It’s been an interesting year in Moccasin Creek.  The new year is here and lots of folks are glad to see the old one gone.  Why is that?  Is there a new set of rules with a new calendar?  Why does it seem that everything changes when January rolls around?  We don’t get all goofy when we pass from April to May, but for some reason, there’s a big imaginary line in the dirt that we pass over the end of December.  Is that the only time we get to start over?

I’ve been visiting with Biff a lot here lately.  He usually comes around pretty regular toward the end of the year.  He comes by to help me feed, we hang out at the barn and talk about all the big dreams we had, and all the things we wanted to do and couldn’t.  He had a pretty hard time with this one, though.  He was pretty talkative the last couple of weeks and I guess we helped each other through the big rollover.

We got to remembering the time we almost lost Uncle Spider.  Spider has always been wound kinda tight, you might say.  He’s always got something to do even when he has nothing to do.  Bubba has been taking “retirement lessons” from him.  Bubba wants to learn how to kill a whole day hanging blue jeans on a clothes line.  I mean, there IS a certain way you have to do it.  You can’t just fold them over and pin them up till they dry.  You have to go back when they’re halfway done and fold them the other way. That way, they don’t get that sun fade on just one side of the belt loops- and not just anybody can do it that way.  It’s a bit like bush hogging a pasture or feeding a roll of hay- it’s a slow and thoughtful process.

Now between his retirement duties and all the other things he had to worry about, Spider was working full time at the “light company”, coaching a baseball team AND a softball team all while maintaining a full time horse breeding operation.  And for some mysterious reason, that’s when he started having some heart issues.  He and Uncle John spent some time discussing it at the advice fence.  The advice fence is the dividing line between The Davis Farm and The Davis Ranch.  It’s the straightest fence in all of Harrison County and it’s where the two brothers would meet to discuss life’s mysteries.  Davis Farm is on the east side and the Davis Ranch is on the west.  I asked Biff about the difference in the two and he said that one raised things to make money and the other raised things that cost money!

Spider told Uncle John all about the heart trouble he was having and Uncle John, after much thought said, “Aww, you’ll be all right.”

Spider ended up going to the doctor and took all kinds of stress tests and they couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was.  Seems it only happened when he was away from the doctor’s office.  That’s when Dr. G decided to put Spider on a portable heart monitor to try to see what was happening at home, and now he had one more task to deal with.  This monitor was like wearing an old Sony Walkman on your belt and it had a bunch of wires running to some adhesive Strydex pads stuck all over Spider’s chest.  He wore this box on his belt everywhere he went for a while and as word got around about it, it was soon reported all around Moccasin Creek that Spider’s days were numbered.

One evening, Spider came home with a headache and laid down to rest instead of going out to feed.  He called down to Aunt Margaret’s to see if Bubba and Pip wanted come to the house to watch TV and they took off like a shot because Hee Haw was about to come on! (Spider figured when they got there, he could pay one of them a little bit to rub his feet)

When nobody saw him outside working on something, and saw Bubba and Pip sprinting toward the house, they all knew that this must be the end.  The party line lit up with the terrible news and people from all over started gathering to go see Spider one last time.

Aunt Sadie heard ol’ Richard go to barking and she went to the door to find a whole herd of family and neighbors gathered outside to visit.  And since Ducky had gone over to Poverty Ridge to fish with Poindexter and wasn’t there to tell them she was in the bath tub, she had to let them in.  When the crowd got to the bedroom and saw Spider laid up on a pillow, and the boys kneeling at the foot of the bed, Nellie and Anna started crying.

“What are y’all doing?” Spider asked.

“Everybody wanted to come see you.” Aunt Sadie answered, looking a bit perplexed.

“Is this everybody?”

“Looks like it.”

Someone turned to the rest of the crowd in the hallway and said, “He’s asking to see everybody!”  They pressed in as tight as they could in the doorway.  Spider propped up on his elbows and he could see all the kinfolks standing there with tears in their eyes.  Pip reached over and turned down the TV.

“Are you SURE this is everybody?” he asked again.

“Yes, everybody’s here.” Aunt Sadie assured him.

“Well, if everybody’s in HERE,” he hollered, “Why in the WORLD are all them lights still on down there in the kitchen??!”

He jumped up out of the bed, pulled off the heart monitor and headed down the hall.

“I tell you what- if it wasn’t for me, every light in this house would be on 24 hours a day!!”

We’re not sure what became of that heart monitor, but everything seemed to return to normal that evening.  Bubba and Pip got to watch Hee Haw after all.

There’s always a lesson to be learned if you just look for it.  In a place like Moccasin Creek, sometimes you just have to change the way you see things.  Sometimes the thing that looks like the end is actually a time to get going again.  The Bible says in Psalms, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits…”  Daily- not monthly, or quarterly, and not just because the ball drops in Times Square.  In Isaiah, it says, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”  Lamentations says that God’s mercy and compassion are “new every morning.”

Wait upon The Lord.  Trust Him daily.  Don’t wait for a new feed store calendar to go up on the wall to renew your mind.  Start each day fresh.  If you don’t, you might just wind up with a bunch of sad people in your bedroom while you’re trying to watch Hee Haw!

It ain’t Heaven, but if you go up Moccasin Hill and look back down over the valley on a real clear day, you can see it from here.

That’s the way me and Biff remember most of that happening in Moccasin Creek- where days are long, years fly by… and time stands still.