It Started in a Strawberry Patch

It started in a strawberry patch off I-4…You ask, so what? So what! Great attractions have popped up in  orange groves, cow pastures and swamps. Mickey Mouse started off of I-4. How? Walt Disney lived here as a child and then came back to start Disney World. Following the Magic Kingdom, there have been boy wizards, waterparks, lots of dolphins and the famous Shamu, the killer whale.

Great events have happened here also between Tampa and Orlando too numerous to mention here. And Presidential races have been determined by eating strawberry shortcake at a famous roadside stand. The first candidate who gobbles one down there always wins. 

Well one day between Dinosaur World and half-buried RV’s, a field of berries was cleared to begin construction between exit 10 and exit 12. Soon, a huge brick building rose up out of the earth and I saw it rise up every day on my way to church or Tampa.  I soon heard that it was a high school, named after one of our favorite fruits, rising up as a testimony to modern architecture. Of course, it had its own strawberry field preserving one small section of the once large patch.

Soon, it was full of bustling students and bursting forth with them. I started subbing there occasionally with a few days a week. The campus grew fuller and I was in more demand. One day the secretary asked if I would take on a long time assignment. I agreed to it a little reluctantly. I never have liked the secondary level. It’s outside my comfort zone. But, I said okay since it was an open door and who can resist that? You’d be crazy to turn it down.

A few days before I had just finished a good book on how to be a great leader. It said to go with your strengths and not your weaknesses and walk through the doors God opens for you. Next, I read somewhere that a man read all the works of Shakespeare and there were thirty seven. Well, maybe I’ll read one I reasoned. Besides all this, I did feel a burden to win souls to Christ.

Next thing I knew, there I was standing before a class of high school seniors teaching Shakespeare’s Othello and feeling stretched beyond measure. The juniors weren’t any easier.  The first day two boys gave me a good stare down that nearly drove me nuts. I realized that I still could blush.  Later, I kicked one belligerent kid out of my room. I felt bad about it, but I felt I had no choice; he was “acting up.” He told me “that sucks!” when I told the class I would be their teacher for a few months. He went to in-school suspension for it.

He came back the next day and told me I had changed his life. He’s been better since then. I thought about that a long time. I changed a life. Or rather, God changed a life through me.

Of all that’s ever happened off I-4, this is got to be the most significant. If I accomplish nothing else, and even fail at everything else I attempt at this school, I have succeeded in this one thing, I changed a life. And that has changed my life, too.

And to think it all started in a strawberry patch…

The Vortex

It’s early in the morning when she pulls up. Already, her heart is racing as she walks into the swirl: of emotions, smells, noises and colors that makes up the Vortex. Yes, she’s shaking as she is totally absorbed into a cornucopia of feelings: fear, joy, torment, struggle, hope, despair. Why she is here and what she is doing escapes her consciousness for a moment. Her doubts well up within her. A surging crowd of humanity overwhelms her. People of all shapes, sizes and colors fly before her. She feels like she is falling, falling from the sky with no parachute. She feels like she is drowning, drowning in an ocean of possibilities and can’t go up for air. She struggles and waves her arms. She feels a footing as she mounts the stairs. Yes, she can do this.

But then, depression and insecurity again attacks her and she veers off course again. She takes a deep breath. All the great and ephemeral dreams and aspirations of mankind lie before her; all the misery and joy of the human spirit stretches out as far as she could see.

Yes, she has entered the Vortex and she feels the hair rise on the back of her neck. What lies ahead today? Will she feel up to it? Will she be able to do what she needs to do?

A room is before her and she looks over the large courtyard. She sees the sun rise on a new day. She marches in and put up her stuff quickly, decisively.  They all sit before her distracted. Disjointed. Dispossessed. Disconnected. She has a flashback to another time. Memories come rushing in; the troubled and frustrated disappointments of yesterday and its turmoil. Happier moments; laughter. Those events of many years ago, all resigned to memory like faded jeans.

For all of us pass through it. That journey. That passage of life. A spinning tunnel of dreams; that sifter of desires, that tumult of hope. Pulling us through and over and into the next dimension. And we hold on the best we can, struggling, confused, sometimes reaching up a hand for God to catch and sometimes sinking down, down, then letting go. Hunting for solid ground and seldom finding it; slipping in the muck, soaring into the heavens, searching for clues; clueless at times. Finding guidance and direction and balance, finding peace within.

And it all starts in the Vortex. Welcome to the Vortex, the Matrix of life. Welcome to the high school.

The second bell rings. It was the first five minutes.

Goldie's Last Days

I called Mom at our usual time and she sounded distressed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I…I…fell,” she whimpered.

“How’d that happen?”

“I tripped on the rug in the kitchen!”

“Did you get hurt?”

“No broken bones. Just my shoulder’s in pain.”

“Mom you need to be more careful. Get rid of that rug!”

“No, no, I flipped it over. It was just the edge that got me.”

A few days later I called her again.

“I…I…fell again.”

“Again! What happened this time?”

“I fell walking Goldie.”

“Goldie!”

“I tripped over her and fell. Landed right on my shoulder again. It hurts worse.”

“Mom, maybe you should get rid of the dog.”

“No, no! I love her. She’s my best friend.”

“Okay, but when she becomes too much of a burden, you should. She’s 15 years old…”

“But I’ll miss her so much.”

“Well, get someone to walk her then.”

“Okay.”

A few days later I get her back on the phone.

“I’ve got another problem.”

“What?” I ask.

“The dog is pooping everywhere. Something is wrong with her. The vet gave her antibiotics but its not helping. She pooped all over the rug. And I checked into someone else walking her. It would be too expensive.”

“You need to get rid of her, Mom. Goldie’s been with you a long time, but sometimes you have to do it.”

“But…but…I can’t…”

A few days later she finally had a change of heart after more rounds of diarrhea. It was a Friday night when she called me about 7:00.

“I’ve made up my mind. I guess Goldie goes tomorrow.” She sighed sorrowfully. “I made an appointment with the vet for 10:30. Can you be here by then?”

I thought about my Saturday morning shopping trip with my client. “Yeah, I’ll have to cancel my job to go, but I guess it’s all right. Don’t worry, Mom. I will be there.”

The next morning I got up early and hoped the traffic wouldn’t be snail-like. Fortunately, there was some sort of Highway Patrol funeral going on and every entrance to I-4 was blocked by men on motorcycles so I was able to get to Orlando with hardly any problem at all. By 10:15, I was there just in time to see the groomer bringing the dog back to the house after holding her overnight.

I grabbed her and held her. The dog looked so skinny and frail, but still very energetic. I walked her one more time and noticed how all the azaleas were wilted since they had been in bloom a month ago.

We got the dog in the Cadillac, but she needed help, and mom got in the back seat with her. I squeezed the car out of the narrow one-car garage and we crept down the back alley to the street.

“How do we get to this place?”

“Go down Aloma.”Mom  mumbled petting and hugging the dog.

“Is it in Oviedo?” I asked as I went down Semoran to the intersection of the two roads and turned right.

“Yes. Right there next to the fruit stand. You know where that is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Turn right at the bank.”

After I drove around in circles a few times and we yelled back and forth a few more times we finally pulled up at the vet around 12:00.

We got out and Goldie jumped out too, and entered the smelly, not-too-clean waiting room. Dogs and their owners were there under happier circumstances. We were ushered into a side room to wait for the end. The vet came in and gave Goldie a tranquilizer shot. She calmed down a little and waited like she was ready for something. He came back and put her up on a table and she rested her head on my hand and closed her eyes. He gave her a big shot of pink stuff. In a matter of a few minutes she was gone. Not a peep out of her. I slipped my hand back out and we bowed our heads and prayed.

As we left we both cried. All I could whisper was: “all dogs go to heaven…” to the receptionist.

And we went out to the Chinese restaurant that night to comfort ourselves in our grief. We’re sure going to miss a cute blonde Cocker Spaniel named Goldie.