Biscuits For Sopping

I loved my Granny and Grandpa Tharpe’s old house. It had everything a little boy could want or need. It had Granny and Grandpa for loving, lizards and toads for chasing, worms and crickets for fishing, chinaberry trees for climbing and live oaks for shading. It had grits and gravy for eating, ‘nana pudding for sweetening, homemade biscuits for sopping and with that I’m a stopping, because that should be more than enough to satisfy.

It was just a little rectangle of a house with asbestos siding, and jalousie windows covering the front porch so the kids could sleep outside, out of sight and out of mind. It had an old carport hanging off the back with a laundry room attached filled with all kinds of sundry stuff.
It couldn’t have been much more than 1200 square feet at the most, carport included. It sat on the corner of West 17th Street and Drake Avenue smack dab in the middle of the working man’s section of Panama City, Florida.

In my memory it still sits in a place and time when men were men and women were women, and children knew their place. The roles were well established back then.

Grandpa worked for as long as it took to put food on the table and a roof overhead and Granny raised the kids and cooked some of the best Southern fried meals that ever came off a stove. Late in the evening when nothing but a whippoorwill or two stirred, if you listened closely you could actually hear the comforting sound of arteries hardening all around you.

Crisco was the queen of Drake Avenue and cholesterol her king.

When I was a kid, Drake Avenue was a dirt road. Teenage boys drove their GTO’s as fast as conscience would allow down Drake Avenue just to see how high the dust would rise in their wake. They were hoping against hope that a young girl would notice and somehow be attracted to that rolling rooster tail of theirs and come take a look; and in one of those mysteries of the human psyche, sometimes it worked. After a little rain to settle the dust, you could make the best dirt clods to clobber your brother with from that road.

It seems that most of my memories, at least the pleasant ones, before the age of fifteen when I met Mary of course, were born and raised in that little memory box of a house.

I was feeling a little nostalgic the other night. I wanted to go home you know. So I decided to head down to Panama City to see how the old house was faring.

I jumped on that modern day magic carpet ride called Google Earth and typed that old familiar address into the search thingamabob, and before long I felt like superman. Faster than a speeding bullet, I watched as I was transported to my summer childhood home and all of those warm and lovely memories.

I clicked on the little man in upper right hand corner. Set him down on that blue lined street and after an adjustment or two, I was standing in the middle of West 17th street looking at Granny’s old house and boy was I disappointed.

It didn’t glow. It didn’t reach out to greet me. It just sat there looking kinda sorry, run down and small.

It was just an old asbestos box. It contained no memories of good times. It contained nothing. Then I got to marveling about how I was feeling, because I was feeling a little lost; and for some reason, I was fighting back tears.

Lord, how I wanted to see Granny in that kitchen window and Grandpa sitting under that old carport on a rickety lawn chair smoking a Pall Mall. The red glow at the end of that cigarette always made me feel safe and secure. I can still close my eyes and see that glow and smell the pungent peace and contentment on the air to this very day.

With Granny and Grandpa in it, that house was a warm oasis filled with love and peace; but without them, it was just a bunch of organized sticks, a glove missing a hand.

My mind was sinking pretty deep into disappointment and melancholy when I heard a familiar voice reminding me that it was about 10:30 and time for a backrub and foot rub. Backrub number 15,510, and foot rub number 31,020 give or take a few, if my math is correct.

At the sound of that well-loved voice all of my mental wanderings faded away and I was reminded that home is not a house. It is not a dwelling. Home is a presence, the presence of the ones you love and especially of the ones who love you.

Anywhere else is just a place, a location, a dot on a map, but home is where memories are born and raised to adulthood. Home is where love never fades; it only mellows and sweetens with age. Home is where your heart can rest and your soul can find peace and quiet.

No theological breakthroughs or veins of wisdom in this one. Just a reminder of what is important in a world that seeks to distract and destroy.

Family is a gift of incalculable value given by God. Protect it and cherish it and never take it for granted, for life is shorter than you think.
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Love,
Pastor Tony.    
 
 
 

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