Posted in church, memories

They closed the church

Posted on by William Douthwaite

My brother emailed me a few weeks ago to let me know that the church where we grew up, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania had closed. He thought the building was sold or given to an Ethiopian congregation that had been renting space there. The closing of the church feels like the loss of a close friend.

I was eight years old when our family moved from northeast Philadelphia to Ridley Park in 1965. We attended that church on Sundays because my aunt and grandmother lived in the adjacent apartment building, and that was their church. That’s how I became Lutheran.

When we first began worshiping there, the congregation met in a fairly small building that had a preschool and kindergarten wing on one side. I only have one memory from that older sanctuary. It’s from an Easter Sunday morning worship service. The pastor’s son, a few years older than me, was singing with the choir. He had a solo verse in a piece called, “In Joseph’s Lovely Garden.” He had a wonderful voice and sang well, but felt faint and passed out after his solo.

The congregation built a new sanctuary that I think was dedicated in 1968. My brother remembers going there with my dad to do things during construction, but I have no memories of that. The new sanctuary had two rows of 22 pews with a red-carpeted aisle between them. I know the exact number because I dusted them all many times when I worked there as a janitor while in high school. I have two vivid memories of the dedication worship service. From the loft the organ and piano played “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It was the first time I had ever heard that piece, and it too my breath away. The robed choir processed up and around the nave several times during the first hymn before ascending to the loft.

Our family always sat in the third pew from the front on the left hand side in front of the pulpit. My mom and dad never left us three kids there alone when they went up for Holy Communion. They went separately so the other could stay with us. A wise strategy. I didn’t find church all that exciting. The cross in the front consisted of many stained glass stones. We sat there and tried to count them all many, many times.

We never missed Sunday worship unless one of us was sick. I heard a lot of sermons from age eight until I graduated from high school. There is only one thing I remember from all my pastor’s sermons. He would preach about those who were on a “rolley-coaster to hell.” I’m not sure what that was, but I sure didn’t want to be on ride!

After high school, I went to college and then to work in New Jersey, only worshiping there when I was visiting my parents. Both mom and dad had their funerals there in 2005 and 2019 respectively. Over time, pastors came and went and the church went into a slow decline until her final service on May 9, 2021.

Over it’s seventy years, the church educated so many children on Sundays and during the week. It spawned four pastors that I know of, including my brother and I. It served it’s community in many ways.

If you grew up in the church, then you know there is something about the church you grew up in that makes it different than any other. When I grew up and moved away, it was hard to find a new place to worship. No other church ever really measured up.

Posted in flash fiction, Stories

A very nice gift

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“There’s more?” I wondered as I pulled yet another box of books off the closet shelf. “I’ll never get this all cleaned out.” I might be able to sell a few. I could give some away. I’ll probably just have to toss some.

“That’s strange.” I don’t remember ever buying this book. Hardcover. No slip cover. No title at all. Vol.1 stamped on the binding. Wait a minute, it doesn’t even open. It looks just like a book, but it’s solid, like a prop for a play or a decoration for a shelf. Not plastic, kind of leathery. Where did that come from?

I set it aside and boxed up everything else to stuff into the library donation box. They can deal with it. One more done; so many more to go. I’m talking a break.

I turned the book over and over in my hands. The cover was a raised pattern of overlapping silver, gold and copper crosses. No particular pattern, yet pleasing to the eye.

I’ll work on this some more tomorrow. I picked up the box of donation books and reached for my keys. That’s why that fake book seemed familiar. The small cross on my keychain looked like those on the cover. I usually don’t have anything extra on my keyring, but this was a special gift I had added. I dropped the box and held the cross up the cover of the book. A perfect match.

I felt a small vibration, like a cell phone haptic. I felt the spine of the book shift ever so slightly open in my hand. Opening it like a small door, I looked inside and pulled out a stack of hundred dollar bills, wrapped in a $10,000 band. I riffled the stack. All hundreds.

This can’t be real. Who’s is this? Where did this come from? What should I do with this? I put the stack back in and closed the spine. I couldn’t even tell that it had opened. I held the cross against the book and opened it up again. I pulled out the stack. They looked real. Very real.

The spine closed back up. I held the cross to the cover to open it back up. I don’t know what to do. Opening the book, I couldn’t slide the stack back in. What’s wrong? It looks like there’s another stack in there. No way. Pulled it out. It looked real.

Okay, let’s try this one more time. I shut the spine, placed the cross, and opened it up. Another stack. Quickly closing it up, I placed the book and the two stacks in my briefcase. Pulling out a piece of paper, I uncapped a fountain pen and began to write a better thank you note for the very nice gift.

Posted in Stories

We’re in good hands

Posted on by William Douthwaite

So I’m preaching. And the sermon is going well. My points are on point, my stories are connecting and my attempts at humor coax a hint of a smile from the most staid and serious congregants. So far, so good.

Suddenly, there’s a groan. Then a gasp. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see him go down. A few folks rush to see what’s wrong. Someone is already on the phone. Still another is out front waiting to direct the EMTs.

Now what? Bring everything to a halt? Just keep going? When in doubt, pray. Make the ultimate call for help. Done.

Now what? Sit there an do nothing? The silence is overwhelming, so we’ll sing. I call out a number of a familiar hymn. The organist introduces it and we work through the verses as the EMTs arrive to assess the situation. Before you know it, before the song is over, they’ve wheeled him out on the stretcher and pulled away in the rescue truck.

Now what? Well, where was I? As I reenter my sermon, I know that what we’ve just experienced is the point. This is the story. This is what should put a smile on our faces.

We’re in good hands, both human and divine.

Posted in Dad, memories

Lunch with Dad

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Hey, Dad!”

“Hey…William!”

“I get to have lunch with you today. How’s that sound?”

Dad simply shrugged.

“I think it’s time for us to head down to the dining room.” I flipped off the locks and the wheelchair began to roll towards the door, a familiar noontime ritual.

“Okay, I think this is your spot.” I pulled him up to the end of a long table and pulled up a chair next to him. ” Hi, everybody!”

Besides us, five sat around the table. One was nodding forward, doing. Another fiddled with a napkin. One smiled at me and asked, “So how do you like it here?” Another nodded.

After filling glasses with water and juice, one of the caregivers came around with a round of vegetable barley soup. I simply smiled and she set a cup in front of me. It was actually very good. My dad focused on his and I shared with him how my kids and grandkids were doing. Around the table, one lady poured her soup into her juice and stirred it up. The gentleman across from me pushed his cup of soup to the lady next to him and said, “Here, you can have it.” She slid it right back.

The main entree arrived next. Everyone had a choice. Grilled ham and cheese with potato chips, or a piece of grilled fish with some vegetables. I thought the sandwich looked pretty good. My dad didn’t look excited about either. The server set a sandwich in front of him.

Dad nibbled on a few of his chips as I ate my sandwich, pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. At our table, some ate, some just sat, and some smiled at me as I tried to make conversation. “This is my Dad. I’m here from Florida. It’s snowing outside. How’s your lunch?”

Some smiled politely, some drank their juice, some looked off into the distance. Dad must have eaten a decent breakfast. He didn’t seem to be interested in lunch at all.

Until they brought out the ice cream.

Suddenly, everyone was on task. No one refused dessert. Everyone, including myself, dug into the small cup of vanilla. No matter what else is going on in the world or in your mind, if there’s ice cream, it’s a good day!

As we finished up our cups, I showed Dad the latest pictures of his great-grandkids. Some were wheeled away from our table. Others wandered off. Soon, it was just the two of us.

I gave him a hug as he asked, “Are you leaving already?”

“Yeah, my plane leaves in a few hours. But I’ll be up to see you again soon.”

Dad wouldn’t remember my visit to memory care that day. But I do.

Posted in memories, Stories

We made a friend

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Where are we going?” my son asked.

“We’re going to deliver a gift.”

I saw our neighbor drive off. This was our chance. We looked both ways, hurried across the street, and left the brightly wrapped box on the doorstep. Who knew how much time we had? We hurried back home like nothing ever happened.

We knew we were taking a big risk. No one, absolutely no one dared step into this man’s yard, much less approach his door. If your ball rolled up on his lawn, you just left it there. If you were playing in the street and saw his front door open, you ran home. We didn’t even know his name, but we feared him nonetheless.

“We’re going to deliver a gift.” A Christmas ornament and cookies. Guaranteed to thaw a soul, right? At least we tried.

Every neighborhood has one. The one you fear. The one you avoid. The one you taunt. The one you watch from a distance. Where I grew up it was Old Man Somebody.” We didn’t know his name. We didn’t know anything about him. But we perpetuated the legend of the grouchiest, grumpiest, craziest elderly neighbor you could imagine. We would try to taunt him by shouting, “Hey, old man!” and running away. For some reason, when you are eight years old this is great fun. I never even saw the man, yet I was deathly afraid of him.

We got a thank you note. We got a thank you note from Mr. Critchfield, our across-the-street neighbor. From that moment on he waved when we were coming or going. He smiled when he saw us. We smiled at him.

We made a friend.

Posted in flash fiction

One last cut

Posted on by William Douthwaite

In the orange hues of the sunset he thought, “It’s still light out. I can finish this job.”

The riding mower made pass after pass through the yard, suddenly stopping at the fence. With the engine running, he jumped out of the seat, and the trimmer roared to life. As he worked his way down the sidewalk, he didn’t notice the mower slowly drift toward him.

First a nudge. Then a grab. As he tried to shake his leg free, he thought, “What the heck?”

As the mower blade began to chew at his foot, the belt caught a shoelace, then a cuff and finally a leg.

“What the…” Caught off balance, he rolled sideways, trying to catch his fall. The whirring string cut into his arm, spattering blood across the sidewalk and the side of his face. “Son of a…” was interrupted as the tractor lurched forward, pulling his foot out from under him. His face smashed into the ground. Everything went black.

“You have one new message.” <beep>

“We’ll be back out to finish your lawn service this morning. We apologize for the delay.” <beep>

Posted in memories, teaching

The worst way to die

Posted on by William Douthwaite

The question seemed simple enough. “What do you think would be the worst way to die?”

It’s like I flipped a switch. The room full of fairly disinterested 7th and 8th graders came to life with a flood of macabre methods of taking human life. Clearly I was not the first to ask them this question, and they excitedly offered up these horrible ways of killing, some of which I’ve never heard of before.

  • Put someone in a hollow brazen bull and light a fire under it until the person bakes to death.
  • Stuff someone in a barrel and nail the top shut, simply leaving them to die and slowly rot away.
  • Impale the victim on a sharp stick which would slowly pierce the length of their body.
  • Dip someone in the Amazon River, allowing the piranha to eat away their flesh.

I’ve been teaching this age group for a long time, but I’ve never had a class so fascinated with death and dying. I doubt many had even been to a funeral or seen a corpse, so this was all theoretical.

I remember doing a play in Junior High school called “The Lottery” based on a story by Shirley Jackson. It was about a small town that annually chose the name of one citizen who would be stoned to death by everyone else. The tradition provided a communal outlet for hate and anger. When everyone you know takes your life, that seems to be a pretty bad way to go.

Posted in memories

What did we do all summer?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I’m a boomer who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My dad left for work at 6 am and got home at 6 pm for supper. My mom was a pretty typical housewife, cooking, cleaning, sewing, reading and making sure the three of us (my brother, sister and I) didn’t kill each other. But I don’t remember her entertaining us all day. She pretty much wanted us to stay out of her hair.

Plus, it’s the 1960’s and 70’s. No iPhones. No computers. No internet. No videos, no DVDs, No VHS, no CDs. No cable TV. Our family TV didn’t even have UHF capability. Our black and white TV could pull in four TV stations from the roof antenna. One of them, channel 12, was PBS (Public Broadcasting System). I even remember that channel three was NBS, channel 6 was ABC, and channel 10 was CBS. Daytime TV was mostly soap operas (yawn).

What in the world did we do all day? What did we do all summer?

We played outside. We had a big backyard, big enough to play catch with a baseball. If we could find a third, we played “run the bases”, trying to slide in safely and steal a base. If you were alone, you played wall-ball in the driveway, throwing the ball at the wall and either catching it or hiding when it hit the neighbor’s house. I don’t know how my parents endured the constant thud-thud-thud of hours of wall-ball.

At least once a week we would jump our back yard fence into some private property that was basically a massive un-mown field owned by Boeing. The plant had long since closed, so no one was there. With a bucket of baseballs, we would hit fungos, field fly balls, and then peg throws home to the plate. The hitter had to quickly transition from batter to catcher. We lost a lot of balls in the long grass, but would find them again when someone occasionally mowed the field.,

One summer, we took the 4×8 piece of plywood that we had used for a model train setup and made a ping pong table. It was on the small side, but it worked for our basement. We painted it blue because my dad had come leftover blue paint. We lined the edges and center line with white tape. We added a net, ping pong balls and paddles, and we were all set. We played many, many games with spins and slams, just about the time President Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy was a thing.

We also had a dart board. We hung it on the concrete block wall of the basement, which was soon surrounded with hundreds of marks from darts that missed the board altogether. Why so many misses? We wound up and tried to throw them at the board as hard as we could.

A big amusement was Strat-O-Matic baseball. Strat-O-Matic baseball was a game played with Major League Baseball player cards and dice. You set a line up, rolled the dice, and the card for each player would tell you the out or hit result of that at-bat. OMG, we played that game for hours and hours, summer after summer. We had current teams. We had classic teams like the 1927 New York Yankees or the 1954 Philadelphia Phillies. We kept box scores. We compiled statistics. We typed up the stats. We were into it.

When the heat or summer showers kept us inside, we would pretend we had a restaurant, the Historian. We used mom’s old manual typewriter to type up menus featuring outrageous entrees with outrageous prices, and then pretend to be either waiters, cooks or diners.

We took a lot of bike rides. I had a 26-in one-speed Schwinn. My best friend had a ten-speed Schwinn Stingray. We would go out for hours, riding all over Delaware County.

One summer my dad put in an above-ground pool, which occupied us on all the hot days.

Once I got to Junior High School, there was a summer band program for a month or two. I loved summer band. It’s still a favorite part of my childhood memories. Combined with some high school students, we mostly just played through all kinds of concert and jazz band arrangements. I learned a lot of classic marches, show tunes and big band pieces during those years.

I still smile when I remember how I spent my summers fifty-plus years ago. Mom was blessed, too, because most of the time we stayed out of her hair.

Posted in Moments of grace

What if no one shows up?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I usually get to church about 6:30 on Sunday mornings. I like to be there early to run through my sermon once, make sure everything is set up for the morning and enjoy some quiet before the church comes alive when everyone arrives.

The first wave of people to show up is usually some of our musicians, followed by other volunteers who help make Sunday mornings possible. But yesterday, 7:30 am arrived and no one had arrived. No one was tuning, warming up or setting up music. I was the only one here.

7:35. No one has arrived. This is really strange. Now the thoughts start racing through my head. Is someone sick? I check my phone. No calls or texts. Is my watch right? The time on my phone matches. It’s not the fall equinox, when if you fail to turn your clock back, you are an hour early. It is Sunday morning, right? My guitar is at home. Are we going to have to sing a cappella this morning?

7:40. The bass player arrives with news that dozens of police cars had closed off the interstate and one of the main thoroughfares through town. He had to take several miles of detours to make it to church.

7:41. Music director arrives with a similar tale of diversions and detours.

Soon after, others arrive, all of them taking different routes to church.

When our church was closed for COVID quarantine, I had indeed worshiped all by myself in front of my iPhone set up on a tripod. But that was over a year ago. A weird flashback to a time I hope we never have to repeat.

Later that afternoon, I learned that the highway and bridge going over it were closed as sheriff’s deputies rescued a suicidal woman attempting to jump. They saved her and made it a much better Father’s day for her family.