Chicken Soup for the Country Soul Read online

  Softly, on my left shoulder, I felt a hand. Through tearfilled eyes I looked up and there he was. An elderly man with piercing eyes as blue as an autumn sky and a face of weathered leather. His once-powerful frame was now slightly bent and covered by a well-worn pair of overalls.

  “It’s okay, child. It’s gonna be okay,” his gruff, yet softened voice whispered to me. “You know you don’t have to worry none ’bout your daddy knowing how you feel.”

  A puzzled look in my eyes beckoned him to continue as his strong hands pulled mine from my face and comforted me.

  “Your daddy knows how much you love him, he always has, and no matter what happens, he will always be with you.”

  I had no idea how this stranger could have known what I was feeling inside, but this sweet man sat down beside me and gently put his arm around me, rocking me slowly back and forth. I spent an hour in this isolated waiting room with this comforting soul at my side, discussing prayers and memories of my father. He told me his wife was also in the critical care ward dying of cancer and was not expected to live but a few days. I expressed my sorrow for his soon-to-be loss and asked what I could do for him and his wife.

  “What’s to be will be. My wife and I have lived and loved each other a long, long time. Forever it seems. My loss is soothed by the comfort of eternal peace—your situation is much different. Hush now child, you rest, I will wake you if there is any news.”

  Weary and completely drained of energy, I soon drifted off to sleep being held by a stranger. A nurse accompanied my mother into the waiting room where I was resting and gently woke me.

  “Your father has been moved to a critical care room. He is out of immediate danger; however, it will be a long night. We have arranged to have a couple of cots moved into the room so you may stay with him. He is a very lucky man.” She quickly left the room to attend to other patients.

  Mom sat down beside me and I quickly glanced around the room for my stranger. He was gone. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but she soon fell asleep, overwhelmed with exhaustion. She leaned her head on my shoulder and dozed as I held her close. Miraculously, I felt peace and strength I didn’t know I had. I assumed it was from the utter calm of the stranger in the waiting room. I can’t explain it, but when I looked in his blue eyes and he told me to rest and not worry, I had felt his calmness transfer to me.

  Dad remained in the hospital for several weeks. I never left his side. My eyes glued to the monitors praying those bleeps did not stop. I slept in short intervals, frequenting the cafeteria for a shot of caffeine and occasionally I would see the man from the waiting room. Each time we bumped into each other, he would whisper with a twinkle in his eye, “He’s doing better today isn’t he?”

  “Yes sir, he is. Thank you for sitting with me. How is your wife doing?” I questioned.

  “Now, now child, I told you, an eternal peace is comfort. She has her days—some are good, some are bad.”

  “What room is she in? Perhaps I can bring the two of you some dinner later?” I asked eagerly wanting to repay the kindness.

  “Ah, child, my memory is a lot older than my body is. I can’t recall the room number, but I can always find my way to her. We’ll be alright, you just take care of your daddy.”

  Over the next few weeks, Dad improved daily. I continued to bump into the kind gentleman. Unfortunately, I was always by myself because I wanted so badly to introduce him to my family. However, the opportunity never arose. I always looked forward to seeing him and even once wandered through the critical care ward peeking into rooms to see if perhaps I could find him. I wanted to do something nice for him, but I never found him.

  The night before my father’s release was the first good night’s rest I had the entire time he was hospitalized. That night, the lumpy recliner, which had given me many backaches all the many nights before, felt exceptionally comfortable. I curled up in a blanket the nurse had given me and quickly fell asleep. Sometime after midnight, I awoke suddenly. My heart pounding, I studied the monitors above Dad’s bed making sure they were working. I looked over at mom sleeping peacefully and realized I must have just been dreaming. I curled up into the blanket and just happened to glance over to the window. Through the half-closed blinds, I saw the blue-eyed old man. He raised one weathered finger to his lips, “Sssshh” and smiled. He waved and went on his way. I slept soundly the remainder of the evening.

  The next day was exciting for me as I helped Mom pack Dad’s belongings and loaded the car. After the nurse whisked Dad away in the wheelchair, I ran back to the room for one last look around making certain we did not leave anything behind. Then I found a nurse—I just had to thank my friend. He had sustained me through long weeks when I didn’t think I could go on. Yet I always had. He always appeared when I needed him most.

  “Nurse, an older man has been on this ward at his wife’s side. You must have seen him wandering around. He’s fairly tall, white-haired, deep blue eyes. And he’s very sweet. I’d like to say good-bye to him.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s not ringing a bell with me. Hold on. . . .” the nurse said. She went and got a supervisor, and I explained again how the old man had been a great source of comfort to me and I needed to say good-bye. They went over the list of patients, but not one older woman was listed on the critical care ward.

  “We have several older men and a couple of car accident victims, but no women on this floor.”

  After asking around, no one could even recall seeing the old man. I was completely perplexed. Surely I hadn’t imagined this man. He had to be in the hospital somewhere. But more questioning of nurses and orderlies drew a complete blank. Sadly, I realized I would have to leave without saying a proper good-bye.

  Later that night, after Dad was settled at home, I reflected on the mysterious stranger. Maybe the old man himself was the answer to my prayers in that lonely waiting room. That elderly gentleman with those strong, weathered hands, the faded overalls and those deep, piercing blue eyes was a prayer answered for me. He helped me through one of the most difficult times in my life with his gentle voice and kind words. He brought me peace and hope at a time when I thought none could be found. Perhaps he was sent as my daddy’s guardian angel. Or mine. My very own waiting room angel.

  Carla M. Fulcher

  Bottom Dollar

  Cameron Mounger and I have been friends since we were teenagers. Both of us liked music, and several years after we left high school, Cam became a disc jockey.

  Recently he told me the story about the day he was down to his last dollar. It was the day his luck—and his life—changed.

  The story began in the early 1970s when Cam was an announcer and disc jockey at KYAL in McKinney, Texas, and attained celebrity status. He met many music stars, and he enjoyed flying to Nashville in the company plane with the station owner.

  One night Cam was in Nashville for the final performance of the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium before it moved to Opryland U.S.A. “After the show, an acquaintance invited me backstage with all the Opry stars. I didn’t have any paper for autographs, so I took out a dollar bill,” Cam told me. “Before the night ended, I had virtually every Opry personality’s autograph. I guarded that dollar bill and carried it with me always. I knew I would treasure it forever.”

  Then station KYAL was put up for sale, and many employees found themselves without a job. Cam landed part-time work at WBAP in Fort Worth and planned to hang on to this job long enough for a full-time position to open up.

  The winter of 1976–77 was extremely cold. The heater in Cam’s old Volkswagen emitted only a hint of warm air; the windshield defroster didn’t work at all. Life was hard, and Cam was broke. With the help of a friend who worked at a local supermarket, he occasionally intercepted Dumpster-bound outdated TV dinners. “This kept my wife and me eating, but we still had no cash.”

  One morning as Cam left the radio station he saw a young man sitting in an old yellow Dodge in the parking lot. Cam waved to him and drove away.
When he came back to work that night, he noticed the car again, parked in the same space. After a couple of days, it dawned on him that this car had not moved. The fellow in it always waved cordially to Cam as he came and went. What was the man doing sitting in his car for three days in the terrible cold and snow?

  Cam discovered the answer the next morning. This time as Cam walked near the car, the man rolled down his window. He introduced himself and said he had been in his car for days with no money or food. He had driven to Fort Worth from out of town to take a job. But he arrived three days early and couldn’t go to work right away.

  Very reluctantly, he asked if he might borrow a dollar for a snack to get him by until the next day, when he would start work and get a salary advance. “I didn’t have a dollar to lend him; I barely had gas to get home. I explained my situation and walked to my car, wishing I could have helped him.”

  Then Cam remembered his Grand Ole Opry dollar. He wrestled with his conscience a minute or two, pulled out his wallet and studied the bill one last time. Then he walked back to the man and gave him his bottom dollar. “Somebody has written all over this,” the man said, but didn’t notice that the writing was dozens of autographs. He took the bill.

  “That very morning when I was back home trying not to think about what I had done, things began to happen,” Cam told me. “The phone rang; a recording studio wanted me to do a commercial that paid five hundred dollars. It sounded like a million. I hurried to Dallas and did the spot. In the next few days more opportunities came to me out of nowhere. Good things kept coming steadily, and soon I was back on my feet.”

  The rest, as they say, is history. Things improved dramatically for Cam. His wife had a baby and named him Joshua. Cam opened a successful auto-body shop and built a home in the country. And it all started that morning in the parking lot when he parted with his bottom dollar.

  Cameron never saw the man in the old yellow Dodge again. Sometimes he wonders if the man was a beggar— or an angel.

  It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was a test, and Cam passed.

  Robert J. Duncan

  Submitted by Jan Landis

  The Man in Black

  Although there have been many, this story is about meeting one of my special unsung heroes—The Man in Black.

  It happened back in 1967. I dropped out of school and my parents told me I had two choices: one was to go back to school, the other was to join the Job Corps and learn a trade. Well, because the Job Corps would get me an airplane ride and I wouldn’t have to mind my parents— besides, it was an adventure just like any immature kid would want—I opted for the Job Corps. Like most kids that age, I thought I knew it all, but I really didn’t know anything! A couple of weeks later I was on my way to Rodman Job Corps Center in New Bedford, Massachusetts. For a boy from Kansas City, it was a completely new experience. There was ocean all around the Job Corps center, and as a kid from the Midwest, it was awesome. But it was nothing like home and it didn’t take long before I was homesick.

  My parents had brought me up listening to country— Hank Williams, Kitty Wells and yes, even Johnny Cash. So when I heard that Johnny was having a show around the New Bedford area, I saved up my money for two weeks— just enough to see the show. Back then, it wasn’t so much that I even liked his music, but that it was something that reminded me of home.

  The night of the show, I took the bus that runs from the center to the downtown area to the theater where the show was going to be. I couldn’t believe how many people were waiting to get into that theater. The seating was “first-come, first-served” so the line must have been two blocks long. Luckily it didn’t take too long for me to get up near the front of the line. I got a pretty good seat to watch the show and the show went by real fast. Before I knew it, it was 11:00 P.M. But being that I was having fun it didn’t matter.

  Then I remembered the last bus going back to the center had already left. I was in trouble. There was no other way back except by cab and I had spent all my money on the ticket for the show. To make matters worse, if I didn’t get back to the Job Corps center by 12:30 A.M., they would put me on restriction for a month. That meant that I couldn’t go back to town for a month.

  Because I was already in trouble and couldn’t see a way out of it, I decided that I might as well go for broke and try and get Johnny’s, June’s, and everybody else’s autograph that I could, because I would be stuck at the center for a month.

  That is what I thought at the time. But that is not how it turned out.

  When the show was over, everybody tried to get Johnny’s and June’s autographs. But I was a little craftier. I snuck past their security guards and got back into their dressing room. I ran into the dressing room thinking that no one would be in there and was startled when I ran into the Carter Family. The thing that got my attention was mother Mabelle. She had the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. One of the girls asked me what I was doing there, and I told her I wanted to get Johnny’s autograph. But before she could say anything, in walked Johnny and June.

  The girl said, “This is . . .”

  “My name is Richard,” I said.

  “Where are you from, son?” Johnny asked in that deep southern baritone voice.

  “Kansas City, sir,” I replied. I was in awe. Here I was actually talking to The Man in Black.

  “Why’d you come back here?” he asked.

  “I wanted your autograph, sir,” I managed to get across my lips.

  He sort of smiled and said, “I think that can be arranged.

  . . . Let me step in here and change, and I’ll give you an autograph.”

  When he came back out, he said, “Okay, son, what would you like me to autograph?”

  Well, I felt kind of stupid ’cause I hadn’t brought anything for him to sign! I noticed a handball, picked it up, and he signed it for me.

  He was getting ready to leave and he asked me if I wanted to carry his guitar out to his car! Needless to say, he didn’t have to ask twice! I felt like I had the whole world in my pocket. I mean, here I was—me—carrying Johnny Cash’s guitar to his car!

  Well, off we were to his car. The only problem was he had forgotten where he had parked it. He remembered it was parked on the side of a restaurant, but he couldn’t remember which side. He remembered that there was a sign with a blue whale picture on it. I knew where that was, so we were able to find his car.

  He put his guitar in the trunk of his car and was getting ready to leave and all of a sudden he looked up at me and asked, “Where are your parents?”

  “Back in Kansas City, sir,” I told him.

  “Well, how did you get to my show?” he asked inquisitively.

  At that point, I told him the trouble I was in.

  Without hesitation he asked, “Do you know how to find your way back to the center?”

  I said, “Yes, sir. I know what streets to take there.”

  He said, “Well, get in, son, I’ll drop you off there.”

  And with that, he took me back to the Job Corps center.

  Now how many entertainers of his caliber do you know that would take the time out to help a kid like me stay out of trouble and make sure that they got home safe? There may be others, but from a personal point of view, I know only one—The Man in Black—Johnny Cash. My unsung hero.

  So Johnny, if you’re reading this, I just want to thank you for caring about that kid from Kansas City. Because you cared, it has given me a reason to care. Like I said, it take s one to teach one.

  Richard Tripp

  O Holy Night

  A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when he respects another’s weakness.

  Douglas Jerrold

  The International Country Music Fan Fair in Nashville is always a zoo-like affair with three hundred or more people waiting in line at John Berry’s booth for autographs, to take pictures, and to buy memberships and T-shirts. Fans often climb over the stanchions trying to get a picture and yelling at Jo
hn to get his attention.

  Last year, John and his wife, Robin, had a great idea for the theme of his booth. They felt it would be nice to have people come and visit them on their front porch, so they had the booth made as an identical replica of the porch on the Berry house. The display kind of depicts how John feels about his fans—almost like they’re family. Coming onto his front porch at the show was a very comfortable thing for people.

  Fan Fair began on Tuesday with a full day of interviews followed by over four hours of autograph signing at the booth. John’s fan club party didn’t close down ’til 2:30 the next morning.

  John started Wednesday with the Capitol Nashville Showcase. After that, it was back to the booth where the autograph line began in front of the picket fence leading to the porch. A separate handicapped area fed into this line. At one point, I spoke with a woman who explained that she was deaf. She told me how she listened to John’s music by laying her fingertips on the speakers in her home. Now, she just wanted to be face-to-face with John. She asked if she could touch him to really feel what she had been “hearing” through the speakers with her hands.

  I was impressed by the woman who seemed like a kindly soul with a gentle spirit. In spite of her handicap, she was independent, positive and confident. Although I knew John was already exhausted, I was certain he’d want to meet this special fan. I took the woman over to John, let him know she was deaf and explained that she had a special request. John had her sit down next to his rocking chair and got very close. Everyone around kind of stepped back and things quickly got very quiet. The woman reached up and put her fingertips on John’s throat. At that point, she asked him to sing. Without hesitation, and in the middle of June, John broke into “O Holy Night.”