Introduction

Shotgun Memories

How far you go in life depends on being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong—because someday you will have been all of these. - George Washington Carver

A few years back, when my forehead was covered by hair, I agreed to write a column called “Family Matters” for Servant magazine. It was a daunting task for a young father and one for which I feel under-qualified to this day. Staring down the barrel of that first deadline, I whined to my wife Ramona about the stress of it all. “I can’t do it,” I said. “Look at me. I’m an imperfect dad. I get mad at my kids. I used to slide hamsters down banisters when I was a child. I argue with my wife sometimes.”

She laughed. “So write about it,” she said. “Tell stories. Tell us you feel like a failure sometimes. And tell us there’s hope.”

“But I’m no Dr. Dobson,” I protested.

“I know,” she sighed, stabbing at a potato in the sink. “He has money.”

The next day I sat at my desk, wondering what to write. The job was too big for me, so I pushed my chair back and got on my knees to pray. Then I wrote “Shotgun Memories,” the story of a hunting trip gone right. With five children and a to-do list taller than me, my dad somehow managed to throw a shotgun into our ’62 Meteor and invest a Saturday in his youngest son. A decade later we fishtailed down those same dusty roads with the same shotgun in the backseat. But this time it would serve a different purpose. This time Dad handed it to a farmer, trading it in on my very first car. The shotgun was an emblem, of course, of a father who took time for me.

Animal rights activists got hold of my article and twisted it. They didn’t appreciate my hunting or my work with hamsters. But kind letters began arriving too. People stopped me on the street. One said, “Great article! I’ll never forget you, Bill.” The farmer even called: “Phil,” he drawled, “I want you to have that shotgun.” I thanked him repeatedly, surprised that he had been so utterly blessed by the article that he was offering me the precious shotgun as a gift. I couldn’t stop thanking him.

“How does two hundred bucks sound?” he asked.

I coughed. “Not very good,” I said. After all, we hardly had two quarters to rub together in those days. Where would I ever come up with two hundred bucks?

Our children were three, two, and almost one at the time. (We had them so fast the anesthetic from the first birth was still working for the third.) They came along with no instruction manuals, no mute buttons, and no guarantees. They slimed doorknobs, left pointy toys on the stairway, and yowled long into the night. We were under-qualified for the task, plus we were terrified. What if they turned out to be…well, what if they turned out to be like me? And so we did the only thing we knew to do: We got down on our knees and prayed.

A surprising thing happened: We found that we loved parenting (after the kids were asleep, and sometimes when they were awake). Sure, the children screamed, put jam sandwiches in the VCR, and turned dinnertime into a full-contact sport. But we loved these precious, sticky-faced gifts. We held them tightly, read to them often, and gave them back to God each night.

Our children are teenagers now. They come with a whole new set of challenges. Sometimes it’s hard to decide if growing pains are something they have, or something they are. Once again, we’re in over our heads, so we get down on our knees.

And now a whole new challenge has entered our lives: aging parents. Once again I find myself looking for an instruction manual, a mute button, and some guarantees.  

Instead, I have discovered that we are not alone. That a zillion other baby boomers are experiencing a stretch of time when the answers grow quiet and the questions slither in like the neighbor’s cat every time you open the door:

• How do we honor our aging parents without guilt while raising our children without regret?

• How do we retain our sanity in the midst of so much change (assuming we were sane in the first place)?

• Is it possible to live without the stress, remorse, and anxiety that so many lug around with them?

• How do I learn to laugh so that when I retire all my wrinkles will be in the right places?

• And who said I’m having a midlife crisis? I’ve wanted a red convertible since third grade.

One night I sneaked up behind Ramona as she was stabbing potatoes again (be careful when you do this) and asked her if I should write about these things. She said, “Yeah, we need the money.” No, she didn’t. She said, “Sure. But we’re tired, so make us laugh. And tell us there’s hope, too.”

What follows are stories of hope and hilarity amid the turbulence and splendor of what I’ve come to call the Middle Ages. I’ll admit that I often felt ill-equipped for the task while writing this book. But then I was reminded that God seldom gives us anything we aren’t to share with others, that nothing worthwhile I’ve ever accomplished didn’t initially scare me half to death, and that God often uses the most incompetent to do His work. I guess it’s because we know we can’t do it on our own. And when good things happen, we never doubt who deserves the credit.

I pray this book will meet you where you are but not leave you there. I pray that you’ll savor these stories and find some help here too.

Sometimes, as I’ve been writing, I found myself looking at a shotgun that hangs above my study door. It’s a lifelong reminder of a father’s love for me. A reminder that time is ticking. That the best retirement investment in all the world is memories. And it’s a reminder that sometimes writers strike it rich. After all, I sold my very first article to another magazine for two hundred bucks and bought that shotgun.