DEATH AND 'FACTS IS' (Part One)

My family always took vacations.  Every year, we'd load up in the car and drive somewhere.  When I was really young, a couple of times it involved staying with relatives along the way.  It was both a chance to see them, and to get a free room for the night.  Mostly though, there never seemed to be a lot of vacation planning.  In fact, a few times, my dad would sit down the night before we were to leave, open up a map of the United States and ask out loud, "Which direction should we go this year?"  Then he would 'kind of' plot our route.

We only actually flew somewhere once, which not so coincidentally was the first time I flew in a plane.  But that flight was preceded by a long and winding road through New Orleans, down the coastline and on to Panama City Beach.  Somewhere along the way we decided to catch a flight from Panama City to the Bahamas.  If we could've driven to the Bahamas, I'm sure my dad would have done that instead, to save the money.

The problem with flying out of the panhandle of Florida was this: we had to take off and land three times to just get to Miami, lay over about six hours, and THEN fly to the Bahamas.  I tended to get a little car sick when we drove, and taking off and landing that many times in the same small plane about did me in.  By the time we reached Miami, I was miserable.  To quote the Beatles, "All the way the paper bag was on my knee, man I had a dreadful flight!"  I sat there in the Miami airport with my head in my hands, trying not to throw up, hoping to rid myself of that horrible nausea.  I wound up being VERY thankful for the six hour layover and a chance to finally return to my normal color before I boarded that last flight to Nassau.

I'm sure the Bahamas was my mom's idea.  She was always interested in seeing the world.  She made sure she got to see Hawaii and Israel before she died.  They used to put 'stickers' on your luggage when you flew, and we had the 'Nassau, Bahamas' stickers on the sides of our suitcases from then on. We lived in Ada at the time, and not too many folks had even flown that lived there, more or less been to the Bahamas. She dropped the 'Bahamas' bomb whenver possible in conversations (to impress). But from my perspective, I had only bad memories of that trip.  Whatever last minute hotel we booked in Nassau wasn't really on the beach, just near a not-so-nice public beach; and after the initial 'flying' experience, I spent most of our time in the Bahamas dreading the flight back.  I have no desire to go there again, so I won't be buying any timeshares in the Bahamas!

One year my dad plotted out a trip to the Northwest. We managed to take in Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, and the Great Salt Lake during that 'swing'. We never really went to cities; we just aimed for National Parks or tourist destinations (although on the Bahamas swing, I think we DID actually take a half day guided tour of New Orleans.  I just remember the above ground graves.  Those things stick in your head as a kid).  As usual, we never booked a hotel in advance.  We always drove way longer than we should have each day, and waited much later than we should have to find a hotel.

Remember, there wasn't the plethora of hotels back then that we have now, so normally it was a small one-story motel by the side of the road, where you parked in front of your door, and stayed the night.  The ritual always involved finding a neon 'no vacancy' sign, where the 'no' wasn't lit up (think Bates motel).  Then my dad would go to the front desk, get a key for a room, and go look at it first, to be sure it was clean and presentable before he'd ever actually secure the room.  I can remember many times when he'd come back to the car, when the room WASN'T worth renting (even for him), and it was back on the road until we got to the next town, and the next motel with a vacant room.  It was a rare occassion when we would decide to stop driving about 5:00 to stay at a motel with a pool, so that there'd be time (and daylight) to swim; but never more than once a road trip.

The same scenario played out that year when we arrived at Yellowstone.  Once we got there (which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere) we discovered the only rooms to be had were in and around the park.  Of course the 'lodge' was booked up.  However, my dad found us a great deal on a tiny one-room cabin in the heart of the park.  There wasn't a bathroom (I think we all shared a large one, that was down a path through the trees) and I'm not sure there was even electricity in the darn thing.  Even though it was summer, it was, of course, high up in those mountains, and that night it was frigid.  The ONLY heat in that cabin came from a small open woodburning stove in the corner.  Thank the Lord my dad was a country boy, and knew how to get that little stove percolating.  However, it was still really cold (you could see your breath), and the only way to stay really warm, besides keeping several layers of clothes on or crawling in bed underneath a ton of covers, was to stand right in front of that stove.

Like most kids, I was never good about heeding warnings.  I had a small scar right beneath my eye for many years from running with a screwdriver in my hand in spite of the fact that I'm sure I got the "you'll poke your eye out" warning many times.  I swallowed a marble when I was about five even though I'm sure I got the "don't put that in your mouth" warning many times also (that marble never DID show up although we watched and waited for its arrival for several days after that).  So, this time was no exception.  My dad quickly said, "Don't get too close to that stove.  You'll catch on fire."  Once again, this would have probably fallen on young, 'deaf' ears, but then he added a little something that really DID get my attention.  "Back on the farm," he said, "I had a little brother that burned up from one of those stoves."  That stopped me in my bare tracks (pun intended).

You see my dad grew up in a one-roomed house north of Seminole, Oklahoma; and that was how THEY kept warm in the winter (way back then).  And it was news to me that he ever had a little baby brother.  I knew about his sister Linda, and his brother Dan.  But I guess there was a fourth Whittern child that got a little too close to the woodburning stove as a toddler, caught his pajamas on fire and died as a result.  Needless to say I was stunned.  Needless to say I NEVER got very close to that fire...no matter how cold I got that night.  It's a warning I never forgot.

The Bible contains many warnings...way more than the infamous TEN that the world has done all it can to hide.  But like all warnings, they're not much good if they stay hidden or remain unread and/or unheard...or unheeded.

Death itself is a warning.  A reminder that tomorrow is not promised and today is all you have to work with.  And that YOU were given a day that someone else wasn't given.

James 4:13-14 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

(to be continued)