The "IOU" Christmas

     

           Christmas day 1983, and I had just turned 8 years old the month before. It was cold; unusually and bitterly cold by Alabama standards. There would be very little playing outside that day, or at least until the afternoon. The high was supposed to be 17, but the early morning sun was struggling just to push the temperature past 2. Daylight had begun to filter through the layer of blankets over my head, and although I wanted to see what presents lay under the Christmas tree, the heavy blankets felt too good compared to the cold air in the house. 

    Anyone who has ever felt the cocoon of warmth an old heavy blanket provides can testify to what I’m talking about. It is a magnificent feeling. One that I cherished, even as a child. I wanted to get up, but those presents weren’t going anywhere, and neither was I until the house warmed up some.

I stuck my nose out from the heavy layer of blankets on top of me and knew instantly that Dad was already up. The fire had been rekindled in the old Ashley wood burning heater, and the smell of smoke had lingered in the air after he closed the door. After only a few moments the smoke began to lose its battle with the bacon Mom had cooking on the stove. With the knowledge that both my parents were up, I thought about getting up myself. I recovered my head; deciding to wait until that heater had pushed some warmer air down the hallway. That’s when I felt my brother, two years older than me, start to stir.

My ten-year-old brother Jeff and I shared a room, a bed, and pretty much any and everything else growing up. We were poor, so there weren’t any duplicates on most things. What he wore was what I would wear two years later. But there were some things we had to ourselves…I did have my own toothbrush, so there was that.

Jeff rolled over, the covers still over his head, and met me under the old, tattered blankets.

          “What do you think we got?” he asked.

 

“I don’t know. What do you think we got?”

 

“I don’t know, but I doubt it’s very much. You remember what they said, don’t you?”

 

          My brother has always looked out for me, and even now I can look back at that moment and see that he was being an extension of my parents. He, at ten years old, was trying to manage my expectations of what might be under that tree. He didn’t have to. I knew. This Christmas felt different. Most years Mom and Dad were joyful in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, but not this one. There was a serious concerned look on their faces each time we asked how many days were left until the 25^th. Each time that question was asked it was always answered the same way,

 

          “Boys, don’t expect much this Christmas. Things are just tight right now.”

 

          I hated that phrase; “things are tight.” When weren’t they? But this was different. Dad had been laid off again, and he hadn’t been able to find any work for several months. It seemed that no one wanted to give a man who never finished the seventh grade a chance. To this day I don’t know how he kept his head up. But I’m glad he did; especially on this Christmas Day.

          I felt the cold air subside about the time Momma said breakfast was ready. Jeff and I crawled out of the bed and half ran to the kitchen table. I glanced at the tree as I jogged by, an image I can still see clearly today; more floor than presents under the lowest branches. I guess my mom saw me look, and she repeated, once again, the phrase that I hated. Dad just sat at the table. He said nothing. He just stared towards the kitchen. I looked across the table just as Jeff was sitting down. He scolded me with his eyes even though I had said nothing to warrant it.

          After breakfast the four of us took our places in the living room. Mom handed out our stockings first, and they were half full of what was usually in them, a few candy bars and a couple of off brand matchbox cars. To this day, I’m almost 49, my mother still puts cars in my stocking. After seeing what was in the old, decorated socks, we turned our attention to the tree.

          The first thing I saw was two airplanes. They were made of 2x4 lumber, had furniture wheels for landing gear, and were painted differently. My brother and I chose the one we wanted, placed them in front of us, and started looking for what was left under the tree. There were just two small boxes left and about 10 or so small pieces of wrapping paper folded up hiding something very small and thin.

          My mother repeated the phrase I hated once again and handed us each a small box. I opened it, not knowing what to expect, and I found a small handmade pouch sewn by my mother. It was a little bigger than a change purse, blue in color, and it didn’t have a snap, clasp, or zipper. I opened the mouth of it expecting to find something inside, but this scrap of material was all there was. I looked over at Jeff. He had the same reaction I did. I looked at my father, who simply sat there with this pained look upon his face. Glancing back at my mother, whose eyes were laden with tears, she said, “That is for you to put the rest of your presents into,” as she pointed to the remaining pieces of wrapping paper under the tree.

          Reaching underneath, she grabbed all the little presents and handed my brother and I an equal number.

 

                   “Go ahead boys. Open them. See what you’ve got.”

 

          I opened the first one about the same time my brother had. It was a piece of paper with a handwritten note in my mother’s perfect handwriting.

         

                   “I owe you a trip to Dairy Queen.”

 

          “Dairy Queen? We’re going to Dairy Queen?” I shouted.

 

          Before my mother could respond I heard my brother shout the same question, this time with McDonalds as the establishment. My mother told us that we’d have to wait until things got better before we could redeem them, but that the pouch she made would keep them safe until that time. My brother and I both opened four more of the little presents, all of them IOUs, and each to a different place to eat or shop. It was a promise that better things were coming. It’s a Christmas I’ll never forget.

          My parents made good on all those IOUs; each and every one of them were redeemed, the last being almost three years later. We also still have the two airplanes. Although they were made of out nothing with lasting value, they will always be priceless to me and my brother.

          I also see that our “IOU Christmas” was the one that taught me more about the true meaning of the day we celebrate. It was on that night, two thousand years ago, with love, an IOU was written in a manger. That first Christmas present was opened by a virgin, a carpenter, some shepherds, and a small town that no one really cared about. No, it wasn’t written because He owed us anything, but it was a promise of a better time, a better relationship, a better covenant. It was a promise of the cross, a sacrifice so that we may have life, and life abundantly. That’s what my parents gave me then; a sacrifice of themselves and their pride to give me a better life. A life I hope I’m able to give up for my own children. You might say I’m still passing down those IOUs.

 

 Merry Christmas folks.

Living to Make a Dead Man Proud

 

        He was born on September 16, 1914 in Ashville, Alabama, or at least that’s what the grave marker reads. He fathered two sons, had three grandchildren, and he left a legacy that I’m still chasing today. From everything I’ve been told by family and friends, he was the best man since Jesus to walk the earth.

His life is probably forgotten by most who knew him, if they’re still alive, and he will likely be nothing more than a name on a census paper once I’m where he now resides. His name was John Philemon Partain. He was my dad’s father; the only grandpaw I had who chose to be part of my life, and I still miss him. I still want to make him proud. In a way, I’m still trying to be half the man he was.

His father, John Wesley Partain, was a Civil War veteran; a man who had remarried later in life after his first wife passed. I was told it was a marriage of convenience because she had nowhere to go and he needed a wife. However it worked, he gave a home to a Tennessee woman with a child born out of wedlock.  He passed in May of 1931 when my grandfather was just 16. That left him with a choice; continue farming or find another trade. John Philemon chose to be a blacksmith.

          

I don’t know when he swung his first hammer into red hot steel, although I do have a “journal” that he used as a ledger for his “smitty” business that starts in 1939, so I would assume he apprenticed somewhere before striking out on is own. He also used that ledger for personal items; like buying a hog, the cost of feed for it, and what it weighed when he butchered it. I wonder what he’d think about processed pork wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam. Probably just shake his head and walk on.

          Sometime during the years of blacksmithing he acquired a nickname, “Pony.” My guess is that it came from shoeing horses, or it could be that he was not as tall as other men. I don’t know. But that’s what most people in Pell City knew him by, and that’s the name my family always used when talking about him.

          I am also unsure of when he and my grandmother first met, but I  know that it was at the drug store/soda fountain in the downtown square of Ashville. The two were married on the 12^th of October 1940, choosing to begin a family during one of the worst times of poverty this country has ever seen.

    

      

    My father was born in the Spring of 42, and my uncle two years later in April of 44. It was around the time my dad was 8 or 9 that Pony took up auto mechanics and trained at Ramsey’s Garage in Ashville. Pictures of him during that era are rare, but I do have a few that I hang onto. He was a man’s man; farming, blacksmithing, mechanics…he could fix or make anything he needed. I have some of the tools he fabricated and used, and they’re priceless to me.

          When I came along in November of 75, he had already experienced his first heart attack. I have been told that I was “his baby,” because the two of us were inseparable. He was my person, and I was his. I was his third, and last, grandchild, and I only have one picture of the two of us together captured on Christmas day of 1976. It’s just as priceless to me as those tools are.

    

          His second heart attack came in April of 77. He didn’t live through that one. 62 years on this earth was all he got. I was 17 months old when he passed, but the legacy his life left became the goal of mine. As far back as I can remember I wanted to be just like him.

          The problem is I don’t remember anything about him; the sound of his voice, his personality, the way he moved…nothing. I have only the smallest pieces of what I’ve been told he was to form an image of him in my mind. Since I was 5 or 6 years old, the memories of others gave flesh to a dead man, and from that time on, I’ve wanted to make him proud of me. I wanted his approval of the man I was to be.

          Everything he did in his life inspired me in drawing the blueprint for mine. Work? Hard work? Yep. Sign me up. Helping others, being known as trustworthy, honest, dependable…everything in Webster’s dictionary that describes what a good man should be?…that was my goal.

          I used his tools; I tried to emulate this real-life hero that I had built in my heart, manufactured from the memories of others, a couple of pictures, and the few items I had of his. To say I idolized him and his memory would be an understatement. I tried to build my life on it. But I missed the tree for the forest. As good of a man as Pony was, his life is still a shaky foundation to start construction on.

          Over the years, it has taken my dad, my Uncle Robert, and an old family friend, Adrian Kelly, to put things in perspective for me.

          After I had been ordained as a Deacon in 2006, my dad gave me Grandpaw’s ordination certificate. He said, “Pony would’ve been proud. He’d want you to have this.” That didn’t do it. I needed more. Something was still missing in the puzzle to recreate my grandpaw.

My uncle told me a few years later that he could see his father in the things I did, and the way I could work with my hands. He told me I was a good man as he watched me under the hood of my dad’s truck. Nope. Nothing. Still didn’t feel like I measured up.

At my other grandfather’s funeral in 2013 there were 6 men standing in a circle in the foyer of the funeral home. My father, brother, Uncle Robert, me, Adrian, and Bo Kelly. Bub and I were listening to the stories of Pony, because all of the men in that circle had worked with him; they knew firsthand the man he was.

So, I asked Mr. Adrian what Pony was like, specifically about his physical characteristics. I wanted someone else’s perspective of him; another tape measure to run against the man I had become. He looked intensely at my brother and me, almost as if he had no idea that we longed to know more about our grandpaw.

 

“Do you really want to know what Pony was like?”

         

“Yes sir, please.”

 

Mr. Adrian pulled up his arm and pointed his finger at my father.

 

“Right there. That’s him in every way.”

 

Bub and I began to weep. Until that moment I hadn’t considered the obvious. Pop was him. He bore the image of the man I wanted to be.

Of course I have always wanted to be like my father, but I wanted more than that; I wanted to be like his father…never understanding that my father was pointing me, not only to him,…but to Him.

A few years later, as a matter of fact, in 2018, I stopped by Mom and Dad’s house, the same home I grew up in to surprise my dad by taking him to lunch. I had a class in Leeds, so I purposely left early so that I could eat lunch with him. When I opened the door, I was met with Pony. I was met with what made my grandpaw worth the admiration I had….Pop was sitting at the table…he was reading his Bible.

I never saw my dad reading scripture when I was younger. I don’t know why. The evidence was there, but I guess I never paid attention. That afternoon I saw Pony in my father. I saw the image of what I had been trying to emulate all of my life. It wasn’t Pony. It wasn’t my dad. It…It…was Jesus.

What made Pony special, what made him a great man was the same thing that made my father great…It was following Jesus; putting Him first in everything he did.  

Pony sought him. Pop sought him. I was seeking them…I was wrong. To be like Pony? To be everything my soul said it wanted to be? It wasn’t a dead man I should have been emulating, it was the one who was raised from the dead.

I wanted to know my grandpaw and be like him. I wanted to make him proud. For the longest time I didn’t realize that all I needed to do is focus on the same hero that he did. What I needed to become like him was what my own father showed me. Jesus. Follow Jesus.

The moment you see pictured changed me somewhat. That was my Pop; a carbon copy of Pony, showing me the only way to be a man like they were. No words were spoken as he read The Word. They weren’t needed. Just the sight of my dad, in the midst of studying his Bible… for me, the tape measure of works was finally put away for the finished work of grace.

So today, I no longer live to make a dead man proud…not Pony, not my father…I seek the living Savior, One who has conquered death, and is already proud to call me His own. Matter of fact, that pride has nothing to do with what I do…but everything to do with what He’s done. 

So, my question for you is this: Whom are you trying to model your life after? Who are you imitating? Who do you want to make proud at all costs? Don’t be the fool I was. If it’s not Jesus, you’ll never measure up. With Jesus? If you have given your life to Him…He says you already do, and you can put the measuring stick away.