{"id":83,"date":"2016-11-01T19:03:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T19:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=83"},"modified":"2016-11-01T19:41:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T19:41:35","slug":"stuck-on-the-threshold-blue-tennis-shoes-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/?p=83","title":{"rendered":"Stuck on the threshold. Blue tennis shoes part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0f9678c200b56e6a19cd5ea4883b25e7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHold the screen door,\u201d I told my twin brother.
\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d
\n\u201cA Nickel!\u201d
\nI couldn\u2019t pick it up. It was stuck on the wood.
\n\u201cYour Uncle glued that nickel to the threshold when he was but a boy,\u201d Grandma said. \u201cIt\u2019ll take a miracle to get it off of there.\u201d
\nI tried anyway.<\/p>\n

In the house my Dad yelled at my Mom. He did that a lot.<\/p>\n

It was the fall of my fifth grade year. We had moved to a farm outside the town where my parents grew up. The population sign said \u201c360\u201d but I think it was less than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet in the car!\u201d my Dad screamed at my brother and me. He had my youngest sister in his arms. She was bawling loudly. I could smell her soiled diaper. Shaking, I looked at my brother and we both started for the car. Behind me I heard my other sister\u2014five years old\u2014call him by first name and yell, \u201cNO!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want you any way.\u201d He said, and slammed the screen door behind him so hard I was sure the nickel had come loose.<\/p>\n

The car spun out and we went to the farm. We lived in my Great aunt\u2019s two story farmhouse. There was a large front porch and a tire swing on the big tree in the front yard. Our Great Aunt had died of nose cancer. She had done too much tobacco snuff and her nose was completely eaten away by the cancer. My brother and I would gross out at the sight of her. She placed a big Band-Aid over the place where her nose should have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow does she smell?\u201d I would say.
\nAnd my brother would reply, \u201cBad as always!\u201d
\nWe would laugh till our sides ached.<\/p>\n

But today I wasn\u2019t in a laughing mood. Mom and Dad had fought before. At times he would beat her terribly. This time was different. Everything was wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet outta my face. Go feed the chickens,\u201d Dad yelled at me when we got back to the farmhouse.<\/p>\n

Scared to say anything, I went out to the chicken house to feed the chickens. While in there, my mind raced. I thought of the time my brother had frightened a skunk in the hen house and had been sprayed. Or the mountain of chicken dung we shoveled out of that place and how accomplished we felt. There was a time we had to dig up rocks so Dad could plant potatoes. We pretended they were Gold.<\/p>\n

But, what was I going to do now? I didn\u2019t want to be with Dad. I wanted to be with Mom. So, I ran away from the chicken house, past the cattle into the dark woods. I crossed the creek, and stopped for a moment at a place where I could see the county road. I held my breath and ducked down when a car drove by. Was that Dad\u2019s car? I wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I came over a hill to another farmhouse. I was hot, tired, and thirsty. I needed help.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you run-away?\u201d the man asked.
\n\u201cNo, Sir. I just need to get to town to my Aunt Marie\u2019s house.\u201d He knew the place.
\n\u201cWell, if\u2019n you\u2019s a runaway, you just crossed the state line and you\u2019re in big trouble.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, sir. Just going to my aunt\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

He took me in his truck into town. I kept looking to see if Dad was following us. I spied two rifles in the back window. I made note of that\u2014just in case.<\/p>\n

I liked Aunt Marie\u2019s place. Her husband was a short man\u2014the town milkman. We called him \u201cUncle Pint\u201d. They both were very kind to us. When we got to aunt Marie\u2019s, the farmer didn\u2019t say anything, just dropped me off. I excitedly ran around back as that door was never locked. Perhaps Mom was there.<\/p>\n

I walked in, letting the screen door bang behind me. I felt safe and called out to see if anyone was home.<\/p>\n

Just then, the front door opened and the room filled with light. I had a direct view. Standing there was my Dad.<\/p>\n

On the way, back to the farm, I found out from my brother that during my run my mother had called the police. They told her that they couldn\u2019t do anything as \u201cHe\u2019s the father. He has rights.\u201d They allowed her to pick up a few things and she and my sister went to Kansas City. They went to live with her sister.<\/p>\n

The next few months I stayed with Dad, my brother, and my baby sister at the farmhouse. Dad would be gone much of the time. Sometimes he would not come home for several days. When he was home, I never knew when he would hit me or ignore me. Some days he would take us with him to the bar. We would sit out in the car and listen to Old-time Radio Mystery Theatre until the car battery would go down. One time he came out with his friends and gave my baby sister a cupful of whiskey. They laughed as they watched the little baby get drunk.<\/p>\n

We started fifth grade. The school was so small that they combined fifth and sixth grades. There were only four boys in the class and two of them were my brother and I. But we didn\u2019t get much schooling that year. To care for my sister, my dad made my brother stay home from school. Then the next day, I stayed home and cared for her. I listened to the radio and did what I could. We drank milk and tried to scramble eggs to eat. The school always made sure we had food to eat when we were there. It was then I grew to love peanut butter.<\/p>\n

He enjoyed fishing, but would only take one of us at a time so the other could watch the baby. He couldn\u2019t tell us a part and always took my brother. \u201cYou should be glad you didn\u2019t go,\u201d my brother said.<\/p>\n

One day I was listening to the radio. I remember clearly that the song \u201cSnoopy and the Red Baron\u201d was playing when they stopped the song and I heard this, \u201cWe are in a tornado watch.\u201d I had grown up in California. I didn\u2019t know what to do. I went from room to room, carrying the baby. I looked out the windows all day \u2018watching\u2019 for tornados.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the School made my dad hire a babysitter for the baby.<\/p>\n

One night he brought a woman home.\u201cThink we need a maid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of those nights, the woman had brought along her mentally challenged child. He wanted to play cards. So I went downstairs to get them and I saw Dad in bed with the new maid. They would always be gone in the morning and dad would say, \u201cShe didn\u2019t work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that time, we tried to make everything better by living in a world of adventure. We would play in the wheat field, or the barns, whatever we could do to avoid the pain in our lives.<\/p>\n

If we cleaned house, Dad would let us walk several miles to play with a friend. The friend\u2019s mother was the babysitter. We would \u201ccoon hunt\u201d or try to shoot frogs with a bow and arrows. We lost all
\nthe arrows.<\/p>\n

One day Mom snuck in a call. \u201cI\u2019m praying for a miracle to get you back.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt like that glued nickel. Only, I was not stuck on the threshold of a back door. I felt like I was stuck on the Threshold of Hell.<\/p>\n

Days passed. Bad days passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet out of bed.\u201d My Dad yelled. \u201cGet dressed and meet me at the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had been gone all night again. I put on a white T-shirt, my \u2018farm jeans\u2019, and a pair of blue Converse tennis shoes\u2014no socks. He drove us to town, to Aunt Marie and Uncle Pint\u2019s house.
\nMom was there!<\/p>\n

My sister had gotten sick at the babysitter\u2019s overnight. She had a 106\u00b0 temperature. When they couldn’t reach Dad, they got ahold of my aunt. They didn\u2019t want to be involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe baby\u2019s gonna die,\u201d she told her. \u201dIt\u2019s an ungodly fever!\u201d
\nShe gave the babysitter my mother\u2019s phone number.<\/p>\n

Mom rode a bus from Kansas City. They said that when she got there, they placed the baby limply in her arms. And then something miraculous happened. The fever broke. The baby survived.<\/p>\n

Now, standing there, Dad cussed my mother out. I thought he was going to beat her up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just started a new job and I\u2019m late.\u201d He yelled. Then to my brother and me, \u201cGo to school.\u201d He quickly left, evidently expecting us to walk to the school. We always did whatever he commanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s take you to school,\u201d my Mother said.
\nMy heart sunk. What was she doing?<\/p>\n

We went to school and Mom had us pick up our things. She talked to the office and we left. We then got on a bus and went to Kansas City to live with her.<\/p>\n

Many people talk of God healing them of great illness and pain. The miracle here was not the healing but the fever itself. It wasn’t an ungodly illness. It was a Godly illness that God sent my sister to get us out of that terrible situation.<\/p>\n

Years later, they bulldozed the farmhouse that we used to live in. My Dad had abandoned it and it had been taken over by wild dogs. My Aunt Marie’s house is no longer there either. But Grandma\u2019s house is still there. I can’t help but wonder if that nickel is still there on the threshold. It would take a miracle to remove it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHold the screen door,\u201d I told my twin brother. \u201cWhat is it?\u201d \u201cA Nickel!\u201d I couldn\u2019t pick it up. It was stuck on the wood. \u201cYour Uncle glued that nickel to the threshold when he was but a boy,\u201d Grandma said. \u201cIt\u2019ll take a miracle to get it off of there.\u201d I tried anyway. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonhopkins.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}