Mother's Day Acrostic- MOTHERS & MASTER

Privileged to present the message at PCCC tonight....An acrostic on MOTHERS & MASTER....
M- MOTIVATOR-MOTHER was a Motivator (When you fall out of that tree and break your leg, don't come running to me.)...LOL
M- MOTIVATOR-MASTER- Why call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? Luke 6:46... I can do all things through Christ who stregtheneth me. Phillipians 4:13

O- OVERCOME-MOTHER knew how to OVERCOME disappointments, hunger, cold, chicken-pox, wiping away little hurts with a kiss.
OVERCOME- MASTER: "I have spoken to you that you might have peace. In the world you shall have much tribulation, but me of good cheer, I have OVERCOME the world. John 16:33

T- TELLER- MOTHER- When someone talks to you LISTEN. When someone asks you a question, ANSWER,
Do the right thing even when nobody's watching.
TELLER- MASTER: "I TELL you the TRUTH, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God." John 3:3

H-HELPER- MOTHER- "My MOTHER can take care of that." What I thought quite often after head bumps, wrecks and nasty falls....Iodine, Mercurochrome & Black Salve got a workout.
H-HELPER- MASTER- "God is our refuge and strength, a very present HELP in trouble. Psalm 46:1

E-ENCOURAGER- MOTHER- " You've got this. I know you can do it."
ENCOURAGER- MASTER- "In the day I cried out, You answered me and made me bold with strength in my soul." Psalm 138:3...

REVEALER OF TRUTH- MOTHER- "Because I said so, that's why. I brought you into this world and I can take you out!"
REVEALER OF TRUTH- MASTER- "I am the Way, the Truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me." John 14:6...

SAVIOR- MOTHER...My MOTHER told me that she saved my life when I was a one-year old in a playpen at our first Harman house. She had me in a Playpen in the Living Room while she was fixing Lunch for 15-20 Harman Mining Company office employees. She said that the girl that usually helped didn't show up & that she was extremely busy with pots and pans on the stove and in the oven. They would be there in five minutes.
"Suddenly, you started screaming your lungs out. I tried singing to you but you screamed louder. So, I said 'Let it burn! I'm going to go get my baby. Just as soon as I picked you up and entered the kitchen with you, the ceiling collapsed on your Playpen. You would have likely been killed. I was so shaken that I held you tight the rest of the day."

SAVIOR- MASTER- "We have seen and testify to the fact that the Father sent His Son to be the SAVIOR of the world." 1 John 4:14
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be SAVED." Matthew 28: 19-20

Remembering my father, Earl G. Fields

Hard to believe that my dad, Earl G. Fields, has been deceased 22 years. Dad was a remarkable man, a mining foreman for Harman Mining Co. for four decades & since we lived close, Dad was always on call to check on things like a failing pump or mine fan.
After Dad retired in 1975, he made the difficult decision to move to Bristol. Dad's health was failing & had been diagnosed with Black Lung and Emphysema. It hurt me to watch him struggle to breathe after the slightest exertion, but he kept pushing it and refused to give up. 

Remembering that I took time to go to his house and till him a good-sized garden, and O how he enjoyed watching things grow. He told me once that he didn't think he had ever made a trip to a garden without coming home with something good to eat.

Dad asked me to take him to see a lung specialist in Johnson City in the early 80's. I don't remember his name, but he did help Dad learn how to breathe to utilize his ailing lungs to the max...Dad would practice taking a deep breath & holding it for as long as he possibly could...& then let the air out slowly through pursed lips. Some other exercises too, but I can't remember them.

Dad did enjoy the last 20 years of his life in a new town. He loved being able to go to the Bristol Mall. Mom would go and walk, but Dad just liked to sit around and talk to new-made friends. Eating out was another thing they looked forward to. Long John Silver's and Shoney's were his favorites.

Dad also loved to shop, and since he would cut out coupons & check the ads in the Bristol paper, he would make his rounds to where the bargains were & when he found good ones, he would buy multiples and share them with his kids and others.

One life-long hobby my father had was to work the puzzle that appeared each day in the paper, and also the JUMBLE. I was always surprised how quickly he could unscramble the words. (I also work the JUMBLE every day and remember Dad every time I do.) Dad also liked the cartoons, and especially PICKLES, often cutting the cartoon out of the paper for his scrapbook.

Dad's zest for life allowed him to live to be 81 years old, living another 20 years with severely damaged lungs. He often mentioned how tickled he was that he had been able to lay the cigarettes down, because he felt that his lungs had improved just a little bit. A little bit goes a long way when you can't breathe.

The year before Dad died, Dad presented me with the best Christmas present ever. We were at their house just before Christmas & Dad said he had a present he wanted to give me. I couldn't imagine what it could be, thinking it was another pocket knife, or even a rare coin, but no, what met my eyes was a ETSU Class Ring from 1964. It was big and it was heavy & I found out later that Dad paid a pretty penny for it, making lots of telephone calls. When I graduated in 1964, things were kind of tough, so knowing this, I had told Dad that I didn't need a class ring, and truth to tell, I would have been perfectly fine without it, but just knowing how hard he had tried to buy me one 30 years later brought tears to me eyes.

The ring was too heavy to wear on a daily basis, but you just know that I kept it in a prominent place where I could see it and be reminded what a great daddy I had...And then one evening several years ago, we had visitors at our house & one young man stole it. I had made the mistake of showing it to him in my upstairs den & when it was time to go he said he had left his coat upstairs.

Unfortunately, I didn't miss it for about a week & then I put two and two together. Without proof, I knew I couldn't confront him. Feel certain that he sold it for cash, but I couldn't have put a price tag on it. Priceless!

Dad was just a real caring individual. Every week he would sit down at the kitchen table and write donation checks to numerous charities, and always his tithe check to the church...Without fail, week after week...

It's no fun to not be able to get your breath. All you can think about is where is your next breath coming from...I suffered from asthma as a kid, so I knew this first-hand. (Dad got Dr. Sutherland to come to our house at Harman one Christmas Eve when they thought I was dying.)

Dr. Sutherland gave me a shot of adrenaline that brought me around & by Christmas morning I wanted to go sleigh riding with Willard Owens and Freddy Carter. My parents reluctantly agreed, but it was such a joy to be breathing the cool, crisp morning air. Quite a turnaround!

Watching Dad struggle to breathe the last year of his life was heart-wrenching. TV didn't matter. Food didn't matter...Nothing mattered but the next breath.

Dad's last words through labored breaths were:
"How m-much L-L-longer d-do I have left D-Doc?"

The doctor told him he didn't know and Dad didn't like that a bit, and he died a short time later.

But Dad lived a good long life. 81 is 11 years longer than the 70 years the Bible mentions as a life span, and he lived life with gusto. A great cook, gardener, conversationalist, boss, friend, grandfather, father, husband...(I loved his wife too!)...LOL

I know Mother's Day is coming up, so I guess this is an early Father's Day tribute.

The 77 Flood on the mountaintop..

Monday, April 4, 1977 is a day that will live in infamy. Loss of property and life was spread over the Appalachian area. But since I was teaching at Grundy Junior High, and living at CCYC on Baldwin Mountain, I will write on this point of reference.. School had been called off due to high water, which got increasingly higher as the day progressed. Sandy and I were glad to be staying home  with our 3 year old son Laddy, who had lots of stuff to play with, along with many favorite books, including the Bernstein Bears, Inside, Outside, Upside Down, and dozens of other rainy day books... along with a Big Wheel tricycle that Laddy loved to ride in the house, even spinning the back wheels around like a race car driver. 

The power was lost by Monday evening & would stay off for about three weeks I think...The two-mile dirt road to the camp had several gullies across it big enough to bury a dozen mules...…

Fortunately, I had purchased a Yamaha 4-Wheeler a few months earlier, and it sure came in handy. On Tuesday, Laddy and I rode off the mountain to the first big gully. We went back and told his Mommy that we were going to be stuck on the mountain for several days or weeks even….

Another thing that made our confinement more bearable was that a Buckstove was installed in the camp house the previous fall, and it had turned chilly after the flood, especially at night. We also discovered that we could heat water and soup on the Buckstove, along with a little bit of cooking. I did have a good supply of wood, which was covered with mining belt and was neatly stacked between the trees in front of the house.

A few days after our confinement, I rode the Yamaha 4-Wheeler off the mountain, traversing the gullies with great difficulty, riding all the way down Young's Branch to a little store on Garden Creek, where I purchased bread & milk, and a little candy & chips…Remembering I did strap a plastic milk crate on the rack to carry the groceries.

With no telephone, we were both concerned about our parents and just had to hope everyone was OK...We played the radio much of the time, but tried to conserve the batteries because we didn’t know how long we were going to need this only connection to the outside world. We were anxious for any bit of news we could get on the damage and clean-up progress.

About 10 days later, when the Dry Fork road opened up, we loaded up in our VW Bus (van) to try to go to Hurley and check on Sandy's parents, Bill & Polly Kennedy. The roads were all like dirt roads, even on 460. When we arrived at the old Grundy Hospital (Where the Comfort-Inn is now located) we met Bill and Polly. They were coming to try and see how we were. Great reunion with them and later that day with my parents, Earl and Thelma Fields at Harman. Everyone we saw had their own personal tale of survival and coping strategy. There were lots of sightseers evaluating the damage, and everywhere we looked, people were scurrying about with a broom, shovel, or wheelbarrow…or bigger items like bulldozers, road graders, or dump trucks. Many, like Bob Pugh and Harold Nickles, worked long hours cleaning out the creek beds on Prater and Dry Fork.

Schools were closed for over a month, with several schools being used for emergency shelters…

Being stranded on the mountain, I did manage to have time to work in my garden, gathering a few early spuds & planting a hillside full of corn and Hastings Half-Runner Green Beans.

All in all, it was a grand experience for us. We never knew that doing without could be so much fun…

But we were saddened to hear that Bob Crockett, Assistant Principal at Grundy Senior High, and a multi-talented man, had been drowned near his home at Hurley.... Bob had played the piano at the farcical play I was in at the Maxie Union Hall a decade earlier in 1967…. DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSSROADS. Dorsey Smith did a masterful job directing that play, and remembering that Bob really increased the suspense with his piano playing. Beager Riggsby took care of both the sound and the lighting, doing such a wonderful job that many swore a train  was Roaring through the theater.

The Flood of 77 is often referred to as The Great Flood, and it did change Grundy forever. Dreams moved across the river for many a few decades later, as Sandy Shortridge sang so beautifully, but for many of us oldtimers, Old Grundy will forever be gentle on our minds.

A few weeks after things returned to normal, John Hash, a former WW2 Fighter Pilot, and my former boss at Harman Company Store, showed up at the camp. John was representing the Civil Defense Corp, and was requesting that a rain gauge be installed somewhere on the mountain top. The purpose was to give an early warning to Grundy and towns below Grundy on the Levisa and Big Sandy rivers…Of course, we said yes, and it was installed a short time later. It resembled a small spaceship, being about ten feet tall with a transmitting antenna on top…. Pretty sure that no one ever bothered it, except for myself when I would cut the few weeds that grew up around it.

As far as I know it is is still there on the mountain, and they are still coming to change the batteries every few months…Hoping early warnings can be given because even a few minutes warning can be the difference between life and death when flooding threatens.