FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: The moment time stopped – a tribute to Roy Deering

Of all the miles – and all the moments we shared, friend with friend, two with a common love for nature and the writing of it – this one moment stands out above the rest. It was a moment that will be sealed, as Jim Croce would sing, like precious time in a bottle.

I guess, in a way, it was just the moment when time stopped for us, right in its tracks.

You understand.

Roy had been planning our ’23 trip to Yellowstone for some time. The hiking crew was far different from all the others, as Roy and I were the only two “charter members.”

This hike would include one of my Red Oak, Texas church friends Steve Johnson and three of Roy’s friends from their church in Galey where he worked and worshipped: Ricardo Rodriguez was the “old man” of that group at 38-years of age, Daniel Sampson barely a man at 21, and the 15-year-old Hershel Sanders the youngest member ever of our group.

The two youngsters surprised us a bit and were our energizing bunnies, especially Hershel who kept us all entertained. By the end of the trip, not only was Roy Hershel’s adopted dad but the rest of us were, too.

The hike was different from the first two, for this time we went up into the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, on the northern border of Wyoming’s Yellowstone and in the southern and central part of Montana.

Our trek on the first day, Monday morning, was about a six-mile hike up the Beaten Path of the Absaroka Trail into the mountain and the wilderness. We camped beside the beautiful Fox Lake and ended up staying there and doing some day hikes from there for a couple of days.

We all left on Wednesday, said our goodbyes at the cabins in Cooke City where we had stayed on Sunday evening, and Steve Johnson and I went on and toured the waterfalls of Yellowstone before flying home on from Denver on Saturday. Roy and “the boys” drove all the way home to Oklahoma beginning on Thursday after a little touring of their own.

Sandwiched between our crossing a bridge that hovered over a beautiful river and waterfall as we began our trek into Absaroka to our sad departing on Wednesday afternoon was one special moment, one scene, that stands out among everything we saw, heard, and experienced. That scene took place two or three hours into our hike on that first day.

Roy and I lagged often behind the younger group at times – only because we wanted to, mind you, something I say with a wry smile. At one point we came to a scenic spot overlooking the beautiful Kersey Lake, lying peacefully over the wilderness and rocks half a mile away. It was mid-afternoon, and we had traveled for a couple of hours by that time.

The younger boys had climbed a hill that stood a hundred feet or so ahead of Roy and me. They stopped there to wait for us, but Roy and I were in no big hurry to join the group. He and I stopped for a drink together, leaned against some boulders, looked out over the loveliest of landscapes, and just talked. We could see – or maybe just feel – that the fellas were on the adjacent hill anxious to get on down the trail.

But for that moment, for, maybe, 10 minutes – my friend Steve said later, with a laugh, that it was a good twenty to 30 minutes – Roy and I just talked about life. 

We talked of teaching, church, preaching, hiking, family – all the things he and I shared, for no two people, probably, were more alike than Roy and me with our love for writing, teaching, preaching, and the gospel.

He has been working on his third young adult novel, that one based in the Grand Canyon, and he had shared with me his publisher Jeanne from Roadrunner Press to help me get a couple of my books published down the road.

For a time, my friend and I just soaked in life in all its facets, with all its miracles and wonders, including the wonders we were beholding and enjoying at that very moment.

I see Roy now, looking out over the landscape and marveling at its beauty and how much he loved coming out to a place like this.

“Coach, there’s not a place like this in the whole world,” he would say, wistfully, and you could tell that every breath of that air just filled his soul. The only thing that filled it with more life, I think, was his family and the Lord.

In a way that midafternoon moment on Monday, July 10, was a funny scene, because, over our shoulders, we knew that the boys were getting restless and wondering what was taking us so long. But that was our moment, and, somehow, it seemed that both of us knew it. Sometimes you just soak in the moment as if somehow you know that you may never have it again.

Ah, friends, there was so much to discuss: the love of wives and children and grandchildren – nothing surpasses that – but there’s a special love, too, between friends who can step away from the hustle and bustle of life and share all its wonders.

For that moment Roy and I lived out one of the great poems we both had taught in our classes. We had stopped by the woods on a snowy evening, and despite Frost’s poetic horse’s gentle shaking of the bell up on the nearby hill, we soaked in as much of life as we could, he and I together.

Time will have its way, of course, and soon we would smile, take a deep breath, and take up our backpacks once more to continue up the beaten path of the Absaroka Wilderness, beating down a path much, I suppose, as my friend and I had done for many years in life. We would travel again together, stopping when needed, soaking in more than the others, perhaps, because we knew that we would have fewer opportunities to enjoy such moments.

It is true, Mr. Frost: Roy and I had miles to go before we slept, and they were all good miles. My friend’s journey ended earlier on the trail than mine has, and it ended long before I or any of his friends and loved ones would ever have imagined. 

But it did not end without his soaking in the most of life he could nor without impacting every soul who stood beside him on that trail.

As for me, even though life’s hiking journeys ended far too soon than any of us wanted, he and I will long stand on that Absaroka trail overlooking the grandest moments of our lives – just Roy, and me, and the Lord.

We will never have far to go to re-capture that special moment. Like Old Faithful herself, time had stopped that day, just for two old friends.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 6:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.