We moved into our new house shortly before my 8th birthday. It was not only a great house, it was a great home. Mom was the kindest, most loving mother a boy could have asked for. Dad … well, I thought that he was hard on us. Especially me. Looking back now, I realize that he was just what I needed in a father. He played baseball with us; he allowed us to have horses. He was the one that put together the people and equipment to get the Sumner Little League baseball park in playing condition and keep it maintained by organizing workdays where kids and parents would do whatever needed to be done.
Dad was a worker, and he taught us to work. Not that I liked the idea of spending my Saturdays working with Dad on the farm when other kids were watching cartoons or just getting into mischief. But, thank you, Dad, for teaching your sons how to work. It has saved me more than once.
Except for the occasional business trip, Dad was there every night. He was a good provider, and a good example. In my eyes, he could do anything. I still remember how he would get a running start, place both hands on the top pipe of our barnyard gate, and vault over. Superman. He was the one that I knew I could count on to protect me when there was danger.
Like the night that the UFO landed in our hog lot.
I had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Upon returning to my bed, I happened to look out my north window. Lo and Behold! There, not two hundred feet away, sat a UFO, glowing brightly in our hog lot! Needless to say, I was terrified. My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest. My breath was shallow and rapid, and my face was flushed. Adrenalin surged through my body. I had to do something, but what?
“Dad!” No response. “Dad!” How could he sleep through this, perhaps the most dangerous moment in the history of Planet Earth? I raced down the hallway to my parents’ room and barged in. “DAD!!!”
This time I succeeded in awakening him. As calmly as I could, I explained the situation to him. Aliens from a distant planet had navigated millions of light years, braving asteroid fields and countless other perils associated with deep space travel, entered the Earth’s atmosphere, and precisely guided their spacecraft to their targeted landing spot – in 8 inches of mud and pig manure just a few yards behind our house.
Dad didn’t say anything at first. I’m sure he needed a few moments to process this important information. Finally, he said, “Let’s go take a look.”
I rushed ahead of him, down the hallway to my room. As Dad walked behind me, I was comforted in the certainty that he was forming a plan in his mind as to how we, the Bakers, would act as the first line of defense in what was about to become a war of the worlds. I took advantage of the few precious seconds before he joined me in my room to locate my glasses. Dad was here now. The aliens didn’t stand a chance. Superman was about to kick their asses. And I would stand beside him. Well, maybe behind him.
“It’s just the hog feeder.”
What was he talking about, hog feeder? I joined him at my bedroom window.
“Oh,” I said. Now, with the benefit of my glasses, I could see that the full moon was reflecting off the all-metal hog feeder that sat in the middle of the lot. As if for emphasis, there was the unmistakable clank of a metal lid slamming shut when one of the hogs withdrew its snout from the feeder.
“Sorry, Dad.”
“Sleep good.”
“Thanks, Dad. Love you.”
“Love you, Son.” I could tell by his tone that he was as relieved as I to know it was a false alarm.
As I lay there in my bed, thinking about it, I had to admit it didn’t make much sense that after travelling that far, an advanced civilization would choose a barnyard full of hog manure as a primary landing spot. That could have been a clue.
Then there was the time I thought someone was trying to break into the house through my window. That turned out to be a couple of kittens clawing on the window screen. Someone had left a stepladder leaning against the house just outside my window, and they had decided to climb it at two in the morning.
There was another time that I was terribly frightened, but did not call upon my Dad. A severe thunderstorm directly overhead. Lightning popping all around. Thunder sounded like exploding artillery all around me. Wind howling. I was trembling with fear, unaware that I was about to experience something that I could never imagine. Something that I carry with me to this day.
I was raised in a Christian home. We went to church nearly every Sunday. I accepted it as just the way it was for everybody. Didn’t everybody go to church? I could not grasp the concept of any religious belief other than ours. As I grew older, and began thinking for myself, I had a lot of questions. A LOT of questions. To be perfectly honest, my logical mind cannot come to terms with the idea of there being a supreme being in human form – the typical image of God. How could He invent himself out of nothing? How could he be able to sustain his own life in the vacuum of space while he created the Universe? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem possible.
Neither can I comprehend that the Universe simply created itself out of nothing. The Big Bang Theory still requires that all the elements were in place prior to the Big Bang. Where did they come from? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem possible.
It’s a chicken and egg thing. I would be perfectly comfortable in accepting that there are some things that we will never understand, and leave it at that, trusting that whatever creative force that is out there is able and willing to forgive me for not understanding that which – by its own design – I am incapable of understanding.
The problem is, that night during the thunderstorm, something happened. Remember that at that point in my life I did not question God’s existence. So, with pure faith, I prayed to God and Jesus that I would not be afraid during the thunderstorm. And then it happened …
As I lay there in my bed, flat on my back, I felt something beginning at the crown of my head, moving slowly, calmly through my head, neck, shoulders, arms, fingers, torso, abdomen, hips, thighs, calves, feet, and out through the toes. It felt like a wave of calm. The feeling was like any I’ve had before or since. When it was gone, so was my fear.
What happened? And, why do I now get no response at all when I pray for things that I think are much more important? What message have I been missing?
Years later, my brother Jim described a nearly identical experience that occurred with him. So …
I’ve always admired entrepreneurs who could take a simple idea and turn it into a successful business. We’ve all heard stories of people who built financial empires from nothing. I was inspired at an early age to start a business of my own. Our garden had produced a bumper crop of tomatoes. I was assigned the task of picking them while Mom and my younger brother had gone to town. Dad was at work.
We lived along US 50, a busy highway that I saw as a conduit for a steady flow of potential customers. I just knew that a roadside stand would be a successful enterprise. One day when I was left home alone, I took a basket of tomatoes down to the end of our driveway and set them out for display. I hustled back to the garage and found a white plank and a black can of spray paint. I sprayed EAT on the plank. I’d seen greasy spoon cafes with EAT as their only advertisement along the side of the road before and thought that it was genius in its simplicity – not to mention classy – and set up the sign in front of my display. I was now a businessman!
The first car came into view. And drove right past me. Then, another, with the same result. How could they not notice me? I tried waving to get the attention of the next few drivers with exactly the same results. I had to think of a better way to let the public know that I was there, ready, willing, and able to supply them with the finest tomatoes fresh off the vine. What if I were to throw a tomato and hit the windshield? Surely then the driver would stop.
Alas, not all businesses are the successes that their creators imagined. And not all business decisions are well thought out. It turns out that not all drivers really want you to splatter a tomato on their windshield! That’s a good thing to know if you are thinking of going into business.