Tribute to My "Uncle Junior"

I grew up in the foothills of the beautiful mountains of Upstate South Carolina.  You don’t think about the mountains when you see them every day, but they are always there, strong and stately, majestic and colorful, forming the background of your life.  I didn’t think about those mountains until I moved to another part of our state that has no mountains and very few respectable hills and I realized how much the mountains of my childhood added to my life. 

Until a few days ago, there hadn’t been a day in my 61 years that Dortcha Smith, Jr., or Uncle Junior as I grew up calling him, wasn’t a part of the landscape of my life.  And it’s not until I received word that he’d finished his earthly race and had gone home that I began to think about the strength and the color he added to my world. 

Uncle Junior, like my dad, married into the Hester family of five daughters and two sons.  The Hesters liked to visit each other.  I remember many drives from our home in Greenville to Buddy Avenue in Greer, a journey which, in those days, took you through the country, not the sprawling suburbs.  With no cell phones, social media and only three television channels, we made time to sit and talk to each other, to talk about our lives and enjoy our families.  When we would go to Uncle Junior and Aunt Thelma’s house, I’d hear him talk about how his garden was doing and some car he had bought because he knew he could fix it up and resell it for a profit.   

Other times the entire Hester family would gather for a kind of conversation convention.  These usually took place at my Uncle Horace and Aunt Francis’ home, because my grandmother lived next door and could supervise the proceedings.  Big group meetings were segregated by gender, though being a young child, I had clearance to wander back and forth between groups.  The Hester sisters and their older daughters would gather inside the house and facetiously compete to see who had the dirtiest house, least money, and craziest husband.  The men, most of them Hester sister spouses, would sit outside, reminding me of a group of men sitting on a bench at the mall waiting for their wives to finish their shopping.  It was in this circle, this Hester husbands support group that Uncle Junior would shine.  When that big grin would spread across his face, you knew he had a story to tell.  It might be a one-liner or a slowly developing story, but you knew the punch line was coming.  And if you thought the joke was funny or not, you had to be entertained by how deeply convinced Junior was that it was funny. 

He brought a smile and a laugh to every place he went and every person he met.  When I think of my Uncle Junior, I think of words Paul wrote to Philemon,

(Philemon 1:7) Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people.

Dortcha Smith, my Uncle Junior, was a Minister of Joy because he so often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.  He reminded us often that life is a gift and a miracle, a journey we were meant to enjoy, not just endure. 

Many of my Uncle’s loyal customers at his barber shop walked out feeling better about life, not just because their hair looked better, but because, while in that chair, they’d seen a big smile, heard a good story, and shared a good laugh. 

My dad often sat in Junior’s chair and usually had some story to share with the rest of us when he got home. 

My brother, Barry, received his very first haircut at Uncle Junior’s shop.  We have the pictures to prove it. 

My Uncle Junior was involved in a first in my life too; not a haircut but something more important for my future.  Junior gave me the first invitation I received to speak at a church other than my home church.  I was fourteen years old and he was in charge of arranging programs for Pleasant Grove’s Baptist Men.  He invited me to talk to them about an experience I’d had with illness and God’s healing grace.  I still have the notes I prepared for that evening.  I was so nervous I read the wrong scripture.  I don’t think my talk planted any new ideas in the minds of those Baptist Men.  But I cherish the confidence my uncle had in me to welcome me into his church to share.  That gave me more confidence as I grew to understand what I felt called to do with my life. 

Junior cherished family.  I remember when he became a grandfather because the topic of his stories shifted from the funny things people say and do to the most adorable brightest and most beautiful grandchildren ever to set foot upon the earth. 

And I remember a time he helped our family through a tough time.  My dad was a patient in the Veteran’s Hospital in Oteen, NC and had been there for several weeks.  With him unable to work and provide, our family was struggling to get by.  I just happened to walk into our living room one evening to see my mom’s siblings and in-laws standing around her.  Tears were rolling down my mother’s face.  My Uncle Junior had his wallet in his hand.  With his other hand, he was pressing a stack of cash into mom’s hand, reassuring her that everything would work out. Things did work out, because we belonged to a family that supported each other in life’s tough times. 

My Uncle knew his own tough times.  He and my Aunt Thelma faced every parent’s worst nightmare in losing a child, my Cousin Rick, in death.  That loss also left my Cousin Pam an only child and the sole caregiver for her aging parents.  Pam, how you shouldered that mantle.  How you gave yourself daily to caring for your mom and dad through tough choices and heartbreaking changes, through times when they hardly knew who you were, but you never forgot who they were. 

You loved them all the way home.  We honor you for that today.  One day, on heaven’s shore, they’ll thank you for honoring them through your sacrificial love.

When I remember Dortcha Smith, I’ll smile.

And so will many of you.

What a great way to be remembered! 

Memories Bring Loved Ones to Life

Christmas Eve finds me keeping a family tradition--I'm making Chex Mix.  I've made a few gallons of that addictive snack every year for as long as I can remember.  I love to eat it.  I enjoy sharing it.  But I've learned I make the mix for a more personal reason.  When I dig out the recipe each Christmas, my rare venture into the culinary arts makes me feel close to my dad. 

From the time I was a small child, my father made what he called "party mix."  The recipe and the process for bringing it into reality evolved through the years.  Dad learned that a brown paper grocery bag was the perfect container in which to mix the varieties of Chex the peanuts, pretzels and, sometimes, Cheez-its with all the precision of a Medieval alchemist.  He developed a sauce shaker, a Peter Pan peanut butter jar with holes punched in the top, with which to gently apply the melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, salt, onion powder and garlic to the mixture without over-saturating any part of it.  Dad liked Cheerios in his party mix so, despite the negative comments from some consumers, that cereal was included in the holy recipe. He had a collection of tins in which he put the treasured treat when it came out of the oven.  I believe he hid a tin or two away from the rest of us to ensure he would get at least a taste of the fruits of his labor. 

Emotions well up in me as I make my own batch again this year.  I feel a tinge of sadness and miss my dad as I replicate his recipe if not his results.  But more than sadness, I feel closeness to my father as I bask in good memories and carry on some semblance of his tradition. 

I don't think my father made his family famous party mix in order to create memories in his son's heart.  He simply wanted to share something delicious with his family.  But I've learned that many of the memories that bring our loved ones to life in our hearts are of small things and everyday events that recreate the aroma of their character and the taste of their joy. 

May good memories bring someone you've loved to life this Christmas. 

The Runaway: When to Break a Promise

This is an excerpt from my new book

Messages from Mayberry

Chapter Three

The Runaway:

When to Break a Promise

“Don’t break the rules and don’t break a promise.” Most of us have been hearing such advice as long as we can remember. But sometimes the right and loving thing just isn’t that simple, is it? As Opie says, these issues “sure mix us up.”

Barney finds the squad car parked in front of a fireplug and writes Andy a ticket for breaking the law. Andy decides to deal with his crime by letting Barney play the part of the judge and hear Andy plead his case. By the time Andy has presented all his evidence and the defense rests, Barney has learned a big les- son. What he knows about Andy is more important than what he knows about the parking violation. He knows that Andy is, as he testified, “an honest man and an honest sheriff.” And the more Barney hears, the more he realizes that Andy wouldn’t have knowingly parked the squad car in front of a fire hydrant.

Finding evidence we can use to accuse people of doing wrong isn’t very difficult. But before we write them up or write them off, we need to remember what else we know about a per- son’s character and faithfulness. That doesn’t mean that good people don’t make thoughtless or foolish mistakes. But remembering the good we know about the people in our lives can make us think twice before we throw the book at them.

When Andy goes outside, trying to figure out how his squad car got in front of a fireplug, Opie, standing nearby, voluntarily spills the beans and tells on his friends for pushing the squad car in front of the hydrant. He told on them, he adds, though he had promised not to tell. Andy applauds Opie’s honesty, but tells him never to break a promise, never to go back on his word. Don’t you just know that painting life in such broad strokes is going to backfire on Andy?

The backfire comes when a little boy named George shows up at the Taylor house with Opie. George has run away from home, but refuses to give his full name or reveal where he’s from. And when Andy asks Opie to help him out by telling him who George is, Opie refuses to help because he’s made a promise and, following Andy’s rule, refuses to break it.

A little later, at the courthouse, the sheriff from neighboring Eastmont calls to report a missing little boy, George Foley. The description perfectly matches the runaway George at the Taylor home, so Andy faces the challenge of getting his promise- keeping son’s permission to do his duty as sheriff.

Andy fights this battle in a very thoughtful way—he tries to take away the need for the foolish promise of secrecy. He tries to understand why George has run away from home. By listening to this young cowpoke, Andy learns that George doesn’t like to be bossed around by his parents and believes that the life of a cowboy is free of such order-taking. If George decides for him- self that running away is a bad idea, Andy believes, then there will be no need to keep the promise or the secret.

Maybe we can learn a lesson from this—we won’t have to worry about breaking or keeping promises so much if we will seek to understand and to help others see the wisdom of doing the right thing.

About this time, Barney shows up with a picture he’s drawn of the lost boy. He took down George Foley’s description, consulted a book on police sketches, and drew his picture. But Barney was so caught up in using modern police methods in the search that he didn’t see the real George Foley right in front of him.

We can be so much like Barney, can’t we? We talk so much about reaching people, strategies and programs and classes and all the rest. And we need to do our very best in reaching out to others. But sometimes we get so caught up in the machinery of reaching people that we don’t see the people right under our noses. The people are there. We just need to reach out and touch them.

Andy uses another tool to help George think about what he’s doing. He helps him count the cost of his decision to run away. George faces the hard fact that he can’t carry the 600 sandwiches he’ll need for the long hike to Texas in his wagon. He doesn’t have snowshoes to get him over the mountains either. Young George also begins to see the cost of the many good things he’s running away from, like pork chops and fried apple rings and a game of catch with his dad. George decides that it’s time to break the promise and call home.

Opie, still clinging to the “keep a promise no matter what” philosophy, accuses Andy of breaking his word and letting him down.

Now Andy has the chance to help Opie and us learn some- thing very important about promises. Sometimes we have to break them, not to do something selfish, but to keep a bigger promise.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment, the most important promise we can make to God, is to love Him with all that we are and to love others as we love ourselves. We have to keep these big promises, even if keeping them means breaking some smaller ones.

As Andy teaches Opie, you can’t obey a “no swimming” sign and let a little boy drown. And you can’t keep a promise not to tell about a boy running away when his parents are worried to death and an entire community is looking for him. To keep such promises would not honor God and would not show love for people.

For Christians, life is about keeping our biggest promises, to love God and love others, and praying for wisdom to know when to keep and when to break all lesser commitments. Living by the law of love will make us more faithful followers of Jesus, the kind of people who help runaways find their way home.