More Gold

By Richard V. Shriver

More Gold is the continuation of stories begun in my earlier book, Gold to Refine. I believe we all need stories funny stories, touching stories, loving stories, happy stories, stories with a moral, stories with hope. In this collection, I return to events of my childhood and youth with my brothers. The stories are about growing up in Nashville, Tennessee in very wonderful times, and include tales about my mother, father, grandparents, and friends.

There are stories about our rattletrap cars and they make us wonder how we survived to adulthood. There are stories about the church and my co-workers in the church; and about teaching at the university. There are stories about my son and daughter to whom the book is dedicated.

I hope that the collection continues to offer humor, healing, faith, and encouragement at a time in our history when these qualities are so desperately needed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 28, 2008
• ISBN: 9781477162439

Richard V. Shriver

Richard Shriver was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the second of three sons of Thomas A. and Attie Gene Shriver. His father was a highly honored judge of the Tennessee Court of Appeals. His education was in the public schools through the twelfth grade. His bachelor’s degree is in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, and his Master of Divinity degree also is from Vanderbilt. He is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, having served churches in Tennessee, Wisconsin, and England for thirty-two years. Dr. Shriver continued his education in History, Music, and Christian Education in the graduate schools of Vanderbilt University, Peabody College, Scarritt College, Wisconsin State University, and Middle Tennessee State University, and earned his doctorate in Education and Theology at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He has been active in radio and television as a regular guest on Nashville’s Channel 5, Lebanon, Tennessee’s Channel 66, and WLAC Radio. He shares the hosting of Nashville’s CATV’s “We Believe,” and is a regular guest on WNQM Radio’s “We Believe,” a Roman Catholic sponsored show. Dr. Shriver’s first book, The Gabriel Letters, was published in 1990. He presently is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and is Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Volunteer State College in Gallatin, Tennessee where he lives with his wife, Joy. They have two grown children…son, Colin and daughter, Kendal.

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Copyright © 2008 by Richard V. Shriver.

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4257-9860-4

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                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-6243-9

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

I

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU

II

TOM’S FIRST CAR

III

MORE ON TOM’S FIRST CAR

IV

TOM’S SECOND CAR

V

MY FIRST CAR

VI

FEETS OF STRENGTH

VII

LA BETE NOIRE

VIII

THE FLORENCE CRITTENTON HOME

IX

MILK AND ORANGE JUICE

X

THE HITCHHIKER

XI

THE LADIES’ SEWING CIRCLE

XII

PTEUTZ

XIII

COLIN’S WORST DAY

XIV

JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF ???—

TO BEE OR NOT…

XV

MARY POPPINS

XVI

LETTER FROM AN ARCHANGEL

XVII

CHET

XVIII

SPLIT YOUR WIG

XIX

MOM, LOVE CIRCLE, AND THE BYQ’S

XX

KENDAL

XXI

I CAN’T TELL MY BISCUITS FROM MY

GRITS—TEA AT THE SHRIVER HOUSE

XXII

EVANGELIZATION

XXIII

ROOM IN THE INN

XXIV

THE GLASTONBURY MYTH

APPENDIX

DEDICATION

Joy and I dedicate this book to our son and daughter, Colin and Kendal. We are very proud of them, and there is a chapter about each of them in the book.

Colin has provided the cover art for all four of my books, The Gabriel Letters, The Return of Gabriel, Gold To Refine, and now, More Gold. Colin is a brilliant artist. His talent constantly amazes me. He certainly did not get it from me! As it is hard to understand his talent, it is even more difficult to admit that the son is smarter than the father, but such is the case.

Kendal is the athlete and teacher. As a young soccer player, she was unexcelled. As a teacher and coach, she understands and cares about her students and players at an unbelievable level. She and her husband, Todd, have recently presented us with a beautiful granddaughter, Katie. On the day Katie was born, Kendal’s hospital room was filled with her students and players. They all think that the baby belongs to them! They love Kendal!

HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

        Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said,

        To you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,

        For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

        Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

        The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;

For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,

        And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

        My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not harm thee; I only design

        Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

"The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose,

        I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake,

        I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake!" Amen.

—Early American Hymn

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As I said in the preface to Gold to Refine, I have discovered the delightful stories of James Herriot, and I continue to draw help from his wonderful ability to tell a story.

My message comes from Christianity. I learned it from my parents and my church. My theology is, I believe, thoroughly Wesleyan. But my determination that religion be rational and understandable and involved in society, I found in the writings of Harry Emerson Fosdick and the teachings of my divinity school theology professor, Nels F. S. Ferré.

The minister of my church during high school and college, John Rustin, talked about a church he had served in Washington, D. C. moving the center of crime in its neighborhood about 12 or 13 blocks. The police chief had told him that his church’s program for youth and young adults had made that kind of an impact on its community. Dr. Rustin’s concept of a total program of the church insisted on this Social Gospel idea that the church must make a difference for good in its neighborhood.

These people have been important influences on my life and thus my stories.

Several of my students have helped with typing, editing, proof reading, and general preparation of the manuscript. They include: Sarrina ViAnné (who has helped with all of my books), Sommer Rose Worley, Oriana Serena, Jeannie Brown, and Trey Tidwell. To them I am very grateful.

Of course I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family: my lovely wife, Joy; son, Colin; daughter, Kendal and her husband, Todd… and our new granddaughter, Katie. Colin has done the artwork for the cover.

Richard Shriver

Gallatin, Tennessee

September 2007

PREFACE

I learned the great value of stories and storytelling with a group of older adults (mostly widows) who met in our home for lunch each Friday for about 15 years. They called themselves The Born Again Virgins! This Friday lunch bunch began as a gathering for Bible study, but after a few years I began reading stories to them. The marvelous short stories of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian, became our regular fare. I realized that if a Yorkshire veterinarian had great stories to tell, so did a Methodist preacher/teacher, and I began writing.

These stories are true and autobiographical. This, my second collection, began as a series of car stories about the crazy adventures of my brother, Tommy, and me in high school and college. Then the stories expanded to include family and friends and my work. I have arranged the stories roughly in chronological order.

I suspect that there will be more stories to come. I have many experiences to share. From student to pastor to youth director to pastor to campus minister to pastor to professor, I have lived and worked in Tennessee, Wisconsin, and England. I began writing short stories about my experiences, because I love to write and have so many stories to tell—funny stories, serious stories, human interest stories, and stories with problems to be solved. But mostly I write because I believe we all love and need good stories.

As in previous books, the people in these stories are real people, and I use their real names—unless the tales are less than complimentary, in which case the names of people and places are changed to protect… me!

I

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU

I must have been three or four years old. I have some snapshots taken that summer. I was towheaded—light blond and very curly hair. My grandparents, Mom’s parents, came for an extended visit from their home in Canyon, Texas, and I remember enjoying very much their being with us. We had wonderful visits with them in Canyon. On trips to Canyon, we rode the train and slept in Pullman cars. But it was great to have Grandma and Grandpa Humphreys at our home in Tennessee. It was obvious that they loved their grandsons—and probably spoiled us thoroughly.

We lived in a lovely house on Bonner Avenue in the Green Hills section of Nashville, Tennessee. We were on the outer edge of Nashville and had a large yard and garden—about 2 ½ acres. Pop (Thomas A. Shriver, a Tennessee Court of Appeals judge) had a beautiful flower garden with over 80 rose bushes plus many other annuals and perennials. His love, though, was his huge vegetable garden. He grew tomatoes, squash, eggplant, beets, carrots, green beans, pole beans, butter beans, lettuce, cantaloupes, watermelons, musk melons, zucchini, okra, at least four plantings of corn, and turnips (with plenty of turnip greens which he mixed with mustard greens, kale, collards, beet tops, dandelion leaves, and lambs quarters—cooked all day with a good country ham hock).

Pop not only grew the vegetables, he picked and cleaned them, and made us eat them at dinner-time. Tomato sandwiches (white bread, mayonnaise, and beautiful, large, sliced tomatoes) were our regular summer lunch. I know now what a great privilege it was, but we didn’t always appreciate having to clean our plates when we were young. I did not like eggplant, and big brother Tommy did not like squash! He really did not like squash! Neither of us liked beets. But it was a personal affront to Pop, if we didn’t eat everything he brought in.

Years later, when Pop was in his nineties, he continued to work in his garden. He was not supposed to lift any heavy weights because he had several cracked vertebrae. One day Mom found him weeding the tomatoes, lying on his stomach using his elbows as levers to pull up the weeds.

In those later years, the family gathered regularly for Sunday dinner after church. One of the places where Pop liked to eat was Shoney’s, because they had a fine salad bar. One day I was standing opposite Pop at the salad bar when I noticed that they had sliced beets among the salad dishes. Pop always grew beets in the garden, and we had to eat them. He told us how good they were and that they were loaded with iron and other essential nutrients.

I was excited! Pop, look, they have beets, I exclaimed.

He didn’t seem to hear me.

Pop! They have beets.

He nodded but passed on by them, saying nothing.

Pop! They have beets! Aren’t you going to take some? I asked.

Never cared much for beets, he mumbled under his breath.

"What? What? What?! You don’t like beets? You mean to say that for all those years, you made us eat beets—you grew those beets and made us eat them . . . and you don’t even like them?"

Yep, he replied, never cared much for beets. And he passed on by them.

I realized I had never ever actually seen him eat a beet.

In addition to his gardens, Pop built us a playground in the back yard. At first, there were only a couple of swings, a picnic table, and a grill for cooking. The picnic table (it is still there as I write, many years later) was a large stone slab which he had set on four vertical clay drain pipes filled with concrete for legs. But he added a tree house, chinning bars, and several amazing swings hanging from limbs high in tall trees. We could climb up into the high tree house, carrying the swing with us, and jump out, almost like a parachute jump. It was quite a thrill!

Tommy and I each built our own tree houses, really platforms, high in a very tall Pin Oak tree. Mom had to work in the front of the house when we were playing in our tree houses. She said that she couldn’t bear to watch us.

One summer we had a tent town. Every boy in the neighborhood bought an army surplus tent, and Mom would let us sleep out once a week. That summer we had eighteen tents in the yard. Sleeping out was fun, but cooking breakfast over the open fire on the grill was especially great.

There was already a log cabin in the back yard. Before we boys were born, Pop had found the one-room cabin in the woods on a hunting trip. It was built originally about 1830. He bought it, disassembled it, numbering the logs, and when Mom came home from the hospital after giving birth to Tommy, the cabin had been put together outside her bedroom window, complete with a front porch. Pop used it as a rustic study at first, but as boys, we played in it on rainy days. We were allowed to sleep out in it occasionally, even in winter—it had a fireplace. We slept on army cots.

The cabin was also furnished with gun racks holding antique (non-usable) rifles, a deer’s head that had been given to Mom by an old beau, and a stuffed hawk. Late at night, by the flickering light of a log fire, the hawk was a fearsome, shadowy presence. The lighting of the cabin was by coal oil lamps and the fire in the fireplace.

Originally, Pop had made a beautiful bed and matching table of pine wood for the cabin, but by the time we boys were using it, they had been moved into the house, and the bed was my boyhood bed. Both pieces are now in our home in Gallatin. Before Mom died in 1999, she willed the cabin to my cousin, Bob Lee, and he has restored it on his property in a beautiful mountain Hemlock woods near Monterey, Tennessee. He calls it Uncle Tom’s Cabin!

Needless to say, our yard became the gathering place for all the neighborhood boys, even as early as that summer when I was three or four years old and Grandma and Grandpa Humphreys were visiting.

One warm summer evening, we were out in the side yard catching lightning bugs (fireflies). We each had jelly jars to hold them. Mom had poked holes in the jar tops with an ice pick. Though I was the youngest, I had caught the most. I probably bragged too loudly, because one of the older boys stole my jar of lightning bugs… I screamed, but he wouldn’t give it back.

I ran in the house crying loudly. Grandpa was sitting in a chair in the living room, reading the newspaper. He called me over to him.

Grandpa, John Strother Humphreys, was a professor—head of the language department at West Texas State College at Canyon. He and Grandma moved to Canyon after he had been the president of three Texas Baptist colleges—Brownwood, Greenville, and Marshall—having gone there from Kentucky at the beginning of the 20th Century. He was born at Bardstown and schooled at Georgetown, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. I remember him as a kind, gentle man who loved his grandchildren, his pipe, and ice cream.

Grandpa laid the newspaper aside and picked me up onto his lap and hugged me. He wanted to hear my whole story. Sobbingly, I told him everything.

I had the most… and mine were the best… and they stole them from me… and they wouldn’t give them back… and… Sob, sob, sob.

Grandpa listened, and we sat and talked for a while. He was such a dear man. Grandma said that the first time she saw him, she thought he was the sweetest looking man she had ever seen and decided, right then, that she was going to marry him. He rode 100 miles on a bicycle—from Bardstown to Louisville and back—for