Bowdoin Volunteers
An Even Dozen
A number of high schools and colleges
observed Spring Break this past week, which reminds me of something I left
off my list of gripes a few weeks ago regarding my being born in the wrong
era. When I attended school, the break was much shorter. As I recall, we
got out of class on Wednesday at noon to observe a half-week break from the
rigors of schooling. I’m not just referring to my graded schooldays,
either. During college and later when I was a teacher, we only got a half-week
for Thanksgiving and a half-week Spring Break.
As much as I begrudge today’s students the extra time allotted them
away from school, I am pleased that some of them use their break in service
to others. For the several years that Barbara has been employed with Pontotoc
County Habitat for Humanity, she has arranged for groups of students to perform
volunteer work in building a house for Habitat for Humanity.
There were four or more groups from out-of-state who came at various times
last spring and summer, and there’ll be about the same number assisting
this year. The first such group in 2006 arrived in Pontotoc last weekend.
As part of the Collegiate Challenge endeavor, which is sponsored by Habitat
for Humanity International, one dozen students from Bowdoin College, a private
institution of higher learning located in Brunswick, Maine, flew to Memphis,
rented a couple of vehicles and drove to Pontotoc, all at their own expense,
for the opportunity to help in building a house in the Circle of Hope subdivision
off Clark Street in Pontotoc.
Barbara and I met the students Sunday afternoon at By Faith Baptist Church,
where the students would spend most of the week housed in the Family Life
Center of the church.
After greeting them, my first question was, "We’re Mississippians; what
are people from Maine called?"
"Mainers," they chorused.
Six boys and six girls (actually young men and young women) of various sizes
and shapes, but mostly thin and tall, soon had their belongings unloaded
and were ready to consume the food that had been provided by The First
Presbyterian Church, Pontotoc. I spent much of the evening learning the names
of the students, a task made easier by the name badges Barbara had them make
using white Duct Tape.
Bennett was the first of the "boys" I would meet, then Colin. Nellie was
the first of the "girls." Bennett and Nellie were co-leaders of the group.
I can’t remember the order in which I met the following, but their names
are, Abby (Abigail), Anna, Claudia, Kathryn, Maddy (Madeline), Eric, Steve,
Tim, and Will (William).
I don’t think I ever finished my project of finding out the major of
each of them, but I learned that a few were history majors, one an art major,
one in anthropology, and one majoring in biology. . I also learned their
Spring Break lasted two weeks. It was enough to nauseate me, but for the
fact they were spending one week charitably.
By Tuesday night, I had learned the names of all the students well enough
to introduce my niece, Felicia Brown, to each one. I had invited Felicia
to join us for dinner, but she had her mom painting, and she didn’t
want to leave her unsupervised for too long and had said she’d just
drop in after dinner. Felicia found a small group near her Uncle Wayne and
visited with them for half and hour or so before going back to check on Sara
Sue’s painting.
Throughout the week, and under the capable leadership of Bro. Joe Steen and
Bill Eubank, the young folks gained plenty of experience with hammers and
nails as they decked the roof of the house under construction and roofed
it with shingles. Others who served as instructors were Bro. Ken Corley,
retired Methodist minister, and Californians, Garvin and Betty Jabusch. The
Jabusches have been here three consecutive years as volunteers and often
make an additional volunteer stop before returning to California. RRN friends,
Laney and Paul Sims, open their guesthouse to the Jabusches each year.
Mild weather for the first part of the week prompted a couple of the young
men to sleep outdoors in the prayer garden of the church. The weather cooled
as the week progressed but cooperated well enough with the Habitat project
this year. The group was able to finish the roofing on Friday after enjoying
Thursday in sightseeing. They drove back to Memphis on Thursday to visit
landmarks such as the Peabody Hotel, and the Civil Rights Museum.
The students were not disappointed in their hopes of experiencing southern
hospitality and southern cooking. In both cases, they expressed surprise
that their expectations were exceeded. The fried chicken and fried catfish
dinners were spectacular offerings for those who were not vegetarians and
for most meals even the vegetarians found plenty of non-meat choices among
the southern dishes. Glenda Corley fed the volunteers on Monday night and
Clara Belle Jaggers and her daughter Bobbie prepared dinner for Friday evening.
A couple of the young men had asked Barbara about a dessert one night (an
egg custard pie), and she had told them how easily a chess pie could be prepared.
To prove her point, she took the ingredients and the recipe to the Family
Life Center on Thursday night and let the "boys" make the pie. A couple of
"girls" helped, but the bulk of the pie-making fell to the "boys." The result
was a picture-perfect pie that I’m told was delicious.
Throughout the week, the students were challenged to learn as much about
Habitat for Humanity as possible, in order to prepare for a game based on
Jeopardy, to be played by three teams on Friday night. Barbara hosted the
game, while Bro. Joe and I helped with the scoring. The students did pretty
good with the game, but lost everything on a tough final jeopardy question.
After the game, Barbara collected everyone into a circle of chairs and thanked
them for their week’s work. She then asked for volunteers to describe
meaningful events and how each one felt the experiences of the week had changed
or influenced them. One of the young men commented that he had expected a
degree of hospitality greater than that shown by persons in his state, but
he wasn’t quite prepared for the outpouring of hospitality in Mississippi.
"Everywhere we went people told us how much they appreciated our being here
and everyone thanked us."
Someone mentioned being grateful for the week, as he had been privileged
to get to know others from his own college that he had not known prior to
making the trip. There were also accolades heaped on Bro. Joe, Bill, Garvin
and Betty for the supervision and training they provided. I also remember
Bro. Joe commenting he had been impressed with their responsibleness and
their cooperative spirit. I said nothing that evening, but I, too, was impressed
with their enthusiasm and the level of maturity each one exhibited. As far
as I know, they were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed
to be there and while they looked a little tired the last night or two they
spent in Pontotoc, I never heard a cross word or saw any signs of irritability.
Just prior to being dismissed for the evening, two of the students, Abby
and Colin presented Barbara two donation checks for Pontotoc County Habitat
for Humanity totaling more than fifteen hundred dollars, which consisted
of personal contributions of $100 from each volunteer, along with the proceeds
of a fundraising event held earlier on their college campus.
Barbara and I got up Saturday morning to see the group head back to the Memphis
airport. Everyone but Colin was returning to Maine. He planned to take the
train to volunteer another week in New Orleans. As usual, everyone was packed
and ready to leave at the predetermined time. We prayed for all a safe journey
and bade each one goodbye reminding them to return to Pontotoc someday if
the opportunity was theirs.
I’d like to think that each of the students left our fair state with
a much more favorable impression than before. I know that for me, I’m
encouraged to know that there are yet a great many young people who not only
care about what happens to them in this life but they also care about what
happens to others.
Carl And Shirley
How I Met My Spouse
Among the faithful readers of this newsletter are two individuals I came
to know while I still attended the Pontotoc Separate School District, or
the Pontotoc City School District as it is known today. Carl Lowry was my
8th Grade Science teacher in 1955-1956. Coach Lowry, as I knew
him, helped me learn a lot of the basic principles of science that year,
and I occasionally surprise myself in remembering some of the axioms introduced
to me that year.
I seem to remember Coach Lowry leaving the next year for military service,
perhaps the National Guard, but he was back by 1958 as you’ll see below.
He was high school principal for several years, but that was after I graduated
and I’m not sure which years, though I’ll bet Frank Owen remembers.
A ten-year age span seems quite a bit for an eighth-grader, but that gap
narrowed in my middle-age years. Barbara and I became friends with the Lowrys
after their return to Pontotoc in the eighties, and while we don’t visit
one another as often as we once did, we are happy to count them among our
friends. The following is Shirley’s remembrance of meeting her spouse:
"In 1958 I was working as secretary/receptionist at Pontotoc County Health
Department. At that time we closed on Wednesday afternoon, as
did most of the other offices and businesses in Pontotoc, and were open on
Saturday morning.
"One Saturday morning the assistant football coach at PHS brought the
players to the health department to get their flu shots. After
the boys got their shots, the coach sent them home, and he and I spent
the rest of the morning getting acquainted.
"This coach was Carl Lowry, and the rest is history. We will celebrate our
47th anniversary on April 4th."
4-Part Harmony
Songs On The Wall
There are lots of opinions around regarding music in the church. The trend
in many evangelical and mainline protestant denominations leans toward a
contemporary style where the words of songs are projected onto a big screen.
Carl Wayne Hardeman shared a link to a website with me, which led me to discover
I'm far from being alone on the subject of singing harmony.
Paul Heil of "The Gospel Greats," a syndicated radio program recently wrote:
Remember this old song? "Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor, me and little
brother would join right in there..."
"Ah, harmony singing. It was the bedrock foundation of Southern Gospel music
from the earliest years and was perfected in the classic quartets of the
50s and 60s. Back in the 80s, the Southern Gospel Music Guild, in preparation
for releasing some compilation recordings, called in some outside consultants
to decide what was the single most distinctive thing about Southern Gospel
music (as a style, other than its message). The one-word description that
they came up with was "Harmony." Southern Gospel music has always involved
harmony singing."
"But harmony singing has traditionally been very much a part of church singing,
too. Pick up any hymnal and you’ll see the music written in a way that
you can pick out the parts and sing harmony. It sure makes a difference when
you walk into a church where they still know how to do this."
"But that’s the problem. In a general sense, we seem to be getting away
from harmony singing in churches. And it’s the churches that have the
greatest impact on Christian music generally."
"Tim Surrett, in comments on a recent edition of The Gospel Greats, was very
blunt about why he thinks this is happening in churches: "I think we’ve
dumbed ourselves down. We said, ‘OK, people can’t read music.’
So they put the words up on [the wall]. But there’s no music
involved...It’s gotten rid of a lot of the people that used to sing
the harmonies" since now everyone is singing in unison."
"Tim fondly remembered learning harmony singing very early: "I grew up singing
harmony. I stood beside my mom who sang alto all my life. And that’s
the first part I learned... And then I’d move over and stand beside
my dad, and he sang tenor. And my sister sang soprano. And so I learned all
the parts before I was ten or eleven. But you don’t have that anymore...
We’ve made ourselves ignorant to the music. And that troubles me."
Paul further cited having spoken to Steve Hurst, a music teacher.
"Steve says the church music directors who think the use of unfamiliar choruses
will allow more people to join in have it backwards: When people don’t
feel comfortable singing like that, they just listen. They don’t open
their mouth. They don’t sing. And so therefore they don’t enter
into that worship experience, which is very important. I’ve seen that
happen, and you probably have, too. In fact, you’ve probably stood and
pretended to sing a new song, having no idea which direction the next note
was going because, well, there was no printed music to read, even for unison
singing."
"Fortunately, Steve says he sees a reversal in the trend because the great
hymns of the church – which involved harmony singing – are still
so meaningful to people today. "I think that we’re going back to harmony
because of that. I’m hearing a bass part being written in now again
in choral music. And that’s exciting to me. Everything we’re doing
in our weekend [music] schools, we’ve [sic] having a choir so
the people can hear those harmonies... And I think that’s important.
We have to bring that back."
Jim Hess of Vicksburg, MS heard a song on the radio as he drove to visit
in Pontotoc a few months ago. Jim didn't remember the name of the song but
stated the singer lamented that his church had started singing songs "on
the wall." I contacted the radio station and learned the name of the tune
is The Ballad of Levi Slocum (also known as "The Wall Song") and is
performed byTim Lovelace. As of this writing, I've only heard the song once
and have been unable to locate a copy of the lyrics.
Yet, I did find part of the lyrics in the Harmony article by Paul Heil, "I
don’t want no singing on the wall, I’m tired of it y’all.
I don’t want to hear just a ‘coupla’ words sung over and over
and over again. I want some four-part harmony, the way it used to be...."
The week following his "Harmony" article Paul Heil shared a number of comments
he had received. Here are the comments of one reader.
"Praise God for you and your Epistle! I am so thankful to read that I am
not the only one who longs for the hymnal and the harmony singing…I
am in total agreement that we are 'dumbing' down the congregation by singing
the wall songs only…Let's all keep praying that common sense and a hunger
continues for the traditional hymns and their deep spiritual message. Thanks
again for putting into words what many of us are feeling!" Dr. K.C.
I'll add my amen to the above reader's comment, while thanking Paul Heil
for allowing RRN to reprint the above quotes.
Bodock Beau One
Billion In Perspective
Ed Dandridge shared the following information, which puts government spending
into a proper perspective.
Time Doesn't Fly - Money Does
The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion," casually, think
about whether you want the politician spending your tax money. A billion
is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising Agency did a good
job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases.
