“A kid will run any errand for you, if you ask at bedtime—Red Skelton
The rest of this chapter is a short essay I wrote concerning memories that were stirred up as my dad was nearing the end of his time here on earth:
They sent dad home after two days in ICU. Mom said the doctor had prescribed home health care periodically to come in and tend to his needs. I could tell this relieved Mom’s heavy heart. Calling her the next morning, she told me Dad had had a restless night. Knowing my mom, I know she probably did not sleep much - if any…just like when I was a boy…
Mom was the one who always seemed to hear the faintest whimpers in the night. “What’s wrong, Den?” she would whisper. Those whispers were like booming thunder whenever the fear would overwhelm me - or if all I needed was a simple sip of water. Fear of imagined monsters. Fear of imagined alien abduction. Fear of the thunder and lightning booming across the dark night sky, shaking the little farmhouse to the rafters beneath which I slept…engulfing the room in momentary daylight, casting other-worldly shadows that danced menacingly around the attic room where I and my brothers slept.
I can still hear her sweet little voice singing through the night as she sat gently on the edge of my bed, her hand taking my little-boy hand and sending waves of calm assurance coursing through my entire being.
“Oh, be careful little eyes
What you see
Oh, be careful little eyes
What you see
For the Father up above
Is looking down in love
Oh, be careful little eyes
What you see…”
At the same time, I recall singing these same lyrics to my own children when they were trying to sleep through storms in their own nights. Even now, I sing those lyrics to myself, yet with slightly altered words…
“Oh, be careful little mind
What you think
Oh, be careful little mind
What you think
For the Father up above
Is looking down in love
Oh, be careful little mind
What you think…”
Just as these words echoed through my childhood mind, they still give me a place to anchor my thoughts about my dad and mom as they grow older and the inevitable awaits. My choice of thoughts? I choose to see an amazing God who will walk through the process of graduation to heaven with them. Just as I was never truly alone through the storms of my youth, my parents will not be alone through the storms of growing old. And neither will I.
Being born and raised in Oklahoma meant growing up in the direct line of fire called Tornado Alley, a path from west Texas northeastward across the southwest corner of Oklahoma all the way across Oklahoma to the northeast corner and beyond. Bedtime was always made more stressful whenever severe storms threatened. The stress was made palpable as I watched the local weather report with my parents on such evenings.
In those days there were no warning systems in place like all major cities have today. No sirens would sound. And even if there had been sirens in Boynton, that would have been no help to us since we lived so far from town. Our weather reports all emanated from Tulsa and the most trusted weatherman of the day, Don Woods, of ABC affiliate, KTUL-TV, fame.
Don Woods’s demeanor was always that of encourager and protector. His voice spoke with assurance and strength, but what made me want to tune in to the weather report each day - regardless of storm or not - was because Don ended each and every weather forecast by drawing a cartoon character he called Gusty. Right there on-air, Don skillfully rendered Gusty, depicting whatever the current weather conditions were! Like magic being performed right before my eyes, I sat glued to the TV set as Gusty held an umbrella or donned a ball cap and sunglasses or held onto a telephone pole as he held on while being lifted sideways into the air! And to top it all off, he always selected a lucky child from the viewing audience to send the signed drawing to! Though I mailed in my request on more than one occasion, I never heard my name called! The disappointment did not matter to me. Just watching Don Woods draw Gusty with such confidence and imaginative flair, filled me with creative wonder. So much so that, more often than not, I would break out my drawing paper and grab a pencil and try to draw Gusty just as Don had done!
So into Don Woods’ weather report was I that I spent many hours imagining myself a weatherman. In the days before all things digital, the forecast was drawn rather than digitally rendered. Using a map of Oklahoma, Don would use dry-erase markers to draw the lines of the front. Along a cold front, he drew triangles. Along a warm front, he drew semicircles. Often, as Don gave the weather report, I would draw the same fronts on the map of Oklahoma I had drawn by hand on my notepad in anticipation of the forecast! Watching and co-reporting with Don on the 6 o’clock evening news was always my pre-bedtime ritual. As long as Don told me what to expect, I could sleep with assurance.
Just as in life, one can always count on occasional storms in Oklahoma. As native son, Will Rogers famously quipped about our state, “If you don’t like the weather in Oklahoma, wait a minute and it’ll change.” This held true - especially in springtime. Try as I might to prepare for nature’s stormy onslaught, my well-made plans for escape were always thwarted by the first crack of lightning and booming thunderclap!
I remember many stormy nights when the rain would beat down so loudly on the roof directly above my face that I found it difficult to control my thoughts. Like machine-gun fire, the rain pounded on the roof as if it would break through. Between claps of thunder and the piercing darts of lightning I often warred with thoughts of crying out to my mom juxtaposed with thoughts of not wanting my little brothers to think I was afraid.
Don Woods had just told us to expect possible tornadoes, telling us to stay tuned to KTUL and he would keep us updated. Mom and Dad had sent us to bed with the assurance that they would get us up if a tornado warning came across the TV screen. As the wind howled like a thousand screaming demons on the outside of our small farmhouse, all my little-boy thoughts could see was our house being swept up like that little farmhouse in Kansas had been swept up in “The Wizard of Oz”! But I had a plan just in case my parents somehow failed to wake us up!
From my limited references gleaned from past news reports of the aftermath of tornadoes, my thoughts careened between women in curlers and men dressed in their “tightie-whities” reporting from their just-demolished trailer park, their words ping-ponging through my brain. “It sounded just like a freight-train…and then everything started flyin’ though the air around us!”
As the wind and rain pounded the roof above me, I strained intently for the faintest strain of a freight-train! My plan was simple. If I heard the tell-tale sounds of the oncoming “engine”, I would first awaken my sleeping brothers, then we would run downstairs and awaken our parents, then we would all make our way outside to the drainage ditch and the concrete culvert that me and my brothers often climbed though from one side of the highway to the other! I reasoned that once we were all inside the tunnel, the sucking power of the tornado could not reach us! Of course, I never factored in the flooding water that would be gushing through the culvert that would have most assuredly swept us out and into the drainage ditch!
When all else failed, I simply prayed thusly:
“God, if You will spare my life, I will...(fill in the blank with whatever hoop I felt I needed to jump through to please God at the moment)…”
Bedtime, though sometimes scary, was a time of peace in the midst of fear, if you can imagine that. And, imagine I did. Although I find it difficult to remember my dreams now, in the days of my youth, I could will myself to dream certain dreams. My dreams often coincided with whatever my latest reading material might have been. One night, I was running from wolves after reading Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. The next, I was riding through the countryside on the bare back of a horse after reading Anna Sewel’s Black Beauty or swimming across the coastal ocean channel with the wild horses of Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague!
More often than not, though, my dreams took place on the starship USS Enterprise. My name was usually Will, my favorite character from the TV series “Lost In Space”. My father was Captain James Tiberius Kirk from "Star Trek”and my dream mom was Doris Day. Every night I found myself on a new adventure. Of course, each adventure consisted of me being taken captive by whatever alien race I had just watched on the latest “Star Trek” episode. The one thing I could always count on was that my dad, Captain Kirk, would always be there to rescue me. Each and every dream ended with my dad materializing with his phaser set not on stun but on destroy. As he dispatched the enemy and saved the day, my mom would appear in my dream singing “Que sera, sera! Whatever will be, will be!” And I woke up with a song on my heart, feeling rescued each morning!
As I think about my dad and mom now that I am becoming an old man myself, I find comfort in those long-ago dreams - and find myself asking God to give my parents such comforting dreams as they head toward Him.
Many were the mornings I was awakened by the sensation of floating and release, only to come to the realization that I had wet the bed. When I was four or five, my mom would patiently strip the sheets and encourage me that this stage in my life would pass…only to find myself stripping the bed as a ten year old hoping my mother would not find the wet sheets in the dirty laundry. If she did, she never let on. I suppose she chose to allow me the dignity of taking responsibility for myself, knowing I would grow out of it. And eventually I did.
Pondering such thoughts as an aging man, I once again find comfort in the memories of the little boy whose legs ached from growing pains and the faithfulness of my mother to gently rub my legs each night until the pain was magically taken by her faithful care and love. I hear the echoes of doing the same for my own children as I sang to them just as my mother had sung to me…as I have no doubt my children now do for their children.
Life goes on even as night approaches. God is faithful like that.
Dennis Jernigan
Red Skelton quote - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/redskelton388247.html
Photo courtesy of https://pixabay.com/images/download/x-7847114_1920.jpg