Things I must earn

And there are those nights when I am driving to the store with my hound dog sitting there in the cab of the truck with me, and the darkness all around, the road bumping and looping and whirling around mountain bends, snow beginning to fall. The blower is on blasting the dash and windshield with hot air, melting the ice crystals and burning the moisture off the glass. Again I am listening to the Big Dog radio station out of Beckley and that same high school sports announcer again, this time calling the Woodrow Wilson Flying Eagles Varsity Boy’s Basketball game. The announcer’s voice takes me once again. My childhood in Raleigh County blossoms forth in my mind’s eye again. I attended the games at the Raleigh County Armory with my parents and my sister Julie. My sister Beth was a cheerleader so she would be down next to the court jumping and cheering and smiling a lot. I’d get permission from my parents to run around the hallways with other boys my age sometimes. It was a real treat to go out to the games. Dad always bought us a coke and some popcorn. During halftime my sister and the other cheerleaders would throw out little small plastic basketballs with the Flying Eagle logo and a sponsorship from The Raleigh County Bank where my mother worked as a teller. Outside in the cold winter nights of my early youth frost was building up on the little league baseball fields just outside the armory. Beyond the baseball diamonds cow pastures stretched into the whispering darkness towards distant mountain ridges.

I recall hearing Queen’s We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions being played loud over the PA system and the smell of popcorn and soda pop. The cheer of the crowd and the loud boos when the home crowd didn’t agree with a call. Afterwards we would file out of the arena and into the cold lamp lit night. Tiny snowflakes would cascade down in columns of bright white lamp light. All of the cars in the lot would be covered in snow. Every single one of them! It was such a thing of beauty. Especially those first few moments…before anyone arrived at their cars, when the blanket of gathering snow was at its purest and most pristine, no footprints yet, maybe two lonely car tracks leaving out from someone who exited the game early. I can hear the sounds of windshields being scraped, motors starting and idling, a radio blasting rock into the silence. I can see puffs of smoke from the exhausts of the automobiles huddled in the cold. I’d huddle in the backseat with my sisters and we’d snuggle with each other to get warm. Dad would drive and mom sat in the passenger seat and they talked about the game and talked to Beth about it since she was down by the court most of the game. I never, not once in my life, ever felt scared for even a second in the car with my dad behind the wheel. It never even occurred to me that there might be some kind of danger with the condition of the roads and all. My dad was an excellent driver. Truly he was one of the greats. He knew his vehicle inside and out and was one with it on the road.

All of this flashes by in my 38 year old noggin’ as I navigate the four wheel drive down increasingly snow-covered roads with one arm around my dog Rudy and the other wrapped on top of the steering wheel. Insouciantly I pilot the truck down the same roads my father used to drive me down and I feel connection in the night, connection to the Holy Spirit of eternal mystery. And my mind rests for a moment of reverie on the true nature of T I M E : Things I must earn.

Things I must earn.