Goin' Down to Mama's

Riding and Rocking on the Purple Sage

Bookstores have a way of taking me on all kinds of interesting detours. I was shopping for something completely unrelated when a Zane Grey collection called Western Colors caught my eye. I've never been especially interested in cowboy fiction, but I've always heard that my maternal grandfather absolutely loved it. While working on a family history project last year, I interviewed my Uncle Bud (his real name is Harold Grey McCranie), who told me that he is named for two of his father's favorite authors, Harold Bell Wright and Zane Grey.

As a young couple, my grandparents had a houseful of kids and no shortage of sick or sleepy children who needed to be rocked when Grandaddy came home at night. After overseeing a road crew for the county all day, he would tend to anything that needed to be done on their small farm, then have supper and spend time with his children. My mother, who is the baby of the family, can't remember much about her father because he died in an accident when she was ten, but she remembers sitting in his lap, getting rocked to sleep while he read his Westerns.

My grandfather was just 47 when his life tragically ended. As I scanned the titles of those novels—Riders of the Purple Sage, The Rainbow Trail, Desert Gold—I had to wonder if reading them would tell me something about him. By all accounts, he was devoted to his family—not just providing for them but spending as much time with them as a hard-working man could during the Depression. But we all need an escape now and then, a chance to imagine ourselves in a different life, a different world. Was he just enjoying a good story as he rocked my mother to sleep, or did he ever imagine himself saddling up and riding the range with the mysterious gunfighter Lassiter?

What truly amazes me (and makes me completely, unabashedly jealous) is that any writer could create a story so compelling that no amount of work, no degree of exhaustion, could keep a reader away. I think I have been dreaming of writing stories like that since I was little enough to be rocked to sleep myself. And so I will hit the trail with Lassiter and that spitfire Jane Withersteen, explore the Western terrain that mesmerized my grandfather, and see what it might teach me—about the writer and the reader.

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Daddy and I have never found it difficult to say "I love you." We say it every time we talk on the phone or see each other. But I'm thinking this morning about all the things I haven't told him. So . . . 

Dear Daddy,

I'm sorry I was too chicken to learn how to float on my back when you tried to teach my buddy Sarah and me as kids. If it's any consolation, she can still float on her back and will probably teach her grandchildren the same way you taught her.

Looking back, it was really sporting of you to request a refund from management whenever a juke box would eat my nickel without delivering "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (which was always my most requested song back in the day).

I love the crazy way you think—like when you and Mama were building our house and you hauled all the insulation in a Pontiac. And removed my old piano from the kitchen by tying one end of a rope to your truck and the other to the piano. Who else but you would drive a piano out of the house?

I appreciate the reason you oppose beauty pageants: "because all young girls are beautiful, and they shouldn't be made to feel that they aren't pretty enough." (This was an especially helpful escape hatch for me in my teen years, as I never had the confidence—or the Aqua Net skills—to pursue the tiara.)

Even though we disagree with each other on a regular basis, I think you're really smart.

You're one of the funniest people I've ever met. 

You have great taste in music. (Bless you for introducing Dave to Gatemouth and Satchmo because he was wearing out those Elvis CDs.)

Now that I'm old enough—or just plain old—I understand how hard you worked and how much you gave up so that I could do anything I wanted. You gave me Auburn and Baylor and opened the door to a dream job. Without you and Mama, I never would've gotten to tell stories for a living. Think about that. I got to tell STORIES for a LIVING. All because of you.

For whatever reason, you've always seemed convinced that I'm really something:) Thank you for that vote of confidence.

I will continue to disagree with you because it keeps your mind sharp. I will continue to roll my eyes when you lecture me ("the pontificating" as we call it). On the upside, I will always listen to Delta blues and watch Gary Cooper movies. So all in all, it's a wash, right? :)

Feeling very blessed this morning.

Happy Father's Day!

Sunday Morning Serenity

Peace and justice—ever notice how closely those two are linked?  It’s hard to feel at peace when we believe we’ve suffered an injustice—or when we realize we’ve treated someone else unfairly.

This morning, I’m reading the story of Jacob, who tipped the scales of justice in both directions. Having helped his mother deceive his father, Isaac, and cheat his older brother, Essau, out of his birthright, Jacob is then cheated and deceived himself. He falls in love with Rachel and agrees to work seven years for her hand in marriage, but her father, Laban, gives Jacob his older daughter instead. Jacob has to agree to work seven more years before Laban will give him the younger daughter he loves. Over a period of 20 years, Laban takes advantage of Jacob again and again, but God blesses him again and again and ultimately tells him that it's time to go, to leave his father-in-law's house.

Most of us experienced our first taste of injustice before kindergarten. As soon as we could string together words, “That’s not fair!” entered our repertoire. And I’ll confess to the occasional revenge fantasy—the perfect pointed comeback to a mean-spirited remark or a “that’ll show 'em!” vision like the ones little Ralphie was prone to in A Christmas Story as he battled the forces trying to keep him from that Red Rider BB gun.

However, responding to somebody else’s meanness with meanness of our own never feels good. Neither does treating somebody unfairly because they did the same to us. We can’t control what other people do—only what we do. And that’s the lesson I’m seeing in Jacob this morning. You could say that he got a taste of his own medicine. And maybe that’s why he responded to Laban the way he did—Jacob answered deceit with integrity and fair play. But as he grew stronger, as he grew confident in God’s ability to bless him in a difficult situation, he followed the Lord’s command and left Laban behind. The two relatives eventually made their peace, asking God to be the witness to the covenant they made together.

Jacob didn’t seek revenge, but he wasn’t a doormat, either. He did the right thing until God led him away from an impossible situation. That’s a lesson I’m trying to learn—the difference between what I can control and what I can’t and the faith and wisdom to know when its time to move on, in peace. I’m not sure it’s a lesson that will ever be completed. I think it’s one we all have to work on day by day. But I believe it's the only way to replace “that’s not fair!” with “peace like a river in my soul.”

[Image by Gareth James Foreman @ Freerangestock.com]