FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 63
“Some teenagers were drag-racing that night,” Mama said, telling the story of the tragic night on a narrow two-lane Alabama highway, “and they came up over a hill going ‘a hundred,’ the police said. Daddy didn’t have time to swerve, so there was nothing to do but take the impact head-on. The other car burst into flames, and Daddy says it ‘looked like opening the door to an incinerator.’ He wouldn’t talk much through the years about how everyone in the other car lost their lives tragically. The ones with Daddy weren’t in great shape, either, but they were the blessed ones. Uncle Willie broke his jaw and was black and blue all across the face. Mama,” she said, then clarifying with “Billy Ray’s Grandma Belle” – was asleep in the backseat, which probably saved her, and she was bruised all over and in the face as she hit the back of the front seat.
“But the one who took the brunt of the blow was Daddy. His ’63 Buick caught on fire, and the fire was so hot that it melted his shoe to the accelerator. The paramedics had to pull that foot out of the melted shoe to get him out of the burning car. He ended up with a broken hip and still walks with a little ‘gitty-up’ in that hip, as the old folks called it,” Mama said with a smile.
“Oh, but it didn’t slow him down, and the Lord is still putting the preacher to good use. But that was the scariest phone call and night of my life. I wouldn’t face anything like that until …”
Her voice trailed off. I could tell she hesitated because she felt Corrina was too innocent to deal with some things. What I knew – that she didn’t realize then, I don’t think – was that Corrina was not going to be satisfied without hearing the whole story eventually.
She looked so young and innocent sitting there that night. The colors of her dress and hair ribbons sparkled as the setting sun shone through the window and reflected off of her. I began to see what gave Mama such a special bond with Corrina Belle. She had a rare innocence like a cool spring flowing underneath all the turbulent waves down deep where people can’t always see, but I think Mama saw herself in Corrina, too – so vibrant and gentle. If you could imagine Mama at sixteen, married at the very age Corrina was then, and how innocent she herself was until life rolled in unexpectedly, robbing a little of it. I suspected that is why Mama said what she said next.
“Corinna,” she said, with a soft smile, “I often think about where the Bible says that if we follow the Lord, He will hide us beneath the shadow of His wings. I want you to know He did that for me and Zion, even as hard as things were those last few years.”
I could see Mama’s own confidence in Corrina’s reply.
“I am not sure I have understood that before, Miss Louise, but I do now. I believe that more now because I can see it in you. I do not doubt that He’s hiding you right now, ma’am. You’ll never know, Miss Louise, how much faith you’ve given me, just by watching your strength, hearing your story.”
Mama didn’t want the mood to turn sad, so she sat up straight, reached over from her chair put her hand on Corrina’s, and said, “Oh, I’ve got to tell you more about Zion. I never met anybody like him, from the first time I saw him out at their old homeplace.”
Mama paused and looked up at Daddy’s picture, which had hung above the fireplace for years. It seemed she was covering years of their lives in only a few moments. A gentle smile came across her face, and she shared what she had discovered in those brief moments.
“I think of all the things about Zion that amazed me most, his calmness stands out most. Oh, there were times when he wasn’t well, and he lost that, but that’s how I knew when he was well and when he wasn’t. When he got jittery and nervous, I knew that whatever went wrong inside him started sneaking up on him again. I could see it clearly as day. But when he was well, he was as calm...” She paused, looking for the right metaphor, “as calm as you, Miss Corrina, that’s as calm as Zion was, just as calm and gentle as you.”
Corrina fought the tears when Mama said that, but I think Mama was right. Corrina did have a calmness about her. Maybe that made it so easy to talk to her in the beginning because going up to girls up to that point in life wasn’t like walking in the gym like you mean it, your basketball tucked under your arm. That was easy. The other wasn’t.
I turned away momentarily for a ‘sidebar’ with Cheyenne:
“That’s why I’ve always told you: Always walk into a room like you mean it. The first day Corrina came out on the job and I was thinkin’ ‘bout walkin’ up to her but couldn’t bring myself to do it, Pee Wee saw what I was thinkin’ and told me to walk right up to her like I meant it. He said one day he walked into an important government buildin’ in Atlanta like he owned the place, said ‘Good morning’ to the guard, and marched on in, and nobody said a thing.
Doocy jumped into the conversation, too, and said, “Pups, as the pres’dent said, you gots nuttin’ to fear but yore own self.”
That was one of the first misquotes I had heard from Doocy that summer. Pee Wee responded with, “If you knew your history better, you would’ve known that quote.”
“Sho he would,” Doocy said, and Pee Wee and I laughed.
“Of course, back then, Cheyenne,” I said, “Pee Wee’s confidence was one thing, and so was Mama’s. I couldn’t put myself up on a shelf with them, and I knew it; but I somehow did get the nerve to walk up to Corrina that day, and, as so says the poet, ‘that has made jus’ a li’l bit of dif’erence,’ I said, misquoting Frost on purpose in honor of my friend Doocy.
“Still,” I said, “tryin’ to capture Pee Wee’s confidence, that’s somethin’ I’m still tryin’ to figure out.”
“I think Grandma Louise had that calmness, too, didn’t she?” Cheyenne asked.
“No doubt. In all my growin’ up years, I never saw her flustered or out of control, even when I’d talk back to her every now and then. She carried herself that way every day. She got that from Grandma Belle, which all came from the House side of our family. Any ‘genteel’ genes we have for sure came from that side of the family,” I said, before getting back to the story.
“You keep that calmness, Miss Cori,” Mama was saying, “it’ll take you a long way. That was just the way Zion always was. Did you know,” Mama said, excitement coming suddenly into her voice, “that Zeke could rob a beehive and never get even one little sting? My Aunt Morgan and Uncle Luther live about five miles out in the country, off of the Hutchinson Mill Road; they have had beehives for as long as I can remember. Twice a year, at the beginning of summer and then in the fall, Uncle Luther has to rob the hives.
“Ah, hon,” she said, with a chuckle, “poor Uncle Luther always wraps himself up until you can’t see anything but his eyes, but, even then, somehow, a bee always gets caught up under his hood or in his shirt; and he has to go tearing out of there like a man with his pants on fire. After Aunt Morgan ran him down, she would tell him, ‘Luther, I told you to call Zeke.’ Uncle Luther – a quiet man, except when the bees were after him – wouldn’t even respond, he just headed straight into the house and phoned Zeke.
“Zeke would hang the phone up, smile at me, and say, ‘Louie,’ – as he would call me – I’ll be back in a bit,’ and he’d grab Billy Ray and the two of them would head out the door, with Zeke wearing just his short sleeve tee-shirt and khaki pants. It wouldn’t be an hour later that Emi – their daughter who helped raise Billy Ray and would watch him to keep him from getting stung – would call me and tell me how Billy Ray’s daddy went straight to the beehives, opened them up, and stole the honey like he was taking the mail out of the mailbox. Uncle Luther would stand back shaking his head.”
Mama and Corrina laughed a good while about that story, and Mama added more details until it was more colorful than I had ever heard. The way she told it that night was that when Daddy would go out to the beehive, “those bees would carry on with their business – going to work, going to school, or heading out to the mall, especially if it were Christmas time – and never even pay Zeke any attention.”
Ah, Corrina loved that story. I think that night was the happiest I ever saw these two colorful, kaleidoscope-like ladies, laughing and talking together as if I wasn’t there.
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 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.