Roger Barbee

By Roger Barbee

Yesterday my wife and I drove slowly through a line that snaked around the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC. We were there to receive our first vaccine for COVID.

As we moved slowly in the line of cars, I was able to examine the imposing stadium dominating our sight; the new buildings signifying economic growth; the re-furbished buildings that signified gentrification; the construction workers in jeans and muddy boots; cranes and lifts that dotted the skyline; the polite police who directed traffic (and answered questions of mis-guided drivers like me); many, many folks briskly moving to the walk-in clinic; and all the medical workers standing out in the cold giving out forms and shots and aid. It truly was an example of efficiency and the opportunities of  affluence.

According to its website, our health-care provider decided to use the stadium area for a shot distribution site because it is accessible to public transportation. That was, I believe, a just decision because more of us need to be vaccinated in order to be effective against this common enemy. However, in the time we spent moving along in the line, I noticed few people of color either in vehicles or walking to the walk-in clinic. But that is just my observations.

However, I question the overall availability of the vaccine, even when offered at such a convenient site as the stadium. While I applaud the Atrium management and its planning of such a successful event,  it seems we need to do more to vaccinate our more vulnerable citizens by taking the vaccine directly to the disenfranchised areas.

After we received our shot, we sat in three lines of cars, all occupants being required to wait fifteen minutes in case of any adverse reaction. Many health-care workers walked through the lines, ready to help in case of need. Signs were posted directing anyone who felt ill to honk his or her horn and put on the hazard button. Not only was care provided, but preventative care was also present and a comfort. What a good experience, still in the shadow of the stadium and the wealth and affluence it represents. Our wait-time over, we drove out, under the underpass, feeling fortunate.

Then we saw him when we stopped for the red light at Morehead Street while exiting the site. Waiting under the Mint Street Bridge, we saw him just outside our car window. He lay on his back, asleep it seemed even though it was high noon. Only his face was visible, but it was a face of hard days on the streets. His prone, invisible body, covered by filthy rags and blankets, rested on the cold concrete, suggesting his being accustomed to such a bed. Either he or someone else had placed a “Jesus Saves” sign near him. As we waited for the light to change, we looked at him, and then, unlike him and so many other disenfranchised citizens, we were given a green light to leave. Turning  right, we headed to I-77 and home.

By Roger Barbee

If you exited I-81 and drove on Stoney Creek Road towards Edinburg, VA you would be forgiven for not noticing his garage, a non-descript two-bay one with its back wall built on the bank of Stoney Creek. Its plain and  hidden presence defined him, but not his work.

For years I had lived in the Shenandoah Valley before I noticed the two-word sign stating the presence of his garage. An entrance door next to the two bay doors opened to a small, cluttered office from where he operated the garage. Opposite the door sat his desk on which his computer competed for space with parts catalogues and his ever-present coffee cup. The well-used coffee maker sat on a shelf behind him– always ready to serve anyone who asked. One or two chairs sat for the customers who wanted to wait and read the Daily, but since he was always between shop and computer, it was best to stay moving with him. That way you could gather information about the problem with you car and if you sat you may miss a comment of his about life and its challenges. For instance,  had his son not told me once when I asked where his father was, I never would have known of the prostate cancer. He was, his son told me,  just doing what must be done with another challenge of life. His strong faith gave him that type of serenity, even in the face of cancer.

He and his son worked in the bays making repairs, and the father had the confidence to hire a young high school graduate to help with the work of their busy garage. He believed in the boy, but he also trusted his son and himself to be teachers of what vocational school had left out of the boy’s education. The novice is now a mechanic, and like all of us, he benefitted from time spent with the master of engines and life.

No television was mounted on a wall, but one had a display of his grandchildren in 4-H competition at the county fair.  A hall tree in the corner behind the door was full of hanging, clean uniforms for the three workers.  However, the office was warm and inviting if you wanted function over form. It was designed for work and conversation. If you wanted glitter, you would have been better served elsewhere.

An educator, not a mechanic, I know enough of my cars to  know when I needed someone like him.  Whenever I called for an appointment, he would get me in quickly if I sounded frantic, but if not he would ask, “Can you come over at….” making it sound as if I were doing him a favor by coming by. Every time he serviced a car of mine, I went away feeling great about the work but most of all about the conversation we had shared. It also seemed that any vehicle could be repaired there. Once when I went,  a large John Deere tractor was parked in front of one of the doors. Too large to fit in one of the bays, it was being repaired outside.  But no matter, good, honest work could be performed anywhere.

He and I are almost identical ages, close to three-quarters of a century old. But I never called him by his given first name. For a multitude of reasons, Mr. seemed the best address for him. It was a deference that I made out of respect for such a Christian and craftsman. As our relationship grew, he came to accept my referring to him as Mr., and it was an unspoken understanding between two older men.

It’s been over three years since we moved from the Shenandoah Valley, but I still can see him behind his cluttered desk checking his computer to order a part. I still hear the gentleness in his voice and its belief that if he does not know how to correct a problem in a car, his son  will sort it out and find the solution. His confidence was not arrogance, but belief in something larger than himself.

A few days ago a friend told me of his being in Winchester Hospital with COVID-19. This morning, January 25, 2021 at appropriately 7 AM he died as his wife and two children  loved and comforted him.

The American poet H. B. Alexander writes, “In beauty there is an eternity of promise which death cannot subdue,…”  Mr. (Gary) Markley’s beauty and promise is a gift that COVID cannot erase.

By Roger Barbee

Our small mill house in south central North Carolina had a large kitchen that was the hub of our lives. We cooked there, watched television there, ate there, napped there, and socialized there.  It was a well-used room especially during the cold months because the clunky oil stove provided the only heat and comfort.  On the south wall was a large cabinet with a sink,  a white porcelain one that was part drainboard. Above the sink was a double window that looked over our back yard and the chinaberry tree that grew next to the back alley. I spent hours in that tree, climbing and exploring it and life–a haven of sorts for a boy. But it is that window facing south that is etched in my memory.

Not much snow fell in that part of the world, but one year during the mid 1950’s, when I was ten or twelve years old, a southern, wet snow blanketed our world. No school was one benefit, but also the snow offered a  chance to earn some money by shoveling walkways.

Putting on as much clothing as possible and grabbing some old shocks to use as gloves, I told my mother that I was going to my friend Michael’s house because he had shovels we could use to move snow. Having her approval to go, I ignored her other command: Not to let my small, white dog go with me.

Sergeant was a medium sized mixed breed. He and I travelled our town together and we played in our back yard. He was all a  growing boy needed on such a day, so off we trampled to Mike’s house only two streets away. Sergeant played as we navigated the deep snow, and Mike was outside waiting for me. Giving me a shovel, he had already gotten us our first customer at a mill house just across the street from his. Sergeant came along, but as we began shoveling the walkway, he lost interest in our labor and explored for something of more interest. Intent on the work and the excitement of earning some money, I forgot him until I heard his painful yelp. Looking down Chestnut Street, I saw his body lying in the middle of tracks in the snow left by the oil truck that had run over him.

Michael helped me put Sergeant in a small wagon of his  I pulled the wagon holding my mangled dog across ruts and slush the two long blocks to my home, all the way wishing so much for the load to lighten. As I neared our house, I looked up to see my mother standing on the porch. She did not scold me but helped me bury Sergeant behind the garage. I built a cross from discarded lumber, painted it a green, and mis-spelled his name when I wrote it in white.

The day that had begun so promising was now dark. Even the exciting and rare white snow now seemed dirty to me. All of it my fault for not obeying my mother. But the grief of that day was only the beginning. For the next two or three days, until the southern sun melted the snow, I would stand at the kitchen window looking out towards the chinaberry tree that held a cruel reminder for me: Around its base were Sergeant’s tracks in the snow telling of where he had played and the price he had paid for my disobedience and lack of responsibility.

Rick Bragg describes some memory as being like a “dark room full of razor blades.” That window is my darkened room. Even years later, if I looked out that window toward where the chinaberry tree had stood, my failure to Sergeant would arrive like a darkened room.

Just a kitchen window opened to the south, but a window revealing a costly shortcoming.

“What is Truth?”

The above question posed by Pontius Pilate to Jesus is well known and often used to counter or support various points of view.  However, when we examine the actions of Pilate concerning the “trial” of Jesus before he asked his famous question, we see that Pilate knew: The charges of the Jews against Jesus were lies and knew that Jesus was innocent; he was deeply impressed with Jesus; and that he did not want to condemn Him to death (even though he did). Pilate tries various means to remove himself from the “trial”, and in John 18:38 we are told how Pilate poses his question to Jesus “Pilate said unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.” How Pilate later acquiesced to the crowd is well known, but just examine his action after he asked that question of Jesus. John tells us that Pilate asked the question, then without waiting for an answer, he leaves Jesus to address the crowd.

Jesus’ answer to Pilate will never be known, and we can only offer conjectures. However, what I want to question is the action of Pilate as he asks such a question from a man that he admittedly admired. Also, we can only guess at why Pilate did not wait for an answer to his question. Was it his well-known arrogance? Was he cynical? John does not offer any information, but for us during the times we face today, we can draw at least one conclusion from Pilate’s action.

Truth! Yours, mine, theirs? While we may be presented with various thoughts, only one truth can exist. To quote Senator Moynihan , “You are entitled to your opinion, but not your facts.”  

As mentioned, Pilate was impressed with Jesus and looked forward to meeting him and talking with him, which he did. Conversation and debate are healthy. Questions directed to ourselves and others force reconsideration of a particular stance, and may lead to new or stronger positions. Yet, here is a Roman governor who fails to take advantage of an opportunity to learn from Jesus. Pilate asks the question but does not wait around for the answer. What did he miss? What does his exit cost us? We will never know, but we can learn from Pilate one important fact.

If we are genuine when asking a question, we will stay to hear the answer. Pilate did not, and my guess is he was using his power against Jesus, allowing his arrogance to over-ride his judgement. At that moment he was in charge and wanted all to know it. He asked an honest question and missed the answer.

Truth is an absolute. We cannot survive as Christians if we all have our individual truths. We may have different opinions, but we cannot all have our individual truth. For example, it is a list of Ten Commandments, not ten suggestions. Also, we may have opinions regarding the action of Pilate, but we cannot deny his decision to murder Jesus.

Ask questions of each other, knowing that “iron sharpens iron.” But hang around to hear the answer. It matters.

By Roger Barbee

 Here we are again! Our news is full of reviews of the past year. We have reviews of “the best” of many parts of our lives. Lists of “the best” books, movies, photographs, and more are being written about. And the end of year 2020, the one of the COVID-19 pandemic, is being rightfully celebrated more than usual. But that is not going to correct the misery of 2020.

As I type these words, two grey squirrels are in our back garden under the dogwood tree. One is under the birdfeeder searching for fallen black sunflower seeds. The other runs up the trunk of the tree, rushes down,  rolls in the mulch, sits erect, jumps about and turns somersaults, then pauses to eat a morsel before repeating its acrobatic routine. The one is acting as we expect a squirrel to act while the other’s conduct causes a mix of questions or even concern. Is the flipping squirrel rabid? Is it simply happy to be out and alive? Why is it acting in such an unusual manner while the other acts so normal? The answer is that it has parasites which are causing irritation and itch. It is trying, in its only way, to relieve its discomfort. Unfortunately, it cannot come in to our veterinarian’s hospital to have the parasites eradicated and the awful itch cured. An animal in the wild, it will continue living as it is with the parasites and their itch continuing to be a part of its life.

We are much like that squirrel with the parasites. While it is understandable that we celebrate the end of this awful year,  we will continue to live with the cause of so many of our problems such as massive deaths, a poor economy, and loss of social contacts until we fully contain  the virus. The vaccines are to be celebrated and taken when made available. However, until then we should continue to do what our school children are instructed to do. Its that simple, and it must be done, and done by all of us. If we do not, we will be like that squirrel living as best as possible with its parasites as it tries to  run, bounce, and scratch its way from them.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Proverbs 27:17 in which it is written that “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” That is wisdom for any person, and it seems especially good in our time. We need to sharpen each other by sharing this load we have. It is not a time to squabble and move apart. Let us be the iron that our neighbor needs instead of being the squirrel under the feeder carrying on as usual while the other suffers it misery.

By Roger Barbee

This morning’s ride on the stationary bike began earlier than usual. When I had uncovered the bike and adjusted every detail to begin my five-mile workout, the small grove of 14 pine trees between our road and me were still shrouded in soft, morning shadows. Because of the crisp December wind, I hurried to get moving in order to create some warmth because the sun had yet cleared the horizon of Lake Norman.

Before too long, my rotations on the stationary bike began to create a stronger blood flow, and I sensed a rise of temperature. While no sweat dripped from my brow, the steady wind was not now causing as much discomfort as it was just a few minutes before. The rhythm of the ride steadied, and as my arms flowed into it my entire body joined. It was then that I noticed a small movement in the pine tree grove next to me. Then I saw another and another and another.

I watched as I cranked the bike. The small sparrows were busy looking for a morsel or more on the ground under the 14 pine trees. Because of the morning shadows I could not see the sparrows as clearly as I wished, but by the small bodies and action, I think that I was seeing a morning flock of chipping sparrows. It seemed that when I saw one, I saw another. Their constant movement along the ground prevented any accurate count, but I was more interested in how they were almost indistinguishable from a pine needle or piece of pine bark or a fallen leaf from one of the dogwood trees. When I thought I was seeing a chipping sparrow, the breeze would blow the leaf across the ground. But I saw many as they flurried across the ground in search for food. Then they quietly disappeared, leaving me to now have time to notice the first sun rays grace the grove’s shadows.

 I have watched many sunrises from this postage stamp of earth where I ride each morning. All of them are the same, but all are different. They are like people in that way. But no matter, I watched this one as I shifted to a higher gear for more resistance. I wanted the heat created by the harder riding, but I also wanted the warmth the sun would give. And I also needed to observe it, aware that the rotating earth and nature’s way would not wait. Aware of the moment,  I watched as the sunlight first graced the tree tops across the road in Ken’s yard and, clearing the housetops on our side of the lake, cast shadows of morning on the pine forest floor where the chipping sparrows had just been. Soon the shadows under the pine grove disappeared,   its needle covered floor revealed by soft, early morning sunlight. Deep shadows, chipping sparrows, and a morning moment replaced by another as the day, like all days, made its offer.

I began my warm down, but I still looked at the day begin. Watching the sun rise, seeing its rays break the grip of night, and feeling its warmth, I applauded its promise and the hope of that promise. A new day that would resemble yesterday and tomorrow, but one that had its own personality and potential. Its own hope. The Pharisee turned Christian, St. Paul, writes in Romans—“we are saved by hope.”

During this time of pandemic, shrill voices, and violence, , let us all remember those words of St. Paul. We have and are saved by hope. Hold to that and do not let it flit away like that flock of chipping sparrows. Hold hope. Better is coming.

By Roger Barbee

 In many situations being first is desired. Athletes train to be first in order to stand alone. Explorers take risks to be the first to reach an objective, such as a mountain peak, which will likely be named in the explorer’s honor. Students study to be first in their class to reap scholastic rewards. The winners in professional sports are richly rewarded by fan adulation and huge salaries.  In our culture, to be the first is to be special and successful. Being first is associated with being a winner, and the rewards for that will be vast.

However, there is one first that I wonder about, and that is being the first child. I wonder what it is like being the child on which parents work to perfect their parenting skills? What is it like being the child who is expected to help after the younger siblings arrive? How does the first child react to expectations that he or she had but that are not later made of the younger ones?  Does the pressure of being the yardstick for all children in a family ever lessen? How old does the first child have to be before the remark, “You’re too old,” stops hurting or stinging? How damaging is the mantle of adulthood placed too soon on young shoulders, and does it sometimes cause them to sag?

            As I type these words, all six children of my mother cover the range of the 70 aged group. But in a few days, the oldest, a girl, turns 80. Once again, she will lead us into a novel age decade. Yet she has led us before because she is the oldest: Into Marriage: On being the first parent;  She would be the first college graduate; She led us into and through many life experiences. In many ways, she showed us how to navigate life’s water.

            At one time the seven years between my older sister and me was a chasm too deep and wide to cross. But as we aged, that space between us grew smaller, and we developed a kinship that was not possible when, for instance, I was thirteen and she was twenty. The family baby is ten years younger than the girl who soon turns eighty, but those ten years are now nothing more than dates on a calendar. Life and aging have a way of closing such gaps, reducing the space that once seemed insurmountable.

            Our mother, a divorced mother of six children, worked hemming washcloths in Plant 1, Cannon Mills. Her life was hard, but her unconditional love covered us. Later after she retired and needed help to live in her mill house on South Juniper Street, my four sisters took turns spending a week at a time with her. Each Tuesday at Noon one sister would arrive, and one would leave. This rotations was done in their birth order, so for this loving gift, the oldest child was once again the first. Many observations and stories came out of the ten years my sisters cared for our mother. One often repeated story is how they all heard our mother walking through her three-bedroom mill house softly repeating over and over, “Just me and my six little children.” Each sister would share feelings about her time with our mother, and the oldest told me more than once, “Those days brought me peace with our mother.”

            Tobie now lives in the same neighborhood with her closest sibling, a girl two years younger. While that younger sister will soon enough turn eighty, the best thing of all is that they again share much of living just as they did when they shared the front bedroom of our mill house with another sister. Ponder that: Three adolescent girls sharing one bedroom!

            Life lived and shared, and Tobie was and is the first in so many ways. Some of those ways undoubtedly were difficult. Some were joyous. But all along the path she traveled, she left blazes–marks easy for her younger siblings to find and follow.

By Roger Barbee

The 26-degree temperature and frozen bird baths announce this morning’s cold, the first hard chill of 2022. In fact, (“I think to myself, what a wonderful world”) that it is the first one of this winter season as I watch robins, cardinals, chickadees, and thrashers trying to create just a crack in the cruel ice of the birdbaths. All they accomplish, however, is a slide across the unfamiliar frozen circles or a sideways hopping along each edge. They quickly realize the futility involved here and adapt—and gracefully fly to other sources. Above all this life the almost harsh winter sunlight penetrates the scene, but it comes from a slightly more northernly track; proof of the lasting rotation which announces, if one is observant, winter season’s end began on December 21, at 21:48 UTC because that is when the winter solstice occurred in 2022.

Despite the occasional winter cold, I watch the sun rise each day to mark its position over the lake and note that each day’s light is a bit longer before sunset. In this way the gloom of raw, winter days is lessened and hope for warm, light filled days is sustained. For instance, as I type these words the next morning, one patch of the back garden is abruptly filled with red-winged blackbirds that gather at the non-frozen bird bath like members of a dunking sect. They drink, then hop to the turf under the feeder that hangs from the bare dogwood tree. Life, even on such a morning, swarms here and across the whole earth.

In 1967 Louis Armstrong recorded “What a Wonderful World”, the well-known song written and arranged by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele. I quote from it in the first paragraph because it is a fine reminder of what we are given in this “wonderful world.”

Once, when I was a young man struggling with my first heartache, my mother said to me, “Son, sometimes this ol’ world is hard.” She, the mother who reared six children alone, certainly knew how true her words were. But she also shared her love of trees and birds and flowers. One memory I hold close is of her standing at her kitchen window, looking out at her back yard that was full of maple trees that we had planted. Today, all these years later, my wife and I enjoy birds visiting a birdbath that adorned her yard beneath those maples. She found solace where she could and used it as one of her shields against the hardness that life sometimes showed.

Yes, the January cold has arrived. Ice. Snow. Short, dark days. All of it raw and real. But even these days hold the promise of better ones coming as marked by the winter solstice that happened a few days ago.  Look out, find the beauty in a cold morning, then share it with a friend.

By Roger Barbee

The baby-faced boy walked past me as I watched the wrestling on Mat 1. As he skirted between me and the action on Mat 1, his headgear with his school’s logo slipped from his hand. An older teammate strode to him.

I was attending a fourteen-team wrestling tournament in Alumni Hall of a Maryland independent school last Saturday. It was the first competition for the new season of 2023-24 and the Hall was packed with wrestlers of all sizes and ages and both sexes, coaches, parents, trainers, host school staff, four mats, officials, and me– all in Alumni Hall.

Folkstyle wrestling in high school has changed since I practiced it over fifty years ago. Yet it is the same. While we never had a tournament with fourteen teams, while we never wore headgear, while we never had wrestling shoes, we did have matches of three two-minute periods, and each wrestler tried to defeat the opposition.

Some fans of sports enjoy comparing today’s athletes with those of the past, but that seems to me like comparing an orange with an apple. They have some likenesses but are two different fruits. I wrestled in the 1960’s much like those boys and girls did in the Hall, but in my opinion any other comparison is fruitless. The wrestlers today, even the average ones, know and can execute and counter so many more moves than those of us who wore tennis shoes for matches and practiced on canvas mats. But there is still one similarity.

While the skill of those boys and girls on Saturday was not that good, their desire and determination was outstanding. Yes, there were wrestling moves that were not executed correctly and countermoves that were, well, just wrong. There were glaring errors in the correct starting positions, and the officials had to “coach” a wrestler more than once. However, those students were on the mats and trying. To paraphrase President Roosevelt from his The Man in the Ring speech, no one outside the ring has a right to criticize he who is in the ring.

As I kept watching, I thought of some great American wrestlers and wondered if Dan Gable or John Smith or Kyle Snyder or so many other great wrestlers ever competed in a tournament like this one. Of course they did because everybody starts somewhere and that is usually by just trying, by being present, and by going on to become better, maybe not great, but just better. To be, as Ohio State’s Coach Tom Ryan says, “Authentic.”

And this: When the older teammate strode to the baby-faced boy who had dropped his  headgear, he showed him how to fasten the headgear chin strap through the lowered shoulder strap of his wrestling singlet to allow it to dangle next to his hip. When the younger boy had done it correctly, the more experienced boy patted him on the shoulder and said, “Now you’re a wrestler.”

A wrestler, indeed.

By Roger Barbee

My wife Mary Ann and I drove to Raleigh on Sunday and picked up Nick at his foster home. Because our return ride was close to three hours long, Mary Ann sat with him in the back seat of our van. By the time we parked in our driveway, I knew that a bond had formed between my wife and Nick, the two-year-old beagle with a taste of dachshund, we think.

Much has happened in Nick’s life since October 09, 2021, when he was “seized as a stray” in Reidsville, NC. Taken to the local animal shelter, he was later rescued by Triangle Beagle Rescue. Under its care, he received his first medical evaluation and soon was administered the required medical procedures, such as the rabies shot, before being placed with Melanie and Art, his foster parents. Life began to look better for the eighteen-pound stray who had been seized.

In the two full days of sharing our home with Nick, we have re-discovered what life is like when lived with an energetic youngster. His black, brown, and white form is seldom still;  he is mostly obedient, but just a package of curiosity coupled with energy, like all young animals –even the human ones. He sees our four cats as novelties to be sniffed, but their view of him is as an intruder on their turf. We all work on that relationship. However, he has already proven to be a good guard dog and a foe of any squirrel that ventures into his yard. He has yet to figure out the flyers who visit the bird feeders, but his antics with them entertain us, and he enjoys a chew on any pine cone he finds.

Nick is our fourth hound. He comes after Nolan the black and tan hound and Mickey and Callie, the beagles, died. Those three shared life with us for fifteen years and cannot, like a broken plate, be replaced. What they gave us during those years is a treasure that Mary Ann and I hold close, but we are now building a new bond with a bundle of beagle.

After all, what good is a life not shared!