Well, I am going to give it another try and see how the second post comes out.
Just a little clarification: I mentioned in my last post that my calling was to serve. I understand that “everyone” that is a CF is called to serve. However the calling that I have is on a deeper level. I have many friends and even family that do not understand this and it is very difficult to explain. I am in no way equating myself to a Minister of the Gospel, but in order to make a point, I would have to say that this is my ministry.
I was born in my grandmother and grandfather’s house in Port Richey, Florida. At that time Port Richey was a very small town and there was no hospital. The doctor came to the house and he and my grandmother sat at the dining table drinking coffee and talking until I decided to reveal myself to the world. I have been told that I was about 15 minutes old and my dad grabbed me up and ran outside to meet relatives that were just getting to the house. The house was just down from the bridge that connected Port Richey and New Port Richey on the other side of the river. I loved that old house and when I was young, it always seemed so big. I have been back to see it after being gone so long and although it is owned by someone else now and I could not go inside, it is sooooo small now. It looks like a miniature of what I remember from so long ago.
My dad worked in Tampa and so I grew up between Tampa and Port Richey. I moved a lot as a child and always had to face the school bullies when starting a new school. I hated that part of growing up, but I believe it helped to shape me into the person I am today. I was not a fighter, but I had to learn very early how to take care of myself and my younger brother. My brother is three years younger than me, but I believe he helped defend me as much as I did him. We were always very close while growing up. I could probably write for days about the things we did, both good and bad, while learning how to survive in the world.
I was so young that I do not remember this myself, but my dad told me how I had fallen off a porch and broke my left collar bone. No one realized that it was broken until after it was healed. I guess kids were just a lot tougher back then.
In the first grade, I was horsing around on a swing set, fell off and landed on my arm breaking my left arm clean through in two places just above the wrist. A very nice older lady that lived next door came over and began to rub and massage the bone and had rubbed in back into place by the time my dad came home. My dad made a splint with a broken yard stick and a roll of gauze. Then he took me to the hospital. The lady next door had done such a good job rubbing the bone back into place that the bone did not have to be set and the splint my dad had made held it in place so good that after taking x-rays, the doctor put a cast on the arm and sent me home. I had to wear that cast for 6 weeks and I remember it well.
My mom and dad divorced when I was in the fourth grade. At that time we were living in a place called Clair Mel City in Tampa. It was a rather large subdivision and our house was the fourth house built in the area. It was a concrete block house with terrazzo floors. Up until this time we had only lived in frame houses with wooden floors, so all this concrete was something totally new to us. Part of the house had wall to wall carpet. I remember stories I can tell about the terrazzo floors and the carpet. Stories from my brother and me splitting our heads open on the terrazzo to stepping on and breaking off a needle in my foot when one was dropped on the carpet. My mom got a pair of tweezers and after finding where the needle had entered and broken off, managed to get a grip on it and pull it out. I believe of all the things that happened to my brother and me, that needle is the most prominent in my memory. To this day I am absolutely paranoid of needles on or around rugs or carpet. I sometimes think I make my wife crazy worrying about losing a needle on the carpet.
While living in that house, our neighbor had two sons, one about my brothers’ age and one very young. I discovered the hard way that the younger one was kind of dangerous. I was sitting on the ground in our yard with my brother and the older son from next door when the younger child came up behind me and hit me in the head with a yard sprinkler. Now I have to tell you that things made back then were made much more durable than they are today. There was no such thing as a plastic sprinkler. It was one of those heavy cast iron frame sprinklers with the little twirrly thing on top. He hit me right in the middle of the top on my head and split my head open. As usual, there was no doctor to be seen. That was something that was not affordable unless it was something that my dad couldn’t fix. So, he got out his razor, shaved a patch around the split, which wasn’t too hard to do since he cut our hair off in a crew cut to save money. He then cleaned it with peroxide, doused it with merthiolate, and then covered it with gauze and taped it together with bandage tape. That is how it was taken care of until it healed and then my hair was allowed to grow back.
A few years later after my parent’s divorce, we were living in a small house behind a restaurant called Dotty’s Restaurant right on Highway 19 in New Port Richey. We didn’t have much in the way of possessions, but we really cherished what we did have. I remember my brother and I were playing baseball in the little league. My brother was actually a very good player, but I was absolutely terrible. I still wanted to play and I convinced myself that if I had a good glove, I would be better. I was wrong. I did buy that glove though and one morning before school, my brother and I were in the bedroom getting ready. I asked him to toss the ball to me so I could catch it in my new glove. We were about 4 or 5 feet apart and little did I know that he was going to rare back and throw the ball just as hard as he could. Needless to say, I missed the ball and it hit me right in the eye. First I thought I had died. When I realized that I was in pain, I figured I was still alive and I was just going to be blind. Well, I didn’t go blind, but I believe that incident probably has something to do with my mental state. My wife and kids think I am crazy most of the time.
It was in this same house and same bedroom where my brother and I were horsing around again. He fell back on the bed and was kicking at me with his feet. I just happened to have a pair of those pointed tweezers that come in a chemistry set in my hand and somehow, my brother ended up with the pointed end of those tweezers stuck in the bottom of his foot. I remember that he began yelling and screaming, but I want to tell you I think that incident bothered me more than it did him. Of course I could see it and he couldn’t. He really started kicking then and the tweezers came out on their own.
I broke my left arm again in Junior High School while living in Tarpon Springs. It was during gym class and we had to wrestle. I landed wrong and broke my upper left arm. It seems like my left side has taken a beating my whole life. The doctor placed a half cast on my arm and wrapped it in an ace bandage. This was a lot less expensive than a full cast.
I have lost count of the number of nails I have stepped on, the number of times I have split my head open, I have run into a prickly pear cactus and jabbed those spikes deep into my legs, hands and/or arms, and many, many other things. I suppose that I believe if not for the grace of God, my brother and/or I would not be here today. God is good all the time and all the time, God is good!
I will stop here for today. Next time I am not sure where I will go, but I may tell a little about some of the people that were very influential and important in my life as a child. There were many and I will attempt to do them all justice and give them credit as it is due.
If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I invite you to talk to Him about it. You will never regret it. I promise.
May God bless and keep you all.
May God bless and keep you all.
