An Old Easter Egg

 

Every now and again, usually while rummaging about trying to remember what I am looking for, I stumble upon a relic of my past.  Most often I wonder that I choose to keep such a thing, but after a pensive moment or two refreshing old and treasured memories, I always return it to its accustomed place---until the next time.This hand-painted glass Easter Egg is a prime example of my pack-rat nature.  It is as least as old as I am.  I was born in St. Louis in November, 1941.  To commemorate my second Easter I was given this fragile glass egg by two elderly ladies who lived in an apartment adjacent to our house.  Back then they were probably called Old Maids.  I have dim memories of my mom taking me out in our small yard where at times we would encounter one or both of these neatly attired women across a shared fence.  Their names were Pearl and Jeanetta--it is astounding to me that such trivial things as their names remain firmly ensconced in the remote folds of my brain after all this time---and I can't remember why I came in this room.I am approaching my 79th birthday, so I know Pearl and Jeanetta have long left this earth, but I hope they know an old man still remembers. 

HUNKERED DOWN

 

The COVID-19 (Better known as Coronavirus) has most of us in a kind of anxious state of cabin fever.  We are told to practice “social distancing”,  bars and restaurants are closing, businesses are shutting down,  people are losing their jobs,  the stock market is tanking.  Some areas of the country have been told to “shelter in place.”  In the face of these daunting problems it will be easy for us to let ourselves become discouraged to the point of depression.....and I have at times of late found myself seeing only the dark side.

I have always been an avid reader and with the current state of affairs I have had even more time to kill with a book in hand.  Being a bit of a nerd, I like poets and poetry.  With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to the words of Robert W. Service, an early twentieth century Canadian poet.  With good old American ingenuity and with God’s amazing grace we’ll get through this.  Be well, my family.

The Quitter

It’s easy to cry when you’re beaten and die

It’s easy to crawfish and crawl.

But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight,

Ah, that’s the best game of all.

And when you come out of each grueling bout

All beaten and battered and scarred,

Have one more try.  It’s dead easy to die.

It’s the keepin’ on livin’ that’s hard.

THE MYSTERY OF THE PASSION

 

At the age of seven I walked with my grandmother to the altar of Camp 8 Church in rural Wayne County, Missouri and accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.  In somewhat elder years, I'm not now sure what motivated me to do this.  At that time in my life I remember being somewhat afraid of God.  I think any young child who attended this church and heard the fearsome sermons preached from its pulpit must have felt at least a little trepidation to be told that they were in peril of everlasting fire and brimstone if they did not confess their sins and come to Jesus. This surely was a part of the reason I knelt at that altar with Grandma Wilson's hand on my shoulder.  But as we tarried there, eyes closed, I felt a welcome relief from fear.

Since that time my religious life has taken many sideroads and detours and I have not always been faithful, but from that first personal encounter with God, I have always been fascinated by and repeatedly drawn to the study of biblical accounts of the days leading up to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.  As Mardi Gras ends and the days of Lent are observed by some of my Catholic friends, I am each year led to reconsider these events and how they remain pivotal in the life of Christians more than 2000 years after they occurred.

This is the bedrock and foundation on which Christianity is constructed and, while Jesus' message was fairly simple ( one need only to accept Christ as savior and recognize that one's soul was in need of redemption), I have never fully understood how and why the passion came to be required of God.

As a child, I was told Jesus' suffering and ultimate crucifixion was necessary for my salvation, and I felt guilty for being responsible.  I know now that feeling of guilt was misplaced, but even now I am awestruck at the immensity of the torture, pain, and humiliation Christ willingly bore for the salvation of humankind.

In Jesus' encounter with Pilate, he said to the Roman governor, "Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice."  Pilate replied, "What is truth?" Jesus left this question unanswered and perhaps it is unanswerable, but if anyone is qualified to answer it, it should have been Jesus.  I wanted Him to give an answer.  

Jesus' first words from the cross were "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."  Who was Jesus referring to?   Pilate and the Romans who passed sentence on him and now parted his raiment and cast lots for their possession?  The Jewish priesthood who were complicit?  The crowds who gathered at the foot of the cross and mocked him?  His own disciples who had denied and betrayed him?  The criminals crucified on either side of him?  And why was forgiveness even necessary if they were merely doing what was required of God?  This is the beginning of mystery for me.

In my working years I used my hands to make a living with a blue-collar job in maintenance at a paper mill.  On more than one occasion I have struck my finger or thumb with a misguided hammer blow and the pain was severe.  I am at a loss to explain why a Father would require his Son to be nailed to a cross, spikes 5 to 7 inches long driven through hands and feet, and this only after being cruelly scourged with iron-tipped lashes until the flesh was flayed from his body. Could God not think of a better way?

My dad was the most devout believer in the salvation of Jesus that I have ever known, but he cautioned me in my youth not to believe everything I hear from a pulpit.  He said God gave you a brain and He wanted you to use it.  He pointed me to a passage in II Timothy 2:15, " Study, to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

My salvation is a gift from God, but it will ever remain a mystery and I may not know the "truth" until I have passed from this life.  And that's okay, because it reminds me, especially at this season of the year, that I need not have all the answers---only to continue the quest. 

In closing this post, I will add that nearly seven years would pass from that day at Camp 8 Church until I was baptized at Lone Oak Baptist Church in Paducah.  I don't know why, but I am guessing that I moved back to St. Louis with my family shortly thereafter and it wasn't until I was in the seventh grade that I realized I had some unfinished business to take care of.  I think my brother was baptized in that church as well.

VANITY

I read Ecclesiastes

And ponder what it really means.

“Vanity of Vanities”

Our impotence and insanity,

“Vanity of Vanities”.

Does God lament what he created?

Is all our effort simply wasted?

“Vanity”, intones the Preacher.

vanity is in man's nature.

“Vanity of Vanities”

A life pursuing false idolatry

 abruptly ends in sad threnody.

All we have and all we are

can take us finally just this far.

“Vanity of Vanities”.

All we do will come undone,

All the victories we have won

Are tinsel in the winds of time,

Returned to dust by Grand Design.

“Vanity of Vanities”

In much wisdom is much grief

And our stay on earth is brief.

All we get and all we gave

At last goes with us to our grave.

“Vanity of Vanities”.

To every thing there is a season.

love and giving is our reason

to Live the glory of only being.

Harken to the Preacher’s preaching.

All else is Vanity.

Copyright 2019 Ken Ragan

Collage made from a card I sent to my Dad many years ago.  He still enters my thoughts at times.

THANATOS

Men still search for the ultimate answer

As a cold, bleak world spins faster and faster.

Their lives are torn;

Their nerves are worn;

And truth eludes them, like a flitting dancer.

They stumble blindly in their few short years,

Groping for happiness, finding fears.

Their faith is shaken;

They are forsaken;

And fate looks on with a knowing leer.

To think of peace on this wretched earth

Is vanity manifest—Satan’s mirth.

Here darkness reigns

With agony and pain,

To make strong men cringe and curse their birth.

Love is the answer.  Here you say

Lies the comfort for which we pray.

If this be true,

Then why so few

Who have searched for love and known it stay?

Then God is the answer.  He’ll show the way

To prepare my soul for a glorious day.

I want to believe,

But my heart grieves,

For I called on Him and He turned away.

The grave is the answer.  This way is best

To still the heartache within my breast.

Here is my peace;

I’ve found release;

I am young and I welcome death.

This old barn once stood near the intersection of U.S. Highway 62 and Kentucky Highway 286 in McCracken County Kentucky.  It has long since been demolished.

A CARDINAL IN THE SNOW

I see a cardinal in the snow,

His bright red plumage seems to glow.

Ruffled feathers, conserving heat,

He searches for a crumb to eat.

I dare to think I save his life,

And strew some seeds upon the ice.

Ice will melt, snow will fade,

And he will fly one more day.

Spring will bring a cardinal wife,

Their bond will foster fresh new life.

From my few small seeds of corn

Generations may yet be born.

(Copyright 2015 Ken Ragan)

DREAMS FROM A DINER

Outside curtained windows

Morning sun illuminates

In certain hope

The dreams of little girls.

Faded lace shatters virgin sunlight

Into hopeless splintered shards

Projected on a diner wall.

Did I ever dream?

I think I did.

I see dreams in the distance now,

Through a smoky saffron haze

Like the dirty yellow of once-white walls,

Knowing I shall never dream again.

What was I to be?

It seems so far away.

A nurse or, (remembering), an artist.

I surely didn't dream of waiting tables;

Of too-large hips, too-small tips,

Green Dacron uniforms, and feet that hurt;

Using this bright/bleak day to buy one more,

Each with the sameness of gray vinyl tiles

That march in dumb monotony

Across the tread-worn floor.

I dream now only of sleep and,

(dream of dreams) Not to dream.

Copyright 2002 Ken Ragan

COUNTRY CHURCH

The mile-long trek was made each week

Down gravel road beside a creek,

To a one room church, faded, plain

At farthest end of a shaded lane.

Each Sunday saw the faithful few

Take their places in time-worn pews.

Benediction and a few old hymns

And the weekly service would begin.

The preacher is a simple man,

Yesterday he plowed his land.

Tomorrow he will once more toil,

Callused hands in rocky soil.

But today he is transfigured

Into something wiser, bigger;

Flushed and sweating is his visage,

Fire and brimstone is his message.

The Word in hand, he paces there,

Accusing eyes, disheveled hair;

Countenance stern, his voice resounds

To farthest corners of holy ground.

Foot washings from time to time,

Strange tongues and testifying.

Cool baptisms on summer days

At sparkling streams in morning haze.

With the sacred word delivered

And after altar call for sinners,

Dinner is laid upon the ground,

Where food and fellowship abound.

Souls uplifted, grace attained,

Folks resume hard life again.

Returning back to homes and farms

Families walking arm in arm.

Melancholy stirs my mind,

Transports me to a simpler time.

Memories strum a plaintive dirge,

And I go back to that country church.

(copyright 2008 Ken Ragan)

 THE ROOSTER

     There were inherent dangers in being an eight-year-old boy that I felt unable to communicate to the rest of the family.  Most particularly, it all had to do with grandma's big red rooster and the fact that I felt betrayed by my own bodily functions.

     In that summer of 1948, my parents had sent me to stay with grandma on her farm in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks, and it sure was different from my home in St. Louis.  The school term was over in the city and, with Dad recently laid off at the factory, I understood my visit was not solely for pleasure.  I didn't really mind being here though.  In most ways I was actually enjoying the change from city life.  My only problem was that rooster.

     Grandpa had died of pneumonia three years before.  Now it was just grandma and the last of her nine children, Cecil and Beverly, left to eke a meager existence from the always-poor farm.  Cecil was eleven and Bev was five.  I saw nothing unusual in the fact that I had an uncle four years older and an aunt three years younger than I was.

     I loved my grandmother very much, and I know she loved me--in a kind of quiet, understated way.  She was a no-nonsense rural woman, so there were never many kisses or affectionate embraces.  But she would seldom pass by me in the course of the day without tousling my hair or squeezing my shoulder gently.  She always seemed to know if I was troubled or hurt and knew better than anyone how to make things better.

     My favorite place on the farm was the orchard, on a hill overlooking the west side of the house, where I would eat green apples while perched on a branch if my special tree.  From here I had an unobstructed view of the entire farm; southward past the barn lot and unkempt livestock fields to the spring-fed creek lined with willows; eastward across the roof of the big house to the small garden and farther on to dense forest below steep, wooded hills.  To the north (and I hated to even look in that direction) lay the wire-fenced back yard with a gate opening into the chicken yard, populated with 18 or 20 hens and a sharp-spurred old red rooster.  A dusty 150 yard foot path from the gate neatly bisected the chicken yard and ended square in front of the wooden outhouse.  All in all, it was a pretty neat place for a boy to spend the summer.

     Problem was, that darn rooster thought he owned the chicken yard and every time I went in there he would try to prove it.  Extending his wings and ruffling his neck feathers, the bird would charge and send me running in panic to the nearest of the two exits.

     After the first couple of encounters with Old Red, I avoided the chicken yard whenever possible.  We two combatants would eye each other warily through the wire fence, with the rooster strutting and posturing to assert his dominance.  It seemed to me that Old Red was as big as I was and that the big bird looked at me almost eye-to-eye--and the rooster had spurs that could punch holes in my skin.  It just wasn't a fair fight.

     Most of the time I had no reason to venture into the chicken yard, but there were times when a confrontation could not be avoided.  With the outhouse being situated at the far end of the lot, I was forced to go through there at least once every day.  I had no problems with taking a pee now and then.  I could always sneak off behind the barn to relieve myself, and I learned to make it my last business of the day to visit the outhouse--at dusk when the rooster was safely inside the chicken house for the night.  But even with all my careful planning, there were a few occasions when I simply had no choice.  I came to dread that unmistakable pang in my gut during daylight hours.  I thought about slipping off into the woods and squatting in the dry leaves there, but mental images of a snake biting my bare rump quickly dispelled that idea. 

     I suspected that grandma knew of my skirmishes with Old Red.  Once I almost told her about my problem.  The two of us were alone on the front porch one hot afternoon, she on a cane-bottomed chair and I seated on the ledge of the screened porch.  She always wore a bibless apron over a faded cotton print dress.  She sat with a pile of string beans on her spread apron, snapping them in two pieces with a practiced motion and simultaneously pulling away the strings.  She then dropped them into a large metal cooking pot at her feet.  I was constantly amazed at the way her hands worked almost with a mind of their own.  Her brilliant blue eyes could give you their full attention from behind rimless glasses while the hands never missed a beat with the beans.  We sat that way for what seemed like a long time, not talking much--she busy with her chore and me trying to decide how best to present my predicament.  Just when I had worked up the nerve to tell her, Cecil came crashing through the screen door yelling about the cow getting out, and the moment passed.  I was ashamed to admit in front of Cecil (my hero) that I was afraid of a chicken.

     So, at those times when I realized I couldn't wait until dusk, I would watch from the back porch of the house until Old Red was at the farthest angle of interception and sneak up to the gate, from there to make a mad dash to the safety of the outhouse.  Sometimes I made it without incident, but other times the rooster would be hot on my heels.  Once, amid a flurry of feathers and squawking, Old Red's spurs actually struck the back of my leg just before gaining refuge in the outhouse, leaving an angry red welt on my calf.  I was thankful for the denim overalls I wore or it might have been worse.  Even when I made it to the wooden building without a chase, I knew I still had to face the return trip.

    

This state of undeclared war between me and Old Red might have gone on through the summer unchanged, with the rooster holding the upper hand, if not for a totally unexpected encounter that occurred one July morning.

     A thunderstorm had passed through late in the night, leaving the early morning gray and overcast.  After a breakfast of grandma's biscuits and gravy, I went out on the back porch, noticing that the damp and relative darkness had kept the chickens in the shelter of the chicken house.  The rain had stopped and I felt I could safely make a trip to the outhouse.

     I walked through the gate and a few steps down the path when I spotted a slight movement on the ground next to the fence in the farthest corner from the chicken house.  I approached cautiously, and as I got nearer, saw a baby bird which had apparently fallen out of the nest during the wind of the storm.  I thought the nest must be in one of the cedars that lined the fence row.  I got close enough to stoop and pick up the flightless baby, seeing the agitated parent bird chirping loudly from a nearby branch.  Finding the nest, I saw that I could just reach it through the prickly foliage.  Standing on tiptoe and extending my arm to its fullest limit, I managed to place the little bird back in its nest.  Totally absorbed in this task and feeling quite satisfied with myself, I turned from the fence and found myself face to face with Old Red.  I was cornered, nowhere to run.  The rooster stood between me and any means of escape.

     It all happened so quickly that I had no time to think or plan my actions.  As the big rooster charged, I hollered in mindless fright, expelling all the air in my lungs in a loud scream.  I kicked with my feet and flailed wildly with my arms, feeling my balled-up fist strike Old Red's tough, leathery comb.  Surprised by my loud yell and the swat on his head, the rooster retreated about ten feet from me and stopped, making a low chuckling sound in its throat.

     Feeling a tentative rush of nerve at my unexpected victory, I took a couple of steps toward Old Red, yelling and flapping my arms.  The rooster backed off warily.  More daring now, I charged at the rooster, again waving my arms and yelling.  Old Red went in full retreat, flapping his wings and trying to elude the attack.  I couldn't believe it.  The big red rooster was actually afraid of me.  I made several more experimental charges at him with the results always the same.  Giddy with the new feeling of bravery, I might have spent the whole day in that chicken yard antagonizing Old Red, except that I heard grandma call to me from the back porch.  When I came in the house she scolded me soundly for "botherin’ my rooster". But she couldn't hide a little smile as she turned away.

     Later that day, when I felt like it was safe to approach her, I asked grandma if I could be the one to go out to the chicken house and collect the eggs every morning.  She said I could.

HOW I ACQUIRED JACKIE ROBINSON

     I was born in 1941. At around the age of nine, I became obsessed with collecting baseball cards. Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby had broken the "color line" in major league baseball by my sixth birthday, and I was childishly unaware of the social change that had taken place in my favorite sport. I only knew that I didn't much like Jackie Robinson, not because he was black, but because he was a thorn in the side of my home town St. Louis Cardinals. Every time the Cardinals and Dodgers played, Jackie Robinson seemed to do something to beat us--steal a base, make a great defensive play, or come up with a key hit. None of this however, diminished my desire to acquire the Jackie Robinson baseball card. I had Reese and Cox, Furillo and Maglie, Snider and Hodges, but even though every nickel I got was spent on baseball cards, Robinson wasn't in my collection. I must have chewed pounds of the flat, brittle pink gum contained in those packs of baseball cards before I finally found "Jackie Robinson, Second Base, Brooklyn Dodgers." There he was in the middle of four other now-forgotten players, covered with that whitish powder (flour?) that kept the cards and gum from sticking together. He wasn't segregated or specially marked and the other cards didn't seem to mind his being there. He was just another baseball card to add to my collection. I realize that life was lived in a simpler time and place for kids then, and I had not learned words like prejudice and bigotry. It was only as an adult that I came to know of the rigors and hardships Jackie Robinson endured during those childhood years of mine. His        selfless contributions to the game of baseball would pave the way for generations of African-American players who followed him. I was fortunate enough to see Jackie play at the old Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, but I don't think he noticed the white kid in the stands. I wonder if he would have seen me as just another kid.

Copyright 2005 Ken Ragan

Wayne County Christmas

December, 1946 was exceptionally cold in Wayne County Missouri.  Or at least, that’s how I remember it.  I didn’t know it then, but hard times had taken me there.  My parents were in St. Louis with my brother Keith, born in June of that year.  I had hardly even gotten used to him. Dad was unemployed and putting food on the table had become a daunting task.  It was determined that the burden would be lightened if I spent some time with grandma Wilson on her subsistence farm near Greenville.  Describing this setting as a farm does not accurately reflect reality.  Livestock consisted of a few chickens and one milk cow along with a small vegetable patch.  That was the farm.

 Greenville is and was the county seat of Wayne County, had then and still has a population of about 500. Grandma’s house was situated about a mile from town as the crow flies. 

I joined a family there comprised of Grandma Bessie Wilson, my uncle Cecil (4years my elder), and my aunt Beverly (only a year-and-a-half old).  My grandfather, Clarence Madison Wilson, had died in the spring of the year.  So, it had thus far been a pretty eventful year for me, and Christmas was coming.

I was not uncomfortable in or unfamiliar with my new surroundings.  I loved my grandmother and I knew she loved me.  I had often visited here with my parents and, while Bev was still very young and I had not interacted with her to a great degree, I looked up to and liked Uncle Cecil.  He had sometimes taken me with him to shoot squirrels or to fish the nearby creek.  I had played with my cousins on warm summer days in the big front yard on many previous occasions.

The chore of finding and cutting a Christmas tree was delegated to Cecil and me.  It was mostly Cecil, because as a six-year-old, I really didn’t do much except tag along.  I remember trekking the hilly landscape of the Ozark foothills with him, tramping in the bitter cold through tufts of golden-brown sage grass looking for the perfect cedar tree.  When we found one of the appropriate size, Cecil lay on his back and sawed down the five-foot specimen and we dragged it back to the house.

Decorating the tree was done one evening in the “front room”, basking in the warmth of a pot-bellied stove.  Grandma had popped a lot of corn and she used a needle and thread to string strands of popcorn.  The popcorn had a lightly burnt smell that was not unpleasant.  There were also popcorn balls made with sorghum and honey.  A cardboard star was affixed to the top of the tree.  There were, of course, no lights, since electricity had not yet arrived in the suburbs of Greenville. The finished product was placed in the corner, near the battery-powered Philco radio, almost in the exact spot once occupied by grandpa Wilson’s rocking chair. 

Christmas dawned cold and clear.  I could smell the scents of breakfast from my featherbed.  Cecil had chopped and brought in wood for the stove and I had brought in kindling.  Grandma presided over the kitchen and cooked biscuits, gravy and eggs on the cast-iron wood stove.

My Christmas gifts on that Wednesday morning were a stocking containing an orange, some hard candy and a nickel.  I couldn’t wait to spend that nickel.  By today’s standards, we would be considered poor, but I don’t think we realized it. 

 The best gift of all came later that week when mom, dad, and my little brother came for a visit.
(copyright 2011 Ken Ragan)

IN MY DREAM

In my dream, it is dusk.

The lake is glassy calm.

A haze floats on the water,

And I am suspended there.

The scent of pine and lavender

Hangs lightly in the air.

I am alone, as I should be,

And it is strangely pleasant.

No sound strikes my ear.

My eyes see only gray.

I have no urge to speak.

I am unmoving, still.

I am not frightened.

I am not drowning.

I am not cold.

I simply am.

  I cannot see the shore.

The sun is nearly gone.

I know that night is near.

Will I see the dawn….

In my dream?

Copyright 2016 Ken Ragan

THE FAMILY TREE

A family is a tree,

Branches spreading far.

Uncounted sprigs and twigs,

And mighty limbs that soar.

We cannot know them all,

Or count their many leaves.

Know the secret workings,

Retrieve their hidden keys.

Below the arching grandeur

Are gnarled and tangled roots,

Extending ever deeper,

Sustaining precious fruits.

To know the true beginning

Of a complex family tree,

We need only look

To the One who plants the seed.

(copyright 2014 Ken Ragan)