It was morning as usual. The alarm sounded at 6 AM. I quickly rose and went through my morning ritual. At 6:20 I woke my wife and told her bye and that I love her. I headed out the door and down the driveway. I have a drive of 6.5 miles of dirt roads to a little town with a population of 400. (I think they counted cats and dogs on the census.) There I meet up with the highway and travel 16 more miles to work at another small community.
Small communities have their advantages and their disadvantages. And as you all know every one knows every one in a small community. This can be a good thing, sometimes. The small community I am from is called Mill Creek. (The town gets its name from the creek that runs past it.) Mill creek has a post office, a gas station and a parts supply house for the mining companies close by. It has an elementary and a high school with beautiful facilities especially with it being such a small town. It not only has a school ball field but also a community ballpark and a roping arena although the arena hasn�t been used in years. There are two city employees � the city
clerk and Joe.
I couldn�t tell you what Joe�s title is. He does about what every the city council tells him to do. He reads water meters, fixes water leaks, and mows the alleys, right of ways, the cemetery and the ballpark. He checks the city water wells and collects water samples for testing. This is just some of the things he does. He gets paid around $900 per month and most of the people in town complain saying he gets paid too much for what he does. Most people have not taken the time to know Joe. Joe has a glass eye. Most people don�t know
that. They just think he looks funny. His talk is not all so friendly but he doesn�t seem to know any other way to talk to people. I know all of this because when my wife and I lived in town, my wife was the city chairperson. I sure was glad when we moved out of town.
Joe has been really faithful the last several months to drive out to the cemetery every morning and raise the American flag. The cemetery is about a mile out of town and I drive past it every morning. You can�t help but notice the flag. It is a beautiful site out there in the country. The flag pole sets close to fence next to a grave of one of our war veterans who passed away three months ago. As a matter of fact I just organized a blue star flag ceremony at our church for this man�s grandson who is serving in the gulf.
I was in a hurry this morning as usual. As I approached the cemetery Joe pulls out in front of me in the city truck. Joe drives slow (25 mph) � could be due to age or eyesight. It is not unusual for me to see Joe out in the city truck early in the morning but he is usually by his self. This morning there was a passenger with him. �Hurry up Joe or I am going to late�, were my thoughts. But Joe drives down the middle of the road at a snails pace. I notice Joe keeps looking back at me in his mirror. �Am I tailgating trying to get him to
drive faster or what?� was my thoughts. But I wasn�t. I was trying to be patient.
Almost into town and the passenger turns around and waves at me out the window. I wave back. �Do I know this man? I don�t think I do�, I said to myself. He keeps waving.
As we pull into town and come to a stop sign the passenger waves for me to go around. I start around and Joe rolls down his window and so I stop to see what he needs. Joe asks if I could drive the passenger to the Skullen Y. This is an intersection about 7 miles north of town. It is on my way so I agree. The passenger slowly gets out of the truck and approaches my car. He is a large man, long scraggly hair and tattoos on his arms and face. Very visible scars coming up from his chest around his neck. He is Indian. This area is populated with mostly Indians. He asked if I could give him and ride and I tell him to get in.
He has a camouflage jacket and a blanket in his hands. He opens the door and lays the blanket in the back seat. He sits down never making eye contact. Places the jacket across his lap and inspects it rather quickly with his hands to see if it is ok.
We head down the road and he proceeds to tell me he has been out to see his mom and dad. His dad�s name is Cyrus. The name sounded familiar but didn�t ring a bell. But he couldn�t stay any longer. He just had to get away. He needed to get back home. I asked were he lived and he said he had a big house. It had a lot of room. He sure was depressed and needed to go home, he told me. He then laid the jacket in the back seat and as he did I noticed some ribbons on the front and a patch on
the arm that said Vietnam.
His posture changed and he turned and looked straight at me. �I don�t cry. My dad taught me not to cry. I need to cry but I don�t feel a thing. My dad passed away three months ago. I am so depressed. I need to go home,� he said as his posture returned to the slumped figure it first was when he got in the car.
He talked about Vietnam and how he went when he was only 17. Ever so often drifting back to thoughts of his father. He turned and looked back at his blanket and jacket as if to make sure they were still there. �Did you notice my blanket?� he asked. �I carry it everywhere I go�, he spoke of it as if it were his best friend.
I probably wouldn�t have understood the blanket except at the blue star flag presentation a retired war veteran spoke after the flag presentation. He was retired from the navy and served in WW II, North Korea, and Vietnam. He said that after the third war he decided he had been shot at enough and tossed in the towel. He spoke about when he got home from Vietnam and how at times while out in the pasture tending to his horse a dark feeling would come over him and he would run as fast as he could to the house. He would turn off all the lights in the house and get a heavy blanket and climb under it on the couch. He said he would stay under there for hours. After a couple of years of that he told his wife he had enough. He said he told her that God was bigger than this thing and they were going to pray right there until God healed him. He said he has never had that feeling again.
A light bulb went off in my head and I finally made the connection. Cyrus was the war veteran at the cemetery buried by the flagpole. This was his father. He had stayed the night at the cemetery under his blanket beside his father�s grave until Joe came the next morning to raise the flag.
I tried to tell him about God and how God could help him. I hope he heard. He just kept talking about needing to go home.
As I stopped to let him out he reached back and got his jacket. With his head lowered he said he was hungry and wanted to know if I would give him a couple dollars to by a sandwich. I reached in my pocket and handed him the only bill I had - $5. He looked at it and then said he needed to fold his blanket. I waited for him to open the door and get out but he just sat there. Again he said he needed to fold his blanket and he just sat there. Finally he opened the door and stepped out. I reached in the back seat and picked up his dew-covered blanket and handed it to him. As he shut the door he looked me straight in the eyes and said �My God bless you.�
�May God bless you!�
Please be in prayer for this man. I have cried all morning for this man�s soul. The words �May God bless you� still ring in my ears.
If we spend more time building boys we will spend less time mending men. If we spend more time growing girls we will have a lot less weeping women.
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