christian brothers

i was missing something
i had once
fellowship
genuine fellowship
brotherhood
comradery
laughter

music
encouragement
once we were a band of brothers
together
taking on the road
taking on the world
together
brothers
i look back
not quite understanding
where it all faded
where the journey together ended
grew up
spread out
moved on
to other roads
to other avenues
other places
each our own individual walk
lives part and carry on
only remnants now
only warm memories
from when we walked side by side
praying together
fighting together
standing together
 of common heart
of common mind
of service
now apart
on our own roads
i look back
i see where those early days
with you all
helped me
taught me
raised me
to be the man
i am

welcome the rain

outside amid the rain
beneath the tent
I watched the children play
playing

beneath the gray skies
running
running
over the lush green grass
laughing
running
running
into the rain
through every puddle
i smiled and thought back
i smiled because it brought back
being young
running into the rain
we were children running
running

running toward the rain
beneath the gray skies
wet grass beneath our toes
toward every puddle
peering at them from a distance
children playing in the rain
i stepped out from beneath the canopy
welcomed the moment
welcome the rain

Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
-Hosea 6:3

unmasking the original

Return with us now to those thrilling
days of yesteryear!

Clayton Moore played The Lone Ranger on television from 1949-1951 and from 1954-1957. After being tapped for the role Moore trained his voice to sound like the radio voice of the Lone Ranger that had been airing since 1933.  Both Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels (Tonto) rode into television history and the Western crime fighting duo.

Portraying the Lone Ranger made him a superstar to baby-boomers everywhere.  Portraying the Lone Ranger made a lasting effect on the actor.  He often said that he had "fallen in love with the Lone Ranger character" and made an effort to live out his life staying true to the Lone Ranger code of honor and creed.

In 1981, the movie 'The Legend of the Lone Ranger' (1981) was released.  An older Clayton Moore was still making personal appearances as the Lone Ranger.  The Wrather Company, the company that legally owned the Lone Ranger character, forced Moore to remove his mask.  Film producer's Jack Wrather didn't want there to be any association between their new Lone Ranger and the original.   Such a shame.  Clayton Moore complied, but never gave up the saddle.  He put the mask aside and donned a pair of sunglasses as he fought against Wrather in court.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger /The Wrather Company got their just deserts in the end.  The movie bombed big time at the box office.  The good guy won in the end.  Clayton Moore, after the court battle wound down, road once again mask and all. Hi-Ho-Silver...AWAY!

A new Lone Ranger movie has just been released. I haven't seen it yet, but I know that no one will ever recapture the magic of the Lone Ranger and Tonto played by Moore and Silverheels.  Clayton Moore passed away in 1999.  He will always be THE Lone Ranger for us baby-boomers.  Sorry Johnny, but Jay Silverheels will always be Tonto.  The Lone Ranger and Tonto were bigger than life in those days.  Maybe it was because we were so young, or maybe it was because those old actors gave us more than a good show.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, wearing the white hat meant something in those days.  Clayton Moore was a fellow who not only wore the white hat on the film, but wore it in real life to boot.  The same goes for Silverheels, Jay also walked the walk.  There's a definite difference between the role models of yesterday and the role models of today.

the Nik-Nak and the straight and narrow

Image of the Nik-Nak before the city paved the park with cement.

Noccalula Nik-Nak stood at the entrance of Noccalula Falls Park on 'the mountain' in Gadsden, Alabama.  We lived on the mountain and we frequented the Nik-Nak regularly.  For years the Noccalula parking lot was gravel.  I don't think they paved it until the mid-eighties...or until the Nik-Nak was torn down and replaced with a Jacks Hamburgers.  It just wasn't the same when the Nik-Nak was knocked down and replaced with a franchise.

Anywho, you always heard gravel crunch beneath the tires when you pulled into the old Noccalula Nik-Nak.  Finlayson's had a yen for ice-cream.  I'm pretty sure we Finlayson kids got our love for ice-cream from mother's side of the family.  My mother loves ice-cream.  My mother used to play a game when she was little, when she had a little sister growing up in the cotton mill village.  She and my Aunt Ina would be eating an ice-cream from McNair Drug Store.  My mother would say, "Let's play a game!"  Little sister, like most little sisters love to play games with big sisters.  Mom would say, "Who ever finishes their ice-cream first gets to help the other finish their ice-cream!"  Sounds like fun, but to poor Ina, she always ended up with the short end of the cone.

Anywho, Noccalula Nik-Nak was the place a mountain kid loved going.  You could get an ice-cream and then run to the playground and play for an hour or so.  I thought mom was doing it for the kids, but looking back, she was doing it for her ice-cream addiction.

Noccalula Falls was right across from where I served time at R.A. Mitchell school.  I remember looking out the windows on many occasions at the park, at the playground and at the beloved Nik-Nak.  The playground would have toddlers toddling around in the playground while moms sat overseeing nearby enjoying their ice-cream.  It was torture to see such a beautiful world outside and have to stay inside within the confines of the drab institutional green walls of elementary school.

Anywho, to go to the Nik-Nak was always a big treat.  Any baby-boomer who grew up on the mountain during it's day will have nothing but good to say about the place.  It wasn't a pretty building, but it was full of delicious treats.  A trip to park just wasn't a trip to the park unless you got to get a treat from the Nik-Nak.

I mentioned earlier that the parking lot was gravel.  My brother Brook loved gravel.  I think he still does.  He loved gravel and muddy pot holes in the road.  If you were ever in Brook's 'Chigger' (a red VW bug), he'd aim for the pot-holes or spin around in gravel.  Once I was riding shotgun in Chigger when Brooky, out of the blue,  pulled into the Noccalula Falls parking lot and spun three to four tight doughnuts.  It was a lot of fun.  Brook had a big grin on his face and I was holding onto the dash and laughing.

Brook was in the process of pulling out of the parking lot, waiting for cars to have their right of way with him when someone approached the window on Brook's side of the car.  It  was Sheriff Felton Yates himself.  He told the young doughnut-spinning whipper-snapper that he and his wife happened to have been enjoying an ice-cream together with their windows rolled down.  All that dust came wafting into their open windows.  Brooky's grin had faded.  I wasn't laughing either.

I thought for a moment we'd both end up in jail for making dusty doughnuts.  Instead we only received a brief rebuke.  He let us go asking us to be more considerate in the future.  He wasn't angry. His mere authoritative and sudden presence rattled us to the core...putting enough fear in our minds to drive straight from there on...at least in the Noccalula Nik-Nak parking lot.

Note: If perchance Brook and Jennifer's kids or future grand-kids have a hankering for gravel, puddles and pot-holes, It'll be from my brother's genes.

Wanna hold it?

A long time ago, somewhere in the sixties, we had a couple of pet turtles.  These little guys didn't require much attention, just a little food, a little water and a little plastic island with a plastic tree to call their own.  I believe we got our store bought turtles at Murphy's Department Store at the Agricola Shopping Center.   If memory serves, the pet section of the store was on the back wall to the left.  Murphy's carried small pets, like fish, hamsters, birds and turtles.   It wasn't a big pet department, but there were enough pets back there to draw  a kid's attention.  It's as close to a zoo as I ever got as a boy.

Most kids back in the day had one of those itsy-bitsy green turtles (Red Eared Sliders) at one time or another. Kids in the 50'a and 60's loved those little turtles.  You couldn't do much with them.  You could take them out and hold them for a little bit.  You could put them outside their plastic Eden and let them experience the outside world.  They were small enough to slip in your pocket, but they don't like that.   I always got the feeling that they'd rather stay in their own little clear kidney-shaped habitat.  All the turtles I've met in my life weren't very sociable.  They just wanted to be left alone.

Those little store bought turtles eventually disappeared from the store shelves.  Kids were getting sick from them.  Some kids even died.  It turned out that those little critters are contaminated with salmonella.   Kids have this habit of touching nasty things and not washing their hands afterward.  Due to the sliders shedding of salmonella, the sale of small shelled turtles were banned in 1975.