Four Little Kittens

The Kittens and the Storm

                How badly we needed the rain, and it looked liked it could pour down at any minute! Angie, my sister and lover of animals, especially cats, said to me, “What are we going to do about the kittens?”
                About that time, a sprinkling of rain began. The mama cat, a first-time mother, had the four kittens in the flowerbed just to the west of the front door. She had tried to relocate them twice – once under Angie’s car and then a couple days later under my car. To top it off, that ginger cat that we dearly loved made a mad dash to get under Angie’s car when the downpour began, abandoning her kittens.
                I rushed to open the back door for Angie to grab a large, sturdy cardboard box. She snatched the remnants of an old shirt. As she scurried back into the house, she was lining the box with the old shirt. Just at the same moment, Ben, who had been trying to beat the rain to get a section of the lawn mowed, was quickly coming up the front porch steps with his t-shirt front rolled up, obviously holding something. Angie anxiously asked him, “Did you get all four?” He nodded.
                Immediately, I realized he had rescued, with one swoop, all four kittens from the drenching rain, blowing wind, and the intense pea-sized hail. My brother-in-law then deposited them into the box hastily prepared by Angie. I peeked into the box and was surprised to see four little fur balls sleeping soundly. They had not awakened amidst all the activity and above all, the fierce storm, their first storm.
                I couldn’t help but think how this little event parallels the life of a follower of Jesus. Frequently, we find ourselves in storms in life. Little do we know that often behind the scene, God is engineering various happenings and actions of others to sustain us through those storms. Sadly, many times, unlike the four little kittens, I do not rest in His faithfulness, power, and love. Instead, I focus on the storm itself, rendering myself paralyzed by fear and worry.

Peaches and her four newly-born kittens.

                I pray I can remember the sight of the four precious, little kittens peacefully resting in the box, oblivious to the blustery storm.
                Lord, when storms come into my life, give me faith and trust to rest in You and Your provisions for me, knowing You alone can see me through those challenging times.

The recently rescued four kittens resting peacefully in their
hastily prepared box.

The Chocolate Rabbit

A Little Girl With a Strategy

             It looked 12 feet tall! Why wouldn't it look enormous to a little girl who had lived most of her life while the Great Depression was in full sway in the United States? All weary Oklahomans around her were clad in patched clothing, battling the Dust Bowl and discouragement. My mother, Bernyce Smith, a perceptive child, was mesmerized by what seemed to her to be an enormous chocolate rabbit.

          One of the stores in Fairfax, around Easter, sponsored a promotional contest encouraging customers to purchase a small piece of candy to see if it might be wrapped in the winning candy paper. The person who purchased the winning candy piece would unwrap the candy and discover the candy wrapper that indicated the winning of a 12-inch chocolate rabbit. How the contest appealed to my mother, a child of the Great Depression!

That springtime day, my mother, a smart, little girl, stood quietly in the shadows of the store and observed that the chocolate rabbit was still there. She concluded immediately that the winning candy piece had not been purchased yet. She made it her objective and goal to win that chocolate rabbit. While her parents were doing their weekly shopping in Fairfax, my mother spent the afternoon in and around the store that sponsored the chocolate rabbit give-away. She monitored the amount of candy pieces left and began to strategize. Finally, the moment she had been awaiting arrived. She recognized only a small number of candy pieces remained. She felt in her pocket, mentally calculating. The clever, little girl’s heartbeat quickened when she realized in her pocket she had just enough money to buy the remaining candy pieces. She was assured that one of those pieces had to be wrapped in the winning candy wrapper. It was a calculated, guaranteed win for her. That delectable chocolate rabbit would be hers to take out of the store in her very own hands.

The shy, but perceptive kid gathered all her courage and walked to the counter. She told the store clerk that she would like to buy candy chances. Sure enough, before she had bought the final candy chance, my mother had selected the piece of candy wrapped in the winning wrapper that made the coveted chocolate rabbit her own. She was walking on air as she left the store with the chocolate rabbit that she had won because of her thoughtful strategy and not chance or luck.

My mother, Bernyce Smith
Gates as a child.

            As Easter is being celebrated by many around the world, one realizes that just as Mother’s action was one of assuredly winning the chocolate rabbit, so is the confident certainty of the person who internalizes the belief that Jesus declared to grief-stricken Martha of Bethany. He said to her “I am the resurrection and the life and he who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
          Then He pointedly asked her amidst her anguish and heartache, “Do you believe this?”
Martha had watched her brother suffer through a serious illness that ended in death. Undoubtedly, through tears and weariness of sorrow, she summoned all the strength she had left after her four days of grieving and replied, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
         What a blessing to have the assurance that a life-altering belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection ensures abundant life now and eternal life after death!

Why Observe Good Friday?

I was always astounded as to how few students had any idea or understanding about why Good Friday was a holiday. Probably there are many adults as well that see Good Friday as just an extra day to be off for the Easter weekend, perhaps an additional shopping day, or another day to plan and prepare Easter baskets or Sunday’s family get together. It seemed imperative when I taught third graders that I make an effort to “educate” the third graders as to the reason for Good Friday. The piece below entitled Cultural Literacy, Good Friday, and My Faith that I wrote explaining how I accomplished this was published in the periodical, Teachers of Vision several years ago.

Cultural Literacy, Good Friday, and My Faith

            Often spring provided an opportunity for holiday education in my third grade classroom.   Seldom did students arrive in my classroom with an intelligent grasp of why Good Friday was labeled as a holiday on the school calendar. Each year I casually asked why we were scheduled to be out of school the Friday before Easter and usually received very few knowledgeable responses. This lack of understanding of the reason for Good Friday always presented itself as a teachable moment for what Hirsch, Kett, and Trefil refer to as “cultural literacy” in their work, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.^* My students needed a cognizance of the significance of Good Friday being designated as a holiday in the same way a well-rounded person has a working knowledge of the Jewish holiday of Purim or the origin of Saint Patrick’s Day.

            Our rural community embraced Christianity, yet as a whole my students were predictably and woefully uninformed as to so many of its tenets, such as Good Friday. My approach to imparting needed cultural literacy about this spring holiday was a brief introductory presentation of the crucifixion of Christ as a fact of history. I then read aloud a book in our classroom collection entitled Easter Women by Carol Green.^** This book in rhyme simply acquainted the young reader with the events leading to the first Easter. 

            An added boon was the discovery of an Accelerated Reading quiz for the book.  Our school was immersed in the use of Accelerated Reading, one of the Renaissance Learning programs, designed to create lifelong readers and establish a love of leisure reading in the lives of our elementary students.^*** Our school acquired access to all the quizzes available from Accelerated Reader, so my students were always eager to check their comprehension of the selections that have been read aloud to them as well as the books they read themselves.  

            Following our completion of the book, just before we filed to the computer lab to take the Accelerated Reading quiz over it, a student commented, ‘But why is it called “Good Friday” since it was such a bad day for Jesus?’ A rather shy, but well-versed student quietly responded, “He took our sins on the cross so it was a good day for us.” This exchange left little for me to say as an educator. My students had wrapped up the lesson for me in their brief dialogue. How better could the very heart of my faith have been shared without me speaking a word!

 *E. D. Hirsch, Joseph Kett, James Trefil.  The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy Third Edition.  (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002)

**Carol Green.  The Easter Women (St. Louis: Concordia, 1987).

***www.renlearn.com/ar



This class of third graders inspired the above article.
Photograph by Blunck's.

Oh No! He Has a Corsage!

                This is the time of year when talk of prom dresses and tuxedo rental is sprinkled throughout the conversation of high school students. Sometimes it is forgotten that teens from yesteryear had similar interests in the spring, too.

                I recall as a child being fascinated by a formal gown hanging in the back of my mother’s closet. Much to my dismay, I knew she had not had a bridal gown. (See March 2 Blog post entitled Not Much of a Wedding… for more information about her wedding attire.) On a few occasions, she pulled out the pink gown with about a million buttons one right after the other down the back of it. Then she told this story.

                My mother, Bernyce Smith Gates began her first year of high school at Fairfax. Her parents took her the almost 5.5 miles to the bus stop at the Nine Mile Corner west of Fairfax and north of the Belford River Bridge. After two weeks, she transferred to Ralston High School and daily was taken by her parents the 1 ½ miles to the bus stop located at the Y just west of the Belford River Bridge. She and her friend Wanda Faye Forrest sometimes walked home when debarking from the bus. When the Burbank High School superintendent, R.L. Stegall agreed to send a bus to pick her up less than a quarter of a mile from her home, Mother and her parents quickly decided for her to become a Burbank Pirate beginning with her sophomore year.  

                As I fingered the pink dress fashioned from faille, Mother explained that juniors and seniors at Burbank High School looked forward to the junior/senior  banquet  held in the spring. The site for the banquet for Mother’s junior year was the Jens-Marie Hotel in Ponca City. At that time, the Jens-Marie was Ponca City’s premier hotel.  Back to the dress…

                The country was just emerging from the Great Depression in the early 1940s. Even though Mother was an only child, Oklahoma farmers like her parents struggled to make ends meet.  Mother was elated when her aunt, Emma Maryann Rainey Buckley let her know she was sending her a formal gown from Washington, D.C. Her aunt also included a beaded evening bag with the much-anticipated pink floor length dress in the package she mailed. She enclosed a note telling Mother to be sure and order a cornflower corsage to wear with this beautiful gown.

                June Moore, another senior girl, had moved to rural Burbank that school year. She and Mother quickly became friends. They shared a love of music. In fact, both of them played the piano and enjoyed singing.  I’m sure Mother was one to welcome the new student. She has always been sensitive to others and taught my sister and me to practice the same.

                The two were such good friends by the time the banquet rolled around that spring that June invited Bernyce to spend the weekend with her. Mother brought her gown and pretty beaded bag. June was also planning to wear a pink formal accented with a cornflower corsage that complemented the gown perfectly. Mother had no corsage because when she had tried to order the cornflower corsage specified by Aunt Emma she found the flower shop in Fairfax did not have cornflowers. Mother greatly valued her aunt‘s advice because she was the most fashion-conscious epitome of sophistication she knew and regularly attended social functions in Washington, D. C. My mother decided if she couldn’t get the cornflower corsage, then she would not wear a corsage.

                The two senior girls had great fun getting ready for the banquet. There was no prom, no dance. This evening consisted of a wonderful meal with the junior and senior students of Burbank High School dressed to the nines. These students had lived through the patched clothing and hard times of the Great Depression. These kids reveled in getting to dress up and the relief of having parents and relatives who were finally able to afford such luxuries.

              Every individual at the banquet knew someone who was serving abroad or training to serve overseas because the United States was at war with Japan and Germany. In fact, Mother and June were scheduled to sing as a part of the banquet program a duet of a popular song about a girl who loved a sailor.

                My mother had no date, but June did. Her date was R.J. Loyd who would later be her husband for over 60 years until his death. R.J. and June were glad for Mother to ride with them to the banquet. It was held at the home economics room of the high school. That same building has been renovated and is now the Burbank Community Center.

                Both girls were dressed in their similar styled dresses. Mother’s dress was a bit of a mauvish pink; whereas June’s was a truer pink dress. June had pinned on the cornflower corsage that her parents had bought for her to polish off her look for that night. Just about that time they spotted R.J. pulling up to pick them up for the banquet. He had something in his hand.

             “Oh no! He has a corsage,” the two girls whispered and giggled to one another as they tried to discreetly peek out the window at the handsome young man.

              Mother helped June unpin the cornflower corsage from the left shoulder of her pink gown. R. J. had a lovely red rose corsage for June. She graciously accepted it. So rather than have the cornflower corsage wasted and unused, June encouraged Mother to pin it on her dress. Mother could hardly believe she was arriving at her senior banquet looking exactly as her aunt had envisioned -- thanks to R.J.! She felt like Cinderella. Thanks to her fairy godmother – Aunt Emma.

Mother and June just before R. J. arrived.
June still has the "perfectly-matched"
corsage pinned on her formal.

Lela Lieber Stewart, Bernyce Smith Gates, and June Moore Loyd
taken at my parents' 50th wedding celebration. As Dad would say,
"These girls graduated together at Burbank."



R. J. Loyd and June Moore taken September 23, 1943.
This was just a couple of months after their marriage
on July 22, 1943.