A Sears and Roebuck Christmas

A Sears and Roebuck Christmas
By Hal Haralson

The 40th reunion of the 1953 graduating class of Loraine High School was held in the Senior Citizens Center.

That was the only place in town large enough to hold us.

We were the largest graduation class in the history of Loraine High School.

Actually we were the first "baby boom," born in 1935 after the depression was over. The farmers decided it was okay to start having babies again.

There were 23 of us.

Thirteen of the class began in the first grade and went through twelve years of school together.

Over half of the class (15) was present for the reunion.

We were going around the circle sharing our "most memorable experience" with the other class members.

To my left sat a tall, elegant woman with long gray hair. She was nearing sixty years of age. Her name was Beth Narrell when we were in the first grade.

I fell in love with Beth Narrell in the fall of `42-the second grade.

As Christmas approached, I searched for a way to make my feelings known.

I ordered a pin from the Sears Roebuck catalog. It was heart- shaped with an arrow through the heart. "Fourteen carat gold-filled" with three "ruby-like" stones.

I raced to the mail box every day waiting for the package from Sears. It finally arrived. The most beautiful piece of jewelry ever made.

It cost $3.73.

I was certain that giving this symbol of my love to Beth would solidify our relationship forever.

It didn`t. She married Bobby Price (the football hero) and we went our separate ways.

That gift was given fifty years ago.

As I spoke, Beth reached over and picked up her purse.

She reached inside and took out my Sears Roebuck pin and pinned it on her lapel.

There wasn`t a dry eye in the house.

Do something tangible to show your feelings for someone you love. The cost is not important.

Rusty Lard Bucket and One Spur

Gus McCall was 88 when his wife died. Gladys was 84. They had been married over fifty years.

Most of those years had been spent on their Big Bend Ranch. Gus took care of the cattle and Gladys cooked and "cleaned house."

There were always two or three cowboys in the bunkhouse but mostly they lived alone.

It was a lonely life. The trip to Ft. Davis was made once a month. It was over a hundred miles, round trip.

The kids had grown, married, and had children.

Gus and Gladys were frugal and saved their money. They had done well.

All was rather smooth `till Gladys died. Gladys left a will .

Gus sat in the lawyer`s office and listened in disbelief as he was told that Gladys left her half of the "estate" to her grandchildren.

"What half?" "She never done nothin` but cook."

The term "community property" was new to Gus. He listened as the lawyer explained that half of everything they had belonged to Gladys and she left it to their grandchildren.

Gus stumbled out on the street. At eighty-eight he was nearly blind. He kept a room in a boarding house in Ft. Davis but preferred the solitude of the ranch.

That day, $300,000.00 worth of municipal bonds (the kind anyone could cash just by signing) disappeared from their lock box at the bank. Gus got a ride to the ranch and no one saw him

for a month.

Gus was too blind to drive but knew the ranch so well he got along fine once he got there.

Three years later, the father of two of Gus`s grandchildren sat in my office and asked me to represent his children. It seems the $300,000.00 had not been found and none of the land had been divided.

As far as he could tell, it was all in the hands of a "big law firm in Odessa" and nothing had been done.

I agreed to take the case. I filed my suit and gave Gus McCall notice I was taking his deposition in Odessa on March 18 at 2:00 o`clock. No one had deposed him since Gladys died. Nothing had been done to find the $300,000.00 in bonds.

When I got to the conference room of the "big law firm in Odessa" there were five other lawyers waiting to hear what Gus had to say.

He was nearly an hour late. I could hardly believe what I saw when he came into the conference room.

His felt hat had grease and sweat all over it. It must have been fifty years old.

His Levis and shirt were covered with dust and grime and did not appear to have been washed in months. There were patches on the patches.

Most noticeable were his run-down/worn-out boots and the one spur he wore.

After the usual introductions, I identified myself as the attorney representing his grandchildren.

His look became sullen and his half-blind eyes squinted as he tried to make out what I looked like.

"Mr. McCall, I`m going to ask you some questions and the court reporter will take down your answers, just like you were in court. Understand?"

"Yup."

"Mr. McCall, (this was my misguided effort to "soften" up the witness before I really got down to business) I notice you only have on one spur."

"Yup. "

"That`s rather unusual. Would you mind telling me why you are only wearing one spur?"

He looked at me as if I were a complete idiot.

"You ever put your foot in the wrong boot?"

Without waiting for an answer, he exclaimed, "Hurts, don`t it?"

"If you just have on one spur, you know which boot that foot goes in."

That logic was a little fast for me, so I decided to go for the heart of the matter.

"When Mrs. McCall died, there were $300,000.00 in municipal bonds in your lock box at the bank. Do you know anything about that?"

"Yup. "

"They disappeared. Do you know anything about that?

"Yup."

"Did you take them?"

"Yup."

Are you going to tell me where they are?`

"Nope," he grunted. “When you lawyers and judges back off and leave me alone, they`ll turn up."

I decided to play a long shot.

`What did you do? Bury them on your ranch?" The surprised look on his face told me I had guessed right.

"Yup, but you`ll never find them."

"Mr. McCall you are nearly 90 years old. Has it occurred to you that you might die and no one will know where the bond`s are?"

"Yup, I thought about that. They`ve been hunting for that lost gold mine on my ranch for years. Someone will find `em."

I knew what I wanted to know. I brought the deposition to an end and dismissed Gus McCall.

The other lawyers left. They knew what they wanted to know. I never understood why no one had bothered to ask for 3 years.

Two weeks later, Gus`s attorney called and said he had brought the $300,000.00 worth of bonds into his office in a rusty lard bucket and dumped them on his desk.

I suspect Gus`s lawyer told him after the deposition that now that he had admitted taking the bonds, he could either bring them in or the judge would carve out $300,000.00 worth of land from his ranch and sell it. Either way, the grandkids get what Gladys left them.

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt….

Sunday Morning Suicide

The sign over my door read "Director of Personnel and Public Relations." At age 27, this was my first job after ten years in the ministry.

My secretary buzzed me and indicated that Don Anderson was on the phone. Don Anderson was a long-time friend who was pastor of Manor Baptist Church in San Antonio.

"Hal, I`m going to be out of town on May 13 and I`d like you to preach for me."

"Don, I left the ministry about a year ago and had my ordination revoked. I don`t do that anymore."

"I`d still like to have you speak on Sunday morning. Why don`t you come on and do something."

I reluctantly agreed and began to regret it as soon as I got off the phone.

As the date approached, I was determined not to "preach." I had several sermons I could have preached standing on my head with no preparation involved, but I didn`t want to do that.

I really wasn`t sure what I was going to do until the service was turned over to me on Sunday morning.

I had felt more and more like it was time for me to open up and talk about my experience of leaving the ministry. That`s what I did.

I told the people in the congregation about the struggle that was involved in the decision to leave the ministry. My fear of what others would say. My fear that I would be considered a failure. The long years of preparation for this vocation wasted.

What would I do to make a living for my family? Judy had married me because she felt God calling her to be a minister`s wife. How would my decision affect her?

For two years, I had wrestled with these questions. I had told no one of my dilemma. The worst dilemma of all was "God`s call" to preach. I was sure, at age 16, that was my call. I had heard that there is something special about this call. College and seminary preparation had reinforced that feeling. Could God`s call change?

This struggle led to deep depression. The doctor told Judy, who was 6 months pregnant, to take our four-year old daughter and go home to Littlefield, Texas. She didn`t need to face Christmas with a depressed husband who lay in bed day after day.

December 16, 1963. Monday morning. No one in the house but me.

I turned on all the gas jets in the bedroom and went to bed. There was a fire and an explosion resulting in my commitment to the San Antonio State Hospital for three months. There were thirteen shock treatments.

The turning point after the State Hospital came when Ed Bush, an Episcopal priest who was a member of the prayer group Judy and I were in, came to my house one day and said, "Hal, I have two things to say to you. One, be of good cheer. Two, everything is going to be all right."

It was as if God said through Ed Bush, "I have been here all along."

The decision was made. God could not want this for me.

I left the hospital five days before Brad was born. I wrote the church at Loraine, Texas, where I had been ordained and asked them to revoke my ordination. They wrote back, "We don`t know

what to do, we`ve never done that."

My response, "You`re Baptist. Vote on it!"

Back to San Antonio and the search for a job. After two months of rejections, Bobby Myers, my friend at Trinity Baptist Church, told Lloyd Flood, the Director of Montgomery Wards

District Operation, about me.

I was employed.

As I spoke that day at Manor Baptist Church, I noticed a man on the third row to my right crying. He cried all the way through the service. He got up and left before I had an opportunity to speak to him.

That afternoon, the phone rang and the voice on the other end of the line identified himself as "the man who cried during the service this morning. I`ve got to talk to you."

We met at Earl Ables, a well-known restaurant in San Antonio, at 3:00 p.m.

Over coffee, Eric Wilson (not his real name) spilled out his story.

"I`ve been an ordained Baptist minister for 10 years. I have been overwhelmingly depressed for the last several months` and yesterday I went downtown and loosened a window on the 20th floor of a building, intending to commit suicide Sunday morning.

"I told my wife I was going to the grocery store and left. As I drove toward the downtown building, I saw a sign that said, "Manor Baptist Church." Something inside me said I should go to the worship service.

"I had no idea what I would hear. I had never seen this church before. My struggle over whether to leave the ministry had taken all the strength there was in me. Suicide seemed the only way out. I had been overwhelmed by guilt since I was a college student because of a one-time homosexual experience.

"No one knew but me, my partner, and God. I prayed and struggled but felt no forgiveness. There was no response from God saying, "I understand; I know your pain; I am with you.

"Then, this morning, as I listened to you, I was overwhelmed. It was as if God said to me, "I`ve been here all along."

Eric and I met again at other times. I saw him over the years at various meetings. He became a Chaplain and retired last year, 30 years after his planned Sunday morning suicide.

I was beginning to see that by sharing our experiences of life, our pain, our fears, and our victories, we voice God`s message to others. Painful and traumatic experiences that are our "valley of the shadow of death" become our gift to those who have been prepared in God`s providence, to listen. This becomes our ministry.

Through sharing our experience of pain, God can say to someone, "I`ve been here all along."

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