Telling Stories & Taking the Grandkids to School
When you hear the Voice of God speaking to you through your granddaughter you better listen! That is where I found myself one morning as Mary Evelyn and Lucy piled into the backseat of my car with their backpacks, scrambling to get to school on time and listening to final instructions from their mother (my daughter Sarah) as she held the two younger siblings (Whit and Lillian) at bay. With four kids on her hands, I figured it was the least I could do to help. And truth be told, it was a joy for me.
The grandaddy-carpool started with the new school year, and it was a clockwork operation. It had to be. That tardy bell was going to ring regardless! The first few days started with me playing the guessing game with them, which was popular with all four kids around the dinner table. They were an extremely competitive bunch. I guess I thought an educational game would be appropriate to get the girls warmed up for school. That evolved into me telling them random stories that I would make up on the fly, and that Lucy would point out were not true, ha-ha, she became my fact-checker.
But, on this one particular morning the girls had beat me to the car as I finished up a cup of coffee, and when I sat down behind the wheel, May Evelyn said, “Grandaddy, can you tell us a story about Grandmomma and Grandaddy Sollie when they were kids?” I was momentarily taken aback by the request but smiled inside thinking about the possibilities. I honestly look back on that moment and know it was God’s hand at work. It took me on a journey with my grandkids that I know they will never forget, and it enabled me to keep my parents’ memory alive for generations to come. And they deserve that. Cat Luker and Little Preacher were incredibly special people.
These stories were an immediate hit, and the long-running narrative prompted me to start recording them so the other grandkids could hear them as well. “Grandaddy, tell me a Swamp Witch story,” was a thing! And it made me happy. I almost felt like I was out playing with my parents when they were kids, and it was joyful. I could talk about this for hours on end, but you can listen to one of the early stories below to get a feel for what I am talking about.
Listen to a carpool recording.
CAT-1