A Trip Back Home

Today is my dad's birthday. He is 79 years old. (His grandson Andy--my nephew--also shares the birthday and is 30 today.) I drove down to Thomaston this morning to say "Happy Birthday" to my dad. He was at his long time place of business--He still goes in daily and works--as I expected. My brother Stan and sister Debbie and nephew Andy were there when I arrived. Debbie had made some peach ice cream for the occasion, and they were all enjoying it as I came in. Other family members and friends were in and out during the day, and it was a good visit.

Lately, whenever I visit my hometown, I get a bit nostalgic. I think back to all the great memories I had growing up. I realize what I miss by not being around my larger family. (Read a couple of posts back to understand how important my own family is to me.) I am the only one of my siblings who has moved away from home. (Marsha, my other sister who I missed by a few minutes today, did move a couple of years ago--a whole 20 miles away!) I was excited start the adventure of life when high school was over and never regretted moving to Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech. Living in California for a year after graduation doing some mission work was a wonderful experience. Even living in Texas for a few years while in seminary was palatable. (If you ever wonder why Texans think Texas is so great, it's because the state is so large they have never been out of it.)

It was a blessing to be able to move back to Georgia after graduation (we prayerfully considered heading out to California) to start a church. We have lived in three places in Georgia, and we are closest to Thomaston now--90 miles, which is not bad at all, but being a pastor is not conducive to a lot of weekend travel! I actually once had the opportunity to move back to Thomaston as a pastor, but didn't in the end. Even reflecting on that, I believe it was the right decision, and we love where we are--Atlanta feels like home to us--but I am simply reporting that I am at the age when the scent of nostalgia has become a strong and pleasing aroma when I drive into town.

For instance, I worked for several summers for my dad, and going into the back of the building brings back a lot of memories--not all good, since some involved actual labor! Driving around the town square or going into the church where I grew up (my mom works there) or driving by places I attended school or played ball or where I lived, brings back good memories and even a healthy sense of melancholy.

My sister Debbie had compiled a group of stories from my Dad's lifetime--mostly his childhood--and presented him and the rest of us a copy today. She did a great job with it and hopes it encourages some of the rest of us to add to it.

Dad is leaving for Florida tomorrow, going to Daytona, where we always went for vacation when I was young. So in our reminiscing today, we thought back to "The Hacienda," the motel we stayed in all those years (which was torn down for a larger hotel or condos years ago), the Inlet Harbor, and he even brought up the volleyball game with the girls again. (Ask me about that later.)

I even ate a Piggy Park today. It was one of the few times since "the incident" when I was a senior in high school. Piggie Park is a drive-in--kind of like Sonic, but a local affair. I can't tell you how many grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milks I had there as a youngster. Today I got a hamburger, and how good it was. Their hamburgers are scrambled, and they have a sauce that mixes ketchup and mustard together, and it wasn't just good--it brought back other good memories of years gone by.

"The incident" was a rather humorous affair. I had a CB (Citizen's Band) radio in my car as a teenager, and one day I pulled into Piggy Park with my two good friends, Dennis and Tommy. After we pushed the botton on the speaker and received the familiar, "Take your order, please?" we ordered our food. I was parked near the kitchen, and I began to talk on my CB. We discovered, with our windows down, that our transmission was "bleeding over" to the nearby speakers. In other words, you could hear our voices coming out of some of the drive-in speakers when we talked into the CB. Tommy saw a girl in a car nearby and had an idea. He said, "Hey, Carla!" into the microphone. Sure enough, she could hear him but thought it originated from Piggy Park, not a car nearby. So she started waving. Tommy then took it a step further. "I can't hear you unless you push the button." So she did. And what did she hear? "Take your order, please?"

As other cars drove in, we made mischievous use of our newly discovered powers. As soon as someone pulled up, one of us would say, "Take your order, please?"

After a few minutes, we began to notice people in the kitchen--the walls were glass so they could see out--looking intently at each car. We began to play it cool--and sweat--all at the same time. I began to think it was time to leave, and was about it do so, when the owner's son, a few years older than me who lived right around the corner from us so we knew each other, came out the door and to the car. He kept his cool pretty much but was pretty perturbed at us. It was then that we discovered that the "bleeding over" of our transmissions was not limited to just a few parking spaces--they were going out over the whole system to every car!

David (the owner's son) said, "Fred, you may come here several times a week, but we've got a real problem here. We ask people for their order and they are saying, "I've already given you my order ten times!" (I may have left out a few colorful words in that last sentence.)

Needless to say, we were repentant and thought we had gotten away with a mild consequence. That is, we thought that until we got home. When I dropped off Dennis, his mother had already been contacted. So had my parents. Their consequences were a bit more substantial than just a talking to, though nothing that left permanent scarring.

The ironic thing is that David knew both Dennis and me and called our parents. He didn't know Tommy, who did about 75% of the talking. It was another one of those occasions when I learned that any time I did something wrong, I would get caught! (And I learned that sometimes people who did the most would get away with it!)

See--who wouldn't get nostalgic about home when you have such wonderful memories as these?

Happy Birthday, Dad! The members of the "prodigal" family up in Atlanta all say, "We love you!"