Skip to main content

Cards and a prayer

Shortly after I took the pictures of the cotton field I got a cup of coffee and sat down at a table in the club car across from an African American woman who looked to be in her fifties. She turned out to be 68, which I learned later.  Another couple mentioned playing cards and she expressed an interest. The couple left and didn’t come back. He lady, whose name was Marla, had been reading out of her Bible, the book of Isaiah.
     She said she would teach me how to play two person solitaire.  I suggested that was an oxymoron. She suggested I was a smart Alec. We played one game, which she won. Then the conversation turned to my asking her about herself. She said she ran a house cleaning business and was busy in her church in Jackson, Mississippi. I told her I was a pastor so we talked church stuff for a while. I asked her about her family.  She is the second youngest of ten children. Her younger brother called while we were talking.
     When she ended the call,  she asked if I had siblings. I said two sisters much older than I.  I told her I was an accident and my mom at first thought I was a tumor.  She started laughing. The same thing happened with her younger brother she had just been talking to. In fact, Tumors is his nickname.   She could not believe there were two of us. She called her brother back right away and told him she was sitting across the table from another tumor. I suggested we could form a club and make jackets. That got a really big laugh.
     The conversation went on and then she told me her oldest son had died after complications from injuries he had received when he stepped in to rescue a woman who was being beat up by a man   He was shot for his trouble and ended up in a wheelchair. Before that her husband had become abusive after he returned from Vietnam She had to divorce him. By this time she was nearly in tears so I suggested that I pray with her which she allowed me to do.
     We arrived at Jackson and she had to go. We never exchanged last names or phone numbers. It was just one of those special times one can have if one looks for the opportunity.   God was good.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Smithsonian

There is so much to see in the museums on both sides of the National Mall I cannot possibly mention everything. I will list that which stands out.      Mueum of Natural History:  a huge stuffed elephant that dominates the rotunda, dozens of dinosaur skeletons, the Hope diamond, gemstones galore, and Egyptian mummies.      Museum of American History:  the section on civil rights from 1863 to 1963, the stories of Medal of Honor winners, the section on America at War, the section on Thomas Edison.     Air and Space Museum:  the Wright brother's plane, all the Apollo space stuff about how we went to the moon, the section on telescopes,  the section on aircraft carriers, the section on taking photographs from the air.  This last sectio n covered everything from the first pictures taken from the air in baloons and from cameras strapped to the bellies of birds to pictures taken from modern satellites.  Of all the museums...

The Battle of New Orleans

     The Battle of New Orleans was fought in late December, 1814 and early January, 1815, culminating in the final battle on January 8.  The Americans, a ragtag bunch, made up of some regulars and some militia, plus volunteer free Blacks, Creoles, Natives, and s few French pirates We’re led byAndrew Jackson.      The British had more soldiers and they were better armed and better trained. However when the final battle was over the British had suffered 2000 casualties and the Americans less than fifty. It was one of the most lopsided battles in the history of warfare. Ironically the battle was fought after the Treaty if Ghent had ended the War of 1812.  The Americans victory ensured that the British would honor the terms.   It also propelled Andrew Jackson into the awhite house.      The pictures above were taken at the battlefield. A tell oblisk monument marks the center of the battlefield. The other picture is if the rai...

New Orleans and the Mississippi River

     I had a hard time getting my head around the fact that the Mississippi flows through New Orleans from west to east rather than north to south. The river dominates the city.  It actually winds through the city in a “u” shape.  The right side of the “u” actually flows south to north.  They don’t use the cardinal directions: north south east west. Instead they say up river downriver toward the river and away from the river. They also talk about before aKatrina and after Katrina.   I took a riverboat down riverfive mikes to where the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1815. I took some pictures along the way including the dukes that are supposed to keep the river under control.