Author: gettingofftheinterstate

by Donna Poole

Even the tiny, white frame building seemed to shiver, and a few more flakes of paint drifted away in the north wind. The panes in the stained-glass windows rattled. It was an unusually cold Sunday for the middle of November in Southern Michigan. Inside the building the handful of people waiting for the service to start huddled around the large, square floor register. Underneath it, the old furnace moaned and groaned, trying to keep out the cold.

“I guess this is everyone who’s coming,” the young pastor called from behind the pulpit. “Might as well find a seat, and we’ll get started.”

Laughing and talking, the people slowly left the warmth of the register and moved to one of the six small pews on each side of the auditorium. There was plenty of room left after everyone had found a seat. The piano player rubbed numb hands together and struck the opening chords of the Doxology. Everyone stood. The young pastor raised a hand to lead the singing, and the congregation sang loudly, “Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heav’ny host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Only one person sang the long, drawn-out “Amen.” It was Berta, a middle-aged woman with the mannerisms of a child.

“You may be seated,” the young pastor said. People tried not to smile. The pastor was new and hadn’t yet lost his formality or learned country ways. Everyone knew you sat after the Doxology; they didn’t need to be told. They sat. Except Berta. Noticing the four front pews on each side were empty, she walked up to the first one on the left-hand side and sat.

“I don’t want you to feel lonely up here all by yourself,” she said to the pastor.

“Thank you, Miss Williams,” he said in an even more formal tone.

Berta laughed loudly and slapped her knee. “No one don’t never call me that. I’m Berta. Say it right.”

Now people were grinning. “Alright then. Thank you, Berta.”

The ushers came forward to take the offering. They started at the back and when they got to the front pew Berta stood, as she often did, put in a five, and made change. It took her a long time to count out four ones. This week, there were mostly bigger bills in the plate, and she protested loudly.

“I can’t afford to give no more than a buck, and there’s only three ones in here for me to take out!”

“It’s okay, Berta,” the usher said quietly. “I got you.” He pulled out his own wallet and gave her a dollar. Satisfied, she sat down.

The pastor groaned. He’d grown up in the city and had always attended large, formal churches, even when he’d been in seminary. Why had God called him to this country church?

Don’t expect me to stay here long, Lord. I don’t think these people are capable of learning anything I have to teach. I’m going to resign on the first of the year.

The song service continued enthusiastically. This was the part of the service everyone enjoyed. When it was finished, the piano player closed the lid to the old black piano with a bang and found her seat in one of the back pews.

“Please, ladies, gentlemen, and children,” the pastor said, “turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews.”

“We don’t got no children,” Berta said. “Bobby’s the only kid here today, and he’s ‘most twelve years old.”

The pastor sighed. “Thank you, Berta. Now, congregation, you doubtless remember the book of Hebrews was originally written in Greek for a Greek-speaking people. We can understand it better if we know a little Greek ourselves. So, let’s review some words we learned from the book of Hebrews last Sunday.”

He was a high-tech guy himself, but this church had nothing electronic, so he’d had to resort to old school. He wheeled out the large chalk board with the Greek words and their English translations written on it.  

Farmer Brown suddenly noticed how itchy his overalls were. It took Berta about five minutes to start snoring, and she snored like a trucker who’d been driving for ten hours longer than the legal eleven hours allowed.

Sallie loved the Lord and supported the new young preacher and tried to pay attention, but all she could think of was how sore her butt was and why they didn’t have pew cushions like the church in town.

A sudden gust of wind blew the door open, and a mangy mut staggered in, whining and shivering.

“Someone, remove that dog from the premises at once!” the young pastor thundered.

No one moved.

The pastor eyed the dog. He was afraid of dogs, and everyone knew it. It wasn’t a good quality for a country pastor to have, because every farmhouse seemed to have a dog or two. He sighed and remembered his dear, departed mother’s oft repeated advice, “If you want a job done right, do it yourself.”

He stepped down from the pulpit and made his way toward the dog. Great. Not even a collar. How am I supposed to get ahold of this thing? Lord, give me courage.

He reached out a hand, expecting a snarl and a bite, but the dog looked at him with big brown eyes and licked his hand.

“Come on, boy,” the pastor said, patting his knee and heading for the open door, shivering himself as he felt the north wind blowing through it. To his surprise, the dog slowly heaved himself to his feet and staggered after him. This was going to be easier than he’d thought.

“Wait!” Bobby jumped up from his pew. “Preacher, I can see all his ribs! That dog is half starved. You can’t send him back outside. What would Jesus do?”

The young pastor stared down at the dog, and it leaned into his leg panting for breath. He was surprised to see his hand reach down and pet the dog’s head. His voice sounded husky as he asked, “Well, I don’t exactly know what Jesus would do. Do any of you have some ideas?”

“I suppose Jesus might start by shutting that door. It’s freezing in here,” a deacon called out.

Everyone laughed, even the preacher, and he and the dog headed back to the big floor register.

“I think Jesus would feed him,” Bobby said. “And I brought a lunch, because sometimes you talk so long about Greek words that don’t mean anything to me my stomach starts making noises.”

“Is that so?” The young pastor laughed. “Well, I’m only half-way done with my long sermon, so you better get out that lunch and share it with this poor, hungry creature.”

The dog ate more of the lunch than Bobby did, and the pastor watched, grinning. Then he went back to the pulpit, pushed the blackboard out of the way, and told the story about how Jesus fed five-thousand people and maybe a dog or two with a boy’s lunch. Farmer Brown forgot about how itchy his overalls were. Berta stayed awake.

When everyone had left, the pastor turned out the lights. He woke the dog who was still sleeping on the warm register. “Come on dog, let’s go home. I guess I’ll need a dog, since I’m going to be here awhile longer than I thought. These people have a lot to teach me. I just hope and pray I’m capable of learning.”

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

by Donna Poole

I’m good at a few things, mediocre at most things, and I really stink at several things. Saying goodbye is one thing I’m horrible at, and that’s why I sympathize with the tale of the old tree. He’s been around since the whisper of Potawatomi moccasins rustled through the grass beneath his branches, but…. Well, I should let him tell you his own story. He can say it much better than I. Now, if I can just keep from interrupting. That’s another thing I’d get an F in if this were report card day.

Come with me to the old tree. It isn’t hard to find. See that? The old maple towers above any other tree in the area. It’s a beauty in the fall. Even with that shelf fungus growing on its side, a sure sign of decay within, its leaves turn a glorious orange that rivals the best autumn sunsets. Only a few leaves still cling to its branches now; the rest are piled in glorious abundance beneath. It’s an unusually warm day for late October in Michigan. You’ll be cozy sitting here under the tree with me. Lean your back against his trunk and listen well. He speaks softly.

***

Welcome, friends. Do you have time to listen to the ramblings of an old man? I’m honored you want to hear my story. Please, don’t look so alarmed. That creaking you hear doesn’t mean I’m going to fall. I will some decade soon, but not today. Let my sounds, the blue of the sky, the winds from the south, and the warm sun on your face soothe you as you listen, because all of these things are part of my story. It’s a story of change, and change is in the air. Just a week ago there was a huge spike of bird migration during the night while the people in the house slept. Over 400,000,000 birds flew over the Great Lakes, and some passed over me. I could hear their nocturnal flight calls, telling each other their position and sending the message, “Hurry, hurry. Old man winter is coming.”

How do they know? Scientists say instinct; theologians say God tells them. I say what is instinct but the whisper of the Creator in the ears of the creature. I hear the whisper myself; I’ve heard it for many years, especially in the spring when it’s time for new leaves and in the fall when it’s time for me to let my leaves shine in a short season of beauty before they drop and die. Autumn is melancholy time, a time for poets to dip pens in tears and write beautiful words like, “The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let things go.”

Lovely? Yes. The way of all nature. Yes. But so very hard. I’ve seen so many goodbyes in my time.

I don’t know how long I’ve stood here, but I was growing long before this gravel road existed. Not far to my south the Potawatomi traveled a simple footpath now called Squawfield Road, and some of them stopped here and rested in my shade. They were kind to the first settlers in the region and never a threat. It was a sad day in November of 1840 when the government forced Chief Baw Beese and his gentle tribe to leave Michigan and go to Kansas. The settlers lined the road to say goodbye, many of them in tears. A marker commemorating the Potawatomi stands just a few miles from where I do.   

I recall the first house built near me. A family was heading farther west and stopped to camp here for the night. In the morning, I heard the wife say, “Husband, you travel on if you want to, but I’m staying right here.” And so. the husband built a small house, and stay they did. He built a barn too and became a farmer. Their children climbed my branches and spent happy hours playing in my shade. Many years later, the wife noticed horses pulling wagons of lumber up over the barn hill. That’s when she discovered her husband had decided to build a bigger house just to the north of the little one, and she was not pleased. When the big house was finished, I saw her carrying linens and kitchen ware up over the barn hill from the little house to the big one, and I saw tears running down her face. She’d spent many happy years in the little house, and goodbyes are not easy.

Her son and his wife moved into the little house. They had two children of their own and I lost count of how many foster children they cared for. I loved having so many happy children playing nearby.

I’ve seen so many changes. I remember when the Ford Model Ts began replacing horses and wagons. One old farmer refused to buy one. The neighbors teased him. When he plodded by with his horses and wagon, they’d laugh and holler, “Get a truck!”

One spring torrential rain turned the dirt roads to mud and all those Model Ts got stuck. The old farmer came along with his horses and pulled each one out, grinned, and said, “Get a horse!”

When the old folks in the big house died, I wept right along with the family. It’s not easy saying goodbye.

The big house didn’t stay empty for long. The son and his wife moved into it. The little house sat empty for a time. A tenant farmer lived there for a while. Once, it even housed chickens.

Then one summer, fifty years ago, a young couple with a little girl moved into the house. I knew what was happening; my leaves don’t miss many whispers. A small country church down at the corners had hired a new pastor and they were renting this house for him to use as a parsonage. I watched as that family grew to six, and the couple in the big house grew old. I was growing older too, and bigger. Children could no longer reach my branches to climb them.

And then the old couple in the big house died, and I cried again. They were good people. They’d helped many children, and they’d cared for the land.

Once again people carried household belongings up over the barn hill from the little house to the big one. A kind neighbor had bought the house and had given it to the pastor and his family. If you think there are no good people left in the world, you should stand where I’ve stood for a few hundred years and hear the things I’ve heard.

By the time the pastor and his family moved into the big house two of the four children were already in college and one was getting ready to graduate from high school, but there was still one young child. If you haven’t guessed by now, I love children. This little girl was six years old, and she declared I was her tree. She couldn’t climb me, but one day she did climb a nearby tree and got stuck.

She hollered for her parents to come help her, but they were inside and didn’t hear. The farmer who had moved into the little house was outside, and he came and helped her out of the tree. She was embarrassed to need help and furious with her parents for not hearing her. It’s almost thirty years later, and I think she’s still a little upset with them.

When the college children came home to visit and left again, I watched the mom and dad stand outside and wave goodbye until the car taillights disappeared down the road. Goodbye is hard.

The parents grew older long before they expected to, and I can tell they are still having a hard time adjusting to it. Sometimes now the mom needs help getting into the house. For several years cancer and its brutal treatments left her unable to do many things, and her youngest daughter and her son-in-law took over. That same daughter is a photographer, and she loves taking photos of me. She still says I’m her tree.

When the adult kids come home now, they bring a troop of grandchildren with them, fifteen at last count. Sometimes the younger ones play outside, and I love hearing the laughter.

When their family leaves, the mom and dad still follow them outside and wave until the taillights are out of sight. They have many years of practice saying goodbye, but it doesn’t seem to get any easier. I see tears on their faces sometimes, and the mom whispers, “Via Con Dios, go with God.” I expect I will still be here when the pastor and his wife go to be with God, and I will once again shed tears with the family.

 Who will live in the big house next? Will I still be here? A maple tree lives 150-300 years. I can feel a change coming, a coldness in my rings. The third child born to the pastor and his wife had a favorite book when he was a little boy. It was titled, “The Dead Tree.” It told how a tree fell, became a home, sheltering small wild things, and eventually crumbled away, enriching the earth. I’d like to think that would happen to me, but since I’m in someone’s yard, I suppose when I fall, I’ll be chopped up and hauled away. I hope I become firewood and warm someone’s home, useful to the last ember. And I hope someone feels a little sad when I’m gone.

Thank you for listening to my story. Perhaps you can tell it to your children, the story of an old tree who lived when the only sound was the whisper of moccasins, who saw the first roads, cars, trucks and tractors, the first phone and electric wires, the first satellite dishes, and through it all did what God made him to do. He gave shade to all who needed it and beauty to all who would look. And every day his branches pointed high to the Creator, higher than any of the other trees around. And he knew that there was one little girl who never stopped loving him, not even when she grew up.

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer

by Donna Poole

It was a night of miracles. The first one happened when my daughter asked me to come outside at the late, almost turn into a pumpkin hour of eight o’clock, and I didn’t have on my pajamas. If circumstances permit, I’m usually ready for bed by seven-thirty. Blame my mom for that. It was a rule growing up; you must be in bed by seven-thirty even if you were a senior in high school. And lights out. No reading. She never knew I held my book up to the little window and read by the neighbor’s outside light.

But I digress. On that unforgettable night, Thursday, October 10, 2024, Kimmee begged me to come outside. Why? On Wednesday, a deep black hole on the sun known by the name of Sunspot #3848 lined itself directly up with the earth and let go with a massive flare. The coronal mass ejection erupted toward us at 2 million miles an hour. That sounds scary, doesn’t it? But all it means is this massive geomagnetic storm gave us here in southern Michigan an excellent chance to see something on many people’s bucket lists, the northern lights.

Kimmee has desperately wanted to see the northern lights ever since she was a little girl and missed a chance. Her brother came home from his second shift job, woke us up and asked, “Want to see the norther nights?”

Did we! We woke Kimmee. No, she definitely did not want to get out of bed, so we went without her. Later she was upset with herself and the rest of us. We should have forced her to get out of bed rather she wanted to or not, don’t you know. After that, she determined she would take every opportunity to see them and the rest of us would too, rather or not we were in our pajamas or in our beds, don’t you know.

That’s why I was outside shivering Thursday evening. Kimmee’s husband, Drew was outside too, and so was my husband, John. He had finished preaching at the nursing home service and Kimmee had captured him before he had a chance to get in the house.

Sometimes you can see the northern lights by taking a picture of them with your cell phone even when you can’t see them with your eyes, and that was what was happening. John and I decided to drive down to the next gravel road where it was open in all directions and look from there.

We were able to get pictures of the northern lights in every direction, not just north. But John kept asking, “Are you ready to go now?”

“No, I’m not ready to go! This is a night of miracles. Can’t you just enjoy it?”

I didn’t say it but I sighed inwardly. No romantic hand holding? No whispers of endearment under this sky sparkling with stars and cradling a sliver of moonlight? No “I love you” to make the pinks and greens we see in these photos fade next to the beauty of our love lasting for fifty-five years of marriage?

A voice rudely interrupted my thoughts. “Are you ready to go NOW?”

My inward sigh erupted outward. “Okay. Let’s go.”

We got home, and John dashed for the bathroom saying, “I haven’t been in here since five o’clock when I left for town!”

And then I laughed. Poor guy. No wonder he kept asking if I was ready to go. He was ready to go! Every day is miracles and mundane.

Pajamas on and cozy in bed it was lights out time, but around ten our phones lit up with calls and texts from Kimmee and Drew. “Come to the garden, please! You can see the lights with your eyes now, not just with your phones!”

I hesitated for a moment. I’m seventy-six not sixteen; would I get another opportunity to see the northern lights? On the other hand, the macabre creatures we call wolf spiders lurk in the garden and in the big yard between the house and the garden. You hear their gargantuan bodies rustling through leaves when they creepy-crawl at night. If you shine a flashlight, their demonic eyes gleam malevolent thoughts of your demise.

“John, will you come out to the garden with me?”

“No, thanks. I’m good right here.”

Goodbye forever, my dear John. You stay right there and be cozy, and leave me to brave the creatures of the night alone. I’m off now, to fulfil my quest, and perhaps slay a dragon or two, ere I reach the promised land of the garden, but you enjoy your slumber.

Our happy marriage of fifty-five years is partially due to the fact I don’t verbalize quite all my thoughts.

No sooner did the back door slam than Drew came running and grabbed my arm. “Dad coming?”

“No.”

“Too bad!”

“Yes.”

And then I stood next to Kimmee and Drew and watched the magic unfold. Hues of pink and green waved, folded, and spiked up into the sky. I knew I’d never have words to describe it. I thought of the Apostle John who saw the wonders of heaven and was told not to write them all in the book of Revelation. Perhaps he didn’t have the vocabulary. And I don’t have words for the northern lights. Magical, mysterious, wondrous, amazing? No. These won’t do.

I say with the Psalmist, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” –Psalm 19:1

I forgot all about the lurking wolf spiders and focused on the sky. Yes, that’s an allegory, friends. You connect the dots.

I wondered if the people I love in heaven were looking down at the display even as I was looking up. And then I realized that even such a stunning, breathtaking sight as I was seeing would pale compared to seeing the glory of God in person the way people in heaven do every day.

About an hour later I was curled up next to John getting warm and trying to say what I’d seen. I told him about a picture I’d gotten of Kimmee and Drew standing together, gazing up at the sky. I didn’t say I wished we had been together. We were together now; we loved each other more than the day we’d married, and that itself was a miracle.

“I should have come,” John said.

“It’s okay. Maybe there will be another time.”

And perhaps there will be. Because life is composed of the mundane and the miracles with a bit of the macabre thrown in, just to keep us looking up.

The end

Note: Photo credits: Kimmee Kiefer

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

by Donna Poole

In my favorite photo of Reece and me he has blond almost white curls, and I have dark waves. In my most recent photos of the two of us he has dark curls, and my hair is gray almost white. Almost sixty years separate us; I turned seventy-six this summer, and he turns seventeen today.

I used to hold Reece’s hand and help him walk; now I sometimes hold his arm to get up the steps into church. It seems like yesterday he was only as tall as my knees; now I come just above his shoulder.

His Grandpa John and I called him today before school to sing happy birthday to him. We told him he was never going to get too old for us to call and sing to him on his birthday and he might as well accept it because we were going to keep doing it until we died.

“We’ll probably still be calling you when you’re fifty-five,” John joked.

“I hope you will be,” Reece said, and we knew he meant it. He loves his grandparents.

Reece is the oldest of our ten grandsons, and his sister, Megan, is the oldest of our five granddaughters. Before I became a grandma, I never guessed my heart had so much room in it.

I babysat Reece often before he started school. When he was a baby, he cried if he couldn’t see what I was cooking, so I held him in one arm and stirred with the other.

He was an adorable charmer. Reece would look at me with those brown eyes, curls falling on his forehead, and ask, “You got any yogi?”

If I confessed there was no yogurt, he always said in a disappointed voice, “Oh, Grandma Julie got yogi.”

“You got chalky milk? No? Grandma Julie got chalky milk.”

I made sure to put yogurt and chocolate milk on my next grocery list and laughed when Grandma Julie told me she heard the same thing from Reece when it was her turn to baby sit.

“You got yogi? No? Grandma Donna got yogi.”

Yogurt went on her next grocery list too.

I almost always kept “I-cream” in the freezer, ice cream with sprinkles was his favorite.

Our youngest daughter came home from college and added her laughing comment to the situation. “Wait until he’s ready to graduate from high school, Mom. He’s going to say, ‘You got a car for me? No? Grandma Julie got a car.’”

Reece is still a charmer, but he grew up to be a giver, not a taker. He’d never ask me for a car; I can hardly coax a Christmas list out of him.

He was a giver even when he was a little boy. We took Reece and his sister Macy into Walmart and gave them each a dollar. Reece wanted to buy a matchbox car. Macy pulled me by my hand and hurried to the back of the store. She knew exactly what she wanted. My heart sank when she stopped in the electronic section and pointed at a tablet.

“Oh honey, those cost way more than a dollar!”

Reece looked at his dollar clutched in his hand. It took only a second for him to hold it out to me. “Here, Grandma Donna. You can have my dollar too. Then you’ll have enough money to buy Macy her tablet.”

One of my favorite memories of Reece is holding him in my arms in church when he was two and hearing him sing with the rest of us, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” He was too little then to know what he was singing, but when he got older, he did make the choice to follow Jesus, and he hasn’t turned back. He’d no more think of it than he’d turn around and run the other way during one of his cross country meets.  

I love having Reece close enough to go to some of his school functions and to see him and two of his sisters at church on Sundays, but I know it won’t last. It isn’t supposed to; we can’t keep our grandkids close anymore than we could keep our own children. But no one warned me it was going to be so hard to tell them goodbye. We watched Reece run cross country the other day, perhaps for the last time. This is his senior year.

We used to watch Reece’s sister, Megan, run, and run she did. Before we knew it, she ran right out of high school and into college. Now she’s in her last semester of physician’s assistant school two hundred miles away. She tries to come home occasionally for weekends, but her schedule is brutal. It’s a wonderful Sunday when I look up and see her sitting in the pew with the rest of her family.

We have eleven other wonderful grandchildren also growing up too fast, three just across the line in Ohio, about a half hour from us, and eight here in Michigan about forty-five minutes away.

And I know what’s going to happen to them. Like Megan, they will grow up. We won’t be going to watch them show goats or pigs or chickens or bunnies at the fair. We’ll attend our last grandparent’s day at school, our last play, our last band or choir concert, our last sporting event, our last birthday party. Someday, like Megan is now, they will be too far away for me to hug away a hurt.

This is my comfort. I think it was Amy Carmichael who said it, “Where our hands can’t reach, and our love can’t help, His hands can reach, and His love can help.”

So, I’ll hug them with my prayers, and with fifteen grandchildren, my prayer hugs may be going in many different directions.

Reece isn’t totally sure what he wants to do after he graduates in May, but that’s fine. God will show him. Perhaps he’ll settle nearby, but if not, that’s okay.

To Reece and to all my grandchildren I say, Vaya Con Dios, go with God. He’ll sweeten your joys, take the bitterness from your tears, and remind you that you have forever to enjoy the rewards but only this lifetime to win them.

So run, grandkids, run if you must. Wherever you go, make the world a better place.

And Reece, happy birthday. I hope you have ice cream with sprinkles every birthday of your life.

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer

by Donna Poole

They were yellow half-sheets of paper, and our kids got them frequently. We thought all kids did until we recently heard about a man who got one detention the entire time he attended the school.

What? Did he only go to school there for one day?

That’s about how long it took our kids to get detentions, one day.

We carpooled with another family who had a boy and three girls. One day their son got into the car with tears streaming down his little face. I thought something terrible must have happened to him at school.

“What’s wrong, James?”

He didn’t say a word, but he reached into the small pocket of his little shirt and pulled out a paper folded perfectly to the size of a postage stamp. Solemnly he unfolded it, inch by inch to its full yellow length and held it out to me.

“Oh, James, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s just a detention! Our kids get them all the time.”

That’s when one of his sisters spoke up. “You don’t know our dad!”

Then I was the one who fell silent, until we let the other family’s kids out of the car. Then my husband John and I had a long discussion about what kind of dad the poor kid must have! We met him later, and a kinder man you could never hope to know. He became one of our best friends. We still laugh about, “You don’t know our dad!”

Our kids seldom got into trouble at home for detentions they got at school; we figured having to stay was punishment enough along with incurring the wrath of siblings who didn’t have a detention but had to also wait at school for a ride home.

If you could have seen our children with their sweet angelic faces you may have wondered how they could get detentions, but I assure you, they managed. I remember detentions that made us laugh. When Angie was in kindergarten, a little boy named Chip threw a spit wad at her whenever the teacher wasn’t looking. Angie thought this was disgusting, and it made her furious. She devised a reasonable revenge. She waited until she had a whole handful of spit wads, stood up, and threw them all back at Chip, when the teacher was looking. Detention.

When Danny was a little boy, he came home with his infraction written under “other” on his detention slip. It said, “Standing on his chair.” I asked why he stood on his chair during class.

“Mommy, that school has 101 rules, and standing on your chair isn’t one of them! I stood on my chair because I couldn’t see.”

Made sense to me!

One year, perhaps second grade, Danny did accumulate an unusual number of detentions even for a Poole kid. He was supposed to go to a friend’s house on Friday, and we told him he could only go if he didn’t get detention that week. When his teacher laid a yellow slip on his desk, Danny, usually the happiest kid in the class, got tears in his eyes. When his teacher found out that detention was going to keep him from spending time with his friend, she was more upset than he was.

After a few minutes she came back, picked up the yellow paper, ripped it up, and threw it in the garbage, and said, “Let’s just pretend this never happened, shall we?”

The detention I remember best about Johnnie happened when he was in high school. The school required the older boys to wear suit coats. He went into the men’s room and returned to the learning center with his coat on backward and fully buttoned down the back. Of course, the other kids laughed. The note on his detention read, “Funny but also very distracting.”

I don’t remember their more mundane detentions; perhaps they do. And perhaps I better hope they don’t read this! I do recall one detention the three of them got together. I thought it was unfair but also a good life lesson. To understand, I suppose you’d have to live in Michigan. There’s a huge football rivalry here, not only between the University of Michigan and Ohio State, but also between the University of Michigan and Michigan State. The school’s band leader, who shall not be named because he’s a friend, was not having a good day. He was a graduate of Michigan State and a hater of U of M football. He’d told the band to never play U of M’s fight song. During band practice he was called out of the room and someone suggested playing the forbidden fight song when he returned.

The kids didn’t pick a good day. The band leader’s face got as red as Santa’s suit, and he demanded the culprits who’d played the fight song fess up. Not everyone confessed, but our kids were in the group who admitted the infraction, and they got detention. And they thought it was unfair.

Did the band director overreact? Perhaps. But I told our kids there would be times in life when someone in authority might give them an order they didn’t agree with, and their opinion wouldn’t matter. Actions have consequences.

Our fourth child, Kimmee didn’t get detentions, but she did have to stand in the middle of the floor. She arrived when we were older. We homeschooled her, not because we didn’t like the school, but because she could read her brother’s college textbook when she was four years old. We feared she’d be bored in kindergarten. Our plan was to homeschool her a few years, but the few years lasted until she graduated.

Kimmee was familiar with detentions, so when she started homeschooling, she was puzzled. What would happen if she misbehaved? Would she have to stay after home?

No one likes detentions!

We associate the word detention with punishment or with being a prisoner, but the word means only “the action of detaining someone.” Sometimes, whether we know it or not, we’re detained for our own good. A delay that frustrates us may keep us from being involved in a fatal accident. A prayer that seems unanswered might still be; God could be saying, “Wait awhile, my child.”

We may long for freedom from an illness or a difficult circumstance, but change doesn’t come. We feel trapped, detained. We pray; the heavens seem silent, but they never are. Perhaps God is saying, “I will fix this, my child, but not here. Eternity will show you that your tears made your rainbows.”

After a detention made an already long school day longer, our kids seemed extra happy to climb into the car and head home. When my school days feel endless, I sometimes think of a few lines of an old hymn I love, “Some Golden Daybreak.”

“Some glorious morning sorrow will cease, /Some glorious morning all will be peace. /Heartaches all ended, school days all done, /Heaven will open—Jesus will come.” –Carl Blackmore 1934

These school days with their occasional detentions won’t last forever, my friend! But until we’re done with them, let’s keep trusting God and walking each other Home!  

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

by Donna Poole

Packing Old Bertha, our aged fifth wheel, went amazingly fast.

“Do you think we could maybe leave late Sunday afternoon instead of Monday morning?” I asked.

“Maybe,” John said.

“One more evening for a campfire!” I held the imaginary S’more dangling in front of his imagination.

“You don’t have your treatment side effects yet?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Maybe I won’t get them this time.”

Yeah and maybe it won’t be cold in Michigan this winter.

Even though Morticia, my lung tumor, is behaving like a good girl, taking a nap, and not saying a word, I continue the same treatment regimen I had when she was baring her nasty teeth and showing lots of cancer activity. I had the treatment on Thursday. The side effects are unpredictable except for one thing: they always come. They often start on Sunday.

“Maybe we can leave Sunday, babe,” John said. We’ll see how it goes.”

Late Sunday afternoon found us and Old Bertha bouncing down our gravel road headed for the highway. Lake Michigan, here we come!

I admit; we felt a bit apprehensive. We don’t have the best vacation history. Oh, it’s an interesting history, if you want to hear all the reasons vacations have been interrupted, shortened, or aborted.

But I had a good feeling about this vacation. “I don’t have one of my gut feelings,” I told John.

“Good!”

My gut feelings are nothing to mess with. On our previous vacation a month earlier we were debating the pros and cons of going to one of our favorite campgrounds in Brown County, Indiana, where we already had reservations. It’s quite a distance from us and two things made the decision easier: Gas prices took a sudden jump, and I had one of my gut feelings someone was going to need us. Someone did. We ended up camping just twenty minutes down the road and making a hospital call almost every day.

We were almost to Lake Michigan before the side effects hit, so the trip was nice. But we were both happy to see the sign to the campground. It was bedtime by the time we filled the water tank, backed in, leveled, and got set up. We decided there would be plenty of other nights for campfires; we had a lovely, uninterrupted week and a day stretching in front of us. We voted for an early bedtime.

Monday there was no denying that the side effects had come full force, but the day was beautiful. Sometimes rainy camping days have outweighed sunny ones. John and I both remembered one unforgettable week when it was raining when we arrived at the campground; raining every minute we were there, and still raining when we left a week later, and no, I’m not exaggerating. But the weather reports looked great this time. Nothing but blue skies.

We were delighted with our campsite too. Right from there we could see the boats going down the channel into Lake Michigan. We took a short walk down to the channel and came back to set up our chairs and pick up our books. Here until next Tuesday. Ahh. Talk about a kids out of school feeling. We had big plans! Read. Drive up the shoreline. Walk to the channel several times a day and watch the boats. Sit on the beach and say goodnight to the sun every night as it dipped in glorious colors into the lake. Have campfires. Eat S’mores. Play Rumi cube.

“This is the best campsite we’ve ever had. The weather is beautiful. It’s going to be a perfect week. I have one of my gut feelings.”

John grinned. He’s almost always happy, but this was the carefree kid smile he doesn’t often wear. My smile matched his. It was fun to see him looking years younger. He needed a week free from ministry responsibilities, always a challenge for any pastor, but especially for one his age and with his health problems.

Exactly then his cell phone buzzed. Someone had died; would he be willing to preach the funeral? It would be Friday.

Of course he would.

Did I want John to say yes? Of course I did. I loved the people who needed someone to preach a funeral; we’d known them for at least forty years. And I loved John for being the kind of man he was, always ready to be there for others.

But why did it have to happen now? Impatient with myself, I swatted away those mosquito buzzing thoughts. I recognized them for what they were.

“Do you have your computer, honey?” Rhetorical question. Of course he had his computer. And unlike the old days when he carried a box full of study books “just in case” he now had the internet handy for research.

The next three days weren’t totally preparation, study, and funeral sermon writing for John, but they were mostly so. And me? I tried to stay awake and read my books, but the treatment side effects worsened by the day. I slept a lot. We managed a few walks to the channel, but that was about it. We didn’t even have evening campfires.

Thursday came, the day to go home for the funeral. We were barely out of the campground when John steered the truck over to the side of the road and glided to a stop.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

He sighed. “No brakes.”

Why just why? Another mosquito buzzed.

One tow truck expense, one mechanical repair expense, and six hours later, we set out again. We got home very late, did some laundry, and fell into bed exhausted.

No good deed goes unpunished. Quit being so cynical. What happened, Donna? You fall out of your Pollyanna tree? I swatted away another mosquito thought.

The treatment side effects woke me up early Friday, but I was determined to go to the funeral. I thought John did a good job. He was loving, compassionate, humorous at times. Most importantly, he reminded people everyone spends eternity somewhere, and God sent his Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to remove the sin that keeps us out of heaven. When we repent of sin and put our faith in Jesus, the end of this life is only the beginning of a life more wonderful than we can imagine.

My head and heart thought it was a fantastic sermon, but my stomach didn’t agree, and it had the last word. I followed its orders and beat a hasty exit to the bathroom during John’s closing prayer.

We got back to the campground by dark too tired to even think of a campfire.

And then came Saturday. My side effects finally settled down to manageable. John’s kid smile returned. We had three fantastic days left and we packed into them everything we hadn’t been able to do the other days, except for eating S’mores. We discovered our marshmallows had expired in March, and our chocolate candy bars were missing. It’s hard to have S’mores with just graham crackers.

Who needs S’mores to be happy? We sat by a crackling campfire. We walked many times to the harbor and watched the ships. We sat on the beach and marveled at the sight of the sun dipping into Lake Michigan. We found a great church to attend on Sunday. We played Rumi cube, and my humility prevents me from telling you how many times I beat John. We held hands, talked, and laughed.

On our last night we did something we’ve never done; we walked to the channel after dark. And we found magic. An almost full moon hung over the harbor and reflected in the water. The lighthouses at both ends flashed their beacons, and the homes lit up along the way whispered a message. They told me to be grateful for our three Mary Poppins Days. They were practically perfect in every way.

We turned slowly away from the magic of the harbor and headed back to Old Bertha, one last sleep, and then home. And my heart whispered another message. It told me to ignore the mosquito thoughts, to be thankful for every minute God gives me on this earth, and to be especially grateful for the man who was walking by my side and holding my hand.

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

by Donna Poole

Squeak…bang! The sound didn’t bother me at all. It barely registered. I was half awake and daydreaming in my reclining camping chair. My book lay upside down on my stomach and my eyes were half closed. I was reading the leaf patterns, ever changing in the lazy breeze, and the cloud formations drifting by in the bluest of skies. They had a lot to say that late summer day. And I was listening to one of my favorite bands. Perhaps you’ve heard of them; they go by the name “Late Summer Sounds.” That day they were playing their theme song, the one they’re famous for, with the rising crescendo of cicadas, the chirping of crickets, and the muted songs of the few birds not yet flown south.

Squeak…bang! I heard it again. Another camper was disposing of garbage in the bin not far from our campsite.

The sun was warm on my face; I knew I should move into the shade, and I would. In a few more minutes. Just not yet. The breeze felt cool from the north where the corn grew tall, and its sweet scent perfumed my perfect day. I stretched and yawned; I could stay here forever, curled up in the sun like a lazy house cat. I could grow whiskers. I could be a perfectly contented hermit, me, my books, and this chair, eternally happy with my solitude and time to think.

Except I couldn’t. Sooner or later, it would rain or snow. I’d run out of clean clothes to wear and food to eat. I’d have a doctor’s appointment to keep. I suppose eventually friends or family would miss me, come looking, end my sunny solitude, and drag me kicking and screaming back to the real world.

Oh, my fur and whiskers, as one of our cats is fond of saying, here comes a person looking for me already. And he has questions.

“Whatcha reading, honey?”

“Leaves and Sky.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about that book before. Is it any good?”

“The best.”

“Oh.” Short silence. “Want to come in the camper and get some lunch?”

“Not really. I was just thinking, Life is too crazy busy at home. Someone always needs me for something. I want to stay in this chair forever and become a hermit or maybe a cat. Either way I could grow whiskers.”

“What? Are you worrying about those two hairs that grow on your chin again? They’re so light I can hardly see them.”

“But suppose I stayed here forever and never changed my clothes or did laundry and grew a whole chin full of whiskers. Would you still love me if I became a hermit?”

“I’d have to love you from a distance. A hermit is a person who lives in solitude.”

“I’d miss you. What if we both became two hermits and lived here together forever?

“Then we’d miss all our kids, our grandkids, and our friends. And there are people at home in our real life who need us. Besides, if we both stay here together, that would make two of us, so we wouldn’t be hermits.”

“Well, there goes another dream. I guess I couldn’t grow enough whiskers to look like much of a hermit anyway.”

“If you’re not going to be a hermit, do you want to come in the camper and get some lunch?”

“How about if you fix lunch? I’ll take out the trash.”

“Okay. Be careful you don’t fall.”

I gathered the trash out of the camper and the truck, and then my cane and I walked the short distance to the trash bin. Squeak…the lid opened, and I tossed in the trash. Bang! The lid came down with a satisfying crash.

The wind picked up from the north, and I rubbed my arms and shivered. Thanksgiving and Christmas were just around a few corners, family occasions if ever there were such things. I pictured our big family gathered around tables in our home, and I smiled. Then my cane and I headed back to the camper where a sweet older man was making lunch and waiting for me.

The end of a partly fiction tale.

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

by Donna Poole

Why didn’t I bring a sweater? This place is freezing. And too crowded. I hate sitting in the second row, but we didn’t have a choice.

Mia looked around at the unfamiliar faces and swallowed past the lump in her throat. The only person she knew was her husband, Daryl. Her daughters were worshipping with the teens.

Get a grip. You should be used to first visits in new churches by now. This constant moving doesn’t seem to bother Daryl or the kids; why can’t you cope better?

How many times had they moved in their twenty-year marriage? This had to be at least the tenth move, and she was tired of it. She shivered, and Daryl slipped an arm around her shoulders and smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. True, she’d known when she’d married him that his job as a construction manager would require frequent moving, but back then, to a girl who’d spent all her life living on a narrow dirt road, a life of travel sounded like an adventure movie. Now, after living like a nomad for two decades, it seemed more like a horror film.

Mia couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a good friend. Had it been those nine months they’d spent in Fresno, California, or the eighteen months they’d been Brookhaven, N.Y? Now they were in Henderson, Nevada.

All she knew for sure was that she’d stopped getting involved with people a long time ago… seven years to be exact. It just wasn’t worth it. Why bother? The goodbyes would come all too soon. Daryl missed having guests over; she didn’t, and she flatly refused to invite anyone.

“Loosen up, church!” the worship team leader shouted. “Get ready! It’s time to praise the Lord!”

With drums, green flashing lights, and lots of enthusiasm the Sunday morning service started, but Mia sat quietly. She didn’t feel like praising the Lord. The loud music was giving her a pounding headache. She was suddenly very, very homesick.

In her thoughts she left this city church and slipped 30 years back in time and 1,950 miles northeast to the church of her childhood. She traveled down a country road where the August corn grew so tall you were almost to the church before you could see it. Instead of the hundreds of people here in Henderson, there were perhaps 40 people in that little country church. Just a handful of country people, but the power and love that came from their prayers and actions had changed many lives, including her own.

Thirty years ago, Mia had been ten. On a late August day like today, the church windows would have been open. Instead of drums she’d have been hearing the hum of cicadas. Instead of seeing flashing green lights she would have been seeing fields of corn growing tall. And there would have been no worship team, just fat green hymnals with songs inside like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “Amazing Grace,” “It is Well with My Soul,” “Grace Greater Than Our Sin.” And “Yesterday, Today, Forever.” The congregation would have been singing together. Little girl Mia had always imagined angels sitting cross-legged on the roof, listening to the music, and smiling.

Sometimes a man everyone called Grandpa Smith would strum his old guitar and sing a special.

Mia sighed. Friends made in that church had sometimes lasted a lifetime. If only she could find a church like that. She almost laughed. She wasn’t likely to find a white frame church on the corner of two dirt roads in this city of 317,610 people.

Everything now was so different from her childhood, but that’s what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

As the praise music continued to get louder around her, Mia was still ten years old, and back in the farmhouse with Mom and Dad. Mom was braiding her hair, getting her ready for Sunday school.

“I hope I’m not the only kid in my Sunday school class again, Mom. When I grow up, I’m going to live in a big city and go to a big church with lots and lots of people! What do you think of that?”

Her mom chuckled. “I think that’s just fine, Mia. Things change. You just remember to keep loving Jesus, and you remember he never changes. He’ll always be there for you.”

“I can’t wait for everything to change!” Mia said. But then, with only one braid finished, Mia jumped up from the stool and threw her arms around her mother. “But don’t you ever change, Mom, promise! You’ll always be here for me, right?”

“Sit down, honey, and let me finish braiding your hair. I’ll be here for you as long as I can, and your dad will be too.”

Mom and Dad, and most of the people she’d known in that little country church were in heaven now. Mia wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.

Daryl whispered, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “I’m just so tired of everything changing.”

“I’m sorry.” He offered his hand. She didn’t take it.

The church auditorium suddenly quieted. “We’re starting something new today,” the worship team leader said. “We’re going to learn an old hymn every week, the kind our grandparents used to sing. There’s good doctrine in those hymns.”

A few loud “amens” came from people with silver hair sprinkled here and there in the roomful of mostly younger people.

“I hear you, old church!” the worship leader hollered, and people laughed, even the ones with silver hair. “Now I want to introduce my grandpa. He’s going to teach the hymn a week. I guess you don’t want the drums for back up, huh Grandpa Peters?”

A man with silver hair smiled up at the younger man. “No thanks. Me and my guitar will do just fine. I’d like to have the piano play the second time through though.” He nodded at the girl at the keyboard.

Mia’s mouth dropped open. It had been a long time since she’d heard someone pronounce “guitar” and “piano” that way, gee-tar and pie-ano. She hadn’t heard it since she’d left the dirt roads behind. That’s how some of the old people had said those words. Where was this man from? Grandpa Peters opened a fat, green hymnal, propped it on a music rack in front of him and started singing.

How can one person sound so much like another one? If I close my eyes, that’s Grandpa Smith sitting up there! And those words, Oh, dear Lord, it’s just what I needed!

“Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same,
All may change, but Jesus never—glory to His name!
Glory to His name! Glory to His name!
All may change, but Jesus never—glory to His name!”

It was quiet for a moment when he finished singing, and then the congregation gave him a standing ovation. He chuckled, motioned for them to sit, and the worship leader helped him to his own seat in the row ahead of Mia and Daryl.

When the service ended, Grandpa Peters stopped them before they could leave. “Welcome! What did you think of the preaching?”

Daryl hesitated, glanced at Mia, and said, “The sermon was pretty good, I guess.”

“We aren’t big fans of praise and worship music,” Mia confessed.

“Me either!” Grandpa Peters grinned. “I turn off my hearing aids. Hate the stuff.”

“Why do you come to church here then?” Mia asked.

Grandpa Peters laughed. “Don’t have much choice. I live with my son, and this is where he goes to church. And the sermons here are pretty good, I guess.” He grinned at Daryl. “Besides, I only live here three months a year. I have four sons, so I live three months a year with each one.”

“Don’t you get tired of the changes?” Mia asked.

“Sometimes. But I don’t have to do it forever.”

“That’s good. You’re getting a place of your own then?”

“Yep. A mansion in glory. Just as soon as I die.” And then he laughed. “We’ll be up there a lot longer than we’ll be here, you know.”

Mia’s daughters interrupted the conversation. “Mom and Dad, the youth group is going out for pizza. Okay if we go?”

When the girls left Daryl said, “Guess that’s just the two of us to eat your chicken and biscuits.”

“Homemade biscuits?” Grandpa Peters asked. “Haven’t had them since I left my country church in Michigan.”

“I knew it!” Mia said.

“Knew what?” Grandpa Peters looked puzzled.

“I could explain over dinner. Want to come?”

“I’d have to get permission.” He chuckled again.

The pastor was walking by, and Grandpa Peters said, “Hey, Junior, pretty good sermon, I guess. And these nice folks invited me for dinner. What do you say?”

“Only ‘pretty good,’ huh? Usually you say it’s excellent.”

“Pretty good seems to be the consensus today.”

Grandpa Peters grinned at his son. His son looked puzzled. Red began to creep up Daryl’s neck into his face.  

The pastor turned to Mia and Daryl. “I’m glad you came today, and thanks for inviting Dad for dinner. I hope you come back.”

“We will, Pastor Peters,” Mia said.

“Call me Joe,” the pastor said. “Everyone does.” And then he disappeared into the crowd.

“You didn’t say your son was the pastor,” Mia said.

“Yep, and he’s named after me. All four of my sons are preachers. Guess they followed in my footsteps. Except I never had a large church. All mine were country churches in Michigan. And I preached in a suit, not jeans; we sang out of a fat, green hymnal, and people called me Pastor Peters, not Joe.”

“Times change, don’t they?” Daryl asked.

“Sure do,” Grandpa Peters said. “But Jesus doesn’t.”

Daryl smiled at Mia, and she smiled back. Then they each took one of Grandpa Peter’s arms and headed out of church with the first dinner guest they’d had in seven years.

The end

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer