​Words Are Cheap

The best I can recall it was early August, the dog days of summer in the panhandle of Florida and hot enough to make your eyeballs sweat. I was in Granny’s backyard doing what young boys did back then in a time before video games or Ritalin. I was digging holes, looking for Catawba worms, whittling this or that and generally trying to find some mischief to get into. I was skilled at the task, so it didn’t take very long. As I cast about for an evil scheme, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Miss Irene, Granny’s infamous neighbor, had a nice little watermelon patch in her backyard and there is nothing like a watermelon on a warm afternoon.

I think I’ve told y’all about her before. She was a sight. Built like a Frigidaire, about seven feet tall with red eyes. I swear she had red eyes. She always wore a nondescript dirty house frock, and she never washed her hair; she figured cleanliness would alter her mystic, I suppose. She lived in a house that Swamp Witch Hattie would have been proud to call her own, and she had a voice that rattled the windows like a mid-summer thunderstorm.

That woman scared your average child silly, but she downright terrified me. I half expected that somewhere in the bowels of her ramshackle house there was a huge boiling pot for rendering children down.

That being said, I was hungry, and those watermelons were calling my name loud and clear just like a mystical siren of old. So I figured, well you know, maybe I could sneak over there and borrow one of those watermelons when nobody was lookin’.

They looked mighty good. They weren't the big ones; they were those little round ones that sometimes have yellow fruit inside. Now that makes them extra good, but only a skilled watermelon thumper like my Granny can tell if it’s yellow or not.

So when the coast was clear, I went over there and borrowed one of those watermelons. I fully intended to give it back, I really did, well most of it anyway.

So there I was sitting under the Catawba tree with my back up against the old trunk, enjoying the shade. I was just starting in on that watermelon when Granny wanders out of the house to put the wash on the line, and while hanging up her dainties, she notices me eating that watermelon.

So she goes in and gets me a spoon, and one for herself, and we sit down together and thoroughly enjoy that watermelon. It tasted especially good considering the heat and the company.

We talked about this and that and about how great the watermelon was while we ate and then she thanked me and said:

          “Now that sure hit the spot. How much did that set you back?”

I hemmed and hawed for a little while, but in time honesty took over and I told her that I had well, pilfered it from Miss Irene’s house.

Granny never skipped a beat, with an evil grin on her face she said,

       “That’s fine, no problem. Just go over and ask Miss Irene what
         she wants for it, and pay the woman.”

Now I was eight years old, I didn’t have a dime to my name and didn’t have any prospects of getting a dime.  She had me.

I told her I was sorry. I told her I would even tell Miss Irene I was sorry if she would go with me, but Granny just grinned and said in that no nonsense tone I knew so well:

       “No, no, that won’t wash. The proof is always in the pudding.
        Words are cheap. If you are really sorry then you’ve got to go apologize,
        and then pay Miss Irene."

So, I spent the entire rest of that day weeding a watermelon patch and cleaning that woman’s backyard; worrying for my life the whole time. I swear I could hear a pot of water boiling all afternoon, and I just knew it had my name on it.

I really was sorry by the way, mainly that I got caught, and skillfully at that; but I also knew that I had done Miss Irene wrong and needed to make it right. Granny hadn’t dragged me to Sunday school for nothing. On top of that, I also knew that just saying I was sorry wasn’t enough. Action was required to balance the books and prove the sorry.

To tell the truth I just wanted to escape into my memories a little today, so I wrote this old story down and let my mind wander back for a time; but there are a couple of lessons that bear pointing out, especially for you parents and maybe even you grandparents out there.

Mainly, don’t browbeat your children, but don’t let them get away with it either. Children need direction and sometimes that might mean they need some hard lessons taught.

​I wouldn’t recommend acting like a co-conspirator as my Granny did from time to time, unless of course that’s your thing; but allowing those in your charge to get away with wrong is harmful to them. It will damage them in the long run and make their life much more difficult than it has to be.   

I know that today the world preaches that wrong is not wrong, that sin is not sin and nothing is black and white, only gray; but deep down we all know better than that.

So love your children and raise them up in the way that they should go.

Oh, and just in case you didn’t catch the reference, drag those kids to Sunday School on Sunday morning, and stay for a while yourself. An example goes a long way in the mind of a child.     

Love,
Pastor Tony.
 

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