Faith Works 12-21-19

Faith Works 12-21-19

Jeff Gill

 

The Package – a story

___

 

[This is a piece of fiction, third of four parts, for the Christmas season]

 

Jerry looked at his rear view mirror at traffic behind him, over the top of a pile of large boxes in the back seat sticking up into his usual field of view.

 

He'd just been at a lady's house, whose address was on a package inside of gift wrapping, and learned what he'd been fairly sure of but had to check: the package that mysteriously showed up on his doorstep wasn't from her. She'd discarded the box, and someone had carefully marked through (but not obscuring entirely) the mailing information before wrapping up . . . a pair of old but nicely reconditioned boots.

 

Later, he was going to the shoe repair shop whose tag was still attached to one boot, but first he was delivering a back seat and trunk full of coats to the Salvation Army. The lady he'd interrupted in her day at home needed a hand with coats from her church she was trying to get there, and Jerry was happy to solve her problem in return for her courtesy. He wasn't sure he would have been so cordial with a stranger on his front porch asking about an old box of his, but they'd talked so long they'd decided to exchange phone numbers and continue the conversation another day.

 

Since her church friend's truck had broken down, he was in an ideal position to help out on his way to the cobbler's, but his sedan wasn't a pickup, and what had been two heavy boxes in her hallway were multiple piles and a stack of smaller boxes she'd offered from the garage. Watching traffic over the coats in the back piled high, he changed lanes and turned off to head for the Salvation Army building.

 

A few more turns, and then he drove past the front of the building, parked and hoped he could find some help in unloading. His new friend, the lady whose name was on the box, said her coats were expected, and he should just go in and ask where they should be placed. Seeing a few people heading in a door in the back, he shut the car off and slowly got out, thinking his back was really going to need some helpers to get these coats inside.

 

Jerry walked in the door, and the warmth fogged his glasses, pausing him as he entered. Through the haze, he heard a friendly voice say "you got here just in time, we were starting to shut down the line!" As he wiped clean his lenses, putting his glasses back on Jerry realized it was the soup kitchen door, and the people behind the counter in front of him were setting up a tray of food for him.

 

"Oh, no, I'm not here to eat, I'm delivering coats?"

"Doesn't matter, we're all going to eat, and then we'll all help you: got many?" the cook asked cheerily? Jerry tried to describe what he had as he shuffled sideways along the line, and was swept into a group coming out from behind the counter, each with their own trays, and then scattering out into places around the long tables.

 

The soup was good, and mac and cheese, and he realized he was having trouble telling who was a customer (or guest, it sounded like they were saying about the visitors to the soup kitchen) and which were volunteers. They talked about weather, family, two at one end of the table about hunting and three on Jerry's other side about the Browns.

 

As everyone seemed to finish, the woman who'd greeted him at the door said "Jerry needs some help bringing in donated coats!" and it seemed half the room got up, cleared their trays, and went out into the parking lot to gather in an armload of coats from the back seat and trunk. The job took seconds, and they were done.

 

"Jerry, we serve here every third Sunday evening; come on back any time to eat or to help!" she said, shaking his hand.

"I can make a mean lasagna," he answered and the host loudly shouted "Yes! There's our plan for next month! Give me your number and I'll get ahold of you for shopping to get the ingredients."

 

He was making more friends in a day than he had in the last ten years, Jerry reflected, as he got in his car and finally headed for the shoe repair shop. Now it was late enough it would probably be closed. His errand could wait until tomorrow, but since he was out . . . he thought he'd drive by just in case.

Jerry was really getting curious about those boots now, even though they didn't have much to do with everything that had happened to him. They were just a cause, a trigger, of something much bigger that was changing for him. But he wanted to know about the boots.

 

[to be continued]

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what you think is up with the boots at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

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Newark Advocate 2020 for PROUD Magazine

Newark Advocate 2020 for PROUD Magazine

Jeff Gill

 

In 1820, James Monroe was President of the United States, Ethan Allen Brown was governor of Ohio, and Newark was still six years away from being incorporated as a town.

 

Native Americans of the Shawnee and Wyandot tribes still lived in the northern and western parts of the state, often traveling through Licking County, which was itself just twelve years old. Five years earlier the original log courthouse was replaced by a modest two story structure, but Courthouse Square around it was still marked by ponds and bogs, surrounded by mostly log structures barely more ornate than pioneer cabins.

 

And it was in 1820 that "The Newark Advocate" was first published, in a simple sturdy brick building on the square. This intrepid business venture was the brainchild of Benjamin Briggs, a native of Pennsylvania who arrived in Newark's earliest days to make his mark, find a career, and start a newspaper: one that is today the county's oldest continuously operated business.

 

Briggs owned and edited "The Advocate" for thirty-six years, and as a sign of different times and journalistic expectations, he was elected mayor of Newark twice, and was voted at different times to both the Ohio House and Senate, as well as postmaster. His was a vigorous and partisan editorship, advocating for development projects like the Ohio & Erie Canal or the National Road through Licking County, as well as local efforts such as new church buildings and improved streets downtown.

 

In the early 1800s down through the first part of the 1900s, newspapers were almost without exception partisan, and "The Advocate" was a Democratic Party paper. Through the decades, other party and constituency publications flourished – at one point Newark had over twenty newspapers with names like "The Rasp" or "The Constitutionalist" or "The Reveille and Woolgrower"  – but after World War I the rise of a more dispassionate journalistic ethic led to a bipartisan "Advocate" overshadowing the other party-oriented papers, like the "Newark North American" or "Newark Express."

 

"The Advocate" has outlived its competition in most cases by outworking it: the paper was the first in the county to go from monthly to weekly to daily, and has been a daily for a majority of its publication history. An early adopter of electronic media tools, the news now arrives by email and on browser windows as much as it does on doorsteps or in driveways. Social media and online reading make the entire news environment a constant, never-ending opportunity for readers to connect and advertisers to reach audiences, even as the Advocate's ongoing record of events becomes a public resource in its own right.

 

"The value of having the paper in the area for so many years to the Licking County Library Veterans project is priceless," says Doug Stout, the library's project coordinator. "Through the years many service records, letters and names have been lost to family members and the community. The Advocate archives are one source we use daily for this information. If the Advocate hadn't been around this long, I'd say 40 percent of the information we have wouldn't exist."

 

Advertising along with subscriptions has been the heart of the "Advocate" business model since Briggs' days as editor and owner. After many decades of private ownership, the formation of the Advocate Printing Company saw the business into the Twentieth Century, and "The Newark Advocate" is now part of the USA Today Network. Whether in the print product or the online version, newspaper ads are still a major part of each page, and looking back through the two hundred years of history you learn almost as much from those ads as you do the articles about who we are as a county.

 

The first hundred years you see many advertisements for horses and carriages and the equipment and services that go with them; in the second hundred years, cars and trucks are well represented in the ad sections, while you have trouble finding a livery stable. Through the 1800s, clothiers and haberdashers and milliners are common in the corners of each page promoting their wares; today, banner ads online and sidebars are focused on very different retail angles, from electronics to home delivered groceries.

 

But in the editorial content itself, you hear the spirit of each era speaking both to their subscribers, and also as that "first rough draft of history" credited to journalism. Sometimes that voice is cracked and flawed – The Advocate sadly did not endorse Abraham Lincoln in either 1860 or in 1864 – but you can also hear calls for justice in the 1960s through Op-Eds, and editorial invitations to renewal and re-invigoration as Newark has navigated the end of one industrial era and the beginnings of our information age.

 

Benjamin Briggs, the first editor (and reporter, and circulation manager, and advertising executive, and pressman), was said in Hill's 1881 "History of Licking County" to have been "a clear, forcible writer, much given to the use of strong Saxon words that vigorously expressed his ideas, and he never wrote without having ideas to convey. . . When he chose to be vituperative he generally succeeded." But he was also "identified with every project that tended to the advancement and welfare of the place and its people," and left for Washington an honored representative of Licking County's interests. Today's editor, Benjamin Lanka, wouldn't expect to run for political office while still holding a position of journalistic trust, but he and his staff still honor clear and concrete writing, condemnation when called for, and praise whenever possible. With a volunteer community Editorial Board, "The Newark Advocate" still has strong words and straightforward suggestions about what can improve and enhance the everyday lives of people around today's Courthouse Square and across the county.

 

"Despite the numerous changes in our industry, the staff of The Advocate remains solely focused on telling the stories that matter to Newark and Licking County," says Lanka. "It's easy to say we don't do things like we used to, and that is true. Technology has dramatically changed people's media consumption habits. But what remains true is that we will always be curious about what is going with our local government, with our high school sports teams or with our neighbors. Our mission for our past and our future is to tell those stories the best we can to give people a sense of the community in which they live."

 

From the Briggs era to the present day, you can't help but notice how the interests of "The Advocate" have always "tended to the advancement and welfare of the place and its people."

Faith Works 12-14-19

Faith Works 12-14-19

Jeff Gill

 

The Package – a story

___

 

[This is a piece of fiction, second of four parts, for the Christmas season]

 

It had been a wrapped package on his doorstep, and now Jerry was holding a carefully taped up box, brown cardboard with mailing labels all around, yet each of them carefully marked through with solid dark horizontal lines.

 

The marker cross-outs were enough to make clear the labels weren't to be used, but not scribbled sufficiently to obscure the name and address for where it had gone. Clearly, this was a re-used box. Jerry thought if he went to this address, he might get a clue as to why he'd gotten a brightly wrapped but unlabeled box on his front porch.

 

He'd hesitated even to open the wrapping paper, but as a widower with grown children out of town, he couldn't figure out why he'd have gotten a present delivered like this, and feared that it simply had been mis-delivered the night before, not intended for him.

 

So Jerry, after peeling away the wrapping paper, found a well-sealed box already having been used, and he was hesitant to cut the packing tape and find out what was inside. Whatever it was, it wasn't ticking or fragile. Something loose but relatively filling the space inside, thunking back and forth as he carried the box to the car.

 

The address of the last recipient, now crossed out, was not too far across town, and he was there in minutes. Awkwardly tucking the taped box under his arm, Jerry walked up the sidewalk to the small, neat house and rang the bell. After a longish delay, but noise enough inside to keep him standing there, the door swung open.

 

An older woman in a wheelchair had pulled the door around with clearly a practiced air; she was used to her particular position, and seemed quite comfortable in greeting him. "Yes, can I help you?" she smiled.

 

Jerry explained the predicament that had led him to her door, and with a quick once-over glance she pulled the door on around, swiveled back, and asked him to come in through the screen door. Once inside and the doors both shut, she pointed to a chair and he sat down, finishing his story, and setting the box on a low table between them.

 

"Yes, I remember getting that package, from my daughter in Oklahoma. But it was just some cookies and fudge and a few magazines she knew I'd like. I tossed the box out with the trash." She shrugged with that telling, and then looked again at the box, and back at Jerry. "I guess you'll just have to open it up. I can't imagine any other solution to your little mystery, but you've gotten my curiosity going."

He smiled, reached into his pocket, got out the penknife again, and very deliberately slit open the tape across the top, and putting the implement away, flipped open the flaps.

 

Inside was a pair of boots. They were not new, but clean and perhaps even with a bit of polish or just a recent leather treatment on them. The laces were new, and tied into neat bows. Jerry picked the boots up out of the box, and there was nothing inside at all otherwise, just a tag tied to the leather loop on the heel of one of the pair. "Kretschmer Shoe Shop," he read.

 

"I know where that is, on the other side of town. My late husband used to get his work boots repaired there; I didn't know if they were still open." She reached out and turned the tag. "But the name and address are removed, there's just a number and the shop address here."

 

They both sat and looked at the unremarkable boots together for a moment. Then Jerry said "well, I guess I'm going to the shoe shop. Sorry to trouble you, and Merry Christmas. I appreciate your being willing to talk to me."

 

"It's certainly an interesting story, and I hope you can tell me someday how it ends; there has to be a reason, doesn't there?" Jerry agreed, and putting the boots back in the box, got up out of his chair and began to move towards the door. He noticed a pair of larger boxes just beside the door on the inside, and commented on them.

 

"Oh, those are coats from my church," she said, "I had someone who was going to take to the Salvation Army, but that family had a funeral come up out of town. I'm trying to find someone else to get them there."

 

Jerry immediately felt the relief of being able to provide a kindness in return to one already received, and said "Oh, that's right on the way to the shoe shop; I'd be happy to take them."

 

[to be continued]

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what you think is up with the boots at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Notes from my knapsack 12-19-19

Notes from my knapsack 12-19-19

Jeff Gill

 

Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow

___

 

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is one of those standards which has gone through a variety of transformations, from Judy Garland singing it in "Meet Me in St. Louis" to Frank Sinatra wanting a more upbeat version for a holiday album to Esperanza Spalding with John Legend more recently.

 

Hugh Martin was working in an atmosphere, in 1944, similar to the sentiments that drove "I'll Be Home for Christmas" the year before: service members in all the branches of the military and many other civilians besides scattered across the globe in a world war, hoping and praying for a swift and happy return home. Some would make it, others would not; a few would be there in person and others "if only in my dreams."

 

Christmas 1944 we now know was just a few months away from the war's end, but they couldn't have been certain it would be that soon . . . and in fact quite a few still didn't come home until after Christmas 1945. "Someday soon, we all will be together, if the Lord allows" was one version of the original song, muted in religious content to "if the fates allow" for the movie.

 

But by 1957 both World War II and the Korean Wars were both over, and high hopes for an end to war were common, and in the enthusiastic optimist of the Fifties, Sinatra didn't want to muddle through anything. He wanted hope and aspiration, so he went back to Martin and asked him to brighten up one line.

 

The result? "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough!" Aspirational enough for you? Up and out and onwards, with glitter and joy and a reach to the very top. Perfect for the times, Frank thought.

 

God bless her, Ella Fitzgerald a few years later knew that not everyone in America was just reaching for the tall branches, and she reached back . . . and sang a version that included both lines. We have to muddle through somehow, and we want to reach that highest bough. Ella always did know her audiences.

 

Today we can talk to people on the other side of the world at the Thanksgiving table, as my family did spread seven time zones apart, through screens and signals and stories. We still miss each other, but in such a different way than was the case for our parents' and grandparents' generation. There's a wistfulness and longing that can't be replicated.

 

But we do still move and relocate and separate, for all that email and texting can keep us together. Our scattered families and spread out networks of friends and colleagues and acquaintances need connections and coherence and comfort. Judy was singing to Margaret in that old movie because she wanted to help her feel better at Christmastime. The Smith family may not have ended up leaving old St. Louis and stays to see the 1904 World's Fair, but we all know that someday most of them are probably going to end up living somewhere else, with Christmas memories what keeps them united.

 

This time of year, we think about holiday seasons past, and those who aren't with us anymore, and work on how to include people new to our traditions and celebrations, which can be hard. But we'll muddle through somehow!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's hoping your hearts will be light! Hang a shining memory on his virtual mailbox at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 12-7-19

Faith Works 12-7-19

Jeff Gill

 

The Package – a story

___

 

[This is a piece of fiction, in four parts, for the Christmas season]

 

On the doorstep Jerry reached down to pick up a wrapped package.

 

The red wrapping paper with green accents was neatly, even meticulously folded on the sides, smooth and pretty across the top. He set it down on the bench by the door inside his house.

 

After closing the door, and slipping off his ratty old work boots he'd gone to the mailbox in, Jerry picked up the wrapped package and slowly turned it around, finding no label, no tag, no markings at all.

 

Inside, something heavy thudded about softly as he upended the box, not quite packed in tightly. Too late, he thought about a prank or even a bomb, but the package seemed quite festive, inoffensive, ordinary in a holiday sort of way.

 

He set it back down, then picked it up and carried it into the living room. Since his wife's passing years ago, he'd lived much of his life in this room. It was small but large enough; her recliner still sat to one side of his, and the TV was a newer one the kids had gotten him, but most of the pictures and oddments on the shelves were what she'd put in place. There was an ottoman he usually left in front of her chair that he pulled over in front of his seat, and set the package down on it.

 

What should he do with it? He didn't have a tree up yet; he normally had a small artificial one he put on the side table, after ceremoniously pulling it out a ways farther from the wall and laying down the extra large doily that was in the bottom of the china cupboard. Lights he'd stopped putting up after the youngest got married, and he added a string or two around the tree if they came back, but if he went to one of their houses he usually didn't bother.

 

The package could sit at the foot of the table until Christmas, but it would really be in the way for weeks then. He usually got a few packages in the mail from the kids, and his brother in Idaho, and just opened them as they came and set the gifts unwrapped on the counter until Christmas day, when he'd put them away that evening as he would the little tree. There hadn't been a wrapped package in the house for some time.

 

Or, he thought, fingering the little penknife in his pocket, the one he almost lost at the airport and cost him twenty bucks to mail to himself a couple of years ago, twenty times what it had cost him forty years ago, he could open it.

 

Slice the tape, undo the wrapping paper, and see what was inside. It was for him, right? Or was it?

 

The fact that there was no name unnerved Jerry. Could it be a mis-delivered present? The houses on either side of him might be the actual destination, but one was a currently empty rental, and the other full of kids and toys on the porch and hard to mistake for his spare and simple front stoop. Across the street was a commercial building now empty but for storage, and a couple of houses farther down towards the corner whose occupants he hadn't met yet, not that he'd tried that hard.

 

Of course, if it's someone else's present, it would be a shame for him to find out on Christmas morning. It made more sense to open it now, see what it was or even for whom it was intended, and take care of it. The decision made, the paper came off with the knife easily, and revealed… a box.

 

The box was plain cardboard, marked for mailing, and looked like it had been used for just that. A careful line had been drawn, though, through the bar code stickers, and the address label lines; Jerry could still read the name and street perfectly clearly. It wasn't anyone he knew.

 

It was taped shut all around, and at this new obstacle he paused, and put away his knife. The mystery continued; it wasn't clearly for him, but it might be, even though there was no indication who would be sending such a package to him. The address was in town, not nearby but barely a mile away.

 

He decided he'd go to that house, and just ask: hey, did you drop off a package for me, and if so, thanks and why?

 

[to be continued]

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what you think is in the package at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.