Scotty

 

As time passes, people connect my memory lapses with my age. Which is fine with me. The truth is, I have never had a great memory. To put it kindly, school was always a challenge. But I have been remembering lately. Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.

This remembering thing began on Memorial Day weekend. I was attending church at my new favorite church, Couchside Community Church and listening to my new favorite preacher, Alistair Begg. He was leading into the sermon, and I was just sitting there, drinking my coffee and minding my own business. And then, The Rev. Begg abandoned his normal process and proceeded to throw a wrench into my day.

He suggested we have a moment of silence to remember those who had died in service to our country. I knew he was serious when looked at his watch. This was not going to be a moment; it was going to be a full minute of silence. Have you noticed how long a minute of silence drags on and on and on? This was going to be a problem for me. I have the attention span of a Fruit Fly and I do not take instructions well. Never did and never will. My individuality (rebellious spirit) especially shows itself when I am in groups.

A few years ago, I attended a committee meeting at our denomination’s national headquarters. Since everyone in the room was a preacher, I was not excited about being there. Of course, since it was our first meeting, the leader announced we would play a “get acquainted” game. After hearing the rules and just before choosing our partners, I grabbed my coffee and announced they could find me in the hallway when this was over, and I left. Rude? Maybe. I believe I did the group a service by leaving. I don’t enjoy such games and wasn’t really interested in getting to know them better. As I said, I do not follow instructions well.

Anyway, back to Sunday morning. The preacher asked for silence and the timer started. My plan was to think of absolutely nothing for the allotted time, which for me, would not be a problem. I had spent hours in graduate school doing exactly that. But two names blossomed in the back of my mind and marched forward. John Stringer and Scotty Hamilton. The war of my generation was Vietnam. That is where my friends were killed (Along with 58, 218 others). I assume John was killed there. Word from his companions was that he was caught up in a monsoon swollen river and never seen again. He was listed as MIA for several years and then was assumed drowned KIA. He went out on patrol one day and never returned. John was a fraternity brother and a great guy. But it is Scotty who sticks in my mind… I cannot stop thinking about him.

Scotty was younger than I. I had been in college a year before he joined me at Eastern Kentucky University. We both hailed from Louisville and were in the same dorm. Thus, we met early in the school year.

Scotty was easy to meet and easy to like. He had one of those open, warm, friendly personalities that attracts people and makes them comfortable. Scotty had a round, pleasant, cherubic face and was just barely overweight… chubby. His laugh came from somewhere deep within and had some giggle lightly mixed in. It was a laugh that compelled everyone in the room to join him. And he laughed a lot. His laughter wasn’t loud but was deep and carried great distances. His laugh reminded me of the little cars some teens drive containing speakers bigger than the wheels. You’ve seen them, or shall we say, you’ve heard them. When they drive by the bass speaker output massages your face and rattles the windows. Scotty’s laugh was like that.

Scott had two great talents: reversing words and playing the drums and he loved doing both. Reversing words meant that Speed Limit became Deeps Timil. He seemed to do it without having to think about it. Come to think of it, perhaps he was dyslexic. That would help explain his flunking out after just one semester. My friend had many attributes, talents and strengths, but being a scholar was not one of them. Unfortunately, his poor grades were the beginning of his journey to a premature death. Leaving school caused him to become draftable. And he was. But I don’t want to remember that part of the story.

Since Scotty, as we used to say, never met a stranger, he expanded my circle of friends with his many new friends. One of his friends was an “older” (By about five years.) woman named Kathy Yeary. She had moved to Richmond in 1961 to marry a handsome and charismatic EKU football player. They had a child (Harvey, Jr.) and then divorced in 1964. Harvey graduated and moved on to bigger and better things while Kathy remained in Richmond. Somehow (I’m unclear as to the circumstances.), she met Scotty and several of us started hanging out at her tiny apartment.

Scotty touched her heart, found her refrigerator, and moved his drum set into her living room. He loved playing the drums – a lot. It was at Kathy’s apartment that I discovered two important things. 1) Love will cause women to do crazy things and 2) Scotty was lousy at playing the drums. Kathy took care of all of us: feeding us out of her meager pantry, letting us sleep on her couch and floor and listening to our sad stories.

The good times were cut short when Scotty’s grades (Or lack of them.) resulted in my buddy not being invited back to school. In those pre "world wide web"" days, I immediately lost all contact with Scotty. It was years later I learned he was drafted, attained the rank of Sergeant, was sent to Vietnam January 7, 1969, and was killed on February 15, 1969. When I found this out, many years later, my heart was broken. His death was the waste of the life of a wonderful person. He is still missed.

By the way, Harvey Lee Yeary went to Hollywood, took acting lessons, changed his name to Lee Majors and became a star.

Copyright © 2022, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Bill McConnell is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press. or on Amazon.

He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon

Like or Love... Humm

My wife, Nancy, and I just celebrated out 25^th wedding anniversary. For a guy my age, that is not a huge number. Most of the couples I know around my age are looking at 40 plus years of marriage. All I can tell you is that I am a slow learner. It’s my second marriage. It has taken me a while to figure this relationship thing out.

From the beginning let me say that I like people. I am familiar with like. I know like and I know how to do like. It is love that has been confusing for me. That is not entirely my fault. The first time I ran across love, I didn’t know what it was and I was told that what I was experiencing really wasn’t love. I believed what I was told and that understanding (or misunderstanding) messed with me for most of my life. It negatively impacted some of the most important relationships I formed. Not knowing what love was… what it looked like… what it acts like caused me to confuse like for love and to get into relationships that “like” could not sustain.

As I have spent some time musing over my life and looking at the life lessons I have learned, I can, from this vantage point, clearly see how my like/love confusion came into being and the impact it had on my life. When I was 15 years old I fell in love. Her name was Nancy and she was sweet and pretty and kind and smart and fun to be with. Best of all, she loved me.  She must have loved me because she once told my dad that she thought I was beautiful. I really wish she had not done that because it caused me to endure more teasing that most 15 year olds could stand. But she made it clear to me that she really did love me. She, being thoroughly adorable, was easy to love in return. She was about 5’ 2”, dark hair, green eyes and cute as a bug’s ear. She was so pretty she scared me. I never would have considered asking her out because I was sure she would laugh at me. When I did ask, I was floored when she responded positively.

When I say I fell in love, I don’t mean I had a crush on a girl I went to school with. I mean I fell head over heels, flat on my face, I can’t think of anything but you, heart achingly, no holds barred, I would die for you in love. I was completely “et up” with love. She was the first thing on my mind in the morning and the last thing I thought about before sleep came at night. I wanted to spend all my time with her, talking to her, looking at her, touching her, smelling her. I had lost my mind. And I was in heaven. When I say, I lost my mind; I don’t mean it was for a couple of weeks. I lost my mind over her for years.

Now I know that I was in love… really in love. Unfortunately, the adults in my life told me that I was suffering from “puppy love.” Whatever that is. Adults would sagely nod their heads and inform me that what I had wasn’t real love. They said I wasn’t old enough to experience real love. Mine was just a teenage crush. When I got older I would meet the right woman and fall in love. No, I was just suffering from infatuation. They were right about one thing; I was suffering.

Having been assured that what I was experiencing was not the real thing and that the best was yet to come, I failed to invest completely in the relationship. After suffering through several breakups and reconciliations, Nancy decided that she could no longer deal with trying to have a relationship with me and she moved on. And so did I. We went our separate ways and off to college.

While in college I dated several wonderful girls. I fell into “like” with one in particular and we were engaged. But the relationship was unsustainable and we parted company. My senior year I found a wonderful girl and fell deeply in like. She was pretty, kind, smart, talented and she really liked me. We were married. We were together for 16 years and had four awesome children. We shared many good years and really enjoyed our children. Liking someone is important in marriage. I would never suggest marrying someone you don’t like. But like is not enough. And it was not enough for us. The marriage fell apart and great was the fall thereof.

And then it happened again. I fell in love. Her name was (is) Nancy. (Coincident? Odd? Mean something? Beats me.) When it happened it was déjà vu. It took me a while to realize what was happening. It all seemed strangely familiar and yet oddly strange. I finally realized that I had felt like this before… almost exactly a quarter of a century before. But with the seasoning and understanding that those years had brought, I realized that I had fallen in love and, this time, I knew love when I saw it. Nobody was going to convince me, this time around, that it was a passing feeling; a shallow, childish crush; puppy love. This time I recognized it as love.

It has been 25 years and I am still head over heels, flat on my face, I can’t think of anything but her, heart achingly, no holds barred, I would die for you in love. I am completely “et up” with love. She is the first thing on my mind in the morning and the last thing I think about before sleep comes at night. I want to spend all my time with her; talking to her, looking at her, touching her, smelling her. I lost my mind over her 25 years ago and I still haven’t managed to find the danged thing. I like her… but, more than that, I am in love.

Copyright © 2013, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved