough.  That peacock and his hens were beautiful, downright gorgeous in fact, and everyone who had heard them, and then driven around to see them, said the same.  But, gorgeous or not, we would all have to put up with the agonizing cries of dying ax murder victims on a daily basis for the pleasure of having those beautiful birds ensconced in our bailiwick. 

       Truth be told, we all got pretty used to the screeching pretty quickly.  It even became a source of entertainment for us kids when friends and relatives visited, and we could act out gruesome pantomimes in concert with the sounds of the merciless bloodletting that came from down the road.

       So, now that you have some background information, I can get around to telling you about a particularly memorable fishing adventure that I had with my brother, sister, and my younger cousin Ned, on a bright sunny Autumn day later that very year. 

       As I said earlier, our friends and neighbors to the north, the Brumms, owned a large section of land to the north and west of our place on the corner.  Being so close to us, and understanding the advantages that come with growing up in union nature as country folk, they allowed my brother, sister and I to run free on their property for the purpose of exploring and enjoying its woodlots, meadows, lanes and swales, like any kid would do if given half the chance.  As long as we didn’t disturb any crops in any field that might be tilled at the time, we could do as we pleased on the Brumm place.  And we did.  It was a gift to our young lives beyond price, and I will always love Bruce and Dortha for allowing us the access to what became, for us, a veritable kingdom of wilderness adventures.  This story is about one I remember particularly well.

       My cousin Ned was over for a weekend stay with my brother, sister and I, and one of us got the idea that we should make the trek over to the pond over on the western edge of the Brumm place for the purpose of hooking minnows, catching frogs, netting dragonflies, or otherwise seeing what kind of wildlife we could trap into temporary captivity along the pond’s cattail lined banks.  As all parties were agreeable to this idea, it was not long before we had outfitted ourselves with fishing rods, butterfly nets and an assortment of boxes and jars for our intended safari. 

       The pond was an easy march from our place.  You went down an old farm lane, due west from our barnyard, for a quarter mile.  From the end of the lane you cut diagonally across a beautiful meadow that was only occasionally cut for hay.  Once on the other side of that rolling meadow, you crossed a ridge with an old fence line running along it, and then entered a brushy swale with a two-acre pond at its bottom.  The pond would gather a lot of runoff, growing quite big on a wet year, but it also had spring that fed into it, so that even in a dry year it always held a couple feet of water and very small fish could be caught in it.  The whole thing sat due north of the Garlinger farm, about a quarter mile due north off the road.

       It was a beautiful parade on the way back to the pond on that sunny afternoon.  I had the fishing pole, Joy carried the butterfly net, Joe and Ned followed in train with the boxes and jars for our intended catch.  Optimism was running high about our prospects of success.  But once we were within site of our hunting and fishing grounds we realized that the gathering of specimens for our pleasure and study might not be as easy achieved as we had hoped for at first.  When the weather is dry the old pond would stay well within its appointed banks, with a very narrow band of mud and cattails being all that had to be negotiated when fishing or frogging.  But with much rain, as we’d had over the last couple weeks, the banks widened and sponged up considerably.  There would be no getting up to the water without some very careful scouting for suitable approaches.  We split up, surrounded the pond, and began our assault in these less than optimal conditions.

       “It’s too mucky over here!”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “IT’S TOO MUCKY!!”

       “Oh, .. Well, … be careful then.”

       “My shoe just came off in the mud.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, MY SHOE’S STUCK IN THE MUD!!”

       “Well, … OK, .. pull it out and back up.”

       “OK, … I’ll have to get down on my knees and get my pants a little muddy.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, MY KNEES ARE GETTING IN THE MUD!!  I CAN’T GET IT OUT!!”

       “Hold on, I’ll come over and help you.
       “What did you say?”

       “I said, HOLD ON I’LL TRY AND HELP YOU!!”

       “Hey!  What’s going on down there”

       “Ned’s got a shoe stuck in the mud.”

       “What?”

       “I said, NED’S STUCK IN THE MUD!!  COME OVER AND GIVE US SOME HELP!!”

       “If I go around this way I’ll get in the mud too.”

       “Wha did ya say?”

       “I said, I CAN’T GET TO YOU THIS WAY!!  I’LL GET STUCK TOO IF I TRY!!”

       That’s about when we saw Mr. Garlinger come over the fenced ridge to the south of the pond.  He was on a dead run, huffing and puffing like an old man that had just sprinted a quarter mile, which is exactly what he was.  He pulled up short when he saw all four of us standing together on dry ground, one of us with dirty knees and holding a muddy sneaker.

       “WHAT IN TARNATION IS GOING ON!”

       “Hey there Mr. Garlinger.  Ned’s shoe just came off in the mud.  We got it out now.”

       Mr. Garlinger sat down on an old log, pulled a bandana out of the pocket of his bib overalls and began to mop his brow.  It took him a minute to say anything else, but when he did we all knew that he was pretty upset.

       “You kids git home right now!  And tell your mothers that you all need a spanking for scaring me half to death!  And don’t you come back here any time today!  Do you hear me!?”

       We somberly picked up our gear and headed in the direction of our house.  We were half way home before anyone spoke.

       “Boy, your neighbor sure was mad.”

       “I don’t think he can kick us off the pond.  Bruce and Dortha say we can play there any time we want.”

       “Well, …I don’t think we’d better go back and try again today.”

       “I wonder why Ellis was so upset.”

       “I don’t know.”

       “Maybe those screaming peacocks of his woke him up too early this morning and now he needs to take a nap.”

       “Mayy-beee.”

Something to take home in your creel:

        We sure as heck never did tell our mothers that we needed a spanking for scaring Mr. Garlinger half to death that day, or ever even hinted to our folks about what had happened for that matter.  Ellis is long gone to a better home now, and I never did apologize to him for upsetting him so that day.  But I’m sixty now, and much more in sympathy with him over what happened than I was back then…  The memory still makes me chuckle though. 

The Image Fisher

The Image Fisher

Something from the tackle box:

       If you want to learn, then go and ask the wild animals and the birds, the flowers and the fish.  Any of them can tell you what the Lord has done.  Every living creature is in the hands of God.  (Job 12:7-10 CEV)

The Image Fisher

I took a friend to Tinker’s Creek.

   Not a fishermen, per se,

      But one with an eye for wonders,

         And a teacher of seeing that way.

Knowing she might like to capture

      All that I so often see

            Recording with an artist’s heart

                  The glories this place can weave. 

For when I’m fishing on Tinker’s Creek

      A Spirit I often perceive

            Shining brightly in the instant  

                  But not so readily retrieved.

At least not by one with a fly rod

      And landing net in his hand

            Drawing beautiful watery dancers

                  To a short lived appearance on land.

Where the fish from the fly must be parted,

      Removed from the net in her rage,

            Gently bathed till she’s breathing more sanely,

                  And returned to her watery stage.

Time to ponder that wonder is fleeting.

      For ballerinas must be sent home

            To rest for their encore performance

                  The next time they dance through the foam.

No time to take notes in that moment

      For the one holding line, reel and rod.

            But a friend with an eye for that wonder

                  Just might catch reflections of God. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Thank you M.M and R.W. for sharing an evening on Tinker’s Creek and at the Shamrock with me, as well as for all the lessons on how to look at the world going all the way back to my youth.  Blessings be upon you both.  M.J. 

*All photos were taken by, and remain the property of, Marianne Martin of Vermontville, MI.

DeSoto’s for the Fish

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. 

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 4^th 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!

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. 

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. 

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.” 

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.