THERE WILL BE NO SUCH THING AS BROKEN
For Mom and Dad
you live on in the best of me
Uncle Willard
A front-page story in my local newspaper today detailed the DUI/manslaughter charges against a 38-year-old man in a nearby community. His life undoubtedly changed forever when he opted to get behind the wheel of his pickup truck and drive drunk. The driver of the car he hit head-on is dead, several others in another involved vehicle are injured.
1966-1968 were my hell-raising years. A college drop-out pumping gas at a local Gulf station, I was entirely rudderless. My day consisted of working my 3-12 shift, getting together with buddies after work, buying a couple six packs at a bar which accepted my bogus ID (I was 18 and the legal age in Pennsylvania was 21) and heading out to a few favorite spots in the woods where we weren’t bothered by the law. We all thought we were so cool, and we thought we were having fun. Didn’t matter that I lived about 25 miles from my party spots, and I had to drive frantically to get home before daylight when Grandpa got up to start the farm chores. Mom had already left for work and several times we passed on the winding country road leading to my home. Several ‘alcohol – related’ mishaps did not deter me from my nightly adventures.
Nobody could talk any sense to me, “Aww hell”, I would lament, “just out with buddies having a few beers.”
In later years with a bit of sobriety behind me, I was told that angels were riding with me on those tire-screeching, engine-roaring trips back to the house. “No,” I replied, “it was God Himself riding with me, my angels were too scared.”
So, you are asking what this has to do with my Uncle Willard. First let me say that the front-page story in the Sunbury Daily Item back in 1966-68 could have been a story with my name and my picture detailing the underaged drinking and DUI/manslaughter charges against a good boy just having a few beers with his buddies,
Uncle Willard was one of 10 children, my father Paul being the oldest. Due to family dysfunction, I did not meet Willard until one summer afternoon as I was finishing up on chores behind the barn. I was probably 18 years old. A car drove by, the driver tooted its horn and then turned around and returned to park along the highway. The man who emerged was unknown to me.
He civilly introduced himself as “Willard, your dad’s brother. I’m your uncle.” (No, at age 17-18 I did not know any of my father’s family). “I heard you wrecked your car last week, are you OK? “
He then proceeded into an ass-chewing that would have made any Army drill sergeant or Navy petty officer proud. Attaboy, Willard, you tell it how it is. I was speechless, but I knew dang well that I deserved every word and more.
He had his say, shook my hand, patted me on the back saying, “Straighten up, son, before you kill someone.”
That’s my Uncle Willard story – the only time we ever spoke.
stairway to heaven
Yeah, I know. Your mind probably zipped back to the iconic rock classic from Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven.” Me too. I still love that song and always crank it up when I hear it.
But this is about another stairway to heaven. As a young boy I was totally taken by a painting I saw which pictured angels climbing up and down a stairway presumably to be with God Almighty on His throne in heaven. Back then God was an old, snarling, bearded, gray haired man breathing fire from his nostrils and throwing lightning bolts from his hands. It was indeed a very intimidating depiction of our Father, but it kept us young hooligans in line here on earth. The message: don’t piss off the Father or the consequences at judgment day will be dire.
Fast forward to a young man about 38 years old with several years sobriety under his belt and pretty damn sure about everything spiritual. That stairway became an escalator with signposts along the way: read the Bible every day, memorize a verse today, pray ceaselessly even when you don’t want to, love your neighbor as yourself, go to church every Sunday, give up ********for Lent (you fill in the blanks), don’t lie or cheat or steal, throw 10 % to the collection plate, don’t blaspheme and don’t swear oaths. The list went on and on riding that escalator to heaven. Then one day I met a stranger going the other way. He was going down on the up escalator. Why on earth, thought I to myself, would someone be going in the opposite direction from heaven?
“Sir,” said I concerned about his misdirection. “You are going the wrong way, heaven is up, not down.”
“Son,” bellowed the stranger, “I am going down to be with the people who need me; the hungry, the poor, the oppressed, the sinners, the lonely, the homeless, the friendless. There amongst them I shall do the work of my Father.”
“Oh, and who are you?”
“I have many names, but you should call me Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. Follow me and I shall make you a fisher of men. I shall show you heaven on earth.”
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” LUKE 9:23
41 years
I am 74 years old and have enjoyed continuous sobriety for 41 of those years. Eureka, I have been sober more years than under the influence. January is my celebration month. No, I don’t remember the exact date, but I do remember that it was ungodly cold at my first AA meeting in the social hall of a local church. And, I can still see the faces of those sitting at that table, what they said and the love which they extended to me. Praise God for those AAers. Down through the years I heard one after another proclaim that were it not for the AA program and the people, they would be dead or institutionalized, another casualty of “self will run riot”.
Trust me, it is not always a cake walk. Life’s challenges can gang up mercilessly during the course of a day and each one of us must surrender self-reliance to the grace of a merciful and loving God. Where we go and whom we go to during these times will determine a life of ‘clean and serene’ or a life filled with the same old rot we had before only now without our crutch alcohol/drugs. Insanity waits outside the door to overtake us once more if we cannot or will not surrender to that Higher Power.
Thankfully, we know where to reach for strength and hope, don’t we? It is no longer about drinking or not drinking. The obsession is past and, on a daily basis, God puts into our day reminders of what life used to be as active alcoholics. Can we sincerely say that we would sooner die than return to the hell of our past? What are we willing to give up today to stay sober?
A friend is in jail tonight, I am not. I shall keep him on my heart while thanking God for another lesson in sober-living. It could have been me….or you…. put in lock-up. Please, for the sake of family and loved ones, talk the talk of sobriety and learn it well, but then get out there in life and walk the talk. Make it part of everyday. People will turn their heads in amazement, “Isn’t that Larry Brown, the drunk? What in God’s name happened?”
Indeed! In God’s name comes healing and restoration.
John says in chapter 8, verse 36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
lpb quest - the twilight dance 