A Saturday Morning at Jordan's Chapel

HCG August 21 2008
Turning 65 is not the demoralizing occasion that younger people, those 50 and under , imagine. Two friends of mine turned 65 last week. One, a lady, I will not say who…Because Looking at her you would not think it...she is beautiful …she works out so she looks like a million dollars and is having the time of her life. And near the end of the month she will adding new exciting element to her life


Getting older means less responsibilities, we are not having to set up all night waiting for a teen to come home…our children are doing that. We are not having to scrap money together to send kids to college, keeping them in cars and clothes…. our children are doing that.


Past 60 we are perceived to be moderately incompetent. ….therefore much less is expected of us ….. So, up on waking in the morning…my day is mine…I can do what ever I want…play in cement, or splatter paint on paper and call it “Art“ (Sounds a bit like kindergarten doesn‘t it?)…I can cook or clean…But I must confess, I do not regularly choose the latter chores to fill my days


Not that we do not have responsibilities…we do, lots of them…but we are more able to choose what we want to be responsible for. Our cats and dogs….That reminds me of what John said one rather difficult evening years ago, when our kids accused John and I of liking the animals more then them, John responded by telling them, “Well they don’t wreck cars, and they don’t ask for money.”


When younger if you slide past normal even slightly, you were thought of as crazy , as someone who needs to be hemmed up, or medicated…or both . Old people who step off center are described in quite affectionate terms like….eccentric, colorful and zany. In the British TV comedies they refer to them as “Old Dears”

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I started out to tell you about the birthday party I went to Saturday Morning…and got lost in all of that babble. Hobbes Freeman, turned 65 and Gordon Cotton and a bunch of friends had a party for him, down at Campbell’s Swamp, a covered dish a hymn singing at Jordan’s Chapel. There was a big crowd….it was standing room only.


It was a perfect day! Well, it was perfect after I got my covered dish decided on I made this lovely roast beef….But after it was sliced it was not so delightful….it was just grey…so made a garlic dressing and poured over it…the roast taste was somewhat improved, but the dressing did nothing to advance it’s appearance, so I mixed in some olives and pickled vegetables…better …But still did not have an appetizing appearance…it needed something.


Then I spotted a large, red, high sided platter, a piece of Phyllis Tagget’s, Southern Fired Pottery, it is very organic and artsy …Hobbes is an artist …I wanted my covered dish to be if not spectacular in flavor… at least look interesting . …..I dumped the grey roast out of the Pyrex casserole into the red platter and voila! My roast turned into a work of art!


Phyllis does neat work…and she is getting in to glass too. I don’t have any of it but, I did see a prototype of a Christmas piece…it was like you were looking down at a farm from an airplane….or maybe even from heaven? Phyllis’s non artist husband Jessie had made it…so it may not have made to cut. I loved it….“Christmas Fields” is what he and I were calling it….
So back to Hobbe’s party, It was perfect ! The music was perfect, a quartet sang old time hymns… unaccompanied ,no piano, no organ…just a little pitch pipe to get them started…Jordans Chapel is officially Methodist Episcopal. Unofficially there is a good bit of Primitive Baptist mixed in. Of course it doesn’t make any difference…it is all Christian…folks who love the Lord and want to sing about Jesus and what he has done for us.


When we get to heaven ,I will be very surprised ,if we are sorted by which particular denomination we were affiliated with here on earth….But if we are, there will be several corrals I can follow my Sheppard into….
Love to all and call if you need me…








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